Monday Mix Highlights FridayReads

--by Hanje Richards

I would like to invite readers of all kinds of writing to join me and thousands of others around the world in participating in something called FridayReads. I have been participating in FridayReads since last summer and have enjoyed watching this movement of people who read, sharing their enthusiasm with others.

At this point, you can participate two ways, on Twitter and on Facebook. I participate on Twitter because that is where FridayReads started, and it is where I started. But if you don’t do Twitter, there is now a Facebook version.
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Here is a short description from the Facebook page of FridayReads:

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"About: Because books are better when shared.

Description: Every Friday, thousands of people post what they're reading, whether a book, magazine, blog post or bus schedule. The point is to share what we're reading in order to promote reading!

Information: [...] When you share your FridayReads, you also become eligible for fantastic prizes. Each week, participants are randomly selected to receive free books.

FridayReads started in October 2009 when Bethanne Patrick, The Book Maven, realized that online communities are ideal venues to gather readers together to celebrate reading. Bethanne realized that with social media — Twitter and Facebook especially — the global community of readers finally has the tools to answer the age-old question, “What are you reading?”

FridayReads is not a corporate endeavor, but rather is a labor of love — and crowdsourcing — from readers. We’re grateful, though, for the authors and publishers who donate prizes each week! Prizes — books and magazines — are awarded to randomly selected FridayReads participants each week and, as the number of participants grows, so do the prizes available. So, be sure to ask your friends to participate, too.

Our hope with FridayReads is, simply, to celebrate and promote reading. Unlike a traditional book club, there’s no need to share analysis — unless you want to. Many folks have commented that they’ve discovered new books through FridayReads, and we’re thrilled to hear it. Every week, thousands of readers from around the world weigh in, proving that reading — of any and everything and in a multitude of formats — is alive and well.

It will take five minutes of your time on Friday to hop online to Twitter or Facebook and post what you are reading, from a technical manual or newspaper to a novel or a scholarly tome. This is about celebrating reading. It doesn’t matter if you post the same book two weeks in a row, or three."

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When I first started participating in FridayReads on Twitter, it was a struggle to get to 500 or 600 participants. Last week, the day ended with 6,200 participants! Additionally, FridayReads has begun to make a “best read” list available where you can see, not what is selling in the stores, but what is actually being read by real readers like you. (It is a great way to keep up on what is new, and what is interesting to other readers, right now… well, actually, as of last Friday.)

I think that people who read the Copper Queen Library blog can make an impact on this fun celebration of reading. Join with me on March 4 in supporting the fun at FridayReads on Facebook or Twitter!

Monday Mix: Gardening & Outdoor Spaces

--by Hanje Richards

I know that it was only a couple of weeks ago we were all shivering in below normal temperatures, even for winter in Bisbee. It was only a couple of weeks ago that every plumber in town was busy and running out of supplies for all those broken pipes. But, hope springs eternal, and I’ll bet a lot of you have already forgotten all of that and are starting to think about gardens. So, to help your imagination and your springtime ambitions, here is a list of some of the wonderful gardening books we have at the Copper Queen Library.

Agaves, Yuccas and Related Plants: A Gardener’s Guide (Mary and Gary Irish). Writing for gardeners who need specific information on these wonderful plants, Mary and Gary Irish provide detailed guidance on care, cultivation, and gardening uses. In addition, amateur naturalists will be pleased to note that the botanical history of the plants is given a succinct overview; complete keys are provided to help identify agaves and yuccas relying on foliage and growth form. Sixty-five species of agaves and twenty-five species of yuccas are profiled, together with information on natural habitat and garden care. Selected plants from nine other genera also are described. More than 100 color photographs and 18 drawings complement the text.

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All About Sprinklers and Drip Systems. Expert advice on how to grow a lush, green lawn through proper watering with less fuss, less water, and less money. The easy-to-follow, practical format helps you plan your watering systems, buy the right equipment, and install them with 100% confidence. More than 100 full-color photos and illustrations combined with step-by-step instructions show how easy it is to install sprinkler and drip systems.

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Arizona Gardener’s Guide (Mary Irish). Gardening is now the favorite outdoor leisure activity in America. Homeowners realize the health benefits available from gardening and the potential increase in their home's property value. Regional gardening titles offer the most useful advice because they provide credible information on the plants that perform best in specific states. Gardeners want information they can trust and use successfully in their own gardens, so the full-color plant selection resource guide is written especially for Arizona gardeners. It includes the top 175 landscape plants as recommended by one of Arizona's most respected horticultural experts.

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Creative Vegetable Gardening (Joy Larkcom). Working from the belief that a vegetable garden, whatever its size, can be as beautiful as a conventional garden of flowers and shrubs, this colorful guide shows how to apply the principles of good design to a kitchen plot. Find out how to use the vibrant texture, colors, and forms of vegetables, herbs, and fruit to create glorious effects and intriguing patterns without jeopardizing their productivity. A range of gardening techniques is described and illustrated with full-color step-by-step images, and an A-Z directory includes more than 150 edible plants to work with. From creating a full-scale potager (there are 5 different kinds to choose from) to simply adding some new effects with vegetables, there’s inspiration here for beginners and experienced gardeners alike.

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Desert Gardening: The Complete Guide (George Brookbank). Wherever you live in the desert up to 3,500-feet elevation, this guide is for you. Enjoy plentiful fruits and vegetables from your desert garden. Desert gardening expert George Brookbank will help you with your desert garden. A tremendous reference tool you'll use all year 'round!

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Desert Gardens (Gary Lyons). Whether explosive displays of columnar cacti and brilliant wildflowers cascading down sun-bathed hillsides, meditative, botanical expressions of an organic, spine-laden geometry set within the quiet, earthen walls of a Spanish colonial mission, or twilit, verdant groves evoking a prelapsarian topography, this book captures the numinous light and beauty of 18 unique and rarely photographed private and public desert gardens between San Francisco and San Diego. Featuring the most important desert garden in the world at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, as well as the Moorten Botanical Gardens in Palm Springs, Balboa Park in San Diego, and many exquisite private gardens, the volume celebrates the sculpturesque charms of cacti, aloes, and other succulent flora that have adapted to the extreme conditions of the desert.

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Hacienda Courtyards (Karen Witynski and Joe P. Carr). Explore the architectural elements, private water havens, furniture and garden vessels that will inspire you to create a courtyard paradise in your own home. Discover the rich colors, natural textures and design details that define the alluring, Mexican courtyard that is the heart of every hacienda home. Hacienda Courtyards takes you on a behind-the-scenes tour of gracious outdoor living areas, from the Yucatán's colonial estates to the centuries-old homes and haciendas of Morelia, Alamos and Oaxaca. Cobbled courtyards boast sculptural stone spheres and breezy, hammock-strung portales reveal old stone pavers, handmade clay bricks and wooden beams.

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The Hot Garden: Landscape Design for the Desert Southwest (Scott Calhoun). How to translate the natural beauty of the region — mountains, canyons, sculptural succulents, and incandescent sky — into gorgeous yet water-thrifty landscape designs that complement existing architecture as well as the environment that surrounds it. Gardeners at all levels will find insight, inspiration, tips, and tricks to help them create and foster beauty in the desert.

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In A Mexican Garden: Courtyards, Pools, and Open-Air Living Rooms (Gina Hyams). From private homes to luxurious resorts, Hyams celebrates Mexico's hidden oases where lovers meet for margaritas at sunset and families gather for spirited fiestas. The dazzling array of featured properties includes rustic coastal hideaways, elegant Spanish Colonial mansions, rural haciendas, and Modernist architectural masterpieces. Melba Levick's stunning photographs capture page after vibrant page of bold Mexican design elements: swirling mosaic floors, elaborate frescoes, hand-carved stone fountains, and lush native plants.

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Native Plants for High Elevation Western Gardens (Janice Busco and Nancy Morin). This self-explanatory title was written by two experts in the field. Janice Busco has 20 years experience with Western native plants as an environmental horticulturist, consultant, and educator. She has served as co-director of the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers and Native Plants in Sun Valley, California, and as horticulturist at The Arboretum at Flagstaff. Nancy R. Morin worked for 15 years at the Missouri Botanical Garden, eventually becoming the assistant director, and another 3 years as executive director of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta before coming to Flagstaff to serve as director of The Arboretum at Flagstaff.

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Perennials for the Southwest: Plants That Flourish in Arid Gardens (Mary Irish). Definitive guide for gardeners who want to create lush, colorful gardens while keeping artificial irrigation to a minimum. This book will help Southwest gardeners meet the challenge of growing perennials successfully by providing inspired, practical information on how to design dry-climate gardens and an A–Z guide to 156 proven plants. Each entry includes the plant’s scientific and common names, distribution, cultural needs, drought tolerance, and ornamental characteristics. Written in a clear, reader-friendly style and profusely illustrated with sparkling color photographs, this invaluable volume makes Irish’s expertise available to every gardener.

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Southwest Kitchen Garden (Kim Nelson). What is a kitchen garden? It's vegetables and fruits, herbs and flowers, paths, structures, and décor. It's the farmland of the backyard. The kitchen garden links us to our heritage and our environment, to the past and the future. Kim Nelson's Southwest Kitchen Garden takes readers from garden to table with a delicious blend of engaging prose and practical information, including:

..• Design and layout of the garden

..• Choosing herbs, flowers, and vegetables

..• Planting schedules

..• Harvesting and preparation, including recipes

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Sunbelt Gardening: Success in Hot Weather Climates (Tom Peace). Peace addresses the distinction between drought-tolerant and moisture-loving plants and explains which ones will work best in your garden, based on the specific region of the country in which you live. Most importantly, novice and expert gardener alike will learn how to succeed in cultivating exquisite, varied beauty throughout the hot summer months.

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Yard Full of Sun: The Story of a Gardener’s Obsession That Got A Little Out of Hand (Scott Calhoun). Memoir and how-to work side by side to excellent effect in this chronicle of a family's horticultural odyssey. Calhoun — an accomplished gardener, manager of a Tucson nursery and fourth-generation Arizonan — was determined to create a garden using native plants, a space that would serve as a "response to a powerful sun moving across a big sky." Beautiful, bright photos complement the author's loving descriptions of the plants' attributes and origins. He shares the methods he and his wife used to brainstorm their garden's layout, feel and contents, and offers detailed supply lists as well.

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Zen of Gardening in the High and Arid West: Tips, Tools and Techniques (David Wann). This book is a friendly and invaluable guide to such topics as strategic gardening (how to coax fruits and vegetables from a sun-parched garden), pest-proof planting (how to protect those disappearing bulbs), choosing the right varieties of edibles for the region (apples, snow peas, tomatoes, etc.), how to become a seed-starting maniac, a Farmer's Almanac approach to gardening (plant peas when the first cottonwood leaves appear!), as well as profiles of colorful local gardens and gardeners. For gardeners of the high plains and mountains who are "meteorologically and topographically challenged," who routinely grapple with wild weather swings, high elevations, and scarcity of water, Wann offers inspiration and invaluable practical advice for success in the garden. Wann also shows how gardening can offer "a Zen exercise in mindfulness, discipline, and the joy of being right in the moment."

Friday Fiction: Short Stories (Old School)

--by Hanje Richards


A few weeks ago, I did a blog post on contemporary short story writers. This blog is about some of their literary forefathers and foremothers. If you are a fan of the short story genre, you may enjoy looking back to some of these masters of the craft. The books listed are available at The Copper Queen Library.

William Faulkner
..Collected Stories of William Faulkner
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William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was a Nobel Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, his reputation is based mostly on his novels, novellas, and short stories. He was also a published poet and an occasional screenwriter. The majority of his works are based in his native state of Mississippi. Faulkner is considered one of the most important writers of the Southern literature of the United States, along with Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote, Eudora Welty, Harper Lee, and Tennessee Williams. Though his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. Faulkner has often been cited as one of the most important writers in the history of American literature.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
..Babylon Revisited, and Other Stories
..Curious Case of Benjamin Button
..Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels; a fifth, unfinished, novel was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age.

Henry James
..Complete Stories, 1874-1884
..Complete Stories, 1884-1916
..Complete Stories, 1892-1898
..Complete Stories, 1898-1910
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Henry James (April 15, 1843 – February 28, 1916) was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James. James spent the last 40 years of his life in England, becoming a British subject in 1915, one year before his death. He is primarily known for the series of novels in which he portrays the encounter of Americans with Europe and Europeans. His method of writing from the point of view of a character within a tale allows him to explore issues related to consciousness and perception, and his style in later works has been compared to impressionist painting.

Vladimir Nabokov
..Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
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Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (April 22, 1899 – July 2, 1977) was a multilingual Russian-American novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made contributions to entomology (he was an expert on butterflies) and had an interest in chess problems. Nabokov's
Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as among his most important novels and is his most widely known, exhibiting the love of intricate word play and synesthetic detail that characterized all his works.

Flannery O’Connor
..Collected Works of Flannery O’Connor
..Everything That Rises Must Converge
..A Good Man Is Hard To Find & Other Stories
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Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O'Connor's writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.

Eudora Welty
..Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
..Stories, Essays and Memoir
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Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her book, The Optimist's Daughter, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards, and was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson, Mississippi, is a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a museum.


Edith Wharton
..The New York Stories of Edith Wharton
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Edith Wharton, born Edith Newbold Jones (January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937), was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. In addition to novels, Wharton wrote at least 85 short stories. She was also a garden designer, interior designer, and taste-maker of her time. She wrote several design books, including her first published work, The Decoration of Houses (1897), co-authored by Ogden Codman & the generously illustrated Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904).

Spotlight On… Presidents’ Day

--by Hanje Richards

Washington's Birthday is a United States Federal holiday celebrated on the third Monday of February. It is also commonly known as Presidents’ Day. This post features books for children about some of those presidents.
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Abraham Lincoln (Ingri & Edgar d’Aulaire). Lincoln's boyhood is portrayed with deep understanding of the life of a gangling boy in a backwoods cabin. He grows taller by the page and his face shows the recognizable features before he is grown. This is no brief picture book but a balanced story of Lincoln's life, up to the last beautiful page that shows the tired war-president seated in an armchair beside Tad Lincoln.
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Fred Israel). This book is a biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, part of an illustrated series entitled "World Leaders Past and Present" which sets out to introduce the men and women whose ideas and actions have determined the course of history.
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George Washington (Ingri & Edgar d’Aulaire). George Washington was a backwoods Virginia boy destined to become the Father of His Country. Meticulously researched, the d'Aulaires hiked and camped all over Virginia as they imbibed the spirit of this great man. The story follows his growth from young boy, to surveyor, to soldier in the French and Indian War, where he became a war hero. Then, George courted Martha Custis and, after their marriage, they built a thriving plantation at Mount Vernon. Slavery is depicted as an acceptable fact "where his hundreds of slaves… kept everything spick and span and in beautiful order." Then, we see Washington lead his troops through the dark and hungry days of the Revolution – by his courage and integrity, inspiring the same in his men.
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George Washington (Cheryl Harness). We see George the adventurous boy, tromping through the woods with his dog and his hunting rifle; George the courageous military leader, fighting alongside his men; George the cunning military strategist, outfoxing the British and forcing their surrender at Yorktown; George the brilliant statesman, presiding over the Constitutional Convention; and George the President, wisely protecting our country from enemies foreign and domestic so it could grow strong. But, through it all, we see George as happiest living as an experimental farmer at Mount Vernon with his wife, Martha. He could have been Emperor of America, but he chose to spend his last years "looking after things that needed doing" at home.

Grace for President (Kelly Di Picchio). When Grace's teacher reveals that the United States has never had a female president, Grace decides to be the first. And she immediately starts off her political career as a candidate the school's mock election. But soon, she realizes that she has entered a tough race. Her popular opponent claims to be the "best man for the job" – and seems to have captured all the male votes – while Grace concentrates on being the best person.
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Picture Life of Ronald Reagan (Dori Lawson). This book highlights the life of the 40th President from his childhood through his years as a movie actor to the White House.
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Scholastic Encyclopedia of the Presidents and Their Times (David Rubel). This title documents the tenure of each of the American presidents. It also includes information about the headlines, people, and fads that were defining America during each presidency. Each profile includes a fact box that lists the president's birthday, birthplace, vice president, wife, children, and nickname. It also lists each president's full name and the years he was in office.

Following the fact box is a one-page description of each year that the president served. Each page explains the key issues that the president addressed that year, as well as what was important to Americans at that time. A brief description of each presidential campaign is included as well.

So You Want To Be President? (Judoth St.George). St.George leads her audience, ostensibly young presidential hopefuls, through the good points of the presidency (big house with its own bowling alley and movie theater) and bad points (lots of homework). Then, she offers a spiffy presidential history with comparisons and contrasts: most popular names, log cabin origins, ages, looks, backgrounds, pets, musical abilities, favorite sports, and personalities ("William McKinley was so nice that he tried to stop a mob from attacking the man who had just shot him").

Theodore (Frank Keating). His name was Theodore, but he is remembered as Teddy. As a young boy, he was a dreamer and a reader and had a curiosity about life he could never satisfy. As the youngest man to ever be president, he led a nation to greatness and he made every day count. Keating's telling of incidents in Roosevelt's rich and varied life reminds readers how one person can make a difference, and Mike Wimmer's exuberant paintings make Roosevelt come to life a century after his presidency.


Theodore Roosevelt Takes Charge (Nancy Whitelaw). Although born with debilitating asthma, Theodore Roosevelt had supportive parents, a strong will, and an intense desire to learn. The combination of these and other factors made it possible for him to lead an extraordinary productive life. Whitelaw's biography, illustrated with more than 70 photographs, is absorbing and complete.

Thomas Jefferson (Cheryl Harness). Harness illuminates the many sides of Thomas Jefferson: scientist, lawyer, farmer, architect, diplomat, inventor, musician, philosopher, author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of the University of Virginia, and third president of the United States. Readers meet this extraordinary man of contradictions: a genius who proclaimed that "All men are created equal" and championed the rights of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," while at the same time living a life that depended on the enforced labor of slaves.

Readers experience an eventful life lived largely in public service, yet also enjoy the personal warmth of this fascinating historical figure. The narrative examines the crucial role that the "sage of Monticello" played in shaping the ideals of freedom and self-government, which became the cornerstones of American democracy.

Monday Mix: President’s Day - The Men From Mt. Rushmore

--by Hanje Richards

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What do George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt have in common, aside from the fact that they were all Presidents of the United States? They have all been carved into the rocks that form Mt. Rushmore. Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mt. Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota, in the United States. Sculpted by Gutzon Borglum and later by his son Lincoln Borglum, Mt. Rushmore features 60-foot (18m) sculptures of the heads of former United States presidents.

After securing Federal funding, construction on the memorial began in 1927, and the presidents' faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. Upon Gutzon Borglum's death in March 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum took over construction. Though the initial concept called for each president to be depicted from head to waist, lack of funding forced construction to end in October 1941.

The U.S. National Park Service took control of the memorial in 1933, while it was still under construction and manages the memorial to the present day. It attracts approximately two million visitors annually.

George Washington

The First of Men: A Life of George Washington (John E. Ferling). This book is an illuminating portrait of Washington's life, with emphasis on his military and political career. Ferling shows that Washington had to overcome many negative traits as he matured into a leader. Ferling concludes that Washington's personality and temperament were those of "a self-centered and self-absorbed man, one who since youth had exhibited a fragile self-esteem." And yet, he managed to realize virtually every grand design he ever conceived. Ferling's Washington is driven – fired by ambition, envy, and dreams of fame and fortune. But, his leadership and character galvanized the American Revolution – probably no one else could have kept the war going until the master stroke at Yorktown – and helped the fledgling nation take, and survive, its first unsteady steps.

His Excellency: George Washington (Joseph Ellis). As commander of the Continental Army, George Washington united the American colonies, defeated the British army, and became the world's most famous man. But, how much do Americans really know about their first president? Today, as Pulitzer Prize-winner Joseph J. Ellis says in this crackling biography, Americans see their first president on dollar bills, quarters, and Mt. Rushmore, but only as "an icon – distant, cold, intimidating." In truth, Washington was a deeply emotional man, but one who prized and practiced self-control (an attribute reinforced during his years on the battlefield).

Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson (Gore Vidal). Vidal transports the reader into the minds, the living rooms (and bedrooms), the convention halls, and the salons of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and others. We come to know these men, through Vidal's splendid and percipient prose, in ways we have not up to now – their opinions of each other, their worries about money, their concerns about creating a viable democracy. Vidal brings them to life at the key moments of decision in the birthing of our nation. He also illuminates the force and weight of the documents they wrote, the speeches they delivered, and the institutions of government by which we still live. More than two centuries later, America is still largely governed by the ideas championed by this triumvirate.

Thomas Jefferson

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In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson (Noble E. Cunningham). Thomas Jefferson was a complex and compelling man: a fervent advocate of democracy who enjoyed the life of a southern aristocrat and owned slaves, a revolutionary who became president, a believer in states' rights who did much to further the power of the Ffederal government. For material, Cunningham draws on the recent explosion of Jeffersonian scholarship and fresh readings of original sources. .
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Thomas Jefferson (Ken Burns). Historians and writers (including Joseph Ellis, Daniel Boorstin, Garry Wills, and Gore Vidal) appear on camera to speak about Jefferson, and a cast of actors reads the words of Jefferson and others. The visuals include beautifully photographed shots of Jefferson's famed estate, Monticello, other locations where Jefferson lived and worked, and a vast number of period drawings and paintings. Jefferson, who was born into a prosperous Virginia family but lost his father when he was young, became a skilled lawyer despite his natural shyness. And the story of how he became a public figure and rose to prominence during the American Revolution is told intelligently.

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Commentators, including the noted African American historian John Hope Franklin, grapple with the peculiar inconsistencies of Jefferson's life. The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, and some of what he wrote about race is both troubling and puzzling. This film (which covers Jefferson's entire life, including his two terms as the young country's president and his later years in Virginia) doesn't sidestep controversy but provides a balanced account of one of the most fascinating of all Americans. [DVD]

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Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History (Fawn McKay Brodie). With a novelist’s skill and a scholar’s meticulous detail, Brodie portrays Thomas Jefferson as he wrestled with the great issues of his time: revolution, religion, power, race, and love – ambivalences that exerted a subtle but powerful influence on his political ideas and his presidency. Far advanced for its time, Brodie’s biography was the first to set forth a convincing case that Thomas Jefferson was the father of children by his slave Sally Hemings.
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Abraham Lincoln

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Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided (David G. McCullough). From award-winning film-maker David Grubin, this mini-series weaves together the troubled lives of a dirt-farmer's son and a wealthy Southern slave-owner's daughter. Together, Abraham and Mary Lincoln ascended to the pinnacle of power at the most difficult time in the nation's history, the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln's legacy as the Great Emancipator reshaped the nation, while his tragic death left Mary reclusive and forgotten. [DVD]
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Blood on the Moon: The Assasination of Abraham Lincoln (Edward Steers). According to Steers, John Wilkes Booth was neither mad nor alone in his act of murder. He received the help of many, not the least of whom was Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd, the Charles County physician who has been portrayed as the innocent victim of a vengeful government. Booth was also aided by the Confederate leadership in Richmond. As he made his plans to strike at Lincoln, Booth was in contact with key members of the Confederate underground and, after the assassination, these same forces used all of their resources to abet his escape. As Steers introduces the cast of characters in this ill-fated drama, he explores why they were so willing to help pull the trigger and corrects the many misconceptions surrounding this defining moment that changed American history.

Lincoln: A Novel (Gore Vidal). In Vidal's Lincoln, we meet Lincoln the man and Lincoln the political animal, the president who entered a besieged capital where most of the population supported the South and where even those favoring the Union had serious doubts that the man from Illinois could save it. Far from steadfast in his abhorrence of slavery, Lincoln agonizes over the best course of action and comes to his great decision only when all else seems to fail. As the Civil War ravages his nation, Lincoln must face deep personal turmoil, the loss of his dearest son, and the harangues of a wife seen as a traitor for her Southern connections. Brilliantly conceived, masterfully executed, Gore Vidal's Lincoln allows the man to breathe again.

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Team of Rivals (Doris Kearns Goodwin). This brilliant multiple biography is centered on Lincoln's mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history.
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Theodore Roosevelt
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Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt (David G. McCullough). This is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and almost fatal asthma attacks, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household in which he was raised. The father is the first Theodore Roosevelt, a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. The mother, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, is a Southerner and a celebrated beauty, but also considerably more, which the book makes clear as never before. There are sisters Anna and Corinne, brother Elliott (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt), and the lovely, tragic Alice Lee, TR's first love.
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The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Edmund Morris). The book begins with a brilliant Prologue describing the President at the apex of his international prestige. That was on New Year’s Day, 1907, when TR, who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, threw open the doors of the White House to the American people and shook 8,150 hands, more than any man before him. Morris re-creates the reception with such authentic detail that the reader gets almost as vivid an impression of TR as those who attended.

The rest of this book tells the story of TR’s irresistible rise to power. (He himself compared his trajectory to that of a rocket.) It is, in effect, the biography of seven men – a naturalist, a writer, a lover, a hunter, a ranchman, a soldier, and a politician – who merged at age forty-two to become the youngest President in our history. Rarely has any public figure exercised such a charismatic hold on the popular imagination.

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T.R.: The Last Romantic (H. W. Brands). In his time, there was no more popular national figure than Theodore Roosevelt. Based on years of research, including new-found letters from his adult sons, here is a complete biography of "T.R.," exploring both the public figure and the private man. Beautifully written, this is a presidential biography certain to take its place among the classics of the genre.

Friday Fiction: Jonathan Franzen

--by Hanje Richards

Jonathan Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His third novel, The Corrections (2001), a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned a National Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His most recent novel, Freedom, was published in August 2010.

Franzen is known for his 1996 Harper's essay "Perchance to Dream" bemoaning the state of literature, and for the 2001 controversy surrounding the selection of The Corrections for Oprah Winfrey's book club. In October 2010, Franzen declared in an interview for The Guardian that "America is almost a rogue state." Franzen writes for The New Yorker magazine.

The Corrections - After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man — or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.

The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History - This is Jonathan Franzen’s tale of growing up, squirming in his own über-sensitive skin, from a “small and fundamentally ridiculous person” into an adult with strong inconvenient passions. Whether he’s writing about the explosive dynamics of a Christian youth fellowship in the 1970s, the effects of Kafka’s fiction on his protracted quest to lose his virginity, or the web of connections between bird watching, his all-consuming marriage, and the problem of global warming, Franzen is always feelingly engaged with the world we live in now. The Discomfort Zone is a wise, funny, and gorgeously written self-portrait by one of America’s finest writers.
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Freedom - Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul — the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter’s dreams. Together with Walter — environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man — she was doing her small part to build a better world.

But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz — outré rocker and Walter’s college best friend and rival — still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become “a very different kind of neighbor,” an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street’s attentive eyes?

An epic of contemporary love and marriage, Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of his characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time..

The Twenty-Seventh City - St. Louis, Missouri, is a quietly dying river city until it hires a new police chief: a charismatic young woman from Bombay, India, named S. Jammu. No sooner has Jammu been installed, though, than the city's leading citizens become embroiled in an all-pervasive political conspiracy. A classic of contemporary fiction, Franzen shows us an ordinary metropolis turned inside out, and the American Dream unraveling into terror and dark comedy.