LibraryPoint Blog

It is fascinating to trace the domino effect caused by something so seemingly small and insignificant as a bolt of cloth. In Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, by Geraldine Brooks, this bolt spreads misery in the form of the bubonic plague from London to a small, remote English village in 1666. Anna Frith, a young widow who has already seen her share of misfortune, is spared the fatal boils while all around her, family, friends, and neighbors succumb to the terrible disease.

The University of Mary Washington's 2013 Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series continues on Thursday, February 14, with a lecture on Houdini by John Kasson, author of Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man:

 Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man considers the surprisingly complex evolution in representations of the white male body in late-nineteenth-century America, during years of rapid social transformation. John F. Kasson argues that three exemplars of physical prowess - Eugen Sandow, an international vaudeville star and bodybuilder; Edgar Rice Burroughs's fictional hero Tarzan; and the great escape artist Harry Houdini - represented both an ancient ideal of manhood and a modern commodity. They each extolled self-development,self-fulfillment, and escape from the confines of civilization while at the same time reasserting its values. This liberally illustrated, persuasively argued study analyzes the thematic links among these figures and places them in their rich historical and cultural context.

Find out more about this lecture on the University of Mary Washington's web site.

All lectures in the university's Great Lives series are held at 7:30pm, in Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall, and are free and open to the public.

For more on this topic, check out these items from the library:

Houdini!:  The Career of Ehrich Weiss:  American Self-Liberator, Europe’s Eclipsing Sensation, World’s Handcuff King & Prison Breaker by Kenneth Silverman
Pulitzer winning author Silverman delivers an entertaining biography with a multitude of photographs.

Houdini:  Unlocking the Mystery directed by Michael Meadows (DVD)
Explores the life and magic of the great escape artist through his most prized possessions – the Chinese Water Torture Cell, the Milkcan, his straitjackets, handcuffs, and lockpicks.  (catalog summary)

Dellarobia Turnbow feels trapped in her life. Although her husband Cub is a good man, he lacks imagination and ambition. Dellarobia dearly loves her two young children, but had hoped she would amount to more than just a housewife, living in a home teetering on the brink of foreclosure. Looking for any spark to ignite her soul, she’s prepared to throw everything away for a hastily planned tryst. But an unearthly spectacle of beauty greets her in the Appalachian countryside on the way to her clandestine meeting. This unprecedented phenomenon will change the course of Dellarobia’s life in Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.

The University of Mary Washington's 2013 Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series continues on Tuessday, February 12, with a lecture on Lawrence of Arabia by Nabil Al-Tikriti.

Springing from a somewhat unorthodox and never legalized union between an Anglo-Irish petty lord and his governess, Thomas Edward Lawrence combined an elite Oxford education, wartime opportunity, and an impressive knack for self-promotion to emerge as one of the most famous characters of the Great War. Symbolic of Britain’s imperial ambitions in the Arab World, Lawrence successfully used his liberal arts education in history, archaeology, and Oriental Studies to provide key contributions to the negotiation process which shaped today’s Middle East. After the war, with the help of American journalist Lowell Thomas’ promotion efforts, Lawrence’s reputation grew steadily, until the 1962 film “Lawrence of Arabia” ensured a continuing mythical status.

Find out more about this lecture on the University of Mary Washington's web site.

All lectures in the university's Great Lives series are held at 7:30pm, in Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall, and are free and open to the public.

Find out more about Lawrence of Arabia by checking out these items from the library:

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda
[T]he story of an epic life on a grand scale: a revealing, in-depth, and gripping biography of the extraordinary, mysterious, and dynamic Englishman whose daring exploits and romantic profile including his blond, sun-burnished good looks and flowing white robes made him an object of intense fascination, still famous the world over as "Lawrence of Arabia."  As this magisterial work demonstrates, Lawrence remains one of the most unique and fascinating figures of modern times, the arch-hero whose life is at once a triumph and a sacrifice and whose capacity to astonish still remains undimmed. (catalog summary)

Lawrence of Arabia produced by Flashback Television Ltd. for the Biography Channel (DVD)
Ride into the desert with the Briton who helped end centuries of Ottoman domination in the Arabian peninsula.  (catalog summary)

Darcy Jones has been bouncing from foster home to foster home around Chicago for most of her short life. She remembers nothing from her early childhood. She has finally managed to spend more than a year with a foster parent and finally has some friends at her high school.

Little does Darcy know that there is an alternate world just like this one as well as an alternate Chicago. But in that world, the Great Chicago Fire never happened. In that world, The Shadow Society remains a deadly threat.

When a mysterious new boy at school, Conn McCrea, captures Darcy’s attention... her heart soon follows. She is about to find out though that Conn is from that alternate world, and so is she.

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen: Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother's life. But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew--a reclusive, real-life gentle giant--she realizes that mysteries aren't solved in Mullaby, they're a way of life.

If you enjoyed this book, here are some other titles you may enjoy:

The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
The antics of a group of women in a small town where they were expected to raise babies, not Cain. The story is recounted by a mother to a daughter, the daughter thinking she is so much better because she got out of that town and is now a theater producer. The moral: mothers too were once rebels. (worldcat.org)

Julia's Chocolates by Cathy Lamb
Cathy Lam has created a passel of characters so weirdly wonderful that you want to hang out with them all day just to see what they'll do next. It's a ride that's both hilarious and poignant, and all the while you cling to the edge of the pick up truck because you'll want to make sure you stay in for the whole trip. (worldcat.org)

In Bark, George by Jules Feiffer, George is a small dog with a big problem. When his mother tells him to bark, he can't. Instead he says, "Meow," not quite the sound his mom was expecting. George keeps trying, but to his mother's growing frustration, he can only produce the sounds of other animals, like "Oink" or "Moo." Finally George's mother takes him to the vet who promises to get to the bottom of the problem. The cause of George's unusual sounds is even funnier than the idea of a dog who quacks.

Now that we’re all hooked on our tablets and smartphones, let’s face it, those old “PeeCees” are getting less and less use in our everyday lives.  But that hardly means their usefulness has run out!  Here are some great ideas to extend the lives and functionality of your aging hardware.

Sometimes you check out a book that starts a new family hobby. The book Paletas started a wonderful new hobby for our family. The day before my son found this book he was watching a Food network show on Paletas, the delicious Latin-American treats that we call popsicles. The next day my son found this book at the library: Paletas : Authentic Recipes for Mexican Ice Pops, Shaved Ice, and Aguas Frescas by Fany  Gerson. It was summertime and we made the key lime popsicles rolled in pie crust crumbs and each popsicle tasted just like a piece of key lime pie. We also made the avocado paletas and even though they sounded dreadful, they were really delicious! Of course we also made the more traditional lemon-lime popsicles.