25 January 2001
(292-2658)
1709 Conestoga Dr SE - In 4-Hills, turn right on Stagecoach, past Rio Arriba, past Catron
by Simon Winchester.
LTBC Mode grade: B
All enjoyed learning of the mechanics of the OED complilation. Some LTBC thought author's treatment clever, some felt he digressed and could have made it much more interesting. But he saved his shock well.
In these two interesting interviews with the author [Nov. 1998]: he describes how the idea of the book came about, struggles with getting the files from St. Elizabeth's Hospital, the story of the picture of Dr. Minor [in 1910, age ~ 70] on the cover. When you read the book to its conclusion, you discover the secret behind the dedication, 'To the memory of G.M.' Notes also that for his first 11 books, Winchester received good reviews, but little sales. 'American Heatbeat' sold 11 copies in 1977. Since "Professor" was published, the OED has sold an additional 1500 copies of the 20 volume set!
22 February 2001
12704 Hugh Graham Road NE
N: Tramway
E: Comanche
S: Embudito
W: Hugh Gra
[3 rights]
(496 pgs in paperback) Perhaps a natural follow-on to "Flashman" - see Ben Smith's pre-review at right. Our Rio Grande Valley Library system has about 50 copies of Timeline; plus it is now in paperback, and Amazon has it for $4.79, or used copies from $2 each (plus $3.49 shipping) - so availability is no problem. No used copies at Page One Too, but Page One has 7 or 8 copies at $7.99.
"Prevenge of the Nerds" - A 'quick read' in that chapters are quite short and are preceeded with 1/3 page of white space. LTBC grades ranged from A- to C-, with a mode of B-. The LTBC summary.
Pre-review by Ben Smith, LTBC: "I've read it and of course I liked it. Classify it as one of Crichton's "homage" novels, this time to Twain's "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". Others are "Jurassic Park" (Conan Doyle's "Lost World", "Eaters of the Dead" ("Beowulf") and "Congo" (Edgar Rice Burrough's "Tarzan of the Apes") and probably most of his other novels. All good air travel distractors."
So explain to me if you are traveling to another multiverse location, how anything you do relates to our 'own' universe? So how can you leave a note in this other universe and have someone find it in yours?
29 March 2001
7709 Harwood Ave NE
West of Wyoming, between Comanche and Montgomery; one block N of Comanche; turn west onto Harwood, two long blocks down on right.
Sons and Lovers by
D. H. Lawrence
(short bio)
"An author should be in among the crowd, kicking their shins or cheering them on to some mischief or merriment.... Whoever reads me will be in the thick of the scrimmage, and if he doesn't like it--if he wants a safe seat in the audience--let him read somebody else." --DHL to Carlo Linati, 22 Jan. 1925
On-Line Seminar in D.H. Lawrence
"Portrait of the Artist" meets "Angela's Ashes"; grades ranged from A- to D! The LTBC summary.
But this time, after only a few days of relative harmony, Mabel - now Mabel Luhan, having married Tony the previous year - presented Frieda with a ranch on Lobo about two miles further up from the Del Monte ranch where they had lived with the Danes: and they started making plans to go back up to it. Lawrence, hating the obligation of a gift, insisted in giving Mabel something in return, and wrote to Europe for the original manuscript of Sons and Lovers, which he in turn presented to her: a gift whose value certainly outweighed what he and Frieda had received. After having some preliminary work on the buildings done, on 5th May they moved up to the three-cabin ranch for the summer, Lawrence and Frieda sharing one cabin and Brett taking a smaller one nearby. This would be Lawrence's most creative and fulfilled summer for some while: it is worth taking some time to look at his life on the [Kiowa] ranch, and to examine how his fiction emerged out of the isolation of his life there."
He was buried in Vence in 1930; however, in 1935 Frieda Lawrence had his body disinterred, cremated, and taken to New Mexico, where his ashes were re-buried in a chapel above the Kiowa Ranch in Taos.
26 April 2001
7800 Northridge NE
North of Montgomery; between Wyo & Penn.
Going N on Wyoming, it's the first
left-hand onto a residential street.
Wallace Stegner
(288 pgs paperback or hardcover) - Our Library system has about 20 copies. LTBC comments.
Review by the Literary Society of San Diego.
Wallace Stegner died in Santa Fe in 1993 following an auto accident.
31 May 2001
Sandia Park
Head toward the Ski Area; take the first right onto Old Crest - good luck!
by
E.
Annie Proulx (337
pages in paperback)
LTBC comments are added here.
28 June 2001
[immediately following Rob's party]
Unavailable: Henry, Ben.
14321 Stalgren Ct. NE
(aerial
photo)
From Tramway & Copper, go east 5 streets, turn right, then left.
The Sparrow
by
Mary
Doria Russell
This link to MDR's home
page provides a bio that is excellent writing all by itself.
(408 pages in paperback)
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. - Matthew 10:29
Interesting reviews and interpretations,
essays linked from our LTBC Comments
area on this novel.
Bio
on the author.
Reviews
of the novel.
Interview
with the author. [14 pages: excellent]
Requires
high tolerance for anquish; religion-based framework for First Contact
with clever clashing of ideas, humor & pathos.
Only 6 copies in the RGVLS. Used copies available for $10, new for $12 off the Internet.
"an astonishing literary debut, takes you on a journey to a distant planet and to the center of the human soul. It is the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a twenty-first-century scientific mission to a newly discovered extraterrestrial culture."
2 August 2001
[First Thursday!]
Gary Ganong (298-4731)
801 Rio Arriba SE
The Last Battle
by
Cornelius
Ryan
["not a short book, but it has pictures." - G. Ganong]
Born in Dublin in 1920 and worked as a reporter covering the battles in Europe for Reuters and the London Daily Telegraph from 1941 to 1945 and then the final months of the Pacific campaign. In all his books, Ryan stressed realism and was meticulous in attention to detail and his extensive research notes. He did not romanticize war, but emphasized the themes of destruction and waste and doom. While writing his last book, A Bridge Too Far, Cornelius Ryan was fighting a losing 4-½ year battle with prostate cancer.
The Fuhrer & The Fog
by LTBC Poet Laureate.
LTBC grades and comments.
Thursday
23 August 2001
913 Parkland Circle NE
Go East on Zuni to Carlisle;
Go South on Carlisle until the median disapears;
(or changes drastically);
Go West;
Keith is on this street, on the North side.
The Time Machine
by H. G. Wells
Available in paperback, ~ 76pgs.,
first published 1895.
The Time Machine is now in the public domain. The text is available in its entirety on-line.
- Project Gutenberg provides the entire text of this book .
- About the author.
- A little more about the author.
- Study Guide for teachers.
- H.G. Wells Society website.
- Nice comparison of the book vs. the 1960's film.
- Criticism of the book's science.
H.G. Wells's 1894 novel (his first) describes the adventures of his hero, the time-traveler, mostly in the year A.D. 802,701, when he encounters a class-ridden battle between the decadent Eloi and the primitive Morlocks.
27 September 2001
.. Loma Linda SE
Lead/Coal;
between Carlisle and Washington, take Montclaire south.
A Rumor of War by Philip
Caputo
Available in paperback [337 pages]. Three copies available in RG library system. I believe the book may have been used at UNM for a class, so it may be available in the UNM bookstore where the textbooks are. If it was used this semester, there may still be some on the shelves (before they clear the shelves for next semester) or where ever students sell used books.
So check out the bookstore and have a Starbucks while you're there!
-Ron
"Compelling
. . . A thoroughly honest view of what the experience of Vietnam meant
to a young college graduate, a 'gung-ho' lieutenant in the marine corps
who enlisted for the 'heroic experience' of war . . . It is the most eloquent
statement yet on what Vietnam was for the lower echelons who had to do
the dirty work." -- Seattle Times
Made for television production.
LTBC grades and comments.
25 October 2001
3918 Solano Pl, NE
87110
268-8801
From Constitution and Carlisle, go EAST one long block to Morningside. Turn left and go one block north and turn left on Solano Place.
Harry Potter
and the Sorcerer's Stone
by J.K. Rowling
meet
J.K. Rowling
discussion
guide
"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution." (The Sorcerer's Stone, page 298)
J.K. Rowling was unemployed and living on welfare when she began writing this novel on scraps of paper at the local cafe as her infant daughter napped.
After being published to rave reviews in England, the book became a literary sensation and was voted British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year.
Harry Potter knows no spells, has never helped to hatch a dragon, and has never worn a cloak of invisibility.
All he knows is a miserable life with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley — a great big swollen spoiled bully. Harry's room is a closet at the foot of the stairs, and he hasn't had a birthday party in eleven years. But all that is about to change when a mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitation to an incredible place that Harry — and anyone who reads about him — will find unforgettable.
29 November 2001
[Thursday after Thanksgiving]
1616 Catron SE
Landscapes of a Western Mind
by Ivan Doig
1978 classic (non-fiction)
The grandson of homesteaders and the son of a ranch hand and a ranch cook, Ivan Doig was born in Montana in 1939. He grew up along the Rocky Mountain Front that has inspired much of his writing, making it into his own "Western Yoknapatawpha," according to critics. His first book, the highly acclaimed memoir This House ofSky (1978), was a finalist for the National Book Award, and his eight books since then have received numerous prizes.
A former ranch hand and a newspaperman, Doig is a graduate of Northwestern University where he received a B.S. and a M.S. in journalism. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington and honorary doctorates in literature from Montana State University and Lewis and Clark College. In the century's-end San Francisco Chronicle polls to name the best Western novels and works of non-fiction, Doig is the only living writer with books in the top dozen on both lists: English Creek in fiction and This House of Sky in non-fiction. He lives in Seattle with his wife Carol, who has taught the literature of the American West.
Thomas
Kenneally of Australia, author of Schindler's List and Doig's international
contemporary states, "Ivan Doig has been, from This House of Sky,
his first grand entry into literature, one of the great American voices,
full of grace, abounding in humanity, easeful in narration, hypnotic in
pace, grand in range."
his picture of a small town after a blizzard: 'In the fresh calm, wood smoke climbed straight up from chimneys, until it appeared as if the fat gray ribbons were dangling all the town's houses down into a bowl of snow.'
27 December 2001
[Thursday after Christmas]
(292-2658)
1709 Conestoga Dr SE - In 4-Hills, turn right on Stagecoach, past Rio Arriba, past Catron
Band of Brothers
As
grippingly as any novelist, preeminent World War II historian Stephen Ambrose
tells the horrifying, hallucinatory saga of Easy Company, whose 147 members
he calls the nonpareil combat paratroopers on earth circa 1941-45.
They fought on Utah Beach, in Arnhem, Bastogne, the Bulge; they spearheaded
the Rhine offensive and took possession of Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden.
This gripping depiction of Easy Company re-creates some of the most critical
moments of WWII and offers insights into the commanders and regular soldiers
-- the heroes who manned the battlefields.
