Thursday, September 25, 2008

Dang it! I Missed Four

NonFiction

We Are Soldiers Still: a journey back to the battlefields of Vietnam by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (USA Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway. Moore and Galloway's return trips to Vietnam with veterans from Moore's unit.

Lions of Iwo Jima: the story of Combat Team 28 and the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history by Major General Fred haynes (USMC-Ret.) and James A. Warren. Haynes was a captain when CT 28landed on Iwo Jima. Marines from CT28 raised the flag on Suribachi and fought through 36 continuous days to secure the island ending with 70% casualties. "The stories told here, many for the first time, will seem too cruel, too heartbreaking to be believed. As one veteran remarked, 'Each day we learned a new way to die.'"

200 Knitting Tips, Techniques & Trade Secrets by Betty Barnden.

Contemporary Knitting for Textile Artists by Ruth Lee.

First of Four for Knitting, Plus Another Sniper Book

Fiction

Too Many Curses by A. Lee Martinez. Margle the Horrendous transforms his enemies into accursed forms and sticks them in a dungeon. Margle's castle is tended by Nessy, a short, furry and sensible kubold. When Margle dies Nessy has trouble keeping things squared away.
I've read three of Martinez'z books and enjoyed them all. He writes humorous fantasy and science fiction. I enjoyed Gil's All Fright Diner and In the Company of Ogres the most. He populates his work with not quite competent protagonists with even less competent helpers in battles against evil. Fun stuff.

NonFiction

Vogue Knitting: the ultimate sock book by the editors of Vogue Knitting Magazine. Knitting has been popular and when I mentioned to a customer at check-out how I needed to get more knitting books she said, "Yes. You do." So I did. Three more titles are in the wings and will be on the shelves shortly.

Shyness: how normal behavior became a sickness by Christopher Lane. "How a handful of psychiatrists, with the help of the pharmaceutical industry, turned the ordinary emotion of shyness into an illness...Christopher Lnae unearths the disturbing truth: with little scientific justification and sometimes hilariously improbable rationales, hundreds of conditions - including shyness - are now defined as psychiatric disorders and considered treatable with drugs."

Loose Girl: a memoir of promiscuity by Kerry Cohen. Cohen eleven years old and the lonely girl of recently divorced parents when she found that her body and sexuality gained her attention. She started trading sex for love. Now a psychotherapist, Cohen recognizes her behavior as a common trait among many women.

Bar Flower: my decadent destructive days and nights as a Tokyo nightclub hostess by Lea Jacobson. Jacobson was an East Asian Studies major who moved to Japan. She was fired from her job as an English teacher and took a job as a nightclub hostess. Anglo hostesses are in high demand at Tokyo nightclubs and the free booze and freely told lies to her customers started had Jacobson "descending into self-abuse and alcoholism, she found that the seductive lifestyle she loved so much seemed impossible to escape."

Ernie: the autobiography by Ernest Borgnine. Marty, From Here to Eternity, The Dirty Dozen, Bad Day at Black Rock, Ice Station Zebra, McHale's Navy. Ernie is 91 years old and still working with voiceovers for SpongeBob Square Pants and a guest part on the Simpsons. "A fascinating memoir - filled with secrets, well-remembered details, and never-before-told stories - of a star who has thrived in the changing world of Hollywood for more than half a century."

Sniping

Sniper One: on scope and under siege with a sniper team in Iraq by Sgt. Dan Mills. Mills deployed with the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment to Al-Amarah, Iraq in 2004. Mills' sniper platoon was attacked within hours. 120 degree weather, failed sewers, garbage piles everywhere and bullets headed the wrong way.
We have a lot of sniper related bios and autobios set in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the sniper books check out I decided to get this one too. Nice photo sections included. Mills served with Johnson Beharry who was awarded the Victoria Cross for action on March 18, 2005.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

What to Read 9

Photography books at the Library.

Prairiescapes by Larry Kanfer.
Disfarmer: the vintage prints by Mike Disfarmer.
Snakes: a concise guide to nature's perfect predators by Daniel Gilpin.
Monkey Portraits by Jill Greenberg.
Armed America: portraits of gun owners in their homes by Kyle Cassidy.
Gary Schneider: portraits by Gary Schneider.
Gary Schneider: nudes by Gary Schneider.



Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Bad Voodoo's Cinderella Dancing

DVD

Bad Voodoo's War. Producers for Frontline supplied cameras to a National Guard platoon for them to record their deployment in Iraq. "The film intimately tracks the veterans of "Bad Voodoo" through the daily realities of their perilous missions, grappling with the political complexities of dealing with Iraqi security forces, and battling their fatigue and their fears."

Another Cinderella Story starring [teenagers]. "It's musical. It's magical. It's Another Cinderella Story, the dancing-ever-after fairy tale."

Monday, September 22, 2008

Eight Large Print Novels

Large Print.

Look the plots up yourself; they are mostly chick books.

Fractured by Karin Slaughter.

Cypress Nights by Stella Cameron.

Just Breathe by Susan Wiggs.

Left to Die by Lisa Jackson.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

Last Time I was Me by Cathy Lamb.

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

Lie Down with the Devil by Linda Barnes.

Fiction with some AudioBooks on CD

AudioBooks on CD

Keepsake by Tess Gerritsen. 9 CDs, 11 hours. This is the mummy-in-a-museum-basement-that's-actually-a-recent-murder-victim novel.

Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. 16 CDs, 19 hours. Morally vaccuous guy gets in car wreck and is horribly burned. A sculpture visits him and says they were lover in medieval Germany. Released to her care he is dependent on painkillers and she hears God talking to her.

Fiction

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane. Post World War Boston with local cop Danny joining the union movement and hunting radicals. Real life characters are mixed into the fray.

Heat Lightning by John Sandford. Virgil Flowers gets caclled to Stillwater where the body of a homicide victim is left next to a veteran's memorial with a lemon in his mouth.

Tsar by Ted Bell. Alex Hawke is assigned to put find and stop to a mysterious and powerful Russian who hopes to be a new tsar. With control of Europe's oil supply and a mind to "reintegrate rogue states" the new tsar is threat to both Europe and the U.S. and is killing all who oppose him.

Night of Thunder by Stephen Hunter. Bob Lee Swagger's reporter daughter's car is forced into a crash. Bob Lee goes against a violent Dixie mobster clan, corrupt cops, "deranged evangelicals, and others. Set during the weeklong NASCAR race in Bristol, TN.
The last Bob Lee Swagger novel was a disappointment to me. Maybe this Hunter is back to form again.

Liberty by Garrison Keillor. Clint Bunsen is running this year's 4th of July parade in Lake Wobegon. But his "success breeds resentment" and with a personal crisis over his ancestry Clint is wondering whether he should run away with his much younger girlfriend or run for Congress.


Comforts of a Muddy Saturday by Alexander McCall Smith. Isabel Dalhousie looks into a local doctor's scientific fraud in commercial drug release.

Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks. Replacement copy. The original hardcover was so popular it wore out.

Hot Mahogany by Stuart Woods. I don't know what the heck this novel is about. The book leaf says jack all about the plot except that Stone Barrington travels to New England.

Graphic Novels Spread Across the Collection

Children

Haunting of Julia by M. Hooper. "before Julia can blow out her birthday candles, the flames vanish into smoke! When she watches a replay on her dad's videotape, she sees a mysterious figure standing behind her shoulder. Julia suspects a ghost has blown out the candles and has come to haunt her. At first, Julia's parents don't believe her. But when the mystery figure shows up again, the whole family must face the shocking truth."Young Adult (Teenagers)

Young Adult (Teenager)


Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi: Volume 1 and Volume 2. "The ancient history of the Jedi, the Sith, and even hyperspace, in these earliest known stories of the Star Wars galaxy, taking place five thousand years before Luke Skywalker's successful assault on the Death Star."

Star Wars Omnibus: X-Wing Rogue Squadron: Volume 1. "The greatest starfighters of the Rebel Alliance become the defenders of a New Rpublic in this collection of stories featuring Wedge Antilles, hero of the Battle of Endor, and his team of ace pilots known throughout the galaxy as Rogue Squadron!"

Sandman Mystery Theatre: Dr. Death and the Night of the Butcher. Wesley Dodds has kept his alter ego or Sandman hidden from Dian. HIs secrecy has undermined their relationship and "after so many lies and evasions, the truth may prove to be as destructive as the silence that went before it - just as Wesley realizes how much he truly needs Dian's love to find his way out of the darkness."

Adult

Fallen Son: the death of Captain America. "Wolverine. The Avengers. Hawkeye. Spider-Man. Iron Man. All have their own sense of loss, their own levels of grieving. This is their story. This is Cap's story. This is our story. The story of a Fallen Son and the world he helped make a better place."

Captain America. "The first 25 issues of Brubaker's epic series are now compiled...[including] two giant-sized one shots - Captain America 25th Anniversary Special and Winter Soldier: Winter Kills."

Blankets by Craig Thompson. An "illustrated novel." A first love novel from childhood to adolescence in a family of Christian fundamentalists.
Author grew up in WI and this novel has widespread praise and admiration.

DMZ: on the ground. With the U.S. Army spread overseas anti-establishment milities rebel and start a second Civil War. Fighting stops in the new DMZ of Manhattan. "Matty Roth, a naive aspiring photojournalist, lands a dream gig following a veteran war correspondent into the heart of the DMZ. Things go terribly wrong, and Matty finds himself lost and alone in a world he's only seen on television."

Hot Wire Comics. "Amazing! Incredible! Dangerous!" A compendium of goofy underground-style comics.