 If you're looking for a fun and fulfilling activity, you should consider joining the Reader's Ink Book Club. Hosted by the Ottumwa Public Library, the book club meets on the second Wednesday of each month from 5 to 6pm. Each month, Reader's Ink reads a different book selected by one of its members. When someone new signs up they select a month. When their month comes up, that person brings a light treat for the group to snack on while they discuss that person's chosen book. The library will loan each member a copy of the book they need for the next meeting. If you're interested in joining please contact Sonja Ferrell at the library.
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Annotated Christmas Carol -- Nonfiction Book Club's December 2011 Pick |
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The Annotated Christmas Carol
Publisher's Weekly Review
For many people in the 21st century, Dickens's A Christmas Carol has come to define what "keeping Christmas" should look like. And according to Michael Patrick Hearn's superb introduction to this annotated edition of Dickens's beloved classic, that was precisely the author's intention. Dickens feared that encroaching industrialism undermined the traditional values of family, faith and simplicity, and that killjoy Puritans had done away with many of the pleasures of Christmas, so he set out to revive old-fashioned English customs. Hearn's introduction grandly describes the story's enduring popularity around the world (including Dickens's irate but mostly ineffectual attempts to stem the tide of its plagiarism). The annotated edition is enriched by numerous wood etchings, including some from the original 1843 art by Punch cartoonist John Leech. Old Scrooge himself would approve. (Nov. 24) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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Room -- Readers' Ink Book Club December 2011 Pick |
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Room
Emma Donoghue
Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of Donoghue's powerful new novel, narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. Seen entirely through Jack's eyes and childlike perceptions, the developments in this novel-there are enough plot twists to provide a dramatic arc of breathtaking suspense-are astonishing. Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful, creating exercise games, makeshift toys, and reading and math lessons to fill their days. And while Donoghue (Slammerkin) brilliantly portrays the psyche of a child raised in captivity, the story's intensity cranks up dramatically when, halfway through the novel and after a nail-biting escape attempt, Jack is introduced to the outside world. While there have been several true-life stories of women and children held captive, little has been written about the pain of re-entry, and Donoghue's bravado in investigating that potentially terrifying transformation grants the novel a frightening resonance that will keep readers rapt. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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Washington's Crossing -- November 2011 Nonfiction Book Club Pick |
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Washington's Crossing
David Hackett Fischer
Publisher's Weekly Review
At the core of an impeccably researched, brilliantly executed military history is an analysis of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River in December 1776 and the resulting destruction of the Hessian garrison of Trenton and defeat of a British brigade at Princeton. Fischer's perceptive discussion of the strategic, operational and tactical factors involved is by itself worth the book's purchase. He demonstrates Washington's insight into the revolution's desperate political circumstances, shows how that influenced the idea of a riposte against an enemy grown overconfident with success and presents Washington's skillful use of what his army could do well. Even more useful is Fischer's analysis of the internal dynamics of the combatants. He demonstrates mastery of the character of the American, British and Hessian armies, highlighting that British troops, too, fought for ideals, sacred to them, of loyalty and service. Above all, Brandeis historian Fischer (Albion's Seed) uses the Trenton campaign to reveal the existence, even in the revolution's early stage, of a distinctively American way of war, much of it based on a single fact: civil and military leaders were accountable to a citizenry through their representatives. From Washington down, Fischer shows, military leaders acknowledged civil supremacy and worked with civil officials. Washington used firepower and intelligence as force multipliers to speed the war for a practical people who wanted to win quickly in order to return to their ordinary lives. Tempo, initiative and speed marked the Trenton campaign from first to last. And Washington fought humanely, extending quarter in battle and insisting on decent treatment of prisoners. The crossing of the Delaware, Fischer teaches, should be seen as emblematic of more than a turning of the war's tide. 91 halftone, 15 maps. 3-city author tour. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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Audition -- Reader's Ink November 2011 Book Pick |
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Audition
Barbara Walters
Publisher's Weekly Review
Starred Review. Although Walters writes, It was not in my nature to be courageous, to be the first, her compulsively readable memoir proves otherwise. No one lasts on TV for more than 45 years without the ability to make viewers feel comfortable, and Walters's amiable persona perfectly translates to the page. She gives us an entertaining panorama of a full life lived and recounted with humor and bracing honesty. Walters is surprisingly candid: about her older sister's retardation, her father's suicide attempt, her midlife affairs (including ones with John Warner--before and after his marriage to Elizabeth Taylor--and a very married Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction), her daughter's troubled teen years and her acrimonious relationships with coanchors Frank McGee and Harry Reasoner. She vividly recounts her decision to leave NBC's TodayShow after 14 years to become the first female nightly news coanchor, and tells of the firestorm of criticism she endured for accepting that pioneering position and its million-dollar salary. Alternating between tales of her personal struggles, professional achievements and insider anecdotes about the celebrities and world leaders she's interviewed, this mammoth memoir's energy never flags. 32 pages of photos. (One-day laydown May 6) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
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Life Inc. -- October 2011 Nonfiction Bookclub Pick |
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Life Inc. — How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back
Douglas Rushkoff
Library Journal Review
What do fundamentalist Christians, Margaret Thatcher, and the Rand Corporation all have in common? They are all part of a vast conspiracy that began during the Renaissance when the British East India Company began indoctrinating Europe in corporatism, the belief that corporations should be venerated. So successful were they that we now unknowingly live in a corporatist state, argues Rushkoff; the world is so slanted toward rewarding self-interested, short-term decisions that we have lost all autonomy and humanity, devolving from citizens into consumers. Rushkoff advocates for sustainable, bottoms-up activism, but many of his suggestions (including garden shares and "complimentary credit" bartering) seem like willful amnesia; history has proven that a commune by any other name remains unviable. Still, Rushkoff's prose is eminently readable, and he weaves together a colorful fabric of facts and anecdotes more than interesting enough to carry the reader past a little kookiness; the first 200 pages are truly conspiracy theorizing at its best. The last 50 pages do suffer from excessive moralizing, unsupported idealism, and a limp call to pseudoaction, but otherwise this is an entertaining screed for those who agree with Rushkoff's position.-Robert Perret, Univ. of Idaho, Moscow, ID (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 23 September 2011 )
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The Postmistress -- Reader's Ink October 2011 Book Pick |
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The Postmistress
Sarah Blake
Publisher's Weekly Review
Weaving together the stories of three very different women loosely tied to each other, debut novelist Blake takes readers back and forth between small town America and war-torn Europe in 1940. Single, 40-year-old postmistress Iris James and young newlywed Emma Trask are both new arrivals to Franklin, Mass., on Cape Cod. While Iris and Emma go about their daily lives, they follow American reporter Frankie Bard on the radio as she delivers powerful and personal accounts from the London Blitz and elsewhere in Europe. While Trask waits for the return of her husband-a volunteer doctor stationed in England-James comes across a letter with valuable information that she chooses to hide. Blake captures two different worlds-a naOve nation in denial and, across the ocean, a continent wracked with terror-with a deft sense of character and plot, and a perfect willingness to take on big, complex questions, such as the merits of truth and truth-telling in wartime. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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Last Updated ( Monday, 19 September 2011 )
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Freakonomics -- September 2011 Nonfiction Book Club Pick |
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Freakonomics
Steven Levitt
Publisher's Weekly Review
Forget your image of an economist as a crusty professor worried about fluctuating interest rates: Levitt focuses his attention on more intimate real-world issues, like whether reading to your baby will make her a better student. Recognition by fellow economists as one of the best young minds in his field led to a profile in the New York Times, written by Dubner, and that original article serves as a broad outline for an expanded look at Levitt's search for the hidden incentives behind all sorts of behavior. There isn't really a grand theory of everything here, except perhaps the suggestion that self-styled experts have a vested interest in promoting conventional wisdom even when it's wrong. Instead, Dubner and Levitt deconstruct everything from the organizational structure of drug-dealing gangs to baby-naming patterns. While some chapters might seem frivolous, others touch on more serious issues, including a detailed look at Levitt's controversial linkage between the legalization of abortion and a reduced crime rate two decades later. Underlying all these research subjects is a belief that complex phenomena can be understood if we find the right perspective. Levitt has a knack for making that principle relevant to our daily lives, which could make this book a hit. Malcolm Gladwell blurbs that Levitt has the most interesting mind in America, an invitation Gladwell's own substantial fan base will find hard to resist. 50-city radio campaign. (May 1) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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The Diary -- September 2011 Reader's Ink Book Pick |
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The Diary
Eileen Goudge
Library Journal Review
Verdict: A somewhat slow starter for such a brief book, this sedate tear-jerker packs a punch at the end. Don't think you've figured it all out, either. Big marketing push, going for the Mother's Day angle. Background: With their father dead and their mother in a nursing home, middle-aged Sarah and Emily clean out their parents' house, only to stumble upon the diary their mother, Elizabeth, kept back in 1951, in which she writes about being in love with another man. More secrets are revealed as the sisters read the thoughts and feelings of a woman they now discover they never really knew. The 1951 time period gives the story a restrained feel, and Goudge falls back on familiar stereotypes: the good girl living at home, the athlete boyfriend loved and admired by all, the puritanical mother overly concerned with public opinion, and the rebel bad-boy yearning after the town beauty.-Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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