You think that's tough?

So, if someone were to say to you that they were going to take a bike trip around the world, you would probably be pretty impressed.  That's a big trip, with rough conditions and remote locations.  But what if they were going to do that trip without a GPS?   Or a cell phone?  Or a VISA card?  What if they were riding a 40-pound, 1890's-era Singer Safety bike?
In 1892, cycling pioneer and amateur photographer Frank Lenz began a 20,000 mile journey around the world that he would chronicle for Outing magazine.  Two years later, as he approached the 'home stretch' through Europe, he disappeared in Turkey.  Outing sent William Sachtleben and Thomas Allen on his trail.  In 344 days, they completed their historic trip around the globe, and helped bring to light Lenz's tragic fate.
David Herlihy recounts these amazing adventures and captures the excitement of the early years of cycling in his new book The Lost Cyclist: the epic tale of an American adventurer and his mysterious disappearance.  And we thought cycling the Al-Can highway was a huge trek.

A darn good story

I don't usually blog about Reference books, because you can't check them out and take them home, so why tempt you?   But I'm making an exception here, since the book in question is so interesting and useful it's a shame not to let everyone know about it.
Exploring Alaska & British Columbia by Stephen E. Hilson is actually a reprint of a 1997 follow-up to his first historical reference atlas: Exploring Puget Sound & British Columbia (which we've had in the Reference collection since it's publication in 1975).  These are NOT nautical atlases for navigation purposes, although Hilson did use actual 1970's-era NOAA and CHS charts as the 'backdrop' for his information.  Instead, these pages are full of little historical tidbits:  old gold mines, village sites, plane crashes, shipwrecks, canneries, etc.
Looking over this atlas is a little like sailing around Southeast with your old grandfather, as he points out things that used to be.  'On Oct. 26, 1947 a Pan Am DC-4 crashed on Tamgas Mt and all 18 people aboard died' .   Or, 'There's a natural soda spring just at the head of Ella Creek that gets exposed at half tide'.  Or 'Over there is where Scotty Johnstone had his fox farm. His boats all sank in the winter of '29, and he had to eat Christmas candy and fox food to survive until someone from Ketchikan came over to check on him'.
So if you're looking for a little historical information about the area, if you're in search of old mines or canneries, if you had a relative who had a fox farm but you're not sure where (apparently, our area was just awash in fox farms), or if you're just planning on taking the boat out to do a little exploring and you're looking for points of interest....then copy off a couple of pages and take them along on your trip.

Beautiful covers

I really like cover albums, because it's one way to judge the quality of a song.  Does it stand up to reinterpretation, new instruments, new tempo, a new generation?  Stardust is a timeless song; I'm a Barbie Girl, not so much.
Of course, this test relies on the cover version being an actual reinterpretation and not some tired rehash of the same arrangement that ends up sounding almost exactly like the original.  We have two new examples of really excellent cover albums:  Dark Hope by opera star Renee Fleming and Interpretations: the British rock songbook by blues artist Bettye LaVette.
Fleming avoids the mistake of turning rock songs into arias.  Her voice is rich and brilliant, but she doesn't overshadow the lyrics on songs from bands such as Muse, Death Cab for Cutie, Tears for Fears and Band of Horses.  Her cover of Leonard Cohen's ubiquitous song Hallelujah is beautiful (although I still prefer Jeff Buckley's version).  This is a very enjoyable album.
LaVette's album really demonstrates how much a song can be stretched, as she brings a bluesy feel to classic songs from The Beatles, The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin.  This isn't that dramatic a concept, as the British Invasion got much of it's inspiration from American rock and blues of the 1950's.....but she still makes it sound fabulous.  The first track alone - a totally funky rendition of The Word by The Beatles - sells this album.  And unlike many CDs, I actually found the liner notes for this one quite interesting.

What the.....?

I won't lie to you; I do not understand the current fascination with taking classic works of 19th century literature and "invigorating" them with supernatural gore.  Have you missed this trend?   Deliberately avoided it?  Well, like any literary phenomenom (i.e. Harry Potter), there's a slew of authors out there that are willing to ride the coattails of a winning formula.  Here's some examples:

• Mummies and Mansfield Park by Vera Nazarian
• Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters
• Jane Slayre by Sherri Browning Erwin
• The Undead World of Oz by Ryan C. Thomas
• Emma and the Werewolves by Adam Rann
• Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim by W. Bill Czolgosz
• Vampire Darcy's Desire by Regina Jeffers
• Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie killers by Paul A. Freeman
• The War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts and Zombies by Eric S. Brown
• Alice in Zombieland by Nickolas Cook

If you lean more toward a nonfiction take on the flesh-eating walking dead, perhaps you might prefer a biography:

• Queen Victoria, Demon Hunter by A.E. Moorat
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

Seth Grahame-Smith started this whole thing with his mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which proved so wildly successfully that it not only spawned this mass of imitators, it was made into a graphic novel (of course!).  We've just added this to the collection, along with the prequel Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith.  You know, if you're into that sort of thing.

Murder City

    Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the global economy's new killing fields, by Charles Bowden, is not your standard investigative journalism piece about Mexican drug cartels and violence at the U.S.-Mexican border.  Rather than a dry litany of dates, times and interviews with policy makers, Bowen's book is more narrative.  It comes across almost like a novel: a litany of anecdotes tied together with the thread of violence.  The fact that it is told in the present tense adds to the sense of immediacy, and allows the reader to follow through a year of escalating criminal activity as though you are there in Juarez. 
      In January of 2008, the murders begin with 5 policemen.  By the end of the year there were 1,652 recorded murders and by the summer of 2009 the murder rate was over 300 victims a month.  Policemen, drug peddlers, teachers, students, shopkeepers, housewives and addicts become statistics in a city where violence becomes the norm and dead bodies show up in every neighborhood.
The constant stream of stories overwhelms the reader by the end of the book and demonstrates how you can become numb to violence.  Very powerful, very compelling, very depressing.

What do I do with all those fabric scraps?

If you're a quilter or sewer, then you probably have bags of fabric scraps collecting in your closets: beautiful colors, patterns or textures that you hate to part with because you're sure you can find a use for them.  Well, we have two new books at the public library that may help you display your fabric finds to their best advantage.
Keepsake Baby Quilts From Scraps presents 9 different baby quilt patters specially designed to use small amounts of fabric.  Designer Julie Higgins focuses on simple repeating patterns that are great for beginning quilters (or even advanced quilters who are working 'under the gun' to prepare for a baby shower).
Inchies: create miniature works of art using textiles and mixed media techniques is a collection of great ideas for sewers, felters, painters, beaders and textile artists.  Edited by Peggy Donda-Kobert, the projects in this book include silk, Tyvek, angelina fibers, and yarns but the basic building block for these concepts is a simple square of fabric cunningly detailed with beads, thread, paint and jewels.  Your end result can be as elaborate or as minimalist as you want.

Graphic history

We have a fascinating new book on the shelves that presents the waste and brutality of World War I in a graphic novel format.  It was the war of the trenches is the work of French artist Jacques Tardi.  Pulling in recollections from his grandfather (a WWI vet to whom this book is dedicated) and various books and films about the war (there is a nice bibliography in the back), Tardi leaves the 'facts' of the war to other writers and instead focuses on the 'feel' of war.  This is a collection of memories, instances, and anecdotes that convey the reality of trench warfare.  Although it is told from the perspective of the French footsoldier, Tardi points out in his introduction that the experience was universally brutal for all sides.
This is not our only graphic novel that deals with historical events.  If you are moved by Tardi's work, try these other graphic novels:

• The Vietnam War : a graphic history by Dwight Zimmerman, art by Wayne Vansant
• Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
• The Photographer by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, & Frédéric Lemercier
• Che: a graphic biography by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón
• Nelson Mandela : the authorized comic book by the Nelson Mandela Foundation