Thursday, February 25, 2010

Friday Fiction: A. S. Byatt

--by Hanje Richards
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This week for Friday Fiction, I selected an author that I know very little about. I frequently have read something by the Friday Fiction author, or have some other reason (like a new book) to feature a particular author. This week, I have not read any by A.S. Byatt, but I have been curious about her for a long time. I learned some things about her this week, doing the research for this blog post. I hope you find something new and interesting here, too. Perhaps you will check out something by A. S. Byatt from the fiction section at The Copper Queen Library.
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Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, usually known as A. S. Byatt, is an English novelist, poet and Booker Prize winner. In 2008, the Times newspaper named her among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945." She is the daughter of His Honor John Frederick Drabble, QC and the late Kathleen Marie Bloor, and is married to Peter Duffy. Her younger sisters are the novelist Dame Margaret Drabble and the art historian Helen Langdon.
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Angels and Insects: Two Novellas - The author of Possession returns to the territory of her bestselling novel in two breathtaking fictions that explore the social and psychic landscape of Victorian England. Set in a proper country house with undercurrents of brutality and at a séance where historical figures yearn for one another.
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The first, Morpho Eugenia, is a Gothic fable that explores the multiple themes of earthly paradise and Darwin's theories of breeding and sexuality. There is an implied parallel between insect and human society throughout. The second novella, The Conjugal Angel, is reminiscent of Possession, Byatt's 1990 Booker Prize winner for fiction, wherein poetry is woven into the narrative.
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Babel Tower - At the heart of the novel are two law cases, twin strands of the Establishment's web, that shape the story: a painful divorce and custody suit and the prosecution of an "obscene" book. Frederica, the independent young heroine, is involved in both. She startled her intellectual circle of friends by marrying a young country squire, whose violent streak has now been turned against her. Fleeing to London with their young son, she gets a teaching job in an art school, where she is thrown into the thick of the new decade. Poets and painters are denying the value of the past, fostering dreams of rebellion, which focus around a strange, charismatic figure -- the near-naked, unkempt and smelly Jude Mason, with his flowing gray hair.
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Biographer’s Tale - Here is the story of Phineas G. Nanson, a disenchanted graduate student who decides to escape the world of postmodern literary theory and immerse himself in the messiness of “real life” by writing a biography of a great biographer. In a series of adventures that are by turns intellectual and comic, scientific and sensual, Phineas tracks his subject to the deserts of Africa and the maelstrom of the Arctic. Along the way, he comes to rely on two women, one of whom may be the guide he needs out of the dizzying labyrinth of his research and back into his own life. A tantalizing yarn of detection and desire, The Biographer’s Tale is a provocative look at “truth” in biography and our perennial quest for certainty.
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Children’s Book - A spellbinding novel, at once sweeping and intimate, that spans the Victorian era through the World War I years, and centers around a famous children’s book author and the passions, betrayals, and secrets that tear apart the people she loves.
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When Olive Wellwood’s oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of the new Victoria and Albert Museum — a talented working-class boy who could be a character out of one of Olive’s magical tales — she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends.
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But the joyful bacchanals Olive hosts at her rambling country house — and the separate, private books she writes for each of her seven children — conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. As these lives — of adults and children alike — unfold, lies are revealed, hearts are broken, and the damaging truth about the Wellwoods slowly emerges. But their personal struggles, their hidden desires, will soon be eclipsed by far greater forces, as the tides turn across Europe and a golden era comes to an end. Taking us from the cliff-lined shores of England to Paris, Munich, and the trenches of the Somme, The Children’s Book is a deeply affecting story of a singular family, played out against the great, rippling tides of the day. (Shortlisted in 2009 for the Man Booker Prize)
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Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice - Richly imaginative story collection that transports the reader to a world where opposites -- passion and loneliness, betrayal and loyalty, fire and ice -- clash and converge.
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A beautiful ice maiden risks her life when she falls in love with a desert prince, whose passionate touches scorch her delicate skin. A woman flees the scene of her husband's heart attack, leaving her entire past behind her. Striving to master color and line, a painter discovers the resolution to his artistic problems when a beautiful and magical water snake appears in his pool. And a wealthy Englishwoman gradually loses her identity while wandering through a shopping mall.
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Little Black Book of Stories - Like Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, Isak Dinesen and Angela Carter, A. S. Byatt knows that fairy tales are for grownups. In this collection she breathes new life into the form. The collection offers shivers along with magical thrills. Leaves rustle underfoot in a dark wood: two middle-aged women, childhood friends reunited by chance, venture into a dark forest where once, many years before, they saw – or thought they saw – something unspeakable. Another woman, recently bereaved, finds herself slowly but surely turning into stone. A coolly rational ob-gyn has his world pushed off-axis by a waiflike art student with her own ideas about the uses of the body. Spellbinding, witty, lovely, terrifying.
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Matisse Stories - Three intensely observed, beautifully written stories, each inspired by a painting of Henri Matisse, each revealing the intimate connection between seeing and feeling. In A.S. Byatt's hands, these tableaux come to life, exposing the unruliness of grief, desire and creativity.
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Possession - An exhilarating novel of wit and romance, an intellectual mystery, and a triumphant love story. This tale is of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets.
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A double-edged romance that bridges Victorian England and modern-day academia. At once literary and highly readable, the book boasts a compelling narrative that exposes the real life behind the art of two Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte, and contrasts their passion for life with that of Maud Bailey and Roland Mitchell, contemporary scholars who stumble upon romance hidden in dusty papers. (Booker Prize for Fiction, 1990; Irish Times International Fiction Prize, 1990; Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book), 1991)
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Still Life - A highly acclaimed novel which captures in brilliant detail the life of one extended English family -- and illuminates the choices they must make between domesticity and ambition, life and art. (PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, 1996)
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Whistling Woman - This novel portrays the antic, thrilling, and dangerous period of the late ‘60s as seen through the eyes of a woman whose life is forever changed by her times.
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Frederica Potter, a smart, spirited 33-year-old single mother, lucks into a job hosting a groundbreaking television talk show based in London. Meanwhile, in her native Yorkshire where her lover is involved in academic research, the university is planning a prestigious conference on body and mind, and a group of students and agitators is establishing an “anti-university.” And nearby a therapeutic community is beginning to take the shape of a religious cult under the influence of its charismatic religious leader. A Whistling Woman is a thought-provoking meditation on psychology, science, religion, ethics, and radicalism, and their effects on ordinary lives.

Insider’s Guide: Wireless Available at the Library

--by Hanje Richards

The Copper Queen Library has wireless for patrons. You can use your laptop or smartphone to access the internet when you are at the library.

All you need to do is ask for the password at the circulation desk. Easy. Free. Nothing to buy, no time limits (other than the hours the library is open, of course).

Monday, February 22, 2010

I Just Listened To…

…Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure In Local Living (by Doug Fine)
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--by Hanje Richards
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This was a fun read (listen?). Doug Fine chronicles his year embracing an environmentally friendly lifestyle. Vowing to grow all his own food, harness the sun’s power for his electrical needs, and consume as little fossil fuel as possible, Fine faces surprising obstacles at every turn as he discovers that going green is easier said than done.

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Farewell, My Subaru on CD is modest in length -- 4 discs, totaling 4 hours and 15 minutes of listening time. It is narrated by the author, who does a “fine” job. This book is funny and educational. I found it particularly comforting when I could laugh at my own small-scale attempts to live a greener lifestyle. I think anyone who has worked on going green, whether it is recycling or composting or water harvesting, can relate to Fine’s adventures.
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The challenges Doug Fine faces as he tries to reduce his carbon footprint and live off the grid will resonate as you listen to him explain how he came to be at the Funky Butte Ranch and how he reduced his footprint (carbon and otherwise), and rode the “Hypocrisy Reduction Train.”

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Friday Fiction: Russell Banks, Working Class Hero

--by Hanje Richards
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Russell Banks was raised in New Hampshire and eastern Massachusetts. The eldest of four children, he grew up in a working-class environment, which has played a major role in his writing. He has lived in a variety of places, from New England to Jamaica, which have contributed to the richness of his writing.
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Banks (who was the first in his family to go to college) attended Colgate University for less than a semester, and later graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before he could support himself as a writer, he tried his hand at plumbing, and as a shoe salesman and window trimmer. More recently, he has taught at a number of colleges and universities, including Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence, University of New Hampshire, New England College, New York University and Princeton University.
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A prolific writer of fiction, he has also contributed poems, stories and essays to "The Boston Globe Magazine," "Vanity Fair," "The New York Times Book Review," "Esquire," "Harper's," and many other publications.
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Banks has won numerous awards and prizes for his work, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, Ingram Merrill Award, The St. Lawrence Award for Short Fiction, O. Henry and Best American Short Story Award, The John Dos Passos Award, and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and 1998 respectively. Affliction was short-listed for both the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize and the Irish International Prize.
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Affliction - Wade Whitehouse is an improbable protagonist for a tragedy. A well-digger, snow-plow operator and policeman in a bleak New Hampshire town, he is a former high-school star gone to beer fat, a loner with a mean streak. It is a mark of Russell Banks' artistry and understanding that Wade comes to loom in one's mind as a blue-collar American Everyman afflicted by the dark secret of the macho tradition. Told by his articulate, equally scarred younger brother, Wade's story becomes as spellbinding and inexorable as a fuse burning its way to the dynamite.
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When a union boss is killed in an apparent hunting accident near Wade's home, and he is convinced that it is murder, he seizes the event as a chance to right many wrongs -- unaware that as he unravels the mystery, he himself will become unravelled. Soon, his hunger for justice and self-respect become inseparable from a desperate violence.
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Cloudsplitter - This novel is narrated by the enigmatic Owen Brown, last surviving son of America's most famous and still-controversial political terrorist and martyr, John Brown. Peopled with a cast of unforgettable characters both historical and wholly invented, Cloudsplitter is dazzling in its re-creation of the political and social landscape of our history during the years before the Civil War, when slavery was tearing the country apart.
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But within this broader scope, Russell Banks has given us a riveting, suspenseful, heartbreaking narrative filled with intimate scenes of domestic life, of violence and action in battle, of romance and familial life and death that make the reader feel in astonishing ways what it is like to be alive in that time.
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The Darling - Set in Liberia and the United States from 1975 through 1991, The Darling is the story of Hannah Musgrave, a political radical and member of the Weather Underground.
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Hannah flees America for West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends of the notorious warlord and ex-president, Charles Taylor. Hannah's encounter with Taylor ultimately triggers a series of events whose momentum catches Hannah's family in its grip and forces her to make a heartrending choice.
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Rule of the Bone - When we first meet him, Chappie is a punked-out teenager living with his mother and abusive stepfather in an upstate New York trailer park. During this time, he slips into drugs and petty crime. Rejected by his parents, out of school, and in trouble with the police, he claims for himself a new identity as a permanent outsider; he gets a crossed-bones tattoo on his arm and takes the name "Bone."
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He finds dangerous refuge with a group of biker-thieves, and then hides in the boarded-up summer house of a professor and his wife. He finally settles in an abandoned school bus with Rose, a child he rescues from a fast-talking pedophile. There Bone meets I-Man, an exiled Rastafarian, and together they begin a second adventure that takes the reader from Middle America to the ganja-growing mountains of Jamaica. It is an amazing journey of self-discovery through a world of magic, violence, betrayal and redemption.
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The Sweet Hereafter - In The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks tells a story that begins with a school bus accident which takes the lives of fourteen children from the small town of Sam Dent. Its citizens are confronted with one of life’s most difficult and disturbing questions: When the worst happens, whom do you blame, and how do you cope? Masterfully written, it is a large-hearted novel that brings to life a cast of unforgettable small-town characters and illuminates the mysteries and realities of love as well as grief.
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The Sweet Hereafter was released as a major motion picture by Atom Egoyan in 1997 and won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
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Trailerpark - Get to know the colorful cast of characters at the Granite State Trailerpark, where Flora in number 11 keeps more than a hundred guinea pigs and screams at people to stay away from her babies; Claudel in number 5 thinks he is lucky until his wife burns down their trailer and runs off with Howie Leeke; and Noni in number 7 has telephone conversations with Jesus and tells the police about them. In this series of related short stories, Russell Banks offers gripping, realistic portrayals of individual Americans and paints a portrait of New England life that is at once dark, witty, and revealing.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

RIP Dick Francis

--by Hanje Richards
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Prolific mystery writer Dick Francis was born in Lawrenny, South Wales, the son of a jockey and stable manager and grew up in Berkshire, England. He died on February 14, 2010 at his Caribbean home in Grand Cayman.
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Francis left school at 15 with the intention of becoming a jockey and became a trainer in 1938. After leaving the RAF in 1946, he became a celebrity in the world of British National Hunt racing. He won over 350 races, becoming champion jockey in the 1953–54 season.
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From 1953-1957, Frances was jockey to Queen Elizabeth. In 1957, he was forced to retire from racing as the result of a serious fall. His most famous moment as a jockey came while riding the Queen Mother's horse, Devon Loch, in the 1956 Grand National when the horse inexplicably fell when close to winning the race.
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Dick Francis wrote more than 40 international bestsellers. His first book was his autobiography, The Sport of Queens (1957) which led to his career as the racing correspondent for London's "Sunday Express" newspaper. He remained in the job for 16 years.
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In 1962, he published his first thriller, Dead Cert, set in the world of racing. Subsequently, he regularly produced a novel a year for the next 38 years, missing only 1998 (during which he published a short-story collection). Although all his books were set against a background of horse racing, his heroes held a variety of jobs from artist to private investigator.
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Francis is the only three-time recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best Novel. Britain's Crime Writers Association awarded him its Gold Dagger Award for fiction in 1979 and the Cartier Diamond Dagger lifetime achievement award in 1989. In 1996, he received the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, the highest honor bestowed by the MWA. He was awarded a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000. In 2003, he was honored by being awarded the Gumshoe Awards' Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award.
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The Copper Queen Library owns over 30 of Dick Francis’ mysteries in the Mystery section. If you haven't already done so, come on in and check him out!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Friday Fiction: Louise Erdrich

--by Hanje Richards
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Louise Erdrich is the author of twelve novels as well as volumes of poetry, children's books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her debut novel, Love Medicine, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse was a finalist for the National Book Award. The Plague of Doves, a New York Times bestseller, received the highest praise from Philip Roth, who wrote, "Louise Erdrich's imaginative freedom has reached its zenith — The Plague of Doves is her dazzling masterpiece." Louise Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.
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Antelope Wife - Extends the branches of the families who populate Louise Erdrich's earlier novels, and once again, her unsentimental, unsparing writing captures the Native American sense of despair, magic, and humor. Rooted in myth and set in contemporary Minneapolis, this poetic and haunting story spans a century, at the center of which is a mysterious and graceful woman known as the Antelope Wife. Elusive, silent, and bearing a mystical link to nature, she embodies a complicated quest for love and survival that impacts lives in unpredictable ways. Her tale is an unforgettable tapestry of ancestry, fate, harrowing tragedy, and redemption, which seems at once modern and eternal. Winner of the World Fantasy Award in 1999.
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Beet Queen - On a spring morning in 1932, young Karl and Mary Adare arrive by boxcar in Argus, North Dakota. After being orphaned in a most peculiar way, they seek refuge in the butcher shop of their aunt Fritzie and her husband, Pete; ordinary Mary, who will cause a miracle, and seductive Karl, who lacks his sister's gift for survival, embark upon an exhilarating life-journey crowded with colorful, unforgettable characters and marked by the extraordinary magic of natural events.
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A vibrant and heartfelt tale of abandonment and sexual obsession, jealousy and unstinting love that explores with empathy, humor, and power the eternal mystery of the human condition.
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Bingo Palace - At the crossroads of his life, Lipsha Morrissey is summoned by his grandmother to return to the reservation. There, he falls in love for the very first time — with the beautiful Shawnee Ray, who's already considering a marriage proposal from Lipsha's wealthy entrepreneurial boss, Lyman Lamartine. But when all efforts to win Shawnee's affections go hopelessly awry, Lipsha seeks out his great-grandmother for a magical solution to his romantic dilemma — on sacred ground where a federally sanctioned bingo palace is slated for construction.
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A tale of spiritual death and reawakening; of money, desperate love, and wild hope; and of the enduring power of cherished dreams.
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Birchbark House - Nineteenth-century American pioneer life was introduced to thousands of young readers by Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved "Little House" books. With The Birchbark House, Louise Erdrich's first novel for young readers, this same slice of history is seen through the eyes of the spirited, 7-year-old Ojibwa girl Omakayas, or Little Frog, so named because her first step was a hop. The sole survivor of a smallpox epidemic on Spirit Island, Omakayas, then only a baby girl, was rescued by a fearless woman named Tallow and welcomed into an Ojibwa family on Lake Superior's Madeline Island, the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker. We follow Omakayas and her adopted family through a cycle of four seasons in 1847, including the winter, when a historically documented outbreak of smallpox overtook the island.
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Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birth Year - Reflections on the bond between mother and daughter, from conception through the infant's first year. The author aims to convey the intensity of the experience of being with child, becoming a mother and developing a new kind of love..
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Crown of Columbus - In their only fully collaborative literary work, Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich have written a gripping novel of history, suspense, recovery, and new beginnings. It chronicles the adventures of a pair of mismatched lovers -- Vivian Twostar, a divorced, pregnant anthropologist, and Roger Williams, a consummate academic, epic poet, and bewildered father of Vivian's baby -- on their quest for the truth about Christopher Columbus and themselves.
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Four Souls - After taking her mother's name, Four Souls, for strength, the strange, compelling Fleur Pillager walks from her Ojibwe reservation to the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. She seeks restitution from and revenge on the lumber baron who has stripped her reservation. But revenge is never simple, and her intentions are complicated by her dangerous compassion for the man who wronged her.
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Jacklight - The poems of Louise Erdrich reflect what it is to be a woman, a Midwesterner and a Native American. She presents that region and those people without sentimentality, and although drawing from a deep well, she does not ignore the ordinary..
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Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse - For more than a half century, Father Damien Modeste has served his beloved people, the Ojibwe, on the remote reservation of Little No Horse. Now, nearing the end of his life, Father Damien dreads the discovery of his physical identity, for he is a woman who has lived as a man. To further complicate his quiet existence, a troubled colleague comes to the reservation to investigate the life of the perplexing, possibly false saint Sister Leopolda. Father Damien alone knows the strange truth of Leopolda's piety and is faced with the most difficult decision: Should he tell all and risk everything . . . or manufacture a protective history though he believes Leopolda's wonder-working is motivated solely by evil?
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Love Medicine - The stunning first novel in Louise Erdrich's Native American series, Love Medicine tells the story of two families, the Kashpaws and the Lamartines. Written in Erdrich's uniquely poetic, powerful style, it is a multi-generational portrait of strong men and women caught in an unforgettable drama of anger, desire, and the healing power that is love medicine. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1984.
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Master Butchers Singing Club - Having survived World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend, killed in action. With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher's precious knife set, Fidelis sets out for America. In Argus, North Dakota, he builds a business, a home for his family — which includes Eva and four sons — and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town. When the Old World meets the New — in the person of Delphine Watzka — the great adventure of Fidelis's life begins. Delphine meets Eva and is enchanted. She meets Fidelis, and the ground trembles. These momentous encounters will determine the course of Delphine's life, and the trajectory of this brilliant novel.
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Plague of Doves - The unsolved murder of a farm family still haunts the white small town of Pluto, North Dakota, generations after the vengeance exacted and the distortions of fact transformed the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation.
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Part Ojibwe, part white, Evelina Harp is an ambitious young girl prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. And Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, who bears witness, understands the weight of historical injustice better than anyone. Through the distinct and winning voices of three unforgettable narrators, the collective stories of two interwoven communities ultimately come together to reveal a final wrenching truth.
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Route 2 - is a slim little volume that is only 34 pages long. It was written by the then-husband and wife team of Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich. Route Two is a travel memoir of their trip west from New Hampshire to Washington along Route Two. The insides of the book covers have a map of the United States with the path of their trip highlighted in yellow.
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Tales of Burning Love - Stranded in a North Dakota blizzard, Jack Mauser's former wives huddle for warmth and pass the endless night by remembering the stories of how each came to love, marry and ultimately move beyond Jack. At times painful, at times heartbreaking, and often times comic, their tales become the adhesive that holds them together in their love for Jack and in their lives as women.
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Erdrich, with her characteristic powers of observation and luminescent prose, brings these women's unforgettable stories to life with astonishing candor and warmth. This tour de force is filled with keen perceptions about the apparatus for survival, the force of passion and the necessity of hope.
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Tracks - Set in North Dakota at a time in this century when Indian tribes were struggling to keep what little remained of their lands, Tracks is a tale of passion and deep unrest. Over the course of ten crucial years, as tribal land and trust between people erode ceaselessly, men and women are pushed to the brink of their endurance -- yet their pride and humor prohibit surrender. The reader will experience shock and pleasure in encountering a group of characters that are compelling and rich in their vigor, clarity, and indomitable vitality.

Darwin’s Birthday Tribute

--by Hanje Richards
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Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day in 1809 when Charles Darwin was born. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin -- the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.
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.Charles Darwin was born on the same date, in the same year, as Abraham Lincoln. Last year, they both celebrated their 200th birthdays. Both men facilitated change. Both men remain powerful voices all these years after their deaths. This blog post is in honor and celebration of the contributions of Charles Darwin -- who shook things up in his lifetime, and continues to do so today.
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Happy 201st, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Darwin!
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Charles Darwin: A Biography (by E. J. Browne) - The first of a two-volume biography of Charles Darwin follows the great nineteenth-century scientist from his youth, through his scientific apprenticeship at sea, to his refinement of the ideas that he presented in Origin of Species.
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Charles Darwin and Evolution (by Steve Parker; grades 5-9) - A brief overview of the scientist's work and ideas that were formed by his research, and by the writings of thinkers such as Thomas Malthus. In the main text, Parker relates Darwin's work to that of other naturalists, then places it in the context of other scientific, political, and artistic events and explorations in his lifetime through the use of a time line. The last double-page chapter describes the work of Gregor Mendel in genetics and the development of neo-Darwinism, which adds the latest DNA research to the work of these two men to form the more complete theory of evolution in use today. The illustrations help to explain some concepts and contibute to the book's attractiveness.
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Darwin and the Beagle (by Alan Moorehead) - Charles Darwin left England in 1831, traveled to the east coast of South America, down to Tierra del Fuego, up the west coast, over to the Galapagos, across the Pacific, and eventually back to his home five years later. Along the way, he made extensive studies of the natural world and began to develop his radical notions of natural selection. This book will give you an excellent idea of what he encountered during his travels.
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Charles Darwin and the Evolution Revolution (by Rebecca Stefoff; grades 7-12) -- On the Origin Of Species, published in 1858, transformed our view of the world and made Charles Darwin one of the most controversial figures in science. This new biography looks at the person behind the controversy whose earth-shaking discoveries and ideas remain as exciting and interesting as today's headlines.
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Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist (by Adrian Desmond & James Moore) - In lively and accessible style, the authors tell how Darwin came to his world-changing conclusions and how he kept his thoughts secret for twenty years. Hailed as the definitive biography, this book explains Darwin's paradox and offers a window on Victorian science, theology, and mores.
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.One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought Ernst Mayr (575 MAY) Evolutionary theory ranks as one of the most powerful concepts of modern civilization. Its effects on our view of life have been wide and deep. One of the most world-shaking books ever published, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, first appeared in print over 130 years ago, and it touched off a debate that rages to this day.
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Mayr has achieved a remarkable distillation of Charles Darwin's scientific thought and his enormous legacy to twentieth-century biology. Here we have an accessible account of the revolutionary ideas that Darwin thrust upon the world. Describing his treatise as "one long argument," Darwin definitively refuted the belief in the divine creation of each individual species, establishing in its place the concept that all of life descended from a common ancestor.
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The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection / The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (by Charles Darwin; "Encyclopedia Britannica Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 49" (1952 ed.)). Two seminal works of science that still cause debate and controversy collected in one book: The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex.
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Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of the Theory of Evolution (by David Quamann) - Twenty-one years passed between Charles Darwin's epiphany that "natural selection" formed the basis of evolution and the scientist's publication of On the Origin of Species. Why did Darwin delay, and what happened during the course of those two decades? The human drama and scientific basis of these years constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that elucidates the character of a cautious naturalist who initiated an intellectual revolution.
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Three Men of the Beagle (by Richard Le Marks) - Marks intertwines the stories of English aristocrat Robert FitzRoy, commander of the Beagle; his passenger, Charles Darwin; and a Yahgan Indian kidnapped by the crew, illuminating the ways the West perceives and misperceives other cultures.
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Voyage of the Beagle (by Charles Darwin) - This richly readable book is the product of Charles Darwin's amazing journey aboard the Beagle where he made observations that led to his revolutionary theory of natural selection.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

A Crazy, Mixed-Up List of Books for Children and Young Adults Related to Chocolate to Celebrate the Chocolate Tasting and Valentine’s Day

--by Hanje Richards
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From fiction to non-fiction and back again. We have a variety of chocolate related books for younger readers too. Celebrate the Chocolate Tasting and Valentine’s Day with the Copper Queen Library. Check it out!

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Blood and Chocolate (by Annette Curtis Klause) - Vivian Gandillon relishes the change, the sweet, fierce ache that carries her from girl to wolf. At sixteen, she is beautiful and strong, and all the young wolves are on her tail. But Vivian still grieves for her dead father; her pack remains leaderless and in disarray, and she feels lost in the suburbs of Maryland. She longs for a normal life. But what is normal for a werewolf?Then Vivian falls in love with a human, a meat-boy. Aiden is kind and gentle, a welcome relief from the squabbling pack. He's fascinated by magic, and Vivian longs to reveal herself to him. Surely he would understand her and delight in the wonder of her dual nature, not fear her as an ordinary human would.
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Vivian's divided loyalties are strained further when a brutal murder threatens to expose the pack. Moving between two worlds, she does not seem to belong in either. What is she really -- human or beast? Which tastes sweeter -- blood or chocolate?
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Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America (by Steve Almond) - A self-professed candyfreak, Steve Almond set out in search of a much-loved candy from his childhood and found himself on a tour of the small candy companies that are persevering in a marketplace where big corporations dominate. From the Twin Bing to the Idaho Spud, the Valomilk to the Abba-Zaba, and discontinued bars such as the Caravelle, Marathon, and Choco-Lite, Almond uncovers a trove of singular candy bars made by unsung heroes working in old-fashioned factories to produce something they love. And in true candyfreak fashion, Almond lusciously describes the rich tastes that he has loved since childhood and continues to crave today. Steve Almond has written a comic but ultimately bittersweet story of how he grew up on candy-and how, for better and worse, the candy industry has grown up, too. Candyfreak is the delicious story of one man's lifelong obsession with candy and his quest to discover its origins in America.
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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (by Roald Dahl) - What happens when the five luckiest children in the entire world walk through the doors of Willy Wonka’s famous, mysterious chocolate factory? What happens when, one by one, the children disobey Mr.Wonka’s orders? In Dahl’s most popular story, the nasty are punished and the good are deliciously, sumptuously rewarded.



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Chocolate Covered Ants (by Stephen Manes) - When Max's little brother, Adam, gets an ant colony for his birthday, suddenly he is a big authority on ants, and Max is determined to bring Adam down a few pegs.
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Chocolate Fever (by Robert Kimmel Smith) - Henry loves chocolate so much, it practically runs through his veins. Chocolate cake, chocolate cereal, chocolate syrup, chocolate milk, and chocolate cookies—and that’s just breakfast! Still, it comes as a shock when he suddenly breaks out in chocolaty brown spots and is diagnosed with . . . Chocolate Fever. And, rather than be poked and prodded by doctors, Henry runs away, starting the adventure of a lifetime. But at the end of it all, the question remains: Is there a cure for Chocolate Fever?

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Chocolate For a Teen’s Soul: Life Changing Stories For Young Women About Growing Wise and Growing Strong (by Kay Allenbaugh) - Rich, enticing, and delectable as a luscious box of chocolates, this collection offers 55 tales of life and love as a teenager. From teens of every age, including women who remember what it was like, come stories of first love, first jobs, best friends, heartbreak, hope, innocence, and the real world. Poignant, funny, and powerful, these stories tell it like it is. From the recollection of a first kiss to tales of self-consciousness about a changing body, from painful struggles with parents and grandparents to the joy of abiding family love, teens will see themselves in these pages and find comfort in knowing that they are not alone.
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Chocolate Marshmelephant Sundae (by Mike Thaler) - A collection of jokes, riddles, puns, and cartoon for young readers.
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Chocolate Sundae Mystery (by Gertrude Chandler Warner) - Mr. Brown, the new ice cream store owner, asks the Boxcar children for help in finding out who is sabotaging his business by stealing ice cream, breaking windows, and otherwise damaging his store..
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Chocolate War (by Robert Cormier) - Does Jerry Renault dare to disturb the universe? You wouldn't think that his refusal to sell chocolates during his school's fundraiser would create such a stir, but it does; it's as if the whole school comes apart at the seams. To some, Jerry is a hero, but to others, he becomes a scapegoat -- a target for their pent-up hatred. And Jerry? He's just trying to stand up for what he believes, but perhaps there is no way for him to escape becoming a pawn in this game of control; students are pitted against other students, fighting for honor -- or are they fighting for their lives?
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Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot (by Margot Theis Raven) - During the Berlin Airlift of 1948-1949, Lt. Gail Halvorsen and his squadron dropped over 250,000 candy-loaded parachutes and twenty tons of chocolate and gum to West Berlin's 100,000 children. He received thousands of letters from children, and only the most important were translated and given to him for his personal reply. This is the true story of a little girl named Mercedes, who waited anxiously for candy drops from Lt. Gail, known as the Chocolate Pilot.