New This Week
May 24, 2010
Column: At the Library
From: Cranbrook Public Library
By Mike Selby
In THE IDES OF MARCH, Italian author Valerio Massimo Manfredi takes a well-worn story and fictionalizes it just enough to create a gripping and suspenseful tale. Even though the reader knows Caesar’s fate, the great dictator does not, and even his closest friend is unaware of the 60 people plotting his assassination.
Younger readers should enjoy Royce Buckingham’s GOBLINS: AN UNDEREATH ADVENTURE. After disobeying a small town police chief, two 12-year-olds stumble across the Guardians; a secret society dedicated to keeping a tribe of goblins from discovering the humans who live above them.
Preschool Story Time will be in hiatus until the fall. The summer reading club will be shortly be in full swing for the summer. Please contact Kristen at 250-426-4063 for more details.
Up for Adoption! 100s of magazine subscriptions. Help the Friends of the Library maintain the magazine selection. Purchase a magazine subscription from our list and receive an income tax deductible receipt. Please phone Loopy Pratt at 250-426-4771 for more information.
ADULT NEWLY AQUIRED SHELF:
Wild Ride " Jennifer Cruise (fic)
Equally Shared Parenting " Marc Vachon (306.872)
Country Driving: A Journey through China " Peter Hessler (951)
Seeing Stars " Diane Coplin Hammond (fic)
The Animal Manifesto " Marc Bekoff (179.3)
501 Italian Verbs " John Colaneri (458.2421)
The Trade " Fred Stenson (fic)
Visions of BC: A Landscape Manual (709.711)
The Divorced Child " Joseph Nowinski (306.89)
The Crimes of Josef Fritzl " Stefanie Marsh (362.76)
Chalice of Roses " Jo Beverly (fic)
Contemporary Crafts " Katherine Sorrell (745.5)
Steeped in History: The Art of Tea " Beatrice Hohenegger (394.12)
River of Darkness " Rennie Airth (fic)
Medicine for Mountaineering & Other Wilderness Activities (617.1027)
The Future of Islam " John Esposito (397.09)
The Blue Demon " David Hewson (mys)
River of the Dead " Barbara Nadel (mys)
Babes in the Wood " Jennifer Aist (796.5083)
The Ides of March -- Valernio Massimo Manfredi (fic)
Arctic Explorers: In Search of the Northwest Passage " Frances Hern (917.1904)
Triumph: Life after the Cult " Carolyn Jessop (bio)
Spy Games (DVD)
YOUNG ADULT & CHILDREN’S NEWLY ACQUIRED ITEMS:
Silas’s Seven Grandparents " Anita Horrocks (j pic)
Guess How Much I Love You All Year Round " Sam McBratney (j pic)
Happyface " Stephen Emond (ya fic)
Never Blame the Umpire " Gene Fehler (ya fic)
Which Shoes Would You Choose " Betsy R. Rosenthal (j pic)
In My New Yellow Shirt " Eileen Spinelli (j pic)
Kiss Me Kill Me " Lauren Henderson (ya fic)
Kiss in the Dark " Lauren Henderson (ya fic)
City of Angels " Zoey Dean (ya fic)
Goblins: An UnderEarth Adventure " Royce Buckingham (j fic)
The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies " David Lubar (ya fic)
What Color is Your Parachute for Teens " Richard Nelson Bolles (ya 331.702)
Eyewitness Baseball " James Buckley (j 796.357)
Quick Draw Cats & Dogs (j 743.6975)
The Gnome’s Eye " Anna Kerz (j fic)
The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To " D. C. Pierson (ya fic)
The Betrayal " Mary Hooper (j fic)
MIKE’S BOOKNOTES:
Although it was simply an ordinary round table in an ordinary dining room"located on the main floor of the Algonquin Hotel, a fairly new but nonetheless ordinary structure"the table itself would go down in literary history, beginning on a warm June day in 1919. It was here that three poorly paid and unknown writers for Vanity Fair Magazine Dorothy Parker, Robert Sherwood and Robert Benchley met for lunch for the first time; a tradition they continued for the next 8 years. This group"forever known as The Algonquin Round Table"would grow to include Alexander Woollcott, George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, and Harold Ross. These were some of the most famous playwrights, novelists, and newspaper columnists of the 1920s. They were known for their excessive drinking, brutal sarcasm, and their lightning fast verbal exchanges which appeared incomprehensible for most observers. Unique in the history of American literary culture, they were more famous as a group than as individuals; with most of the names unrecognizable to the modern reader. Yet one writer did survive well into the 1970s. It seems every round table must have their Guinevere.
Born in 1893, Dorothy Parker was raised in Manhattan with her three older siblings and a series of stepmothers. Educated at a Catholic boarding school, she found employment as a dance teacher, but also began to sell poetry to a new fashion magazine titled Vogue From here she was hired by a series of magazines, including the New Yorker. Her work was seen as brilliant; a mixture of sophistication and cynicism never before seen from the pen of a female. She was soon writing books, with ENOUGH ROPE published in 1927, and DEATH AND TAXES in 1931. In 1933 she published BIG BLONDE, easily her most famous work. She wrote two Broadway plays before Hollywood came calling, where she won an Oscar for writing A STAR IS BORN.
While her literary success grew with each year, she is most often remembered for her laser-sharp tongue. After meeting Joan Crawford, Parker said \"You can lead a horticulture, but you can\'t make her think.\" Other famous remarks from her include \"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone,\" \"That woman speaks eighteen languages, and she can’t say \"No\" in any of them,\" and \"This wasn\'t just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.\" Her attendance at the Algonquin Round Table led many to refer to it as The Vicious Circle.
Easily the most famous member of the circle, she was also the saddest. She frequently cheated on her husband, was a chronic alcoholic, and attempted suicide numerous times. It was obvious the great love of her life was Robert Benchley, but he could offer her nothing more than friendship. A founding member of the Screen Writer’s Guild, she was seen as socialist and therefore blacklisted by McCarthy. In 1963 her husband committed suicide. Dorothy Parked died of a heart attack in 1967. She was alone at her death, as all the members of the round table ALL of them drank themselves to death.
With no children to look after Dorothy Parker left her entire estate to Martin Luther King. Her request that her tombstone say “Eat my dust” was not honoured.
