January 2008 Archives

Lisa Margonelli, an award-winning writer on global culture and the economy of energy, will discuss her new book, "Oil on the Brain," at 7 p.m. Feb. 5 in Leedy Theater of the Mund College Center at Lebanon Valley College, 101 N. College Ave., Annville.

Margonelli will explore the possibilities of a post-oil world. Her lecture is part of LVC's yearlong Energy Colloquium.

She is an Irvine Fellow at the New America Foundation and was the recipient of a Sundance Institute Fellowship and an excellence in journalism award from the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. She has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Wired, Business 2.0, Discover and Jane.

Jeanette Winterson’s “Weight” is the smartest, most thought provoking entry in Canongate’s myth series that I’ve read so far (see the other reviews here and here).

Her book is based on the myth of Atlas and Heracles (aka Hercules), in which Heracles temporarily shoulders the weight of the world in place of Atlas so he can obtain three golden apples from Hera’s garden that was kept up by the Hesperides, Atlas’ daughters, and guarded by a 100-headed serpent named Ladon. Getting the apples was part of Heracles’ Twelve Labors.

Deception comes into play as first Atlas offers to deliver the apples himself, hoping to be forever relieved of his burden. Heracles, agreeing, asks that Atlas take the world so he can adjust his cloak. When Atlas does so, Heracles grabs the apples and runs.

The book: “Lines of Contention: Political Cartoons of the Civil War” (HarperCollins under the Smithsonian imprint, $19.95)

The authors: Pam Huff and Jim Lewin of Hellam Township are the owners of the York Emporium used-book store, 343 W. Market St., York. Huff is a native of Washington, D.C., and Lewin is a native of the Buffalo, N.Y., area. They moved to York in January 2006.

Here's a review from one of our readers, Scott Mokris, 15, of West Manchester Township:

I’m an American! That’s what Bill O’Reilly’s new book “Kids Are Americans Too” says.

“Kids Are Americans Too” is an excellent book that tells kids what Constitutional rights they have and do not have. Bill O’Reilly does an amazing job telling kids about their rights and getting them interested in rights and the government.

Click on over to YDR's Explorer's Backpack blog to find out why this book is sucking much of my time lately and making me nearly laugh out loud.

A Baltimore librarian’s classroom project is now part of publishing history. “Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From a Medieval Village,” first conceived a decade ago by Laura Amy Schlitz, is this year’s winner of the John Newbery Medal for best children’s book.

The Associated Press also reported that the Randolph Caldecott award for top picture book went to Brian Selznick’s “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” a 500-plus page hybrid of a graphic novel and traditional illustration about an orphan boy and a robot in Paris at the turn of the 20th century.

Marlena Bittner sounds genuinely excited when she talks about her job. The notes of her voice border on giddy as she sums up what it is like to work for a major New York book publisher.

“I get so excited it’s like I drank too much sugary Kool-Aid,” said Bittner from her parent’s home in York Township over the Christmas holiday.
It isn’t just that she works around some of the world’s most famous authors. As a publicity manager for the Little, Brown and Company publishing house,
Bittner, who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., plays a major role in creating famous authors.

What do art historians and radical Irish political groups have in common? A stolen Vermeer painting owned by the Queen of England.

Historical art expert Patricia Dolan has never fully recovered from the death of her daughter that eventually led to her divorce. She gets lost in her work at New York's Frick Art Reference Library.

Have you just finished reading a book you couldn't put down, or one that kept putting you to sleep?

We want to hear about it, good or bad.

Send your book review to gfogal@ydr.com and we will post it here.

On Feb. 12, HarperCollins will publish a memoir and policy book by former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, finished only a week before her assassination.

According to the Associated Press:

The publication of “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West” has “the full support of her family and advisers,” according to a statement issued today by HarperCollins.

“No one could have known that these would be Benazir Bhutto’s final words, and somehow that makes them carry even more weight, especially at a time like this,” said HarperCollins Executive Editor Tim Duggan. “This book is her legacy.”

Bhutto, a rival of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, died Dec. 27 in a suicide bombing and shooting in the city of Rawalpindi. Bhutto was a pro-U.S. moderate who had vowed to fight Islamic extremists if elected in an upcoming parliamentary vote.

The book will include an afterword by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and her three children.

If you insist on curling up on the couch to read a good book, this idea might not be for you.

According to a report from the Kansas City Star, a Web service called dailylit.com offers a very different reading experience. Choose a book from more than 500 available, and dailylit.com will deliver it to you via e-mail in regular installments, chunklets that take about five minutes to read.