BOOK reMARKS tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks/18 2009-09-08T14:09:55Z Movable Type 4.25 [Quick Pick] The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53217 2009-11-16T15:00:28Z 2009-09-08T14:09:55Z He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem--ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care... qp.housekeeper.jpgHe is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem--ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.

She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him.

And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them. Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professor's mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities--like the Housekeeper's shoe size--and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away.

The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family.

Cabell Library PL858.G37 H3513 20099

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]]> [Quick Pick] Passing Strange : a Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line, by Martha A. Sandweiss. tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53212 2009-11-09T15:00:13Z 2009-09-08T14:09:18Z Clarence King is a hero of nineteenth century western history; a brilliant scientist and witty conversationalist, best-selling author and architect of the great surveys that mapped the West after the Civil War. Secretary of State John Hay named King "the... qp.passing.strange.JPGClarence King is a hero of nineteenth century western history; a brilliant scientist and witty conversationalist, best-selling author and architect of the great surveys that mapped the West after the Civil War. Secretary of State John Hay named King "the best and brightest of his generation." But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for thirteen years he lived a double life--as the celebrated white explorer, geologist and writer Clarence King and as a black Pullman porter and steel worker named James Todd. The fair blue-eyed son of a wealthy China trader passed across the color line, revealing his secret to his black common- law wife, Ada Copeland, only on his deathbed.

King lied because he wanted to and he lied because he had to. To marry his wife in a public way - as the white man known as Clarence King - would have created a scandal and destroyed his career. At a moment when many mixed-race Americans concealed their African heritage to seize the privileges of white America, King falsely presented himself as a black man in order to marry the woman he loved.

Noted historian of the American West Martha Sandweiss is the first writer to uncover the life that King tried so hard to conceal from the public eye. She reveals the complexity of a man who while publicly espousing a personal dream of a uniquely American "race," an amalgam of white and black, hid his love for his wife, Ada, and their five biracial children. Passing Strange tells the dramatic tale of a family built along the fault lines of celebrity, class, and race--from the "Todd's" wedding in 1888, to the 1964 death of Ada King, one of the last surviving Americans born into slavery.

Cabell Library E185.625 .S255 2009

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]]> [Quick Pick] Sufficiency of the actual : poems, by Kevin Stein. tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53158 2009-11-02T15:00:38Z 2009-09-08T14:08:36Z In this ambitious collection, Kevin Stein enters the volatile intersection of private lives and larger public history. In poems variously formal and experimental, improvisational and narrative, wisely silly and playfully forlorn, Stein renders the human carnival flexed across the tattooed... qp.sufficiency.JPGIn this ambitious collection, Kevin Stein enters the volatile intersection of private lives and larger public history. In poems variously formal and experimental, improvisational and narrative, wisely silly and playfully forlorn, Stein renders the human carnival flexed across the tattooed bulk of "history's bicep."
Musical and refreshingly unaffected, Stein's poems yoke the domains of high and low art. His poems address subjects by turns surprising, edgy, and humorous. They offer musings on the Slinky and the atomic bomb, elegies for a miscarried pregnancy and the late physicist Edward Teller, reflections on night-shift factory work and President Eisenhower's golf caddy, and meditations on the politics of post-colonialism and a youthful antiwar streaking incident. Against this vivid backdrop parades a motley cast of American characters seeking wiry balance in a fragile world.

Cabell Library PS3569.T3714 S84 2009

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]]> [Quick Pick] Flannery : a life of Flannery O'Connor, by Brad Gooch tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53156 2009-10-26T14:00:31Z 2009-09-08T14:07:02Z The landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery O'Connor stepped onto the scene with her first published book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman... qp.flannery.jpegThe landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery O'Connor stepped onto the scene with her first published book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman who wrote them. Brad Gooch brings to life O'Connor's significant friendships--with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Walker Percy, and James Dickey among others--and her deeply felt convictions, as expressed in her communications with Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Bishop, and Betty Hester. Hester was famously known as "A" in O'Connor's collected letters, The Habit of Being, and a large cache of correspondence to her from O'Connor was made available to scholars, including Brad Gooch, in 2006. O'Connor's capacity to live fully--despite the chronic disease that eventually confined her to her mother's farm in Georgia--is illuminated in this engaging and authoritative biography.

Cabell Library PS3565.C57 Z6795 2009

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]]> [Quick Pick] Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker?, written and directed by Barbara Caspar tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53159 2009-10-19T14:01:33Z 2009-09-08T14:08:01Z A multi-layered work featuring animation, archival footage and interviews with the likes of William Burroughs, Carolee Schneemann and Richard Hell, Who's afraid of Kathy Acker by Austrian artist Barbara Caspar and co-produced by Annette Pisacane (Nico Icon) and Markus Fischer,... qp.acker.jpgA multi-layered work featuring animation, archival footage and interviews with the likes of William Burroughs, Carolee Schneemann and Richard Hell, Who's afraid of Kathy Acker by Austrian artist Barbara Caspar and co-produced by Annette Pisacane (Nico Icon) and Markus Fischer, is a thoughtful and creative film biography/essay on the late outlaw writer and punk icon, whose formally inventive novels, published from the '70s through the mid-90s, challenged assumptions about gender roles, sexuality, and the literary canon.

Cabell Media and Reserves DVDs PS3551.C44 Z9 2008

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]]> [Quick Pick] The Blue Manuscript, by Sabiha Al Khemir tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53215 2009-10-12T17:34:21Z 2009-09-04T17:45:42Z "The Blue Manuscript" is the ultimate prize for any collector of Islamic treasures. But does it still exist, and if so, can it be found? In search of answers to these questions, an assortment of archaeologists heads for a remote... qp.blue.manuscript.JPG"The Blue Manuscript" is the ultimate prize for any collector of Islamic treasures. But does it still exist, and if so, can it be found? In search of answers to these questions, an assortment of archaeologists heads for a remote area of Egypt, where they work with local villagers to excavate a promising site. But as social and cultural preconceptions amongst both visitors and hosts start to unravel, the mystery seems only to deepen and darken...What do the fables of the village storyteller mean for the westerners, and can their emotional equilibrium and scholarly integrity survive exposure to the realities of the world they have studied from afar?Interspersed with the testimony of the early medieval calligrapher who created the "Blue Manuscript", Sabiha Al Khemir's subtle, graceful narrative builds into a rich tapestry of human love, hope, despair, greed, fear and betrayal. Intensified at every turn by the uneasy relationship between Islam past and present, and between Islam and the West, The Blue Manuscript is a novel which will resonate long after the astonishing solution to its mystery has finally been revealed.

Cabell Library PR9408.T83 K54 2008

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]]> [Quick Pick] The night calls, by David Pirie tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53213 2009-10-05T17:26:41Z 2009-09-04T17:34:11Z As a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle-the creator of Sherlock Holmes-studied under one of the pioneers in forensic medicine, Dr. Joseph Bell. While details of Doyle's actual relationship with the Doctor remain shrouded in mystery, author David Pirie has... qp.night.calls.JPGAs a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle-the creator of Sherlock Holmes-studied under one of the pioneers in forensic medicine, Dr. Joseph Bell. While details of Doyle's actual relationship with the Doctor remain shrouded in mystery, author David Pirie has created an engrossing series that pairs the two as partners in criminal investigations in the dark underworlds of Victorian Edinburgh.

The Night Calls chronicles their most frightening and disturbing case, the encounter with the man who prefigures Holmes' archnemesis Moriarty. A series of bizarre and outlandish assaults on women in the brothels of Edinburgh has caught the attention of Bell, who calls on Doyle to assist in the investigation. At the same time, however, there's a violent struggle for women's educational rights taking place at the university's medical school where Doyle is a student. There he meets young Elsbeth Scott, a fellow student with an unfortunate list of enemies, among them a crazed misogynist student name Crawford, and the smiling hypocritical patron of the university, Henry Carlisle.

Bell slowly begins to realize that the increasingly freakish crimes indicate a heretofore unknown and terrifying kind of criminal, one who is not susceptible to the Doctor's old methods. The Night Calls takes them from the evil heart of old Edinburgh into what Bell calls their "fight against the future" and to London itself, where Doyle again faces a villain with terrifying results.

Cabell Library PR6066.I76 N544 2008

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]]> [Quick Pick] Frida Kahlo : a Biography, by Claudia Schaefer tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53195 2009-09-28T13:39:13Z 2009-09-04T13:52:08Z Frida Kahlo was born in 1907 to parents of German and Spanish descent, in Coyoacan, outside Mexico City. After contracting polio at age six, Frida also suffered severe injuries in a bus accident. Her time spent in recovery turned her... qp.frida.jpgFrida Kahlo was born in 1907 to parents of German and Spanish descent, in Coyoacan, outside Mexico City. After contracting polio at age six, Frida also suffered severe injuries in a bus accident. Her time spent in recovery turned her toward a painting career. These experiences, combined with a difficult marriage to the artist Diego Rivera, generated vibrant works depicting Frida's experiences with pain as well as the symbolism and spirit of Mexican culture. Though she died in 1954, interest in her work continues to grow, with museum exhibitions and publications around the world. This biography will introduce art students and adult readers to one of the Latino culture's most beloved artists.

Cabell Library ND259.K33 S33 2009

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]]> [Quick Pick] The Stress of Her Regard, by Tim Powers tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53157 2009-09-21T14:00:51Z 2009-09-08T14:05:23Z When Michael Crawford discovers his bride brutally murdered in their wedding bed, he is forced to flee not only to prove his innocence, but to avoid the deadly embrace of a vampire who has claimed him as her true bridegroom.... qp.stress.JPGWhen Michael Crawford discovers his bride brutally murdered in their wedding bed, he is forced to flee not only to prove his innocence, but to avoid the deadly embrace of a vampire who has claimed him as her true bridegroom. Joining forces with Byron, Keats, and Shelley in a desperate journey that crisscrosses Europe, Crawford desperately seeks his freedom from this vengeful lover who haunts his dreams and will not rest until she destroys all that he cherishes.

Cabell Library PS3566.O95 S77 2008

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]]> [Quick Pick] Lima nights, by Marie Arana tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53152 2009-09-14T14:24:24Z 2009-09-08T14:04:56Z From a National Book Award finalist--for her memoir American Chica--and the author of the acclaimed novel Cellophane comes this spare, powerful story of sexual obsession and its consequences. Carlos Bluhm leads the good life in upper-class Lima: he attends social... qp.lima.nights.PNGFrom a National Book Award finalist--for her memoir American Chica--and the author of the acclaimed novel Cellophane comes this spare, powerful story of sexual obsession and its consequences.

Carlos Bluhm leads the good life in upper-class Lima: he attends social functions with his elegant wife, goes out drinking with his three best friends, has the occasional, fleeting assignation. . . . Until he meets Maria Fernandez, a dancer at a tango bar in a rough part of town. The beautiful sixteen-year-old intoxicates him. An indigenous dark-skinned Peruvian, she represents everything his safe white world does not, and soon he can't get her out of his mind. They begin a passionate affair, one that will destroy his marriage and shatter the only reality he's ever known.

Flash forward twenty years: against all odds, Carlos and Maria have remained together. But when Maria finally presses for a formal commitment, feelings long suppressed erupt in a tense endgame that sends both of them hurtling toward a dangerous resolution that will forever alter their lives.

Brilliantly realized, erotic, unsentimental, Lima Nights is a unique love story and a stunning work of fiction that will reverberate long after its final page.

Cabell Library PS3601.R345 L56 2009

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]]> [Quick Pick] A Dangerous Age, by Ellen Gilchrist tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53142 2009-09-07T15:18:10Z 2009-09-03T15:23:23Z Ellen Gilchrist is one of America's most celebrated and respected authors, a classic writer in the tradition of Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, and Elizabeth Spencer. The author of more than twenty books, she was awarded the National Book Award for... qp.dangerous.age.JPGEllen Gilchrist is one of America's most celebrated and respected authors, a classic writer in the tradition of Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, and Elizabeth Spencer. The author of more than twenty books, she was awarded the National Book Award for her short story collection Victory Over Japan. Now, with her first novel in more than a decade, she returns in top form.

A Dangerous Age tells the story of the women of the Hand family, three cousins in a Southern dynasty rich with history and tradition who are no strangers to either controversy or sadness. By turns humorous and heartbreaking, the novel is a celebration of the strength of these women, and of others like them. In her characteristically clear and direct prose, with its wry, no-nonsense approach to the world and the people who inhabit it, Gilchrist gives voice to women on a collision course with a distant war that, in truth, is never more than a breath away.


Cabell Library PS3557.I34258 D36 2008

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]]> [Quick Pick] Philip K. Dick : Canonical Writer of the Digital Age, by Lejla Kucukalic tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53141 2009-09-04T15:09:55Z 2009-09-04T16:48:14Z Kucukalic looks beyond the received criticism and stereotypes attached to Philip K. Dick and his work and shows, using a wealth of primary documents including previously unpublished letters and interviews, that Philip K. Dick is a serious and relevant philosophical... qp.canonical.dick.JPGKucukalic looks beyond the received criticism and stereotypes attached to Philip K. Dick and his work and shows, using a wealth of primary documents including previously unpublished letters and interviews, that Philip K. Dick is a serious and relevant philosophical and cultural thinker whose writing offer us important insights into contemporary digital culture. Evaluating five novels that span Dick's career--from Martian Time Slip (1964) to Valis (1981)--Kucukalic explores the the intersections of identity, narrative, and technology in order to ask two central, but uncharted Dickian questions: What is reality? and What is human?

Cabell Library PS3554.I3 Z74 2009

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]]> [Quick Pick] The Plath Cabinet, by Catherine Bowman tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.53140 2009-09-03T14:58:29Z 2009-09-03T15:08:25Z Part homage, part exploration, The Plath Cabinet offers a new window onto Sylvia Plath's world, from her hand-made dolls and her passport to a preserved lock of her hair. The Plath Cabinet is not simply an unparalleled biography: it is... qp.plath.cabinet.JPGPart homage, part exploration, The Plath Cabinet offers a new window onto Sylvia Plath's world, from her hand-made dolls and her passport to a preserved lock of her hair. The Plath Cabinet is not simply an unparalleled biography: it is a memoir in poems, telling the story of Bowman's relationship to Plath and to poetry. The Plath Cabinet is a must-read for Plath-lovers, for anyone interested in memoir and biography, and for all readers of contemporary poetry.

Cabell Library PS3552.O87555 P63 2009

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]]> [Quick Pick] Young Che : Memories of Che Guevara by His Father, by Ernesto Guevara Lynch, translated by Lucía Álvarez de Toledo tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.47596 2009-06-30T14:00:00Z 2009-06-01T21:23:38Z "I had prepared a life plan that included ten years of wandering, later years studying medicine. . . . All that's in the past, the only thing that's clear is that the ten years of wandering might grow longer .... qp.che.JPG"I had prepared a life plan that included ten years of wandering, later years studying medicine. . . . All that's in the past, the only thing that's clear is that the ten years of wandering might grow longer . . . but it will now be of an entirely different type from the one I dreamed of, and when I arrive in a new country it will not be to go to museums and look at ruins, because that still interests me, but also to join the struggle of the people."

- Che Guevara, in a letter to his mother, 1956

Assembled from two separate books written by Che's father, this is a vivid and intimate account of the formative years of an icon. Ernesto Guevara Lynch describes the people and personal events that shaped the development of his son's revolutionary worldview, from his childhood in a bourgeois Argentinian home to the moment he joined Castro to train for the invasion of Cuba in 1956. It also includes, available for the first time in the United States, Che's diary of his trip around Northern Argentina in 1950. Young Che is an indispensable guide to understanding one of the twentieth century's most famous and enduring revolutionary figures.

Cabell Library F2849.22.G85 G8313 2008

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]]> [Quick Pick] The Pleasure Instinct : Why We Crave Adventure, Chocolate, Pheromones, and Music by Gene Wallenstein tag:blog.vcu.edu,2009:/bookremarks//18.47595 2009-06-23T14:00:34Z 2009-06-01T21:15:27Z From our enjoyment of music to our cravings for chocolate, from our love for children and family to our attraction to things of beauty, this book embarks on an intriguing and accessible exploration of the purpose of pleasure in our... qp.pleasure.inst.jpgFrom our enjoyment of music to our cravings for chocolate, from our love for children and family to our attraction to things of beauty, this book embarks on an intriguing and accessible exploration of the purpose of pleasure in our lives and in human history. How did pleasure evolve and why? How does it develop in children? How does the pursuit of pleasure play a critical role in brain development? The Pleasure Instinct explores everything we need to know about our urge to feel good.


In The Pleasure Instinct, pioneering neurobiologist Gene Wallenstein takes you on a delightful tour through the relationship between human beings and pleasure, from its biological origins, through its role in brain development, to the latest findings that have direct applications today. The pleasure instinct, he contends, is evolution's ancient tool for prodding us in the directions that maximize our reproductive success. This same drive has created a staggering panorama of behaviors, pathologies, and cultural idioms in our modern lives that often bewilder and beguile.

Beginning with the five senses, Wallenstein explores the evolution of pleasure by asking such simple but penetrating questions as: How does music soothe our souls? What do we love so much about chocolate? How can particular aromas trigger vivid memories? Why are certain textures, shapes, and colors more pleasing than others? Wallenstein then reveals that in each case, the pleasure instinct delivers a distinct advantage, encourages normal brain growth, and enhances our ability to use and benefit from our senses.

This fascinating trek to the nexus of evolutionary biology and psychology goes on to examine the impact of pleasure in our everyday lives. Wallenstein reveals how the pleasure instinct influences everything from how we choose our mates to why we laugh at jokes, from our favorite dance rhythms to our preferences in art, perfume, and amusement park rides. He also takes a look at the dark side of pleasure, seeking to unearth the evolutionary roots of addiction, fetishes, and other excesses in the pursuit of pleasure.

Why does pleasure exist? When Wallenstein asks this question against the backdrop of evolution, the answers reveal the framework of a new world view that is beginning to change the way we think about human nature. Filled with fascinating insights into human behavior, this book will challenge your preconceptions and give you a new understanding of what drives the pursuit of pleasure.

Cabell Library BF515 .W29 2009

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