Good Reads & Views

Courageous
DVD COU

When a tragedy strikes close to home, four police officers struggle with their faith and their roles as husbands and fathers. Together they make a decision that will change all of their lives.

The Very Picture of You by Isabel Wolff
Fiction

Ella, a thirty-something painter in London, realizes that her love of portrait painting stems from the pictures she began drawing, in her youth, of her absent father. As an adult, she has a thriving business as an artist, and the stories of the various people she paints provide additional layers beyond Ella’s own story. However, at this point, Ella’s own life has become more interesting that she ever expected: her long-lost father has reappeared in her life, her mother is discovered to have been telling some enormous lies, her sister is engaged to be married, and Ella herself falls for a man she knows is unavailable. The characters in this novel are warm and believable, and so is the world created by the author. 

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
Nonfiction

This book offers the reader a look at Economics from a different angle.  The author explains Economic Principles using everyday situations.  The first situation he uses is teachers and Sumo Wrestlers. He uses these examples to explain how certain outcomes are not always caused by the situation we think. He also compares real estate agents, what he calls super parents, and how a person’s name relates to their social class and job skills. Overall this is an interesting book that gives the reader a different view of the world of Economics.

Bridesmaids
DVD BRI

Annie's life is a mess, but when she finds out her lifetime best friend is engaged, she must serve as Lillian's maid of honor. Though lovelorn and broke, Annie bluffs her way through the expensive and bizarre rituals. With one chance to get it perfect, she'll show Lillian and her bridesmaids just how far you'll go for someone you love.

Dante's Divine Comedy by Seymour Chwast
Nonfiction

Many artists have portrayed Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) Divina Commedia, making it one of the most illustrated books. Chwast's first graphic novel sets this 14^th century classic as an irreverent film noir. Dante – the detective – wears a trenchcoat, fedora, and sunglasses, and smokes a pipe. He is led through the Inferno and Purgatory by the ancient Roman poet Virgil who is replete with mustache, bowler hat, spats, and a walking stick. Dante’s deceased love Beatrice, wearing fine clothing and lipstick, takes over in Paradise. They encounter evil demons, serpents, and various sinners, along with angels that look like they were choreographed for a Ziegfield Follies production or Esther Williams film. Through his deceptively minimalist drawings (with witty allusions to medieval art), Chwast gives us a succinct but layered telling of Dante’s story.

Princess on the Brink by Meg Cabot
YA Fiction

Princess Mia is just beginning her junior year of high school.  Things seem to be finally going the way Mia planned.  She is happy with her boyfriend, she doesn’t have to be student body president anymore, and she is finally finished with the dreaded Geometry.  She soon finds out that everything in her life is about to be turned upside down once again.  Michael, her boyfriend, tells her he is moving to Japan for at least a year.  Lilly, her best friend, informs her that she is going to nominate Mia to be president again, and Mia decides that there is only one way to keep Michael from moving to Japan.  Find out if Michael really leaves for Japan and if Mia will serve a second term as student body president.

The Bone House by Brian Freeman
Fiction

Mark Bradley and his wife Hilary have moved to Wisconsin’s Door County to escape their frenzied life in Chicago. Both secure teaching positions but when Mark is accused of having an affair with a teenage student, his teaching career is ruined.  While the couple is vacationing in Florida the student’s wild younger sister is found strangled on the beach and Mark becomes the obvious suspect.The Florida detective investigating the murder travels to Wisconsin to unravel the case and discovers an explosive web of innuendoes, suspicions and island residents trying to run from their past. An unpredictable ending and a great read for anyone familiar with Door County.

The Book in the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree
070.5094 PET

Pettegree, a historian at the University of St. Andrews and director of the Universal Short Title Catalogue, a database including the surviving 345,170 books and pamphlets printed in Europe from about 1450 to 1600, provides a fascinating analysis of early printing based on the USTC, estate inventories of remaining stock at the time of a printer or bookseller’s death or bankruptcy, and other sources.  Printed books did not initially attract a broad market: clerics and nobles in early decades still preferred manuscript books with colorful illuminated pictures and decorative elements, and these were generally produced by businesses with stables of copyists which knew in advance that each copy was already sold.  Printers never had enough moveable metal type to print an entire book, so they had to set type for one section, redistribute type, and print following sections; so they had to decide in advance to print 500 or 1,000 or more copies without knowing how many would actually sell.  Gutenberg was one of many who finally finished printing his famous Bible only to have banker Johann Fust demand immediate loan repayment and take over his presses, metal types, and shop.  Gradually printers and publishers built capital reserves and a growing market for vernacular languages as well scholarly Latin publications for the revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman authors, conflicts between Protestants and Catholics during the Reformation, government proclamations, schools, science and exploration, medicine and healing, and fiction.

English Creek by Ivan Doig
Fiction

Fourteen-year-old Jick McCaskill narrates this story, and he is a delightful character. Growing up in Montana during the Great Depression as the son of a forest ranger, Jick’s life is filled with chores, horseback riding, and questions about life itself. As his brother leaves home to work on a ranch, Jick is left alone with his parents, whom he begins to see as real people—with real histories—for the first time in his life. And he has a lot of questions. In addition to its wonderful storyline, this book is notable because of the distinctive voices of the characters; Doig has captured the sound of the Montanans of his own youth.

Hedy’s Folly by Richard Rhodes
Nonfiction

At 20, Austrian Hedy Lamarr married an arms dealer, and soon regretted it. Fleeing both him and the Nazis, she became a star in Hollywood. And in her down time, she used the information gleaned from her husband’s dinner guests to invent, with composer George Antheil, a jam-proof guidance system for torpedoes. After the war, the technology became available for civilian use, and now is in every wireless phone, GPS system, and all the other communication devices we depend upon. A very unusual celebrity biography, about an actress for whom stardom was only a part of her life.