Friday Reads: Stiff

Dr. Stanley has another eclectic pick for us this week-- Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. (Side note: it's never boring having David for a boss!)

David Stanley is reading Stiff by Mary Roach

I enjoy all genres of books. I like humor. I like fiction. I like non-fiction. I like the macabre. I like science. This books, believe it or not, contains bits of all of the above. This book was recommended to me by someone who for one reason or another thought it was a topic I would enjoy—he was right.

When most people think about death they never really consider much other than burial, cremation, donation, or other generalities. What this book does is explore the various specific paths that a person’s remains can take from the moment of death until final disposal. Although at times the narrative can be a bit “descriptive” it is eye opening as to the many ways that people can continue to assist mankind after they shuffle off this mortal coil.

I’ve been aware of how cadavers are used in medicine but it was interesting to learn of some of the specifics of how they help to hone the skills of physicians and other professionals. These bodies also assist in ways that surprised me: think crash dummies, and in ways that I had read about in the past: think methods of decomposition.

All in all it’s nice to see that these people were/are altruistic at a time when many have been laid to rest. It makes me appreciate what they continue to do and the respect that they are still accorded for their final sacrifices.

Friday Reads: Samaritan

We made it to another Friday! Today Adam Pellman shares Samaritan by Richard Price, a crime novel that dives beneath the surface.

Adam Pellman is reading Samaritan by Richard Price

While I enjoy whodunits and traditional detective stories, I often prefer "literary" crime fiction that is more character- and setting-driven, and that is focused less on revealing a criminal's identity than on revealing some deeper truth about the human condition.  Richard Price is a crime writer whose work definitely falls into the latter category.  I've read two of his other novels, Clockers and Lush Life, and both were excellent.  Samaritan is about a former television writer, Ray Mitchell, who returns to urban New Jersey to teach a creative writing seminar at his old high school.  After Ray is beaten nearly to death in his apartment, and refuses to cooperate with the police, a former childhood acquaintance of his, police detective Nerese Ammons, decides to work the case and find out what happened, and why.

As an avid reader, I was pleased to discover a passage early in this novel that perfectly illustrates one of the reasons I love to read:

"What we really get out of the good books we read is self-recognition. We read and discover stuff about life that we already knew, except that we didn't know we knew it until we read it in a particular book. And this self-recognition, this discovering ourselves in the writings of others can be very exciting, can make us feel a little less isolated inside our own thing and a little more connected to the larger world."

Melvil Mondays: 900-909

We've finally reached the 900s, which are for "History, geography, and auxiliary disciplines." Here are the "standard subdivisions" for 900-909:

• 900 - Standard subdivisions of geography and history

• 901 - Philosophy and theory of history

• 902 - Miscellany of history

902 G888
The Timetables of History
by Bernard Grun

• 903 - History dictionaries, encyclopedias, and concordances

• 904 - Collected accounts-- "class here adventure"

• 905 - Serial history publications

• 906 - History organizations and management of history

• 907 - History research, education, and related topics

907.2 C77
History/Writing
By Albert Cook

• 908 - "History with respect to groups of people"

• 909 - World history-- "Civilization and events not limited by continent, country, locality."
• 
  

909.07 C17i v. 1-3
The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages
edited by Robert Fossier

Friday Reads (or listens): The Raven King

Happy Friday! Public Services Librarian Kelly Clever has moved on to the final book in the Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater; the last time she was on Friday Reads, she was listening to the previous book.

Kelly Clever is listening to The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

I decided to not take years off in between books in the series this time. Blue Lily, Lily Blue ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, and I was hoping that The Raven King would pick back up where it left off. It hasn't, but I'm enjoying the ride that it is and expect that everything will come together in the end.

I haven't had much time for "real" reading since the semester started up, so expect to see a lot of audiobooks as my Friday Reads features for the foreseeable future!

It's Children's Authors & Illustrators Week

The Children's Authors Network has some suggestions for ways to celebrate; we also recommend visiting our children's room in the Learning Commons!

Reading Theme: Best Pictures

This seems a little bit like deja vu, considering that we just did “movies into films,” but we’re pairing up with the DVD Spotlight on Oscar Winners. Here are books that were made into Best Picture-winning films-- listed in order of release date!







Image courtesy of Pixabay.com





All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army of World War I. These young men become enthusiastic soldiers, but their world of duty, culture, and progress breaks into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches... (Publisher’s summary)

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Gone with the Wind is a novel written by Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County, Georgia, and Atlanta during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea. A historical novel, the story is a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, with the title taken from a poem written by Ernest Dowson. (Publisher’s summary)


Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave. (Publisher’s summary)


How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
Growing up in a mining community in rural South Wales, Huw Morgan is taught many harsh lessons - at the kitchen table, at Chapel and around the pit-head. Looking back on the hardships of his early life, where difficult days are faced with courage but the valleys swell with the sound of Welsh voices, it becomes clear that there is nowhere so green as the landscape of his own memory. (Publisher’s summary)


Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther

This book is in no way about action or adventure of war. Instead it is overflowing with observations about human nature that were amazingly accurate - the kind of thing that you never thought of before but once put into words you realize that so many feelings and actions are universal to the human race. Mrs. Miniver musings include trying to put words to the sound that her windshield wipers make and mustering up false urgency to Christmas shop early… Meanwhile, the war is brewing and Mrs Miniver takes her children to be fitted for gas masks. She also goes to the dentist and watches the last autumn leaf fall from the tree outside her window…so life is going on while the world slowly boils... (Goodreads review by Jennifer)


Gentleman’s Agreement by Laura Z. Hobson

Journalist Philip Green has just moved to New York City from California when the Third Reich falls. To mark this moment in history, his editor at Smith’s Weekly Magazine assigns Phil a series of articles on anti-Semitism in America. In order to experience anti-Semitism firsthand, Phil, a Christian, decides to pose as a Jew. What he discovers about the rampant bigotry in America will change him forever. (Publisher’s summary)


All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

More than just a classic political novel, Warren’s tale of power and corruption in the Depression-era South is a sustained meditation on the unforeseen consequences of every human act, the vexing connectedness of all people and the possibility—it’s not much of one—of goodness in a sinful world. Willie Stark, Warren’s lightly disguised version of Huey Long, the onetime Louisiana strongman/governor, begins as a genuine tribune of the people and ends as a murderous populist demagogue. Jack Burden is his press agent, who carries out the boss’s orders, first without objection, then in the face of his own increasingly troubled conscience. And the politics? For Warren, that’s simply the arena most likely to prove that man is a fallen creature. Which it does. (Publisher’s summary)


From Here to Eternity by James Jones

In this magnificent but brutal classic of a soldier's life, James Jones portrays the courage, violence and passions of men and women who live by unspoken codes and with unutterable despair... in the most important American novel to come out of World War II, a masterpiece that captures as no other the honor and savagery of men. (Publisher’s summary)


Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace


Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880) by Lew Wallace is one of the most popular and beloved 19th century American novels. This faithful New Testament tale combines the events of the life of Jesus with grand historical spectacle in the exciting story of Judah of the House of Hur, a man who finds extraordinary redemption for himself and his family.A classic of faith, fortitude, and inspiration.. (Publisher’s summary)



The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Almost fifty years ago, a classic was born. A searing portrayal of the Mafia underworld, The Godfather introduced readers to the first family of American crime fiction, the Corleones, and their powerful legacy of tradition, blood, and honor. The seduction of power, the pitfalls of greed, and the allegiance to family—these are the themes that have resonated with millions of readers around the world and made The Godfather the definitive novel of the violent subculture that, steeped in intrigue and controversy, remains indelibly etched in our collective consciousness. (Penguin.com via Goodreads.com)


One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. (Publisher’s summary)



Ordinary People by Judith Guest

In Ordinary People, Judith Guest’s remarkable first novel, the Jarrets are a typical American family. Calvin is a determined, successful provider and Beth an organized, efficient wife. They had two sons, Conrad and Buck, but now they have one. In this memorable, moving novel, Judith Guest takes the reader into their lives to share their misunderstandings, pain...and ultimate healing. (Publisher’s summary)



Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry

An Oscar-winning story of a memorable mother and her fiesty daughter who find the courage and humor to live through life's hazards and to love each other as never before. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove created two characters who won the hearts of readers and moviegoers everywhere--Aurora Greenway and her daughter Emma. (Publisher’s summary)



The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. (Publisher’s summary)


The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures as the quest continues. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard, and took part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by Orcs, escaped into Fangorn Forest and there encountered the Ents. Gandalf returned, miraculously, and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman. Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo progressed towards Mordor to destroy the Ring, accompanied by SmEagol--Gollum, still obsessed by his 'precious'. After a battle with the giant spider, Shelob, Sam left his master for dead; but Frodo is still alive--in the hands of the Orcs. And all the time the armies of the Dark Lord are massing. (Publisher’s summary)