Staff Recommendations
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Starman : the truth behind the legend of Yuri Gagarin
by Doran, Jamie
Reviewed by: Bob Timmermann, Senior Librarian, History & Genealogy DepartmentSeptember 27, 2011
Call Number: 629.177092 G132Do 2011
The early days of space exploration are fascinating. The book and the film version of The Right Stuff provide very personal insights into the lives and the activities of the U. S. Space program which, with rare exception, was very open. By contrast, the early days of the Soviet space program have always remained mysterious and opaque. Their great early strides were shrouded by state secrecy mixed in with propaganda. New research on the past history of the program presents some unique views into what was once... Read Full Review
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Finding Chandra : a true Washington murder mystery
by Higham, Scott
Reviewed by: Eileen Ybarra, Librarian III, Electronic ResourcesSeptember 26, 2011
Call Number: 364.9753 H638
What makes this book especially compelling is that the authors provide complex portrayals of the many people involved in the case - not only the victim Chandra Levy, but also her family, the various lawyers, FBI and D.C. Police investigators assigned to her case, and former congressman Gary Condit, who was the main focus of the initial investigation. This book also reveals the numerous mistakes made during the original murder investigation.
The authors, who are also reporters for the Washington Post, describe personalities, psychological motivations, and a chain of a events... Read Full Review
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The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
by Skloot, Rebecca, 1972-
Reviewed by: Vi Thục Hà, Senior Librarian, International Languages DepartmentSeptember 19, 2011
Call Number: 610.71 S628
So much medical research today depends upon laboratory-grown human cells which allow researchers to perform repeatable controlled experiments that mimic the human body. During the first half of the 20th century, medical researchers raced to discover and successfully culture these "immortal cells" - cells that duplicate themselves perfectly, continually, and efficiently.
The first successful immortal cells, HeLa cells, were taken in 1951 from Henrietta Lacks, a poor African American woman with cervical cancer. These miraculously duplicating HeLa cells, were instrumental in... Read Full Review
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Interviews with history and conversations with power
by Fallaci, Oriana
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionSeptember 12, 2011
Call Number: 920 F194-2
The temptation must have been great indeed to refuse an interview with Oriana Fallaci, journalist, war correspondent and novelist. There were those who claimed they never gave interviews, but consented to her request, all with prior knowledge of her work. Henry Kissinger called his interview, "the most disastrous conversation I ever had with the press." And this from the former Secretary of State who had negotiated with his political counterparts from the world's toughest neighborhoods. Maybe the challenge itself, to prevail over this particular journalist, was enough for... Read Full Review
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The love of my youth : a novel
by Gordon, Mary
Reviewed by: Jane Dobija, Senior Librarian, Memorial Branch LibrarySeptember 6, 2011
Call Number: F
Mary Gordon has been trailing the women of her generation with novels since 1978, when Final Payments appeared with a protagonist who felt miserable in her sex's traditional role of selfless caretaker. Thirty years later, Gordon's women are still negotiating an equitable place in society, but the character she uses to illustrate this dilemma in her latest novel, The Love of My Youth, has ridden out her own version of the storms of Final Payments, and she's come out of it all, if not unscathed, then... Read Full Review
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Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey
by Tran, G. B.
Reviewed by: Mary McCoy, Senior Librarian, Leadership Development OfficeSeptember 5, 2011
Call Number: 301.4509597 T772
"You should ask them about it sometime. There's a lot about your parents you don't know. And they won't be alive forever to answer your questions."
On April 25, 1975, GB Tran's family fled Vietnam, just days before Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army. A year later, he was born in South Carolina, and grew up a junk food-eating, video game-playing American kid with little interest in his family's history. However, when his last two surviving grandparents die within a few months of each other, Tran goes to Vietnam with his parents, and meets... Read Full Review
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My thoughts be bloody : the bitter rivalry between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth that led to an American Tragedy
by Titone, Nora.
Reviewed by: John Frank, Senior Librarian, Will & Ariel Durant Branch LibrarySeptember 2, 2011
Call Number: 812.092 B725Ti
The uniquely American melodramatic saga of the theatrical Booth family has been told before, but historian Nora Titone focuses on the rivalry between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth as the catalyst for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Raised on an isolated farm in the wilds of Maryland, John Wilkes grew up with a steady diet of the blood and thunder melodramas of the time, while his older brother Edwin saw more of the world, toiling as dresser and keeper to his father, the celebrated, troubled actor Junius Brutus Booth. Both of Booth's sons would follow in his footsteps. Edwin,... Read Full Review
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You know when the men are gone
by Fallon, Siobhan.
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionAugust 29, 2011
Century upon century, during wars, women have waited for the men to return home, and the men, between battles, have yearned to come home to their wives and families. You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon is about the military men and women, their spouses and families who are involved in our present wars. She opens this book with a quote from one of the older war epics, The Odyssey, as Penelope sees Odysseus, ". . .yes, clearly--like her husband but sometimes blood and rags were all she saw." Fallon has first-hand knowledge of what it is to wait... Read Full Review
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Must you go? : my life with Harold Pinter
by Fraser, Antonia
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionAugust 22, 2011
Call Number: 822 P659Fr
Sometimes true love does not take hold at a convenient time, does not make sense to outsiders or create good sense in those whom it grabs and spins around in a whirl of emotion, and so it was with Lady Antonia Fraser, historian and novelist, and Harold Pinter, playwright, director and actor. When they met briefly at a dinner party, January 8, 1975, Fraser said, ". . .now I'm off." Pinter asked, "Must you go?" The answer was no and thus the title and remembrance, in diary format, of their love story which disrupted two marriages and families, but endured for thirty-... Read Full Review
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Skippy dies
by Murray, Paul
Reviewed by: Mary McCoy, Senior Librarian, Leadership Development OfficeAugust 15, 2011
Call Number: F
In Skippy Dies, Murray visits the humiliation, pain, and disillusionment of adolescence so vividly, don't be surprised if you experience a traumatic junior high flashback while reading it. The book wastes no time delivering on its title - in the opening lines, 14-year-old Daniel "Skippy" Juster, a student at a Catholic prep school in Dublin, keels over in the midst of a doughnut-eating contest, scrawls "Tell Lori" on the floor in jelly filling, and dies.
What happens next is no ordinary boarding school coming of age story, but a hilarious and... Read Full Review
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The false friend : a novel
by Goldberg, Myla.
Reviewed by: Mary McCoy, Senior Librarian, Leadership Development OfficeAugust 8, 2011
Call Number: F
Eleven-year-olds Celia Durst and Djuna Pearson are best friends, queen bees, and mean girls, as likely to turn on each other as the wannabes and hangers-on who vie for their favor. Until one day after school, when Djuna gets into a stranger's brown sedan and disappears forever.
Twenty years later, Celia is suddenly overcome by a long-repressed memory that packs a wallop. There was no brown sedan, there was no stranger. Celia remembers that the story she told their friends, parents, and the police wasn't the truth, that something very different happened to Djuna that day in... Read Full Review
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The girl who fell from the sky : a novel
by Durrow, Heidi W.
Reviewed by: Mary McCoy, Senior Librarian, Leadership Development OfficeAugust 1, 2011
Call Number: F
Born to a Danish mother and an African American G.I. father, and raised in Europe, Rachel has never thought of herself as black or white. But when a family tragedy sends her to Portland to live with her grandmother in a predominantly African American community, 11-year-old Rachel suddenly finds herself defined by her race. Though her grandmother is loving and provides Rachel with more stability than she's ever had in her life, she doesn't understand why her black grandchild would sing the Danish words to Christmas carols under her breath at church or crave pastries made with... Read Full Review