A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   R   S   T   U   V   W   Y   Z 
Next  

Michael Ableman
On Good Land: The Autobiography of an Urban Farm
a favorite of Sharon's, Administration
This second book by Michael Ableman is written from his seventeen years of experience on a California farm, which in his tenure becomes completely surrounded by suburbia. The story progresses necessarily and unfortunately from tales of pruning, mulching, and harvesting to "How to Fight City Hall." Hope is restored as the farm and Ableman adjust to an integrated mission with the neighboring developments. The farm's transition to a public trust and center for education is an inspiration and blueprint for how small farms can fulfill yet another important role in our communities. Ableman's writing style is very accessible and he moves the story quickly. His thoughts on weeding, watering, and teaching read like recipes for the soul. Wonderful photos by Ableman make it a beautiful book as well. 4/1/02
view title in Library Catalog

Boris Akunin
Winter Queen
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
Three million copies of Akunin's Erast Fandorin historical mystery series have been sold in Russia. The author is immensely popular and has become something of a cult hero. The Winter Queen is the first in the series that takes place in 19th century Czarist Russia. Erast is a boyish police detective who has the brilliance of Sherlock Holmes and the bumbling style of Inspector Clousseau. He also is like a cat with nine lives. What causes a young student from a wealthy family to shoot himself in front of the promenading pubic in the Alexander Gardens? Is it simply the boredom of a decadent young man? Erast thinks not and runs into murder, international intrigue, and a beautiful seductress. It is a fun read with an absolutely unexpected ending! 6/1/04
view title in Library Catalog

Madeline Albright
Madam Secretary: A Memoir
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
Madeline Albright arrived in the United States at the age of eleven as a Displaced Person, a refugee from Communism in Czechoslovakia. She grew up to become a firm advocate of civil and women's rights. She married, raised three daughters and became a Research Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University. Under the Clinton administration she served as the U.S. representative to the United Nations. She then became the first female Secretary of State. While serving in that capacity in a male-dominated arena, she was noted for her hardball negotiating strategy. The Russian media dubbed her "Gospozha Stal" or Madam Steel. She gives wonderful portraits of world leaders such as Vaclav Havel, Arafat, Sharon, Netanyahu, and Putin. She writes with humor as when she describes Yeltsin looking like W.C. Fields. You won't be able to put down this wonderful, profoundly insightful book. 3/1/04
view title in Library Catalog

Isabel Alcantara
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
Mexico's most famous female artist, Frida Kahlo, began painting in 1925 while recovering from a devastating accident that left her crippled for life. While lying on her back, she taught herself to paint. Diego's art is very public, but Kahlo's was always extremely personal. Her inner turmoil over her philandering husband and inability to bear children is expressed in her paintings. This little book is a fine introduction to the fascinating and tumultuous life of these two artists. 2/3/03
view title in Library Catalog

Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
a favorite of Ed's, Fiction and Audiovisual Services
This was an enjoyable bittersweet novel in the classic coming of age style. Arnold Spirit had everything going against him from the start, being skinny, bespectacled, and prone to seizures. These are setbacks that would doom any ordinary teen protagonist, but that's just the tip of the iceberg for "Junior" Spirit. Arnold's life is further complicated by his life on an Indian Reservation with his loving but dysfunctional family and friends. As with any great hero, Arnold goes on a journey...to the all white high school in a nearby town, where his life begins on an unexpected path. The story is punctuated with Arnold's cartoons, which add dimension and humor to the story. This book belongs on the shelves with other greats in the Young Adult genre. 1/7/08
view title in Library Catalog

Isabel Allende
Portrait in Sepia
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
This was one of the most wonderful books I've read in a long time. It is a sequel to "Daughter of Fortune," which I read some time ago. Aurora del Valle is the heroine in this tale, crammed with love, desire, tragedy, and dark family secrets. It is played out against the dramatic backdrop of revolutionary Chile. Aurora, a photographer, tries to piece together her life and discover why she remembers nothing of her childhood in San Francisco. She also has a horrible, recurring nightmare, which she can't explain. The language is exquisite even if it is a translation. I did not want this enchanting book to end. 4/1/03
view title in Library Catalog

Kevin Anderson
Climbing Olympus
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
They were convicts and exiles in Siberia. Now they are Dr. Rachel Dycek's Adin. She has surgically transformed them so they can survive on Mars and start to terraform it for a new flood of humans. The Adin are still exiles, unable to return to earth and breath the air there. As they create a new Earth, the Adin will be unable to breathe its air. The Adin leader Boris Tiban, a real Schwarzenegger style Terminator, decides to destroy the Mars Project. In an orgy of mayhem, he and his titanium staff wreak death and destruction. Can Rachel Dycek save her Adin and the Mars Project? Unfortunately, the book-on-tape version is read in a rather stilted, wood style by Larry McKeever but the premise of a terraformed Mars is absolutely fascinating. 11/1/04
view title in Library Catalog

Kevin J. Anderson
Hidden Empire: The Saga of Seven Suns
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
Best-selling author Anderson delivers action, engaging humans, and fascinating aliens from the Spiral Arm Galaxy in the year 2427. The all powerful Terran Hanseatic League in a fit of hubris turns the huge gas planet Oncier into a sun so that its four moons can be inhabited. This calls forth the Hydrogues, denizens of gas planets, whose Oncier millions were vaporized. The alien Ildirans, similar to humans, also feel this vengeance. The human gypsy Roamers are attacked as well, as are the humans and the sentient trees of the telepathic World Forest of Theroc. Evil, intelligent robots, thousands of years old, left over from the long vanished and advanced Klikiss race, roam the inhabited worlds. This is a wonderfully wild romp through the galaxy where the unintentional genocide forces humans and Ildirans to fight for their very survival against the far superior forces of the wrathful Hydrogues. 8/2/04
view title in Library Catalog

Kevin Anderson
A Forest of Stars: The Saga of Seven Suns
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
Anderson's spectacular space opera continues in this second book. "A Forest of Stars," even better than the first volume, is filled with the unstoppable Hydrogues who are bent on destroying all other sentient creatures. This volume, however, introduces two new fantastic, sentient elemental aliens. The Hydrogues represent air and the telepathic World Forest is earth. The new aliens, the Faeros and the Wentals, represent elements of fire and water, respectively. They valiantly fight their ancient enemy, the Hydrogues. Meanwhile, the poor humans and Ildirans, caught up in this war, find themselves embroiled in problems of love and passion. The space opera romps merrily forth. I can't wait for the third volume! 10/1/04
view title in Library Catalog

Anonymous, translated by Phillip Boehm
A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks In the Conquered City: A Diary
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
This astonishing diary relates the horrors of war from a woman's perspective. Towards the ends of the war, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman keeps a daily record of how she and many other women survived mass rape, starvation, and daily misery in a devastated city. Age did not matter, infirmity did not matter, all women who could be found were raped. This young woman decides to give herself to a Russian officer as her protector so that she receives food and safety from mass rape. She makes the observation that women survive defeat better then men. At the end of the war the clean up of the city starts and it is the women who start removing debris by hand in the form of a bucket brigade. Hard labor, but at least the Russians feed them. Through her resilience and sheer force of will, this young woman survives the trauma of war and looks forward to a normal life. 6/1/06
view title in Library Catalog

Aron Appelfeld
To the Land of the Cattails
a favorite of Alan's, Fiction and Audiovisual Services
Not for fans of happy endings, Isreali Aron (aka Aharon) Appelfeld takes us to 1939 Austria. A Jewish woman and her half-gentile son voyage across Europe to visit the wistful place of her childhood, the land of the cattails. Along the way, Appelfeld poetically evokes tension by depicting a world suddenly rife with senseless cruelty, made even more poignant as we witness her son's slow descent into loutishness. 10/29/07
view title in Library Catalog

Lance Armstrong
It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
Brash, aggressive Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which had also metastasized to his lungs and brain. He didn’t know that doctors gave him only a three percent chance of recovery. He started to read everything about his cancer and possible cures. He talked to doctors. He chose the ones who would save his lungs so that he could race on his bike again. It is a long and gruesome struggle, but he wins and goes on to win the Tour de France. After this battle, he is a different person. He marries and is able to be the father of a son. It is an inspirational read, and you will learn an immense amount about the world of bicycle racing. After reading this book, I can’t wait for the next Tour de France. I will certainly look at it with a different eye. 4/1/02

Isaac Asimov
Positronic Man
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
Andrew is a positronic household robot owned by the Martin family. The book follows Andrew for 200 futuristic years while he is with generations of the Martin family. The Martin's daughter, whom Andrew calls Little Miss, realizes early on that this robot is very special and unique. He has creative abilities, has a talent for problem solving, and strangely enough has feelings. Andrew soon embarks on a quest for robotic updates, which make him not only look more human but gives him mortal inner organs. This story reflects Asimov's life-long philosophical musings of the line between robot and human. 10/1/01

Margaret Atwood
Cat's Eye
a favorite of Irene's, Information Services
Middle aged painter, Elaine Risley, has traveled to Toronto, the city of her childhood, for a retrospective exhibit at an alternative gallery. She is overwhelmed by memories. As a young child, she traveled across Canada with her entomologist father, unusual mother and older brother Steven. When the family moves into their very first house and Elaine starts attending school, she runs into the calculated viciousness of girls. Her chief tormentor, supposedly her "best friend" is Cordelia, who leads two other girls in betrayals, exclusions, and cruelties. Elaine must come to terms with these painful memories in order to find her own self. It is a breathtaking novel of a woman grappling with the joys and brutalities of life. 5/1/03
view title in Library Catalog

I Thought My Father Was God and other true tales from NPR's National Story Project edited by Paul Auster
a favorite of Alan's, Fiction and Audiovisual Services
A collection of stories originally aired on NPR's National Story Project, Paul Auster's only criteria were that they had to be interesting and true. From the first page, which details a chicken knocking on and entering the door of an ordinary house to tales of triumph, tragedy, and the mundane, this book runs the gamut of human experience. What else could one ask for: fun, deep, wonderful, from all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life, endlessly entertaining over all 180 stories. 10/1/07
view title in Library Catalog

Bill Ayers
Fugitive Days: A Memoir
a favorite of Jim's, Administration
Funny, sad, inspirational, depressing and, I believe, honest account of Bill Ayers’ journey from a Glen Ellyn childhood through the SDS anti-war years and into the world of the Weather Underground and armed propaganda. This is not a footnoted history, but rather a book of memories (A Memoir). Throughout Ayers is guided by Che Guevara’s advice: “At the risk of sounding ridiculous I must tell you that all true revolutionaries are motivated by feelings of love.” 6/3/02