Book Talk

New Books, October 2011

How did an orphan pup, discovered in France in a bombed-out dog kennel in the midst of WWI, become an American cultural icon? In Rin Tin Tin: the Life and the Legend, Susan Orlean tells the story of soldier Lee Duncan, also an orphan, who saw magic in Rinty and brought him back to California. His abilities attracted the attention of Warner Brothers where Rinty starred in twenty-three silent films over the next ten years. He not only saved the studio from bankruptcy, but at the height of his popularity was Hollywood’s number one box office star. In the decades since, descendants of Rinty have continued to perform, insuring his legacy.

The most elusive break-in artist in history never illegally entered anyone’s premises. Kevin Mitnick is a hacker, one who was considered unstoppable. He broke into the computer files of Motorola, Sun Microsystems and Pacific Bell. When the FBI got closer, he went underground moving from city to city, switching identities as he went. Kevin Mitnick tells his story in Ghost in the Wires: my Adventures as the World’s most Wanted Hacker.

The mishandling of the aftermath of the Iraq war is well documented, but Peter Van Buren was personally involved. He led a State Department Provincial Reconstruction Team charged with rebuilding a society they knew nothing about. Our tax dollars were spent on pastry classes for Iraqi women, who were living in a city with no water or power, painting a sports mural in a dangerous section of Baghdad, to foster understanding through art, and building a milk factory with no way to get the milk to the population. Sixty-three billion dollars and counting, was spent. Find out where in We Meant Well: how I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.

In The Swerve: how the World became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt, we see how a twist of fate put the world on course for the society we have today. Poggio Bracciolini was the greatest book hunter of the Renaissance and in 1417 he found a book lost to history for more than a thousand years. It was a scandalous poem written by Lucretius titled On the Nature of Things. Lucretius believed that the universe functioned without the gods, matter was made up of tiny particles, pleasure and virtue were intertwined and that religious fear was damaging to human life. Sound Familiar?

And here is the good news. The world is getting better. Tribal warfare was nine times more deadly than the wars and genocides of the twentieth century. Wars kill many fewer people, children are not sacrificed, and criminals are not disemboweled for entertainment… Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker has quantified, using charts and graphs, the decline of violence. In The Better Angels of our Nature: why Violence has Declined, he also discusses the causes of the change.

Fiction

President Charlotte Kramer is starting her second term when a classified terror threat is leaked to the public. The breach exposes all the weaknesses of her administration. Was it someone who had talked too much, or a direct attempt to bring down the Kramer administration? Nicolle Wallace, author of It’s Classified, is a former political analyst for CBS and a campaign advisor to John McCain and Sarah Palin.

The future is perfect- no war, no hunger: and it is Agent Zed’s job to keep it that way. There are anarchists in the future who attempt to change the present by disrupting the past. As they time travel to the past to stave off global crises, Zed does the same to make sure the events happen as they did. Read The Revisionists, by Thomas Mullen.

In James Lee Burke’s Feast Day of Fools, a report of a murder in the desert leads Sheriff Hackberry Holland to the home of Anton Ling, a mysterious Chinese woman known for harboring illegals. Though she may be as dangerous as the people she shelters, the real danger is the unexpected return of serial killer Preacher Jack Collins. This time Holland and Preacher Jack have a common enemy.

If we wait long enough, history becomes, in the hands of a writer such as Sharon Kay Penman, a wonderful source of drama. The third son of Henry II and Eleanor, Richard, was crowned king after the early deaths of his older brothers. He set off for the Holy Land in the Third Crusade, one marked by extreme brutality. Respected by friend and foe, Richard earned the name Lionheart.

Virginia Cooper
Adult Services Librarian