Friday Reads: The Right Stuff

Happy Friday! We hope you're safe and well, wherever you are riding out the coronapocalypse. It takes more than a pandemic to keep us from reading, so today Adam is going to tell us about The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.

Adam Pellman is reading The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

The Right Stuff relates the story of the United States' first man-in-space program, Project Mercury, focusing on the professional and personal lives of the seven former test pilots who became our nation's first astronauts. Spanning the early years of pre-Mercury flight tests and the initial training of the astronauts, all the way up through the orbital space flights and end of the program in 1963, Wolfe's book manages to capture the inner life of these men as well as the technical details of spaceflight, all with Wolfe's characteristic humor and a surprisingly informal tone. Wolfe's writing style takes some getting used to (so many exclamation points!), but it lends itself to nonfiction just as well as it does the grand satire of his decade-defining novels The Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full.

Coronavirus-- We're Going Online!

As outlined in Dr. Finger's March 16 announcement, Reeves Learning Commons will be closing for the remainder of the semester. 

What does this mean for the library?

• The library's physical spaces will be closed beginning at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17, 2020. 
• Any regular library materials that have been borrowed by students have been renewed through May 1, 2020. 
• We will no longer be providing books via interlibrary loan for the rest of the semester. We will continue to fulfill article requests, as these are done electronically. Please be aware that many other libraries around the country have also closed, so it may be more difficult for us to find a lender. We will do our best!
• Any interlibrary loan materials, reserve items, or regular library items that you have out that you need to return should be either dropped off at the Campus Police office (Admin Annex 115, across from the Greensburg Room) or returned to the library via mail (Reeves Library, 1 Seton Hill Dr., Greensburg, PA  15601). 

What IS still open?

• All of our electronic resources! Our databases, Ebook Central, our LibGuides, open access materials, our YouTube channel-- all of those resources are still at your fingertips. 
• The library staff will continue to be available via email throughout the closure-- if you have a question or need support, email one of us. Most of us will not have access to our work phones, but we may be able to call you back if you need real-time support. 

March Reading Theme: Infectious Diseases

Our Reading Theme for March is fiction featuring infectious diseases, epidemics, and pandemics. Wash your hands.

Image by Leo2014 on Pixabay

Saving the World: A Novel by Julia Alvarez

“Latina novelist Alma Huebner is suffering from writer's block and is years past the completion date for yet another of her bestselling family saga. Her husband, Richard, works for a humanitarian organization dedicated to the health and prosperity of developing countries and wants her help on an extended AIDS assignment in the Dominican Republic… Alma is seriously sidetracked by a story she has stumbled across. It's the story of a much earlier medical do-gooder, Spaniard Francisco Xavier Balmis, who in 1803 undertook to vaccinate the populations of Spain's American colonies against smallpox. To do this, he required live ‘carriers’ of the vaccine. Of greater interest to Alma is Isabel Sendales y Gómez, director of La Casa de Expósitos, who was asked to select twenty-two orphan boys to be the vaccine carriers. She agreed-- with the stipulation that she would accompany the boys on the proposed two-year voyage… This resplendent novel-within-a-novel spins the disparate tales of two remarkable women, both of whom are swept along by machismo.” -Publisher’s summary



The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

A “brilliant return to the nightmarish future first envisioned in Oryx and Crake... Contrary to expectations, the waterless flood, a biological disaster predicted by a fringe religious group, actually arrives. In its wake, the survivors must rely on their wits to get by, all the while reflecting on what went wrong.” -Library Journal review



The Ballad of Typhoid Mary by Jurg Federspiel

“For forty years she roamed New York like an angel of death.

A typhoid carrier - herself immune but lethal to her unsuspecting victims - Mary Mallon bore her disease over the thresholds and into the kitchens of the elite homes, hotels and hospitals of nineteenth century New York. Always moving on before the authorities could catch up with her, she bought death to untold thousands. Yet her only crime was her refusal to give up her sole - and deadly- source of pleasure: cooking. From the [true story of] Typhoid Mary, JF Federspiel has created this bizarre and haunting novel.” -Publisher’s summary



Life Support by Tess Gerritsen

“The overnight ER rotation at Springer Hospital suits Dr. Toby Harper just fine -- until its calm is shattered by a man Toby admits one quiet night. Delirious and in critical condition from a possible viral infection of the brain, he barely responds to treatment...and then he disappears without a trace. But before Toby can find her missing patient, a second case occurs, revealing a chilling twist: evidence of an infection that can only be spread through direct tissue exchange. Soon Toby's on a trail that winds from a pregnant sixteen-year-old prostitute to an unexpected tragedy in her own home. Only then does she discover the unthinkable: an evil, deadly design to the frightening epidemic.” -Publisher’s summary

The Horseman on the Roof by Jean Giono

“This is a novel of adventure, a ‘roman courtois,’ that tells the story of Angelo, a nobleman who has been forced to leave Italy because of a duel, and is returning to his homeland by way of Provence. But that region is in the grip of a cholera epidemic, travelers are being imprisoned behind barricades, and exposure to the disease is almost certain. Angelo's escapades, adventures, and heroic self-sacrifice in this hot, hallucinatory landscape, among corpses, criminals and rioting townspeople, share this epic tale.” -Publisher’s summary



Son of the Circus by John Irving

“An Indian-Canadian doctor returns to Bombay to seek a cure for a disease which afflicts circus dwarfs and is caught up in a serial killing of prostitutes. The action is interspersed with commentary on the lot of social misfits: prostitutes, dwarfs, himself--the doctor regarding himself a foreigner in both India and Canada.” -Publisher’s summary



The Stand by Stephen King

“A monumentally devastating plague leaves only a few survivors who, in a desert world, experience dreams of good and evil in confrontation and, through their choices, move toward an actual confrontation.” -Publisher’s summary



As Bright as Heaven by Susan Meissner

This novel “follows the story of the Bright family as they move to Philadelphia in 1918 to assume their inherited place within the family funeral business. The relocation is meant to ease the loss of Henry, their youngest member, but just as they start to navigate their grief, the Spanish flu hits the city, devastating them anew… Meissner's prose maintains a balanced tone of sorrow throughout this novel. Fans of Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible and the television show Six Feet Under will enjoy.” -Library Journal review



Natural Causes by Michael Palmer

“Dr. Sarah Baldwin, an intern in a hospital in Boston, likes to treat her patients with vitamin supplements. When one patient dies and others fall sick, the question arises: Is it the vitamins or is someone trying to frame her?” -Publisher’s summary



Blindness by José Saramago

“Reminiscent of Albert Camus's The Plague, this provocative allegorical novel by noted Portuguese writer Saramago deals with a contagious ‘white’ blindness that spreads very quickly in a large city. Among a small group of people grappling with the horror and chaos, one woman has been spared; she is the reader's eyewitness. In an environment ripe with philosophical implications, only the most fundamental of human needs endures.” -Library Journal review

March DVD Spotlight: Page to Screen

For this month's new DVD display, we're taking our inspiration from Seton Hill professor Dr. Michael Arnzen, who's currently teaching a course called "Adaptation: From Print to Screen."  Through the end of March, we'll be highlighting some of the numerous literary adaptations from our DVD collection.  We've got classic and contemporary gems based on novels (There Will Be Blood, A Clockwork Orange), plays (Hamlet, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), and even comic books (American Splendor).

Featured titles include:

Beauty and the Beast (1946)

This gorgeous and inventive French telling of the classic romantic fable is pure cinematic magic, featuring incredible make-up, set design, and special effects that bring the Beast's castle to vivid life.

Jackie Brown (1997)

Quentin Tarantino's adaptation of the great Elmore Leonard's novel Rum Punch, about a middle-aged flight attendant caught between a gun runner and two federal agents, is at once a taut, funny crime thriller, a nuanced, character-driven romance, and an homage to the 70s-era blaxploitation films that launched the career of the film's star, Pam Grier.  It's a perfect pairing of filmmaker and source material, and makes you wish Tarantino would try his hand at adaptations more often.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

In this Oscar-winning classic, Jack Nicholson gives a towering central performance as R.P. McMurphy, a psychiatric ward patient whose rebellious nature pits him against the oppressive head nurse, Miss Ratched.

The Princess Bride (1987)
Rob Reiner's beloved adaptation of the William Goldman novel has everything: humor, pirates, sword fighting, kidnapping, torture, true love, a giant, and a killer MLT sandwich recipe.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

This adaptation of a Stephen King novella, about the friendship that develops between two inmates in a Maine prison, is one of the best and most popular films of the past few decades.

Throne of Blood (1957)

The great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa adapted a number of works from western literature for his films, and Throne of Blood, a retelling of Shakespeare's Macbeth, may be the best of the bunch.  Set in feudal Japan, the film tells the story of a samurai lord who murders his master and usurps his power in fulfillment of a witch's prophecy.

Check one out today!