The genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator 
Efraín Rios Montt, the Army general who ruled Guatemala from 1982 to 1983, ended May 10 with a landmark conviction of genocide and crimes against humanity for the 1982 massacre of 1700 Ixil Mayan Indians who were considered sympathetic to left-wing guerrillas. The two-month trial echoed another dark episode from US-Latin American affairs - the 1954 CIA coup that deposed Guatemala's reformist President and later provoked the thirty-six-year Guatemalan Civil War. The new catalog list of Latin America Historical Fiction doesn’t have a fictional account of the Guatemalan civil war, but there is a remarkable collection of short stories, River of Lost Voices, that chronicles life in the impoverished Guatemalan towns of Santa Cruz and nearby Coban, both close to where the massacres took place. Another book on the list, Lost City Radio, is set in a fictional South American nation (Peru) where guerrillas have clashed with the government for years. The list of books begins with the 1500s and ends with a book set in Bogota, Bolivia in 2005. They are not all tales of violence. Try Gabriela Clove and Cinnamon to experience love in 1920s Brazil, or The News from Paraguay to learn about a country you may never have thought about. Mario Vargas Llosa has four books on the list, and two are my favorites. The Green House is an epic of life in Peru in the 1950s and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is an unforgettable semi-autobiographical novel.
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Best Non-Fiction 2010
By Bill Bryson.
Bryson takes readers on a tour of his house, a rural English parsonage, showing how each room has figured in the evolution of private life.
By Michael Lewis.
The author examines the causes of the U.S. stock market crash of 2008 and its relation to overpriced real estate, bad mortgages, shareholder demand for excessive profits, and the growth of toxic derivatives.
By James M. Tabor.
Stone -- Klimchouk -- Game over.
By David Remnick.
Through extensive on-the-record interviews with friends and teachers, mentors and disparagers, family members and Obama himself, David Remnick demonstrates how a rootless, unaccomplished, and confused young man created himself first as a community organizer in Chicago, then as a Harvard Law School graduate, and finally as President of the United States. "By looking at Obama's political rise through the prism of our racial history, Remnick gives us the conflicting agendas of black politicians: the dilemmas of ... heroes of the civil rights movement who are forced to reassess old loyalties and understand the priorties of a new generation of African-American leaders. The Bridge revisits the American drama of race, from slavery to civil rights, and makes clear how Obama's quest is not just his own but is emblematic of a nation where destiny is defined by individuals keen to imagine a future that is different from the reality of their current lives."--From publisher description.
By Lynne Olson.
The behind-the-scenes story of how the United States forged its wartime alliance with Britain, told from the perspective of three key American players in London: Edward R. Murrow, Averell Harriman, and John Gilbert Winant.
By James Shapiro.
Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.
By Sam Kean.
The periodic table of the elements is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of passion, adventure, obsession, and betrayal. These tales follow carbon, neon, silicon, gold, and all the elements in the table as they play out their parts in human history. The usual suspects are here, like Marie Curie (and her radioactive journey to the discovery of polonium and radium) and William Shockley (who is credited, not exactly justly, with the discovery of the silicon transistor)--but the more obscure characters provide some of the best stories, like Paul Emile François Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose discovery of gallium, a metal with a low melting point, gives this book its title: a spoon made of gallium will melt in a cup of tea.--From publisher description.
By John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.
From two of the best political reporters in the country comes the gripping inside story of the historic 2008 presidential election. In this volume, the authors use their unrivaled access to pull back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns.
By Don Lattin.
Lattin examines the lives and times of four men--Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass), Andrew Weil, and Huston Smith--whose paths crossed in the 1960s at Harvard, and who consequently launched the mind, body, spirit movement.
By Sarah Bakewell.
How does one live? How does one do the good or honorable thing, while flourishing and feeling happy? This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Montaigne, perhaps the first truly modern individual. A nobleman, public official and wine-grower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them "essays," meaning "attempts" or "tries." Into them, he put whatever was in his head: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog's ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the appalling events of the religious civil wars raging around him. The Essays was an instant bestseller and, over four hundred years later, Montaigne's honesty and charm still draw readers. This spirited biography relates the story of his life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored.--From publisher description.
By Alice Waters ; photographs by Hirsheimer & Hamilton.
Features basic cooking techniques and natural food recipes, each demonstrated by chefs and friends of the author, including Lidia Bastianich, Thomas Keller, and Deborah Madison.
By Michelle Alexander.
"As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status - much like their grandparents before them." "In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community - and all of us - to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America."--BOOK JACKET.
By Patti Smith.
In this memoir, singer-songwriter Patti Smith shares tales of New York City : the denizens of Max's Kansas City, the Hotel Chelsea, Scribner's, Brentano's and Strand bookstores and her new life in Brooklyn with a young man named Robert Mapplethorpe--the man who changed her life with his love, friendship, and genius.
By Daniel Okrent.
Okrent explores the origins, implementation, and failure of that great American delusion known as Prohibition. "Last Call" explains how Prohibition happened, what life under it was like, and what it did to the country.
By Lori Gottlieb.
By looking at everything from culture to biology, in "Marry Him" Gottlieb frankly explores the dilemma that so many women today seem to face--how to reconcile the strong desire for a husband and family with a list of must-haves so long and complicated that many great guys get rejected out of the gate.
By Wes Moore.
Two kids with the same name were born blocks apart in the same decaying city within a few years of each other. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, army officer, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.
By Joel Kotkin.
Visionary social thinker Joel Kotkin looks ahead to America in 2050, revealing how the addition of one hundred million Americans by midcentury will transform how we all live, work, and prosper. In stark contrast to the rest of the world's advanced nations, the United States is growing at a record rate and, according to census projections, will be home to four hundred million Americans by 2050. This projected rise in population is the strongest indicator of our long-term economic strength, Kotkin believes, and will make us more diverse and more competitive than any nation on earth. Drawing on prodigious research, firsthand reportage, and historical analysis, this book reveals how this unprecedented growth will take physical shape and change the face of America--focusing not on power brokers, policy disputes, or abstract trends, but rather on the evolution of the more intimate units of American society: families, towns, neighborhoods, industries.--From publisher description.
By Elif Batuman.
Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details of lived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Platonov, with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence--including her own.
By Scott Patterson.
A gripping narrative of brilliance and hubris, "The Quants" follows the rise of 1950s-era math geniuses let loose on Wall Street--who then set in motion ever widening market catastrophes.
By Justin Halpern.
Tuesdays with Morrie meets F My Life in this hilarious coming-of-age book about a son's relationship with his foul-mouthed father by the 29-year-old comedy writer who created the massively popular Twitter feed of the same name.
By Ted Morgan.
"Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ted Morgan has now written a definitive account of the fateful battle that ended French rule in Indochina - and led inexorably to America's Vietnam War. Dien Bien Phu was a remote valley on the border of Laos along a simple rural trade route. But it would also be where a great European power fell to an underestimated insurgent army and lost control of a crucial colony. Valley of Death is the untold story of the 1954 battle that, in six weeks, changed the course of history." "Here is the history of the Vietminh liberation movement's rebellion against French occupation after World War II and its growth as an adversary, eventually backed by Communist China. Here too is the ill-fated French plan to build a base in Dien Bien Phu and draw the Vietminh into a debilitating defeat - which instead led to the Europeans being encircled in the surrounding hills, besieged by heavy artillery, overrun, and defeated." "Morgan reveals the inner workings of the American effort to aid France, with Eisenhower secretly disdainful of the French effort and prophetically worried that "no military victory was possible in that type of theater." Morgan paints indelible portraits of all the major players, from Henri Navarre, head of the French Union forces, a rigid professional unprepared for an enemy fortified by rice carried on bicycles, to his commander, General Christian de Castries, a privileged, miscast cavalry officer, and General Vo Nguyen Giap, a master of guerrilla warfare working out of a one-room hut on the side of a hill. Most devastatingly, Morgan sets the stage for the Vietnam quagmire that was to come."--BOOK JACKET.
By Sebastian Junger.
Junger, author of "The Perfect Storm," turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat in this on-the-ground account that follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.
By Isabel Wilkerson.
In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America.
By Karen Valby.
The author profiles the small town of Utopia, Texas, which has a population of less than three hundred people, following the struggles and lifestyles of four of its residents and examining themes of class, culture, and the influence of media.
By Geneen Roth.
The bestselling author of "When Food Is Love" helps overeaters find the underlying reasons for using food as an emotional buffer. Roth also provides seven basic guidelines for eating and other therapeutic self-help tools.
By Philip Hoare.
A lively travelogue through the history, literature, and lore of the king of the sea. Since his childhood fascination with the gigantic Natural History Museum model of a blue whale, author Philip Hoare has been obsessed with whales. Journeying through human and natural history, this book is the result of his voyage of discovery into the heart of this obsession. Taking us deep into their domain, Hoare shows us these mysterious creatures as they have never been seen before--Hoare's sparkling account of swimming with these incredible behemoths will delight wildlife aficionados. And following in Ishmael's footsteps, he explores the troubled history of man and whale; visits the historic whaling locales of New Bedford, Nantucket, and the Azores; and traces the whale's cultural history from Jonah to Free Willy.--From publisher description.
By Jaron Lanier.
Silicon Valley visionary Jaron Lanier was among the first to predict the revolutionary changes the World Wide Web would bring to commerce and culture. Now, in his first book, Lanier offers this cautionary look at the way the Web is transforming our lives, for better and for worse. The current design and function of the web have become so familiar that it is easy to forget that they grew out of programming decisions made decades ago. The web's first designers made crucial choices with enormous-and often unintended-consequences. What's more, these designs quickly became "locked in," a permanent part of the web's very structure. Lanier warns that our financial markets and sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter are elevating the "wisdom" of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and judgment of individuals. This book is a deeply felt defense of the individual, from an author uniquely qualified to comment on the way technology interacts with our culture.--From publisher description.
APL Recommends Blog
Thursday, May 23
by: carolyn.rogers
Monday, May 20
by: dean.smith
I was reading movie critic David Thomson’s latest, The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies (2012), and enjoying it so much that I checked out a bunch more of his books including The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood, but after a few pages of that one, I decided I'd had enough of Thomson's style for now. Maybe another time.
But I did get past the dedication page, and near it are some quotations from people involved in making movies, one of them Gore Vidal, who said “Find out the movies a man saw between ten and fifteen, which ones he liked, disliked, and you would have a pretty good idea of what sort of mind and temperament he has.” I’m sure Vidal meant women, too, so I checked Wikipedia (sorry library gods) for lists of movies made from 1966 through 1971, the years I turned 10 and 15.
My first revelation was that I don’t remember seeing many first-run movies before 1968. I must have, but the earliest, and one of the few that sticks, is Goldfinger, 1964, and I remember it not for gold lamé nudity, but for my sister and me in our jammies in the back of the car trying to sneak a peek at the drive-in screen through the bucket seats of my dad’s Grand Prix. I better remember watching old movies on our tiny Zenith portable TV with a wire hangar antenna, pliers for changing the channel, and a green-tinted screen, and I remember the jingle from KNXT in Los Angeles:
The Late Show / Relax enjoy a snack and watch / The Late Show / Channel 2 is proud to bring the greatest of stars / Here on the great Late Show
(I wish I could link to the tune for you, but it’s nowhere. If you come to the library and ask for me, I'll sing it to you, if you have a library card.)
Late-night movies in those days were beat-up prints from the 30s and 40s—the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Basil Rathbone as Sherlock, Fred and Ginger, Errol Flynn buckling swash, Hope and Crosby, Dean and Jerry, and Bogie. Those movies affected my development; I freely admit I am a Marxist. But doing this exercise made me realize that until 1968 I was either too young, too broke, or too dumb to pay attention to new releases. After 1968 is a different story.
NEXT: Lists of movies. And don’t we all love those?
Saturday, May 18
Many of you may know that this year is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. Austen wrote the novel in 1797-98, originally calling it First Impressions. Her father attempted to have it published, but the manuscript was rejected. It was not until her first novel, Sense and Sensibility was published in 1812 that Pride and Prejudice was accepted. By that time, another author had published their novel called First Impressions. Austen found another title for her book from a quote in fellow female author Fanny Burney’s novel, Cecila. Thus Pride and Prejudice was born. The novel was an instant success and has proved to be her most popular novel.
While we know much about her life from records and her own letters, there are aspects of her life of which we know nothing because her sister destroyed letters after the author’s death in 1817 in order to protect family privacy. Scholars and authors can only speculate what the subjects of those letters were and what dimensions they could have added to our understanding of Jane Austen.
By Jane Austen:
Jane Austen's Letters by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice (DVD) Miniseries starring Colin Firth
Based on Jane Austen:
Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange
Lost in Austen (DVD) Miniseries starring Jemima Rooper
Friday, May 17
by: betsey.blanche
The Twitter feed “Fake Library Stats” recently tweeted “After complaining the pituitary glands of 63% of librarians secrete a hormone that is necessary to keep them alive.” Sure, there’s a stereotype that we librarians like to complain but we can also be overwhelmingly positive when it comes to resources we offer. And I’m about to be super positive about the fact that I just read a library book and did not enjoy it at all.
The Library’s Graphic Novel Book Club just finished reading and discussing Yuichi Yokoyama’s Garden. In Garden, a large group of people with strange masks and costumes on explore a strange garden and describe what they see in terse sentences. That goes on for 300 pages in which none of the characters are developed and nothing really happens in a conventional plot kind of way. As a result, I was feeling nervous before the meeting. I couldn’t think of a single productive thing to say about it. Worse, I was reminded of a frustrating, non-library book club meeting I’d attended to discuss Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore in which most participants could only comment on the weirdness of the novel. Was that going to be me?! After finishing the reading all I could think was, “Huh. Well. I just don’t . . . What?! I don’t get it. It’s weird.” Neither articulate nor a good way to start a conversation. I felt like I was missing something. But this is one of the best things to happen to a book club because it this case everyone felt the same way and was more than willing to talk about how much they disliked the reading experience and why. It turns out this makes for a much more fruitful conversations than when everyone unanimously enjoys a book. In those cases all you can do is say, “yeah, it was good. I liked the art and the characters and the story. Yup.”
I’m willing to consider the possibility that I really just didn’t get it. So give it a try for yourself and see! Maybe ask some friends to read it too. It might result in a heated debate if one of you loves it. Or, you might just have a pleasant time complaining about how annoying it was. Either way is pretty fun.
Side note: Graphic Novel Book Club is free and open to the public. We meet on the third Wednesday of every month at Jo's Coffee Downtown and you can find our reading list on the Events page of the Library's website.
Thursday, May 16
by: carolyn.rogers
The 2010 novel Anthill is a fictional account of an Alabama backwoods boy who grows up to be a Harvard lawyer fighting to save the woodlands of his childhood, the West Nokobee Tract at the edge of William Ziebach National Forest. It is a privately owned tract of longleaf pine savanna. It becomes his secret place and he bicycles into it every chance he gets to escape his parent's troubled marriage. The woodlands and the national forest are fictional but the ecology is not. Longleaf pine forests are the most diverse ecosystem in North America, with 500 species per square kilometer. In the novel, the eminent Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson tells a southern coming-of-age story while persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, to protect our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.
E.O Wilson also wrote the forward to Longleaf, Far as the Eye Can See: A New Vision of North America's Richest Forest which offers 11 essays on these forests, including numerous photographs that cultivate appreciation for the beauty of the tree itself; of the unique species it supports; and of the breathtaking landscape it creates.
Longleaf pine savanna is one of the only ecosystems that is both forest and meadow. The book reveals this dynamic system in panoramic images of golden light filtering through trees and illuminating long grasses beneath. And there's no shortage of close-ups. Longleaf was once so common that it was hardly remarked upon, and ecologists are only now beginning to understand the forest that once covered 90 million acres of North America and now covers only 3 million acres, some of it in Texas. The final sections of the book detail potential restoration solutions for the longleaf that remains. Longleaf is not a story of loss, but one of deep reverence for the grandeur and mystery of these regions.
Using your Austin Public Library card you can read both books together.
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