bookshelf

The Averaged American by Sarah E. Igo

Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public
398 pgs (c) 2007, Harvard University Press
Broward Library 301.0720732 IG Read: 03/02/08

Today we take surveys for granted. This book examines the rise of surveys at the turn of the last century, their continued development, and their effect on society at large.

Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin

An Inspector Rebus Mystery Narrated by Samuel Gillies
7 tapes, 9 hours
(c)1992 Ian Rankin, 2001 W.E. Howes Ltd Read: 03/27/09

Inspector Rebus is called "south of the border" to London (disappointingly, there are no sombreros at all).

Gravewriter by Mark Arsenault

272 pgs (c) 2006, New York: Thomas Dunne Books
Broward Library Read: 12/03/07

A strong middle-of-the-pack mystery that introduces the amateur sleuth Billy Povich. 

How Everyday Products Make People Sick by Paul Blanc

Toxins at home and in the workplace
374 pgs (c) 2007
Brow Lib 615.9 BL Read: 02/08/08, Blog: 03/24/09

I thought this would concern hazards in the home; but it primarily concerned with the hazards of manufacturing common products.

Empires of Trust by Thomas Madden

How Rome Built - and America Is Building - A New World
10 CDs, 12.5 hours. (c) 2008. Narrated by Richard Poe
Recorded Books, Read: 03/22/09, Blog 03/23/09

Madden compares the development and influence of Rome (defined as both the Republic and the Empire, covering a span of 2,000 years) and the U.S. on the larger world. Unexpected and thought-provoking parallels are drawn, challenging conventional thinking.

The Crazed by Ha Jin

7 tapes, 10 hours, Narrated by Norm Lee
2004 (c) Recorded Books, Read 02/07/08

Set in 1989 at the time of Tianamen Square uprising, most of the action takes place in a hospital room where a college student is nursing his professor. Shorter than Mann's Magic Mountain, it shares the burden of inactivity. Once the old main dies, things really pick up.

Middlemarch by George Eliot

A Study of Provincial Life
Written: 1871. Audible download,31 hrs. Narrated by Nadia May
Text: Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8227
Read: 02/02/08

This novel covers a wealth of subjects: the nature of politics, medical advancement, families, education, modernization, inequality, etc. Extremely entertaining, the book illuminates the realities of the past and present and reaffirms that there’s nothing new under the sun. On my list to read again.

Ethiopian Murder Mystery by George S. Schuyler

Serialized novel published 1931
Ethiopian Stories © Boston : Northeastern University Press, c1994,
The Northeastern library of Black literature
Broward Library, Read: 02.02.08, Blog: 03/18//09

Wandering the stack, I found this volume of two serialized novellas by Schuyler, an early twentieth century African-American journalist. This story is a masculine detective story where a newspaperman solves the murder of an Ethiopian in NYC.

Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age by Kenzaburo Oe

259 pgs (c) 1986, Translated by John Nathan
Purchased (where?) Read: 01/29/08

This was the longest 259-page book I've ever read. It took me ages. It's so Japanese; it's like reading an Anthony Chambers translation of Tanizaki. But maybe I'm just a philistine.

Dark Genius of Wall Street by Edward J. Renehan, Jr

The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons
Narrated by George Wilson
13 CDs, 14.75 hours (c) 2005 by Edward J. Renehan, Jr., 2006 by Recorded Books. LLC.
Read 03/16/09

Jay Gould was one of the original "Robber Barons" of the last half of the nineteenth century. According to Renehan, Gould was not the monster that that the press of the time and many biographers have made him out to be.