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By Karen, May 17, 2012

 Summer is almost here and it is a good time to think about traveling.  

With so many different travel book publications available it can be tough to figure out where to start. If I am not familiar with a destination I like to begin with the DK Eyewitness Travel series. These books are filled with hundreds of beautiful color photos and amazing cross-sections of famous landmarks.  While other books will simply list the name of the landmark and give brief details, DK Eyewitness Travel serves it up with incredible, fun detail and introduces you to many sights that you might have otherwise missed.

For those looking for a down to earth travel experience, there is the Rick Steves’ travel series.   I first discovered Rick Steves’ many years ago while watching his PBS television series Rick Steves’ Europe. Each week, Steves’ would travel to a different European destination, often off the beaten track, interacting with the locals and seeing some beautiful sights along the way. The Rick Steves’ guide books work the same way, they mention the fancy places but they also point out the more affordable options too. The purpose of a Rick Steves’ travel book is to arm the traveler with helpful information that they will need to have the best vacation possible and it is often doled out with a dash of humor.

Recently, I came across a book published by National Geographic called Walking Paris: The Best of the City. They also haveWalking Rome and Walking London. These books go perfectly with the DK Eyewitness Travel series and Rick Steves’ books. What this series has going for it is the incredible scope of National Geographic’s photographic library. I have never seen such beautiful photographs in a travel book as the ones in Walking Paris: The Best of the City. Using these books, you are sure to have very memorable travels.

 Happy traveling! 

- Karen

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By Amanda, May 12, 2012

Ready Player One
By Ernest Cline

Watch out bandwagon! Here I come.

If you’ve been listening to The Popmatic Podcast (and why wouldn’t you? It’s awesome!), then you’ve heard my fellow podcasters talk about a book called Ready Player One. Jessie and Crystal both mentioned how much they enjoyed the book, so I thought why not?

Why not indeed!

Nerds among us unite. We have found our manifesto and it is good. Seriously, this book has everything you could want: an epic quest, an intelligent but sarcastic hero, an evil villian corporation, and thousands upon hundreds upon tens of pop culture references – especially from The Eighties. Yes, a lot of the action takes place in video game land, but I’m not a gamer of any kind (I’m sure Spider Solitaire doesn’t count) and it didn’t bother me.

Basic premise: in a dystopian US, 50 yrs or so from now, a programming god (think Steve Jobs or Bill Gates) dies and leaves his fortune hidden in his video game – The Oasis. The mission: to find said fortune and protect The Oasis from the Sixers, who work for the evil corporation IOI (in binary 6=101, get it?), and are trying to corporatize The Oasis.

It’s been about a week since I finished the book and I’m still having withdrawal symptoms from a lack of Oasis time. The extra fun part is that I listened to the audio CDs, which are read by (Evil) Wil Wheaton. He’s not the best with voices, but he’s Wil Wheaton, so who cares?

If you watched Family Ties, ever tried to play a perfect PacMan game, know what kind of Apple computers existed before Macs, or get what Ready Player One means – this book is for you.

Very happy reading…or should I say READY PLAYER ONE…

Amanda

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By Laurie, May 9, 2012

Roots of Style: weaving together life, love and fashion
Isabel Toledo

Fashion designer Isabel Toledo is best known for her lemongrass coat and dress ensemble worn by Michelle Obama on inauguration day. How she came to dress the first lady is told in her autobiography Roots of Style: weaving together life, love and fashion.

Roots of Style shows how Toledo’s artistic development was influenced by her family’s immigration from Cuba, follows her first fashion steps in NYC in the late 70s, and concludes with recent projects like her collaboration with Payless Shoes.

Isabel Toledo has worked with many of the best known and most talented designers and tastemakers of the past 40 years, including fashion editors Diane Vreeland and Grace Mirabella, photographer Peter Beard, designer Katy K, Patricia Field, artist Keith Haring, and New York Times style icon Bill Cunningham.

What lends the book a great deal of its authenticity is the tale of her partnership with her husband, Ruben Toledo. Ruben illustrates the book and at first reading the illustrations are cute, whimsical and just a tad distracting. As their story progresses, the illustrations become an intricate and essential element of the history the two of them weave, as warp and weft.

This is a story of talent and impeccable timing stitched together by a hand-me-down green Singer sewing machine. Artistes, crafters, aspiring designers and doodlers will all find something to love in this book.

- Laurie

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By Sharra, May 7, 2012

There has been a surge, recently, in novels about dystopian societies, whose protagonists are young, female and capable. These novels, mostly published for a Young Adult audience, have also captured the interest of adults as well. With a rise in interest in this particular genre, there are many novels that have been published in the past fifty years that follow the same themes that might be overlooked.

Here are four that you might find an interesting read:

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

This  story pulls no punches. A group of Japanese school kids are taken on an island, and forced to fight each other to the death. There can be only one survivor. This isn’t an isolated incident of some crazy person kidnapping kids – this is a government initiative meant to cull out the herd of violent schoolchildren and help lower the number of unemployed people. The deaths in this novel are very graphic, the characters memorable (even as they are killed off), and the story line has romance, intrigue and some capable kids just trying to survive the adults.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

While Lord of the Flies isn’t necessarily a  Dystopian novel, it is a classic novel of how a disastrous situation can change human nature, often leading a person to do things they never thought themselves capable of. Children are once again the subject of this novel, as are their reactions when they find themselves stranded on a desert island. For those fans of the television show Lost, you’ll see some of the elements originated in this novel (who is The Beast?).

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

This novel was originally published in 1986, and it will bring a chill to anyone who reads it. The United States has become a theocracy – women are subservient, forced into specified roles – Handmaiden, Wife, and Servant – according to Biblical law. Women who are capable of breeding are treated like animals. There is a reason – government has been suspended due to a “terrorist attack” where most of the important leaders are killed. Another group, dubbing themselves “Sons of Jacob” take over, freezing the assets of all women (and other people they don’t like), and creating a society based on their believes. The story is told from the perspective of one handmaiden “Offred” who started life as a free woman, who had a husband and a child, and who is forced into servitude by the change in laws.  The end of the story leaves you with a question mark, but it definitely makes you think.

The Long Walk by Richard Bachman AKA Stephen King

Here’s a story that’s similar to The Hunger Games in a lot of ways. The characters volunteer to participate in a national past time – the long walk. Participants have to walk at a steady four miles per hour, without stopping for sleep, using the bathroom, or eating. They are given food at 9 a.m. every morning that has to last them the entire day.  If participants fall below four miles per hour for more than thirty seconds, they are given a warning. A warning can be taken away if they walk for an hour without being warned. After three warnings, boys are “ticketed” (I’ll let you read to find out what THAT means) and removed from the game. This is definitely not a novel for the faint of heart – these young men are in it to win an elusive prize – anything they want for the rest of their lives.

Keep in mind, this is just a brief selection of novels out there that have themes similar to The Hunger Games. There are many upcoming books by other authors  – Divergent by Veronica Roth and Cinder by Marissa Meyer, as well as Matched by Ally Condie – just to name a few in the Young Adult category.

Pleasant reading!

-Sharra

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By Bryan, May 7, 2012

A poster by artist / activist troupe Guerrilla Girls reads Q: If February is Black History Month and March is Women’s History Month, what happens the rest of the year? A: Discrimination. Nothing is funny unless it is true. The documentary W.A.R. Women Art Revolution charts the rise of the feminist art movement. You know that funny moment in the 1970s, when women pointed out that there were no women in art galleries (artists or curators). Some brave women decided they should do something about it and created some amazing, influential art in the process. The film also traces the movement’s implosion and conflicted critical reputation in today’s art world. Even by 2007, the WACK! Art and Feminist Revolution retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles was a controversial event. (As further evidence of our library’s awesomeness, follow that link to get a copy of the show’s catalog.) Despite the film’s spirit of inclusiveness, it reveals too who is excluded from the “art world.” One can’t help wondering why it is all these people know each other by their first names. Issues of canonization remain unresolved.

When watching this I had a copy of Ann Beattie’s experimental Mrs. Nixon: a novelist imagines a life sitting on my bedside table. What a long strange trip it has been.

- Bryan

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By Amanda, May 5, 2012

Adam Yauch 1964-2012

Adam Yauch, a founding member of The Beastie Boys, lost his battle to cancer on May 4. Better known as MCA, Yauch, with his musical brothers Mike D and Ad-Rock, fought hard for their right to party – hitting the music scene in the middle of the 1980s. MCA’s health had been in decline since 2009 and most recently had delayed the release of their album, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two. The Beastie Boys were inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April.

If these guys haven’t hit your turntable (read: mp3 player) yet, take a listen to some of the innovative tracks created by this trio of bad boys. They will probably be best remembered for Licensed to Ill, but you can’t go wrong with Hello Nasty or Paul’s Boutique.

  RIP MCA – We’ll miss you…

Amanda

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By Bryan, May 3, 2012

We sort of go over the top with our love of BBC shows. Though we only mention Sissy Spacek, amazing authors Ron Rash, Andrea Wulf, and Colin Powell will all be here in May. We close by finding out which members of the podcast team will admit to reading Fifty Shades of Grey.

Our fave British TV:

Black Books

Merlin

Cracker starring Robbie Coltrane

Torchwood: Children of Earth

The Office with Ricky Gervais

Fawlty Towers

The Prisoner

Check out this rare interview with Patrick McGoohan speaking about The Prisoner:

Tickling Our Fancy

American Sniper by Chris Kyle

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Deep Zone by James M. Tabor

The films of Robert Mulligan including The Stalking Moon

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

- Bryan