Staff Recommendations
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What if? : serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions
by Munroe, Randall,
Reviewed by: Andrea Borchert, Librarian, Koreatown Media LabJuly 20, 2015
Call Number: 500 M968
I was a little kid when I saw Superman, the movie, for the very first time. It was a strange and heady experience. You see… “There’s an alien who looks exactly like a normal human being.” “Really, Ok!” “And he can fly.” “Yes!” “And he’s super strong.” “Of course!” “He uses his powers to fight crime” “This makes complete and utter sense!” “…in a blue and red skintight outfit.” “All right, I’ll buy it!” “And he turns back time by flying around the earth really, really fast!” “….Wait. That isn’t. That doesn’t….... Read Full Review
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Time salvager
by Chu, Wesley.
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryJuly 13, 2015
Call Number: SF
What will the 26th century be like? In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World people are under the strict control of a World State. Vin Diesel’s films, Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick and Riddick, show a universe of advanced technologies, interplanetary space travel and different types of bad guys and beasties. Joss Whedon’s television series Firefly, and motion picture Serenity, focus on the crew of a small ship providing services on the fringes of a large,... Read Full Review
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Amherst
by Nicholson, William,
Reviewed by: Robert Anderson, Librarian, Literature & Fiction DepartmentJuly 6, 2015
British author William Nicholson is well known as a screenwriter, playwright and novelist. Recently, Nicholson has been writing a series of novels about an extended British family between World War II and the present. Amherst brings back some of the characters from this series (though no knowledge of earlier episodes is necessary) and uses them to examine an improbable real-life literary romance: the 12-year love affair between Emily Dickinson's brother Austin and Mabel Loomis Todd, the much younger woman who edited the first volumes of Emily's poems after her death... Read Full Review
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My Brilliant Friend
by Ferrante, Elena.
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionJune 30, 2015
My brilliant friend is the first in the Neapolitan Novels series by Italian author Elena Ferrante. (My brilliant friend; T... Read Full Review
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Men explain things to me
by Solnit, Rebecca,
Reviewed by: Eileen Ybarra, Librarian III, Electronic ResourcesJune 22, 2015
Call Number: 301.412 S688
Written through a feminist lens, this book is a series of short essays--most of them meditations on how men and women relate to each other. What is most striking to me about this book, is the simplicity and cogency with which Rebecca Solnit presents how women are sometimes treated inequitably and discriminatorily in the public sphere. She speaks to the struggle for gender equality in a simple, non- preachy, eloquent manner, at times humorously as well. The title of the book is taken from the opening essay that originally was published in 2008. Not long after the essay... Read Full Review
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Fairest : Levana's story
by Meyer, Marissa.
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryJune 16, 2015
Call Number: YA
Villains! We love them, but we also love to hate them. Often works of speculative fiction, whether they are books, television series or films, hinge upon the effectiveness of the villain. And as our culture has become more entranced with the “bad guys/girls” in our favorite works, authors and filmmakers have brought them out of the darkness and into the light, at times placing them center stage for explorations of their origins and motivations. When this is done, there is the risk of disappointing fans if the back story doesn’t really match up, or seems to fit the scoundrel we... Read Full Review
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The thrilling adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
by Padua, Sydney.
Reviewed by: Andrea Borchert, Librarian, Koreatown Media LabJune 8, 2015
Call Number: 740.9999 P125
Charles Babbage is widely credited with inventing the first computer, depending on your definition of “computer” and “invent”. You see, he never actually finished his masterpiece, the Analytical Engine. Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, was a mathematician who wrote programs for this nascent computer, making her the first computer programmer. Together they were innovators and eccentrics with genuine affection for one another. What could be more fun than a book based on their lives and collaboration? How about a graphic novel based on their story? How about a graphic novel full of... Read Full Review
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Call me Debbie : true confessions of a down-to-earth diva
by Voigt, Deborah,
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionJune 1, 2015
Call Number: 789.14 V891
There are so many stereotypes about opera and opera singers which Deborah Voigt debunks through her own autobiography. With a wonderful sense of humor and playfulness, especially evident when writing about dire situations, she counterbalances anecdotes about her heavy drinking, eating, and live performance mishaps with sharp personal smackdowns.
Deborah Voigt loved to sing and her father claims that she sang before she talked. Brought up in a strictly religious Southern Baptist family, it was fine to sing in church, but anything else was not acceptable... Read Full Review
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The big tiny : a built-it-myself memoir
by Williams, Dee (Builder).
Reviewed by: Andrea Borchert, Librarian, Koreatown Media LabMay 27, 2015
Call Number: 690.973 W722
There are memoirs that you read because you are impressed with the author’s accomplishments. There are memoirs you read because you want to know what it’s like to live another, different life. And there are memoirs that you read because it becomes clear as you make your way through the writer's life, chapter by chapter, that this book was written by someone from whom you can learn something--a way of life or an outlook that is unusual, wonderful, and worth experiencing. Big Tiny manages to be all three types of memoirs in one. I picked it up because it was the story... Read Full Review
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So that happened : a memoir
by Cryer, Jon, 1965-
Reviewed by: David B., Librarian, InfoNowMay 18, 2015
Call Number: 812.092 C9565
Jon Cryer’s So That Happened: A Memoir is the rare celebrity tell-all that is as insightful as it is entertaining. Cryer, star of Two and a Half Men, comes across as a levelheaded person in a crazy business. The author doesn’t spare us any salacious details, particularly about his time working with Charlie Sheen, but he balances his life story with moments of compassion and empathy. In essence, Cryer manages to merge a literary sensibility with a jocular tone. Cryer grew up in a bohemian apartment house in New York, surrounded by artists of all stripes. He and his... Read Full Review
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The cutting room : dark reflections of the silver screen
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryMay 11, 2015
Call Number: SS
Horror stories infused with elements of the supernatural and, by design, created to fill the reader with a sense of dread and foreboding, have been around for as long as people have gathered around fires in the dark. The first published horror novels date back to the 18th century, with horror becoming a true phenomenon in the 19th with the publication of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818), the works of Edgar Allan Poe (1820s-1840s), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886), The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890) and... Read Full Review
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The hunting gun
by Inoue, Yasushi, 1907-1991,
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionMay 6, 2015
Call Number: Ed.a
The premise of this novel is a very old one: a man and a woman, each of them married to other people, have an ongoing long affair. However, Yasushi Inoue, a prolific writer of over fifty novels, numerous short stories, poetry and travel writing, has created something different in this very short, enigmatic and bittersweet novel.
The form of the novel is unique--with three letters set within the frame of another letter which is sent to a writer who has published a poem depicting a hunter trudging along with a powerful double-barreled shotgun. The letter... Read Full Review