Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

Library News and Notable New Books

Crawfordsville Library's newest staff member - Meet the newest staff member at the Crawfordsville District Public Library. She's Emily Griffin, part-time reference librarian. Her graduation from Forest Hills High School in Marshville, North Carolina and her Bachelor's degree from Wingate University preceded her present graduate studies in library science on-line at Philadelphia's Drexel University. She is doing research on Stephen Crane, Class of 1937 at Wabash College. Emily said, "Bill Helling gave me this assignment because he knows I'm a classic film fanatic!" Emily's enjoying working with Bill, Tom West, and Jodie Wilson up in the Reference Department to help people solve all sorts of research problems.

Fifteen requested books have entered the shelves. They might interest other readers. "Dreaming in Hindi" subtitled Coming Awake in Another Language by Katherine Rich, is a memoir telling a bizarre, frightening and, yes, pleasant adventure in India; it shows what learning a language can teach us about distant worlds and ourselves. How about Paul Batura's "Good Day!: The Paul Harvey Story". The final memoir is "Perfection" by Julie Metz offering her journey to forgiveness after as a "sudden" widow she discovers her husband had a secret life.

"As We Forgive" by Catherine Larson is the book inspired by the same-named film about reconciliation in Rwanda. Rana Husseini's "Murder in the Name of Honor" is her survey of the thousands of women who have lost their lives and whose murderers often receive encouragement to perform an act of "purification of a family's honor". Peter Eichstaedt exposes the Lord's Resistance Army that has ravaged northern Uganda in "First Kill Your Family".

"The Black Swan" is Nassim Taleb's term for an improbable event that is unpredictable, has impact, and underlies almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to personal life events like 9/11; the book is called "A provocative macro-trend tome" in Time Magazine. "Guts" by Robert Nylen is his posthumously printed adventure as a tough guy who faced many challenges, and it is powerful! "Animal Spirits" by Akerlof and Shiller talks about how human psychology drives the economy and why it matters in global capitalism. "Money, Greed, and God" by Jay Richards analyzes why capitalism is the solution and not the problem.

Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch" has labels: "Funny, wise and true", "A small classic" and "funniest book of the year." It's his tribute to his life-long obsession, being a fan of British football. Nancy Zieman's "Quilt with Confidence" teaches this craft with constant helpful hints. A sweet little book about a huge family in Pennsylvania is "Eight Little Faces" by mom Kate Gosselin. Moshik Temkin's "The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair" is a fresh approach to the infamous murder case that began as an obscure local event and grew to international attention.

The two mysteries of the week are "Cry in the Night" a Rock Harbor, Michigan story by Colleen Coble and "Get Real" by Donald Westlake as a further adventure of Dortmunder who with his reality TV show decides to fool the audience by reaping profits from his plot.

Battle of the Authors

Koontz vs. King
Who will rule this ring?
One will win and one will lose
You get to choose...

Quality vs. Quantity
Quality is subjective and difficult to measure...it is in the brains of the beholder. Quantity, on the other hand...well, see for yourself:

At CDPL, Dean Koontz's most popular book is "Sole Survivor", which has been borrowed 89 times.
His most popular story across all formats is "Seize the Night", which has been borrowed 113 times.
His most popular movie is "Phantoms", which has been borrowed 82 times.

At CDPL, Stephen King's most popular book is "Gerald's Game", which has been borrowed 73 times.
His most popular story across all formats is " From a Buick 8", which has been borrowed 105 times.
His most popular movie is "Shawshank Redemption", which was borrowed 126 times.

Let us know which of these two authors you like the best by posting a comment! See more information about each author in the previous "Battle of the Authors" blog entry.

You can also vote for your favorite author by casting a ballot in the library. So far, the in-house vote tally is 8 for Stephen King and 0 for Dean Koontz.

Battle of the Authors

Koontz vs. King
Who will rule this ring?
One will win and one will lose
You get to choose...

Horror fiction is one of the most popular genres of today. When we think about horror authors our minds turn to the greats like Edgar Alan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Bram Stoker but also to the newcomers like Stephen King and Dean Koontz. It's no secret that both these authors have cut themselves a big slice of the horror market but in a world where survival means the last one standing at the end of the night...who will live on and who will be laid to rest?

First to enter into our battle is 64 year-old Dean Ray Koontz, aka: Aaron Wolfe, Brian Coffey, Deanna Dwyer, John Hill, David Axton, K.R. Dwyer, Leigh Nichols, Leonard Chris, Owen West, and Richard Paige. If that wasn't enough, he also writes under the name Trixie Koontz in the guise of his beloved dog. Aliases, however, are not the only things this author has an abundance of...he's also well known for using reoccurring themes in his work such as a California setting, a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber Chiefs Special, the words preternatural and ozone, T.S. Eliot references, characters with military backgrounds, and others.

At 62, Stephen Edwin King is the younger of our two combatants. Known pen names include Richard Bachman and John Swithen. Not to be outdone on reoccurrences, however, King is also known for using Maine as a backdrop and creating main characters who are writers.

When we compare these two authors on number of published novels, Koontz is the clear winner with 73 to King's 68. However, both authors have published many more works through short stories, non-fiction, and various collections. Going beyond the writing, King is much more victorious in the movie field with 50 of his titles made into TV/film adaptations while Koontz trails behind with just 17.

Stephen King and Dean Koontz path to writing were both very similar. They had similar childhoods with strained paternal relationships and later in life both found jobs in teaching before making their break into writing.

Today, as well as being well known and respected novelists, these two stand proudly and loudly for their personal political stances. Koontz donates regularly to the Republican Party and King is an outspoken advocate for the Democratic Party.

The two men, while eerily similar in some respects, are very different in their writing of the horror genre and in their readers. Which author rules the stacks of the Crawfordsville Public Library...Koontz or King? Now is the time to stand up for your favorite author (as they would) and give voice for your choice by commenting to this blog!

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

Library News and Notable New Books

Local Travel Book Offers Scenic Tour - A new Falcon Guide called "Scenic Driving Indiana" by Douglas Wissing features a Sugar Creek trip from Thorntown through Shades and Turkey Run starting on page 142. "Halloween Propmaker's Handbook” by Kenneth Pitek has budget-friendly frights as well as sophisticated props with dozens of ways to haunt a house.

New biographies are long "works of art". Douglas Brinkley's "The Wilderness Warrior" focuses on Theodore Roosevelt's being the "naturalist president". Randy Taraborrelli's "Michael Jackson" updated with new chapters tells "The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story 1958-2009". Benjamin Moser has written the story of Clarice Lispector, "that rare person who looked like Marlene Dietrich and wrote like Virginia Woolf", a Latin American writer who transformed her struggles into a universally resonant art; the title is "Why This World". "Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife" by Francine Prose shows Anne's diary as a work of art. Carole Seymour-Jones' "A Dangerous Liaison" tells of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre's fifty years, and the legend they created.

If you're a student interested in college financial aid, a new book is "The Ultimate Scholarship Book 2010" by Gen and Kelly Tanabe. If you need "A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux" a fully updated version is offered by Mark Sobell covering 8.04 and 8.10 releases. Other 2010 helps are "Novel & Short Story Writer's Market" telling where and how to sell your fiction and "2010 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market" has good help; both are edited by Alice Pope.

Two spy books are Peter Lance's "Triple Cross" telling how Bin Laden's master spy penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI, and Sarah Helm's "A Life in Secrets" about Vera Atkins and the missing agents of World War II. "The Monuments Men" is Robert Edsel's telling of the allied heroes, Nazi thieves, and the greatest treasure hunt in history to save art, demonstrating how the best of humanity can defeat the worst. Family books include "The Baby Name Wizard" with facts, trends, ideas and many enchanting names given by Laura Wattenberg. "Yours, Mine, and Hours" holds relationship skills for blended families offered by John Penton and Shona Welsh. Jann Blackstone-Ford and Sharyl Jupe's "Ex-Etiquette for Parents" is about good behavior after a divorce or separation.

A resource guide for returning Veterans is "The Wounded Warrior Handbook" by Don Philpott and Janelle Hill, and includes straightforward answers to the questions injured heroes and their families need to receive the care they deserve and need.

"Fuller's Earth" by Richard Brenneman offers a day with Buckminster Fuller and the kids, a Classics in Progressive Education manual in which he explains his vision of how the universe works.

"The Battle for America 2008" by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson is the story of the election that shattered political barriers, brought to light undercurrents of race, gender, and class, and ignited a competitive battle among formidable rivals.

"The Sisters of Sinai" by Janet Soskice tells how two lady adventurers discovered the hidden Gospels; as identical twins from Scotland in 1892 they found the earliest known copies in ancient Syriac, the language spoken by Jesus, and Agnes and Margaret Smith translated this text themselves.

Two important reads are NAACP: Celebrating a Century, 100 Years in Pictures" and "Dancing in the Dark" a cultural history of the Great Depression by Morris Dickstein.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

Library News and Notable New Books

New Crawfordsville Library Patrons Always Welcome - Often, visitors ask how non-residents can become patrons of the CDPL. Any family can become a one-year member and enjoy all library privileges for $52.50.

Sports figures' lives can be good reading. In "Yogi: Eternal Yankee" by Allen Barra, "Even if you hate the Yankees, you have to love Yogi (Berra)". "The Corporal Was a Pitcher" by Ira Berkow tells of the courage of Lou Brissie (forward by Tom Brokaw). "George" by Peter Golenbock tells about the "poor little rich boy who built the Yankee empire", one George Steinbrenner, of course.

The sport of fishing is well told in "The Big One" by David Kinney, when the tourists clear out in September, and thousands of fishermen take back the beaches for the (Martha's) Vineyard's annual Striped Bass & Bluefish Derby, 35 days of fish-addled hope and heartbreak. Kinney profiles the long-time competitors and their passions, obsessions, and dreams.

"Two different paths to God, money, and happiness", one path taken in peace by a Tenzin Tacho ordained by the Dalai Lama, and an opposite path taken by a warrior in Vietnam, make up "Rich Brother, Rich Sister" by Robert Kiyosaki. "Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs" is the making of a surgeon, the memoir of Michael Collins' journey from construction worker to medical student.

"The Wikipedia Revolution" by Andrew Lih tells how a bunch of nobodies created the world's greatest encyclopedia: "Imagine a world in which every single person…is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." "Born Digital" by John Palfrey asks our understanding of the first generation of digital natives. "Math Explains Your World" tells 100 essential things we don't know we don't know. John Barrow's book has angle points of the Eiffel tower on its cover. "Einstein's Telescope" by Evalyn Gates tells about the hunt for dark matter and dark energy in the universe.

"The Rise and Fall of Communism" by Archie Brown comes from 40 years of research. "Securing the City: going inside America's best counterterror force-the NYPD" by Christopher Dickey, says its "seat-of-the-pants intelligence is the gold standard for all others." "Witness Iraq" a war journal of February, March, and April 2003 is a picture book of experiences. The tests to enter the Armed Forces are explained in "Barron's Students' #1 Choice Pass Key to The ASVAB".

Margaret MacMillan's "Dangerous Games" records the uses and abuses of history and compels us to examine it anew, including our own understanding of it and our own permanently-held beliefs about it; she won many prizes for "Paris 1919". "The Duel" by Judith St. George records the parallel lives of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

Jonathan Lyons' "The House of Wisdom" tells how the Arabs transformed Western civilization, the age when Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning and their own innovations, which led to the Renaissance.

"God Speaks Again" is an introduction to the Baha'i faith by Kenneth Bowers. William Hatcher and Douglas Martin's "The Baha'i Faith: The Emerging Global Religion" is also an authentic statement of the world-wide religion that originated in Persia in the mid-1800s.

The Deweys Do Reading Club

The Deweys Do
(Adult Reading Club)

Meet: 1st Monday of the month

Time: 6:30 p.m. to about 8:00-8:15 p.m.

Location: Crawfordsville District Public Library basement meeting room
(room location may vary)

Explanation: We are trying a new format this year. We have chosen a topic for each month, October through August, 2010. You can choose to read any book that fits the topic for the month...fiction or non-fiction. This format is based on the one used by the Historical Society book club.

Aim: Enjoy discussing books chosen by other book lovers in the group and encourage reading books you might not read on your own.

Topics for 2010 are:
October - Trees
November - Thanksgiving
December - Water
January - Sculpture
February - Gardening
March - Cooking
April - Music
May - Ships
June - Weddings
July - Space
August - Travel

Theme-related refreshments will generally be provided by volunteers in the group

No registration is required - just be ready to share your thoughts about your book!