VCU Libraries
VCU Home

May 14, 2012

[Quick Pick] What Is Amazing by Heather Christle

qp.what.amazing.JPGInspired by a voracious curiosity about humans and other subjects, the poems in Heather Christle's What Is Amazing describe and invent worlds in an attempt to understand through participation. The book draws upon the wisdom of foolishness and the logic of glee, while simultaneously exploring the suffering inherent to embodied consciousness. Speakers play out moments of bravado and fear, love and mortality, disappointment and desire. They socialize incorrigibly with lakes, lovers, fire, and readers, reasoning their way to unreasonable conclusions. These poems try to understand how it is that we come to recognize and differentiate objects and beings, how wholly each is attached to its name, and which space reveals them. What Is Amazing delights in fully inhabiting its varied forms and voices, singing worlds that often coincide with our own.

Cabell Library PS3603.H755 W43 2012

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.

May 7, 2012

[Quick Pick] Shelter : a Mickey Bolitar Novel by Harlan Coben

qp.bolitar.JPGAfter tragic events tear Mickey Bolitar away from his parents, he is forced to live with his estranged Uncle Myron and switch high schools, where he finds both friends and enemies, but when his new new girlfriend, Ashley, vanishes, he follows her trail into a seedy underworld that reveals she is not what she seems to be.

Cabell Library Young Adult Literature (4th floor) PZ7.C635 S54 2011

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.

May 2, 2012

[Quick Pick] Green suns and Faërie : Essays on Tolkien by Verlyn Flieger

qp.green.suns.jpgWith the release of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and forthcoming film version of The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien's popularity has never been higher. In Green Suns and Faërie, author Verlyn Flieger, one of the world's foremost Tolkien scholars, presents a selection of her best articles--some never before published--on a range of Tolkien topics.

The essays are divided into three distinct sections. The first explores Tolkien's ideas of sub-creation-the making of a Secondary World and its relation to the real world, the second looks at Tolkien's reconfiguration of the medieval story tradition, and the third places his work firmly within the context of the twentieth century and "modernist" literature. With discussions ranging from Tolkien's concepts of the hero to the much-misunderstood nature of Bilbo's last riddle in The Hobbit, Flieger reveals Tolkien as a man of both medieval learning and modern sensibility--one who is deeply engaged with the past and future, the regrets and hopes, the triumphs and tragedies, and above all the profound difficulties and dilemmas of his troubled century.

Taken in their entirety, these essays track a major scholar's deepening understanding of the work of the master of fantasy. Green Suns and Faërie is sure to become a cornerstone of Tolkien scholarship.

Cabell Library PR6039.O32 Z6447 2012

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.

April 9, 2012

[Quick Pick] Habibi by Craig Thompson

qp.habibi.JPGSprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them. We follow them as their lives unfold together and apart; as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a world (not unlike our own) fueled by fear, lust, and greed; and as they discover the extraordinary depth--and frailty--of their connection.

At once contemporary and timeless, Habibi gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.

Cabell Library PN6727.T48 H33 2011

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.

April 2, 2012

[Quick Pick] The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe

qp.house.of.sleep.JPGLike a surreal and highly caffeinated version of The Big Chill, Jonathan Coe's new novel follows four students who knew each other in college in the eighties. Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events. Robert has his life changed forever by the misunderstandings that arise from her condition. Terry spends his wakeful nights fueling his obsession with movies. And an increasingly unstable doctor, Gregory, sees sleep as a life-shortening disease which he must eradicate.

But after ten years of fretful slumber and dreams gone bad, the four reunite in their college town to confront their disorders. In a Gothic cliffside manor being used as a clinic for sleep disorders, they discover that neither love, nor lunacy, nor obsession ever rests.

Cabell Library PR6053.O26 H68 2008

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.

March 26, 2012

[Quick Pick] J. G. Ballard : visions and revisions

qp.ballard.visions.JPGJ. G. Ballard: Visions and Revisions is a response to the formal and contextual diversity of one of the most significant writers of the post-war period. Providing an extensive reassessment of dominant and recurring themes in Ballard's writing, including historical violence, pornography, post 9/11 politics, and urban space, it also engages with Ballard's 'late' modernism; his experimentation with style and form; and his sustained interests in psychology and psychopathology. The volume addresses the full range of Ballard's writing, including his early science fiction stories, his experiments with 'condensed novels', his 'urban disaster' trilogy (including Crash), his autobiographical fictions, his late critiques of globalized capitalism, and his extensive non-fictional output of essays and reviews.

Cabell Library PR6052.A46 Z72 2012

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.

Resources

The Other Wes Moore Resources
The VCU Libraries' Web page for the UC Summer Reading Program includes reviews, interviews, and more.

Fiction Connection
A resource for searching U.S. fiction and selected non-fiction. Find similar titles and authors, or browse by topic, genre, setting, character, location, and timeframe. Includes reviews.