Friday, January 18, 2008

Notes from the Big Blue NonFiction Wall: January

It's so very, very cold again and a great time to make sure that you have some very, very good books to keep your mind engaged while we wait for the Earth to get a move on into that warm, sunny Spring-ward tilt that we love so much. Time to take a brief tour of the newest of the new non-fiction gracing the mighty Big Blue NonFiction wall on the second floor of the Rochester Public Library.

Speaking of the Earth, let's start with something a little Cosmic. America In Space: Nasa's First Fifty Years (with a forward by Neil Armstrong - the astronaut, not the biker dude who used to date Sheryl Crow) is a spectacular coffee table book that deals with everything NASA from the pre-Explorer days to the Moon to the Space Shuttle and beyond. There are some truly spectacular images of Earth, spacecraft, and the men and women who boldly went where most of us are unlikely to go. There's even a picture of Richard Nixon laughing (page 195, if you don't believe me)! Whether you remember those heady times of the Space Race with the Soviet Union or you're saying to yourself "What was this 'Soviet Union'?", this book will amaze and delight.

Switching gears from the Heavens to the not-so-funny, but sometimes-funny pages comes the book Art Spiegelman: Conversations edited by Joseph Witek. For those who may not be in the know, Mr. Spiegelman is the acclaimed artist/writer of the graphic novel Maus: A Survivors Tale which tells the story of his father's experience in the Holocaust and won a Special Pulitzer Prize in 1992. It was one of the first works that showed that the medium of comics could be used to tell serious stories and made Spiegelman one of the famous literary cartoonists in the world (admittedly, a small group). This new book is a collection of conversations with Speigelman (hence the catch & accurate title of the book) spans thirty years and serves as a primer on this history and development of comics as a serious art form. Spiegelman is a very smart, funny and candid artist and it is interesting to catch his words at so many different junctures of his career in one place.

For those of you who thought secret Presidential taping was the sole purview of one Richard Milhous Nixon, think again. LBJ was a secret taper par excellence, and some recently released transcripts of his 1964 recordings prove it. Get an insider's view through this amazing collection of phone conversation collected in The Presidential Recordings, Lyndon B. Johnson. Don't worry, once you finish the first one, there are still two other new volumes that we've recently received at the library. Editors David Schreve, Robert David Johnson put the conversations in historical context and give quite the insight into one of this country's more turbulent decades. Secret taping done right.

And finally, the book we've all been waiting to have written ever since cavemen started acting rudely at the Dawn of Time (see the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey for details) : Look, Speak, & Behave For Men by Jamie Yasko-Mangum. This book contains "expert advice on Image, Etiquette, and Effective Communication for the Professional" in a mere 212 pages. If effective, it could be Pulitzer time for Ms. Yasko-Mangum. Bringing together the four elements that make a man a man (Positive Self-Esteem, Polished Appearance, Speaking Intelligently, and Behaving With Pride), this book gives tips for the modern professional man (although not much of it seems to apply to professional wrestlers) in a concise, readable little book. A book hardly bigger than a PDA (and potentially more valuable) could be sitting there for you if you visit the Big Blue NonFiction wall in time. Also available (but probably less necessary) Look, Speak, & Behave For Women.

Until next month, remember to visit the Big Blue NonFiction wall because you'll never know what you might find.





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