Good Reads & Views

A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog by Dean Koontz
636.7527 KOO

When writer Dean Koontz and his wife finally decided to get the dog they’d been talking about for ages, they weren’t expecting Trixie. The class clown of her obedience group, she instantly won the hearts of everyone who met her. And her love and innocence affected everyone around her, bringing out the best in them, inspiring Koontz to add new challenges to his writing, and leading him to accuse her, half seriously, of being an angel in disguise. A charming book about a wonderful dog.

The Mills of God by Deryn Lake
FIC Lake, Deryn

English vicar Nick Lawrence is thrilled with his very first parish, a scenic village with interesting parishioners and a vicarage with a friendly ghost. The bloom wears off a little, however, when a murderer starts picking off some of those parishioners. Along with Inspector Dominic Tennant, Nick begins to delve into the secrets buried beneath the beautiful surface. If you like classic mysteries—Christie, Sayers, Marsh, Allingham—try this one.

The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle Over American History By Jill Lepore
973.3115 LEP

Lepore, Professor of American History at Harvard University, attended monthly meetings of the Boston Tea Party in 2010 to hear speakers and interview officers and members.   In alternating passages in The Whites of Their Eyes she compares what modern Tea Party adherents and conservative commentators such as Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin believe about the Founding Fathers, their intent in the U.S. Constitution, their views about the separation of church and state, and events during the American Revolution with what actually happened according to professional historians.  Lepore frequently cites the contrary views found in writings by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and others.  The problem she sees is that history gets used as a weapon in opposing views of what government should be doing; but the history gets distorted and falsified to conform to the views of political and religious fundamentalists now and to the views of other groups at the time of the Bicentennial.  Lepore suggests that the underlying problem is “historical fundamentalism,” which she writes is “marked by the belief that a particular and quite narrowly defined past—“the founding”—is ageless and sacred and to be worshipped; that certain historical texts—“the founding documents”—are to be read in the same spirit with which religious fundamentalists read, for instance, the Ten Commandments; that the Founding Fathers were divinely inspired; that the academic study of history (whose standards of evidence and methods of analysis are based on skepticism) is a conspiracy and, furthermore, blasphemy; and that political arguments grounded in appeals to the founding documents, as sacred texts, and to the Founding Fathers, as prophets, are therefore incontrovertible.”

Anthill: A Novel by Edward O. Wilson
FIC  Wilson, Edward

This is a fascinating first novel by a noted biologist, environmentalist, and Research Professor in Entomology at Harvard University, coauthor of the Pulitzer Prize winning scientific study The Ants (1990) as well as over twenty other titles such as The Insect Societies (1971), The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies (2009), and The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth (2006).  Wilson’s fictional Raphael Cody in Anthill, like Wilson himself, grew up in Alabama where he roamed forests and wetlands to study ants, butterflies, and snakes and hoped to become a biologist. Unlike Wilson, Raphael was advised by a fictional mentoring Harvard biology professor to go to Harvard Law School after finishing a biology undergraduate degree because that could give him more power to save nature preserves.  A central section called “The Anthill Chronicles” describes the complexities of ant life and battles between different ant colonies; and suggests parallels between ant and human societies.  Raphael develops legal strategies for winning over developers and finds a way to save his nature preserve, but at a cost.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
643.1 BRY

Bill Bryson knows how to make history entertaining. The man asks questions that perhaps no one else would think to ask and look through obscure texts by the score to come up with quirky facts that not only amuse but help illuminate his points. For example, the Crystal Palace at London’s Great Exhibition was the idea of an accomplished head gardener named Joseph Paxton, who based his iron-and-glass design on that of a greenhouse. Window glass had been expensive up to that time and cheaper plate glass had only recently been invented, so the sight of that much glass dazzled visitors and made the building a standout.
In this book, Bryson takes on the evolution of the English and American house, from modest one-room beginnings through huge manor homes to our modern day abodes. What he discovered is that a history of the house is a discussion of all of the great inventions of the ages and how they have affected the way we live.
If you like Bryson’s quirky style, check out the books of Mary Roach.

Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece
YA 741.5 ABE

Think it’s cool to be a vampire? Dave Miller doesn’t think so. After his convenience store boss, Radu, bites him, Dave (a former vegetarian) is stuck working the night shift and drinking blood for all eternity. Then a Goth girl named Rosa comes into his store, and Dave’s afterlife takes on new meaning. But can he tell her the truth? This story might appeal to fans of “Freaks and Geeks” and “Supernatural.” Life Sucks has been included on a number of recommended graphic novel lists, including YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens 2009.

Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry selected by Billy Collins
811.608 POE

During his tenure as Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy Collins selected these short, clear, contemporary poems for a project called Poetry 180, in which poems could be read aloud at high schools—just for the joy of hearing a poem each day. Collins, who was Poet Laureate from 2001-2003, is known for the humorous tone of many of his poems; that spirit is evident in his Introduction to this collection. The poems range from funny (yet thoughtful), as in Collins’ own poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to joyful (“Birth Day” by Elise Paschen)—to painful (“Before She Died” by Karen Chase). While high school students were the intended audience of the poems, adults—even those who do not claim to love poetry—can find much to enjoy in this collection, which lends itself to opening to a random page and reading a poem… or two.

Frontier Illinois by James E. Davis
977.303 DAV

Focusing primarily on the decades from the 1790s to the 1850s when Illinois was settled and frontier conditions gradually disappeared, Davis provides a fascinating and highly readable account based on correspondence, diaries, and other personal papers in over seventy manuscript collections in the Chicago Historical Society, the Illinois State Historical Library, and other repositories; along with contemporary newspapers and periodicals; and hundreds of previous studies in published histories and journal articles.  Going far beyond politics, government, and economics, he shows what life was like for early settlers as they established farms and villages, initially near rivers and forested areas in what became the southernmost counties, before they ventured further into the prairies with the help of steel plows and gradually filled northern counties after the opening of the Erie Canal and the rapid growth of Chicago and railroad networks.  Chapters discuss conflicts over issues such as ethnicity, religion, and slavery between former Southerners, Yankees from the Northeast, and immigrants as the Civil War era approached; and the impact of railroads at a time in the 1850s when Illinois was the state with the second largest number of miles of track.  A final chapter discusses "Changing Ecology, Evolving Society."  Davis is an Emeritus Professor of History and Geography at Illinois College in Jacksonville.

Getting Sassy by D.C. Brod
FIC Brod, D.C.

D.C. Brod's latest mystery is a light-hearted and enjoyable tale focused on a pet goat named Sassy who happens to be a calming influence on a racehorse called Bulls' Blood who is favored to win an upcoming major race.  Robyn, faced with the dilemma that her impecunious mother Lizzie will soon be turned out of an expensive nursing home because Robyn can no longer afford the fees, has an idea.  If someone kidnapped the goat for ransom, would the owner pay to avoid the possibility that the upset horse might lose the race?  And would the kidnapping be justifiable because the horse's owner was responsible for an investment scam that wiped out Lizzie's savings?  Helped by her accountant, former jockey Mick, Robyn decides to try the scheme.  But there are complications ... and more complications.  Will Robyn end up in prison and her mother in  a terrible nursing home?  Brod is a resident of St. Charles with an M.A. in journalism from Northern Illinois University.  Her first novel, Murder in Store (1989), written for a writing class, was followed by four more featuring hard-boiled detective Quint McCauley and by Heartstone, an updating of the Arthurian myth (2005).

Game Day USA: NCAA College Football Produced by Rich Clarkson
796.33263 GAM

This book provides readers with a photographic look at college football in the early 1990’s.  The photographers were asked to take random pictures of players, coaches, and fans that came out to support their favorite team.  As a result, readers are able to look at many different aspects of the game of football, and also are able to see what happens on the sidelines during a game.  The book features teams from across the United States, teams from different types of universities, and some of the great rivalries that existed between the different teams.  It is interesting to see if the rivalries still exist today.