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Sunday Book Reviews in Brief

Written on: March 1st, 2010 by: in Blog Posts

mays

This week’s New York Times Book Review presents a typically outstanding selection of fiction, nonfiction and biography- all available from your local public library. We’ve listed a few of the reviewed titles below, and you can click on the link to check availability in your library and to place a hold- remember, even if the book isn’t in ‘your’ library, our vans cross the state from North to South, East to West every day to bring the books you want practically to your doorstep from whichever library they are available from!

  • Willie Mays: the Life, the Legend, by James Hirsch recounts a story from “before ballparks were named for corporations…before the innocence of the game was permanently stained”. According to Pete Hamill, who reviews the book this week, this authorized biography is “a book as valuable for the young as it is for the old,” which reminds us “of a time when the only performance-enhancing drug was joy.”
  • Deborah Blum’s The Poisoner’s Handbook tells the story of forensic toxicology in jazz-age New York, a city where the meeting of violence with graft and corruption meant that the consequences of any crime could be evaded if the correct palms were greased.
  • In The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow, a biracial girl is transplanted due to family tragedy to Oregon, and must grapple “with confusion over both her identity and a complicated, mysterious family history.”
  • John D’Agata’s About a Mountain is the story of the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility- a “chronicle of the compromises and lies, the back-room deals and honest best intentions” and an eye-opening appraisal of the breathtaking risks inherent in the venture.
  • Princess Noire: the Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone, by Nadine Cohodas sets out to confirm the conflicted and often disturbed singer’s genius, but struggles to keep the chronicling of her musical talent and innovative performance style from being overshadowed by her vivid personal and public persona- which mixed African liberation and black militancy with self destruction and mental illness.



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