Susan’s Picks from 2014

January 27, 2015January 16, 2015 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

I feel terrible for only squeezing in 27 books this year, a new low for me, but considering I wrote or edited three books in between, I don’t feel so bad. I am an unforgivable nerd, wallowing in science, history, psychology, and biography to the point I read almost no fiction at all anymore. I feel bad when people ask me to recommend something and I have no clue what to offer because the last really good book I read was on the histology of Ebola, or they’re looking for romance recommendations and my idea of a great romance is the novelization of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Here are the best and worst I read this year, not counting a reread of Chris Wooding’s Retribution Falls, which I love so much I gave out ten copies at Christmas:

#
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: the Quest to Crack an Ancient Code, by Margalit Fox. Fox covers the work by Michael Ventris, who eventually untangled the mystery of the early Greek/Mycenean Linear B glyphs, but spends much of the book discussing Alice Kober’s work, so much of it uncredited yet without which Ventris would not have succeeded. When Kober – who spent the majority of her life working on the syllabary – dies just a year before the pieces fall into place, you want to cry for her. If you love a good detective novel – this is a true story that shook the history world. (I warned you about the nerdism).

#
Detroit: An American Autopsy, by Charlie LeDuff. An incredible book about the decay of Detroit, a city so far gone America has forgotten it exists, while the people still try to survive in a place without – well, anything. No jobs, no police, no grocery stores, and most recently, no water. Made me incredibly angry to see America left to rot like this.

#
W ho Discovered America? by Gavin Menzies. Ever read a book that makes you feel like you woke up on an alien world, that everything you were ever told about history was wrong? This book takes Thor Heyerdahl to a whole new level, pointing out overwhelming scientific evidence that Asian, African, and European peoples were routinely coming to America long before Columbus was born. Utterly fascinating. Even if Menzies is only 10% right, it still changes everything we know about history. Easy to read, and you won’t be able to put it down.

#
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in Northern Korea, by Barbara Demick. This book is so touching and so sad, you cannot help but be moved by people who have so little control over their lives that even their food and clothing is doled out by the government, and if they say you will starve, then you starve, because they will not give you more. People risking death to swim to China, or pay for an underground railroad to South Korea, where they have extreme culture shock that defies the propaganda they have been fed for generations. Hate the leader, but love the people. I love Gavin Menzies, but I think this gets my vote for Best Book of the Year.

#
I Can Hear You Whisper: An Intimate Journey Through the Science of Sound and Language, by Lydia Denworth. Denworth’s youngest son is born profoundly deaf; this is her story not only of trying to decide how to educate him (as a lip-reader, a signer, or hearing w/ a cochlear implant). Interspersed with her journey is the science behind hearing and language, and the history of deafness, and it is utterly fascinating how much hearing and learning are interconnected, and why many deaf people never read beyond a fourth-grade level.

#
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John LeCarré. I needed to read a couple of spy novels as research for a book I was writing. Every list I looked at said this was the best. I have no doubt they are right. A spy novel that will keep you guessing until the very end, it makes James Bond look like a pampered fool. Very British, but very, very good.

#
Worst book I read this year? There were a couple of stinkers, but I think the worst I read was The Boy Detective: A New York Childhood, by Roger Rosenblatt. I don’t care how many awards he’s gotten. I almost never abandon a book half-way through, but I just couldn’t finish this. It has a boy, and he’s in New York, but the rest is just a single run-on sentence of chapterless rambling. You know how your brain wanders foggy from topic to topic when you’re lying in bed half asleep? That’s this book. I read some clunkers, but I made it to the end of them. This one I couldn’t get past 50 pages. No, thank you.

What did you like/dislike this year?

Sharon Reads: The Case of the Vanishing Little Brown Bats by Sandra Markle

January 22, 2015January 22, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

The Case of the Vanishing Little Brown Bats is a non fiction book for children by Sandra Markle. This book explores the brown bats remarkable decline in population, including the likely causes and the effect that this decline can have on our lives.

Are you among those that think of bats and shudder, or do you think they are cute or useful? Well The Case of the Vanishing Little Brown Bats can show those that are not overly fond of bats why they might want to help them stick around. Bats eat a large number of bugs, limiting the amount of bugs that can spread diseases, and the amount of damage insects can to to crops and our food supply. Sadly large populations of little brown bats have been dying off each winter. Scientists have been hard at work to figure out if a virus killing them, if climate change or pesticides be the cause, or if it something else? This book follows a team of dedicated scientists working to save the little brown bats in this real-life science mystery. Thankfully, unlike the continuing death of bee colonies, there are now answers about what is hurting our bats and there are steps being taken to help them. There are suggestions for further research and ideas for families to help the cause.

I love bats, and the fact that they can decimate the mosquito population in no time flat. The Case of the Vanishing Little Brown Bats is a well researched and organized book that presents the facts of the investigation along with extra pieces of information that could be of great interest to middle grade readers. It is not sensationalized, but instead shows the steps of a scientific investigation and all of the possible causations and solutions, including those that turned out to be dis-proven. I think animal lovers will get something great out of this book, it could help some creeped out by the bat understand them a bit more, and will act as a credible resources for research. I gave this book four stars on Sharon the Librarian and Goodreads.

If this sort of animal mystery appeals to you, you might want to check out: The Case of the Vanishing Honey Bees, and The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs by the same author.

O, The Oprah Magazine Picks Top Ten Books of 2014

January 20, 2015January 5, 2015 / Linda / Leave a comment

The editors of O, The Oprah Magazine have come up with their list of the top ten books of 2014. How many did you read?

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell – A vast, intricate novel that weaves six narratives and spans from 1984 to the 2030s about a secret war between a cult of soul-decanters and a small group of vigilantes called the Night Shift who try to take them down. An up-all-night story that fluentlymixes the super-natural, sci-fi, horror, social satire, and hearbreaking realism.

Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken – A collection of stories navigates the fragile space between love and loneliness, including the title story in which a family finds their lives irrevocably changed by their teenage daughter’s risky behavior.

The Short & Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs – Presents the life of Robert Peace, an African American who became a brillant biochemistry student at Yale University, but after graduation lived as drug dealer and was brutally murdered at the age of thirty.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel – The sudden death of a Hollywood actor during a production of “King Lear” marks the beginning of the world’s dissolution in a story told at various past and future times from the perspectives of the actor and four of his associates.

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison – A collection of essays explores empathy, using topics ranging from street violence and incarceration to reality television and literary sentimentality to ask questions about people’s understanding of and relationships with others.

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi – A reimagining of the Snow White story set in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s.

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast – A graphic memoir by a long-time New Yorker cartoonist celebrates the final years of her aging parents’ lives through four-color cartoons, family photos and documents that reflect the artist’s struggles with caregiver challenges.

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom – Forging a life together after being abandoned by their parents, half sisters Eva and Iris share decades in and out of the spotlight in golden-era Hollywood and mid-twentieth-century Long Island.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande – A prominent surgeon argues against modern medical practices that extend life at the expense of quality of life while isolating the dying, outlining suggestions for freer, more fulfilling approaches to death that enable more dignified and comfortable choices.

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay – A cultural examination of the ways in which the media influences self-perception, and discusses how society still needs to do better.

Celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with Knowledge and Service

January 18, 2015January 5, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

January 19, 2015 is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. In 1994 Congress designated MLK day as a day of service. The MLK Day of Service is the only federal holiday observed as a national day of service. It calls for Americans to work together in order to provide solutions to our most pressing national problems. To learn more about the day check out the official website here.

The titles below include children’s books about Dr. King, fiction and nonfiction books about ordinary people who stand up for what’s right, and stories about helping others and giving back. Then there is a list of books about volunteering, to help choose what avenues we each might want to take in volunteering or service. No matter the day, helping out in the community is rewarding for the volunteer and those it helps. So even if you cannot participate on the designated day, maybe a book can help in finding something you can be passionate about or enjoy while serving the community.

People Who Made a Difference:

1. Child of the Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young Shelton. A daughter of civil rights activist Andrew Young describes her experiences of growing up in the Deep South at the height of the movement, sharing her witness to the efforts of her father, family friend Martin Luther King, Jr. and

thousands of others who participated in the historic march from Selma to Montgomery.

2. March On!: The Day My Brother Martin Changed the World by Christine King Farris.Having led thousands in a march for civil rights to the foot of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. made the most of the historical moment by giving a speech that would forever inspire people to continue to fight for change in the years ahead.

3. Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges. Provides the first-hand factual account of the six-year-old student who made history by having been one of the first black children to attend an all-white, segregated school in the 1960s.

4.Sit-in: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney. A picture book celebration of the
50th anniversary of the momentous Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in, when four college students staged a peaceful protest that became a defining moment in the struggle for racial equality and the growing Civil Rights Movement.

More books on civil rights and how individuals affect change include:The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles, I Am Rosa Parks by Rosa Parks, Heroes for Civil Rightsby David A. Adler, Ida B. Wells: Mother of the Civil Rights Movement by Dennis Brindell Fradin and Judith Bloom Fradin, Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movementby Ann Bausum, My Country, ’tis of Thee: How One Song Reveals the History of Civil Rights by Claire Rudolf Murphy, Miles to Go for Freedom: Segregation and Civil Rights in the Jim Crow Yearsby Linda Barrett, The Girl From the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement by Teri Kanefield, and Free at Last?: The Civil Rights Movement and the People Who Made Itby Fred Powledge.

Inspiration to Serve:

1. 50 Ways to Save our Children: Small, Medium & Big Ways You Can Change a Child’s Lifeby Cheryl Saban.Describes how to make a difference in a child’s life, including collecting toys for homeless shelters, donating books to schools and libraries, volunteer work, charitable donations, and starting a scholarship fund.

2. Teens With The Courage to Give: Young People who Triumphed over Tragedy and Volunteered to Make a Difference by Jackie Waldman. Thirty young people tell their stories of overcoming hardship to become volunteers in this inspiring look at a national trend among teenagers.

3. Our Day to End Poverty: 24 Ways You Can Make a Difference by Shannon Daley-Harris and Jeffrey Keenan, with Karen Speerstra.Imagine ending poverty at home and around the globe in our own lifetimes. Imagine your actions combining with others; actions to make poverty history. With originality and imagination, this book invites us to look at our very ordinary days, from waking up in the morning to going to bed in the evening, and to begin to think about poverty in new and creative ways. “Our Day to End Poverty” is organized into 24 “hour/chapter” segments. Each chapter connects with your day, from breakfast to bedtime, relating these steps to ending poverty to our daily routines. Some times a problem gets to be so big, we feel there is nothing we can do about it. “Our Day to End Poverty” reminds us that if we all do just a little, a lot can get done.

4. Giving: How Each of us Can Change the World by Bill Clinton. Compiling anecdotes about the diverse charitable efforts of the famous and non-so-famous, the former president looks at the positive influence of such work in every corner of the world and examines the profound benefits of working for the good of others for all humankind.

Looking for more inspiration? Try checking out The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun, Give a Little: How Your Small Donations Can Transform Our World by Wendy Smith, Immersion Travel USA: The Best and Most Meaningful Volunteering, Living, and Learning Excursions by Sheryl Kayne, Green Volunteers: The World Guide to Voluntary Work in Nature Conservation edited by Fabio Asuneda, Volunteering: The Ultimate Teen Guide by Kathlyn Gay, In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving by Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy with Sally Jenkins, The Busy Family’s Guide to Volunteering: Do Good, Have Fun, Make a Difference as a Family! by Jenny Friedman, Volunteer Vacations: Short-term Adventures that will Benefit You and Others by Bill McMillon, Doug Cutchins, and Anne Geissinger, or Volunteering: A How-to Guide by Audrey Borus.

Tech Talk And the Really Big TV

January 15, 2015January 5, 2015 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Are you one of the lucky ones who got a large-screen TV for the holidays this year? Did you just replace an aging (and heavy) old picture-tube with a nice, light digital flatscreen, or did you go all-out and get that giant 50, 60, or even 80” monster that feels like you’re at the movie theater? Aren’t those digital cable channels amazing crystal clear?
*
And are you upset with the really, really weird picture that makes it look like you’re watching a 1970’s BBC play?

*
Hm. You are not alone. We had a nice 32” digital flatscreen, but when we hit a season-clearance sale the day after Christmas and found a 50” for less than we paid for the 32”, we couldn’t say no. And thus we got hit by what is technically known as “The Soap Opera Effect.”
*
Does your picture look strange, like a live performance of a soap opera, or an old videotape spacing everything out and making it look – well, not like a TV picture? There’s a reason for that. “Normal” TV pictures, those we’ve all grown up with, “refresh” or “run” at a speed of 60 frames per second (if you’ve ever seen a reel-to-reel movie, maybe in school, think of all those still frames whipping through the machine to make the movie move, and think of sixty of those still pictures every second, or 3600 of them every minute). That’s what our brains can process as smooth motion, and makes our TV look like TV.
*
Now enter digital. LCD TVs, because of all those pixels firing on and off, have trouble keeping motion from blurring (or, technically, “juddering”). Some people don’t like that blur, and to combat it that number of “frames” or still pictures has been sped up to 120, or even 240 frames per second . That allows you to see all those Batman action shots in such blinding big-screen clarity it’s almost like stop-motion. Football runners never blur. Car crashes never occur too fast to follow. You can trace the path of every blood spatter when those bullets hit – better than reality. However, there are still only filmed at 60 frames per second – the extra “frames” are “filled in” either by duplicating still frames, or having the computer brain of the TV “manufacture” extra frames between actual ones (frame 1, insert frame 1.5, frame 2, make up a 2.5 to connect to frame 3, etc.) all on a microscopic increment scale.
*
Still follow? In short, to keep the picture smooth, extra non-existent pictures are slipped in to keep the picture from jerking.
*
It’s beautiful, but the price you pay for all that motion smoothing is The Soap Opera Effect. And it has nothing to do with what you’re watching – cable channels, an old DVD, a regular Blu-Ray, or a Super HD format, it’s just the speed the TV runs at. So what can you do if you absolutely positively hate that weird flat Masterpiece-Theater-Meets-As- The-World-Turns look?
*
A little, but not necessarily much. Go to your TV’s “settings” selection. There will be a setting that addresses “motion,” “motion control,” or “motion smoothing,” or some other term usually with the word motion – Google your exact TV model number for the term your TV uses. Most TVs come from the factory with the motion smoothing default setting to ON. Find your TV’s setting and simply turn the control to OFF. Yes, sometimes it’s easier said than done, and in my case it helped a little but not a lot.
*
The easiest solution is 1) buy a smaller TV. Everything is less noticeable on a smaller screen. Being able to count the hairs inside Gandalf’s nose is far more distracting than you think. Remember the days when a 26” TV was REALLY REALLY BIG? 2) Check out the picture in the store on that particular model. ASK to see it with the motion smoothing turned off. If you don’t like it, keep trying different models until you come across one you do. Some are better at it than others, and it is more bothering to some people than others; it’s really a personal preference. I’m learning to live with it, trading in the awe of seamless clarity on special effects (watching the SHIELD helicarrier lift off from the water in The Avengers was jaw-dropping incredible) for the weird teleplay of people speaking. Unfortunately it’s the shape of things to come, and eventually we’re all going to have to adjust.