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Books - Spring 2009 A 21st Century Science Book Club Art of the Northern Renaissance Battle of Britain: How Hitler Lost WWII Beginning Bridge, Continued Cinema: The Early Years Contemporary American Short Stories: Fuel for Reflection From Bright Idea to a Novel: One Writer’s Approach The High Cost of American Poverty How Japan Bombed at Pearl Harbor A 21st Century Science Book ClubRequired reading: A Brief History Of The Mind, William H. Calvin. Calvin ponders how humans' higher-level mental abilities may have evolved, explicitly avoiding the thickets of what constitutes consciousness. Instead he investigates the increments of intellect that can be inferred from the fragments of discovered fossils and artifacts. Recommended reading: The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, Leonard Mlodinow. This smart book will make you think. Academic yet easy to read, it explores how random events shape the world and how human intuition fights that fact. I found this point fascinating. It never occurred to me that our brains naturally want to see patterns and order, and life doesn't necessarily work like that. Recommended reading: Human Origins: What Bones And Genomes Tell Us About Ourselves, Rob Desalle & Ian Tattersal. Ever since the recognition of the Neanderthals as an archaic form of human in the mid-nineteenth century, the fossilized bones of extinct humans have been used by paleoanthropologists to explore human origins. These bones told the story of how the earliest humans - bipedal apes, actually - first emerged in Africa some 6 to 7 million years ago Recommended reading: Mirroring People: The New Science Of How We Connect With Others, Marco Iacoboni. How do we know what others are thinking and feeling? Why do we weep at movies? UCLA neuroscientist Iacoboni introduces readers to the world of mirror neurons and what they imply about human empathy, which, the author says, underlies morality. Mirror neurons allow us to interpret facial expressions of pain or joy and respond appropriately. Recommended reading: The Coming Convergence: The Surprising Ways Diverse Technologies Interact To Shape Our World And Change The Future, Stanley Schmidt. Stanley Schmidt brings a broad intelligence and crisp writing style to this lucid and necessary book. His demonstration and analysis of how diverse technological and social forces come together in unexpected ways helps explain how we got to this perilous stage in human history, and what dangers and wonders we might expect just beyond the near horizon. Art of the Northern RenaissanceRecommended reading: The Northern Renaissance, Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. Engaging accessible, yet detailed thematic presentation of the culture of the Northern Renaissance. Recommended reading: The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806, Israel, Jonathan. A comprehensive history of the northern Netherlands over the 300-year period of its greatest world importance. Recommended reading: Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art in Its Historical Context, Harbison, Craig. A relatively brief and accessible contextual survey of Northern Renaissance art. Battle of Britain: How Hitler Lost WWIIRecommended reading: The Battle of Britain The Greatest Air battle of World War II, Richard Hough and Denis Richards. A definitive account of the three-month air battle in 1940 between the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe. "This is a first-rate work of scholarship written for the general reader," concluded PW. Photos. Recommended reading: The Narrow Margin The Battle of Britain and the Rise of Air Power, Derek Wood and Derek Dempster. Beginning Bridge, ContinuedRequired reading: Bidding in the 21st Century: The Club Series, Audrey Grant. Audrey Grant is absolutely one of the finest writers of Bridge instruction. The book is for beginners but I can assure you that players of many years can and will benefit from the concepts put forth in her new book. Cinema: The Early YearsRecommended reading: Cinema, Year by Year, Karney, Robyn. Recommended reading: Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide, Maltin, Leonard. From Leonard Maltin, author of the bestselling annual Movie Guide, comes this guide to classic movies. Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide includes more than 7,000 capsule reviews of classic movies, including: The Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone With the Wind (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), High Noon (1952), and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967). Recommended reading: Book of Film, Ebert, Roger. This is the best film book of the mid-'90s and probably the best anthology of writing about the movies ever published. Choosing from the work of novelists and essayists as well as directors, actors, screenwriters and technicians, Ebert places the best that has ever been said or thought about the movies on parade. Here Graham Greene, Delmore Schwartz, and Susan Sontag sit down with Akira Kurosawa, Janet Leigh, and Budd Schulberg; Robert Stone, Julia Phillips, and Kenneth Anger shake hands with Louise Brooks, Gore Vidal, and John Updike. Beautifully organized with lively commentary by the editor, Roger Ebert's Book of Film is entertaining enough to inspire the casual peruser to do further reading and serious enough to be a staple of any good film library. Contemporary American Short Stories: Fuel for ReflectionRequired reading: Best American Short Stories, 2006, Edited by Ann Patchett. After 16 years as the series editor, Katrina Kenison takes her gracious and polished leave of this always interesting, often electrifying anthology. Ann Patchett's introduction provides a graceful entry into the main event--the stories. This year, although all stories were published in American magazines and journals, they are set all over North America, with a sprinkling in Europe and Asia as well. There are some extraordinary voices in this collection. Aleksander Hemon's "The Conductor," set in Bosnia and America, and Thomas McGuane's bittersweet "Cowboy" join a masterful narrative of immigration to Canada by Alice Munro, "The View from Castle Rock." In addition to the stories, the editors provide contributor notes; the author, title, and bibliographic information for 100 additional distinguished stories; and a listing of the editorial addresses of magazines publishing short stories. From Bright Idea to a Novel: One Writer’s ApproachRequired reading: Stuart Little, E. B. White. How terribly surprised the Little family must have been when their second child turned out to be a small mouse. Apparently familiar with the axiom that "when in New York City, anything can happen," the Littles accept young Stuart into their family unquestioningly--with the exception of Snowbell the cat who is unable to overcome his instinctive dislike for the little mouse. They build him a bed from a matchbox, and supply him with all of the accoutrements a young mouse could need. Mrs. Little even fashions him a suit, because baby clothes would obviously be unsuitable for such a sophisticated mouse. In return, Stuart helps his tall family with errant Ping-Pong balls that roll outside of their reach. Required reading: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee. Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up. Recommended reading: The Elements of Style, Strunk and White. A masterpiece in the art of clear and concise writing, and an exemplar of the principles it explains. Recommended reading: The Art of Fiction, John Gardner. John Gardner was famous for his generosity to young writers, and (this book) is his . . . gift to them. The Art of Fiction will fascinate anyone interested in how fiction gets put together. For the young writer, it will become a necessary handbook, a stern judge, an encouraging friend. Recommended reading: The Writer’s Journey, Christopher Vogler. See why this book has become an international best seller and a true classic. The Writer's Journey explores the powerful relationship between mythology and storytelling in a clear, concise style that's made it required reading for movie executives, screenwriters, playwrights, scholars, and fans of pop culture all over the world. The updated and revised third edition provides new insights and observations from Vogler's ongoing work on mythology's influence on stories, movies, and man himself. The High Cost of American PovertyRequired reading: The Working Poor: Invisible in America, David K. Shipler. The Working Poor examines the "forgotten America" where "millions live in the shadow of prosperity, in the twilight between poverty and well-being." These are citizens for whom the American Dream is out of reach despite their willingness to work hard. Struggling to simply survive, they live so close to the edge of poverty that a minor obstacle, such as a car breakdown or a temporary illness, can lead to a downward financial spiral that can prove impossible to reverse. David Shipler interviewed many such working people for this book and his profiles offer an intimate look at what it is like to be trapped in a cycle of dead-end jobs without benefits or opportunities for advancement. Required reading: All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy, Jared Bernstein. This vitally important and readable book couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Jared Bernstein examines the ever-increasing gap between our so-called ‘booming’ economy and the waning economic security of the very people creating that growth. With common sense and common decency, Bernstein shows where we’ve gone off course and how to find our way back. Recommended reading: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich. Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialized in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity, and verve. With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet. How Japan Bombed at Pearl HarborRequired reading: Pearl Harbor Betrayed, Michael Gannon. Gannon, author of two excellent books on the Battle of the Atlantic, jumps onto the 50th-anniversary bandwagon with this effort to demonstrate that base Admiral Husband A. Kimmel was made a scapegoat for his military and political superiors. The thrust of Gannon's argument is that President Roosevelt, and the entire defense establishment, were so focused on the prospects of war with Germany that the deterioration of U.S. relations with Japan went relatively unnoticed. Gannon describes Japan's decision to go to war as not forced by U.S. behavior but made in a rational calculation of Japan's vital interests. He wraps his package by presenting what he considers U.S. intelligence's failure to convey appropriate warning to Pearl Harbor in the final weeks and days before Japan's blow struck. The arguments, however, develop a reverse effect. Recommended reading: At Dawn We Slept, Gordon W. Prange. Diligent, thorough, and evenhanded...At Dawn We Slept is the definitive account of Pearl Harbor. Recommended reading: Combined Fleet Decoded, John Prados. Written in the style of a thriller but solidly based on an array of sources, this study reinterprets the entire sea campaign in the Pacific, using intelligence as the missing key to the Allied success. It examines every aspect of the secret war of intelligence--from radio dispatches and espionage to vital information from prisoners and document translation--showing how U.S. intelligence outsmarted Japan nearly every step of the way. The resulting assessment is a virtual rewriting of history that challenges previous conceptions about the Pacific conflict. Recommended reading: No Ordinary Time, Doris Kearns Goodwin. A compelling chronicle of a nation and its leaders during the period when modern America was created. With an uncanny feel for detail and a novelist's grasp of drama and depth, Doris Kearns Goodwin brilliantly narrates the interrelationship between the inner workings of the Roosevelt White House and the destiny of the United States. Goodwin paints a comprehensive, intimate portrait that fills in a historical gap in the story of our nation under the Roosevelts. Recommended reading: The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America 1932-1972, William Manchester. William Manchester bookends this sprawling, epic US history with two protests in the heart of Washington. He opens in 1930 at the rise of the Great Depression, with veterans across from the White House coldly shunned by President Herbert Hoover when asking for advance relief from the Great Depression, then brutally attacked by troops and national guardsmen led by Douglas MacArthur. He concludes with President Richard Nixon's second inaugural in 1973 at Watergate's rising, Vietnam demonstrators audible blocks away amidst calls for national unity and self-reliance. Recommended reading: Kimmel, Short, and Pearl Harbor, Fred Borch and Daniel Martinez. This book is a must read book if you wanting to learn more about Pearl Harbor. If you know nothing and want a place to start this is the book! I went to Pearl Harbor in 2002 and have read more that 30 books on Pearl Harbor. I wish had started with this book it tells you what you should look for. I believe this book should be read. The reader will have to decide if Kimmel and Short were treated fairly. Islam from Muhammad to OsamaRequired reading: Islam: The Straight Path, John Esposito. This updated version of Islam: The Straight Path includes a new Epilogue by John Esposito in which he addresses the impact 9/11 and its aftermath have had on both the Muslim and non-Muslim world, discussing Islam's relationship to democracy and modernity and focusing more sharply on the origins and growth of extremism and terrorism in the name of Islam. Recommended reading: Islam, Karen Armstrong. The picture of Islam as a violent, backward, and insular tradition should be laid to rest, says Karen Armstrong, bestselling author of Muhammad and A History of God. Delving deep into Islamic history, Armstrong sketches the arc of a story that begins with the stirring of revelation in an Arab businessman named Muhammad. His concern with the poor who were being left behind in the blush of his society's new prosperity sets the tone for the tale of a culture that values community as a manifestation of God. Recommended reading: Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, Karen Armstrong. In a meticulous quest for the historical Muhammad, Armstrong first traces the West's long history of hostility toward Islam, which it has stigmatized as a "religion of the sword." This sympathetic, engrossing biography portrays Muhammad (ca. 570-632) as a passionate, complex, fallible human being--a charismatic leader possessed of political as well as spiritual gifts, and a prophet whose monotheistic vision intuitively answered the deepest longings of his people. Recommended reading: Introduction to the Study of the Holy Qur’an, Maulana Muhammad ‘Ali. Recommended reading: Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims really think, John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed. In a post-9/11 world, many Americans conflate the mainstream Muslim majority with the beliefs and actions of an extremist minority. But what do the world’s Muslims think about the West, or about democracy, or about extremism itself? Who Speaks for Islam? spotlights this silenced majority. Machiavelli on StatesmanshipRequired reading: Machiavelli in Hell, De Grazia, Sebastian. De Grazia's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of the author of The Prince and a study of the roles of work and leisure in Western culture. Recommended reading: The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli. This edition includes background information, a chronology of the Recommended reading: The Comedies of Machiavelli: The Women from Andros; the Mandrake; "The Mandrake", the earliest and perhaps greatest Italian theatrical Macroeconomics Made Easy
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