The Grinnell College Libraries Favorite Books and Book Review

Stephen King On Writing…and More

2009-06-15T16:47:00.003-06:00

Stephen King. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. New York: Scribner, 2000.

Walter Giersbach ‘61
Manchester, NJ 08759

The prolific Mr. King approached the subject of writing, and his autobiography, reluctantly. In fact, more than a third of On Writing is devoted to his curriculum vitae before he opines on “what writing is” and the tools required to be successful. He calls the book, a best seller almost a decade ago, “my attempt to show how one writer was formed. Not how one writer was made.” A reader, critic or student has to pay a certain amount of attention to someone like King who has published more than 30 novels, sold more than 350 million copies, and given us films Doris Claiborne, The Shining, and The Green Mile. (King suggests very evenly why John Grisham and James Patterson are so successful at what they do.) “A good deal of literary criticism,” he says, “serves only to reinforce a caste system as old as the intellectual snobbery which nurtured it.” He comments that Raymond Chandler is one of the greats who are often “seated at the end of the table” because he came out of the pulp tradition. On the subject of grammar as required tools of a successful writer, he suggests the parts of speech are like accessories to go with your high school prom dress, and those weren’t too hard to understand. It’s a truism that a writer never stops learning the craft, and I’ve been writing professionally for four decades. Yet at this advanced date, King’s book had me underlining passages, dog-earing pages and scrutinizing my own writing to see where the misstatements and lazy verbiage occurred. When I finished reading On Writing, I took it to the writing group that I lead and told them, “Buy or borrow this book if you’re serious about communicating in print.”

Burling Library, 3rd Floor PS3561.I483 Z475 2000

Slavery By Another Name

2009-05-30T16:01:00.002-06:00

Douglas A. Blackmon. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II. New York: Doubleday 2008

Reviewed by T. Hatch

Perhaps you can't tell a book by its cover but a book-signing-talk by the author may provide some illumination. Such was the case recently while watching C Span Book TV one Saturday morning that I encountered Douglas Blockman, the Wall Street Journal's Atlanta bureau chief, presenting his book about neoslavery. With C Span's rather slavish adherence to the false doctrine of fair and balanced I had braced myself for the worst. Shame on me.

This is an important and a powerful book. Its power resides in making an argument that seems almost self evident once you see it. If you have delved into the tragedy/ outrage that the betrayal of Reconstruction was and read works such as Eric Foner's Reconstruction: Unfinished Revolution or John Hope Franklin's Reconstruction After the Civil War or most prominently of all W.E.B. Du Bois' Black Reconstruction in America one develops a sense of what a vicious white insurgency did to subvert the union occupation and destroy any hopes of black citizenship.

Despite the efforts of historians like the aforementioned the prevailing historiographical view was that the recently freed slaves showed a determined proclivity to criminality. The basis of the Jim Crow social compact required the deference of blacks to whites and a black fear of law enforcement. That compact also fostered the creation of a mythology of an honorable southerner with his contented slaves tragically defeated in the quest for secession. The pernicious lie that the civil war was fought over regional patriotism and not slavery was thusly created.

Certainly serious readers of American history are aware of the Jim Crow exceptionalism of apartheid in the United States and the Civil Rights movement that was ultimately its undoing. But almost no one has explicitly made the connection that Douglas Blackmon makes. Slavery did not end in 1865 it merely evolved. It did not entirely cease until the 1940s when considerations of possible propaganda use by the Japanese and Germans compelled the administration of Franklin Roosevelt to finally extinguish this forced labor scheme.

The ground work for the southern apartheid regime was laid by virtually every southern state from the late 1860s to 1877. A series of interlocking laws were enacted that criminalized black life. Charges such as vagrancy, using obscene language, adultery, and obtaining goods under false pretenses were examples of imprisoning blacks. Times being what they were a black man arrested in the south was bound to be found guilty of something. It was this misdemeanor forced labor system that was the sine qua non of southern whites reestablishing political control. The slave owners no longer were plantation owners but country sheriffs and their deputies were incentivized to round up all the available black labor they could. The victims of this system were leased to mines, lumber mills, and steel factories which served as the basis for southern industrialization and the emergence of what Atlanta Constitution editor Henry Grady labeled as the “New South” in 1886.

Blackmon estimates that between 100,000 and 200,000 blacks were enslaved by this forced labor system. An initially small fine could keep a black man in the Jim Crow south imprisoned for years working at forced labor. The prisoner-laborers in this system were subjected to physical violence and even torture if they failed to comply. The also faced multiple dangers in the work place and death was anything but a rare occurrence. Additionally the Southern captains of industry received another benefit from their preferred system of labor relations. Slave labor has a way of undermining unionization efforts by non incarcerated workers. Forced labor served as “a bulwark against labor unrest.”

Blackmon concludes the book by backing away from the seemingly logical conclusion of the work. He explicitly states that “This book is not a call for financial reparations.” Based on the evidence presented in Slavery by Another Name it certainly could be. One of the standard arguments against reparations has always been slavery ended with the Civil War. If this is demonstrably not the case then perhaps it is time to reconsider the question.

Available at Grinnell College Libraries. Please ask at circulation desk if you would like to check this out.

Brothers

2009-05-30T15:28:00.002-06:00

Yu Hua. Brothers: A Novel. New York: Pantheon Books, 2009. Translated by Eileen Cheng-yin and Chow and Carlos Rojas.

R. Stuhr

This epic novel follows two brothers, Baldy Li and Song Gang, through the cultural revolution and into China's embrace of capitalism. Published as two books in China, it was a best seller. I admit to not having finished this 600+ page book, I'll though I have finished book 1 and well into book 2 with just about one hundred pages to read. I suddenly needed to take a break from this tragicomic novel. Always a little wary of entering into such a long novel, I found that after the first chapter or so, I was completely captivated.

At first the characters seemed a bit cartoonish. Young Baldy Li marched through the town after having been caught trying to get a look at the women's behinds in the town latrine. His father, also a latrine peeper, died when he fell in while trying to get a view of the women's side of the latrine. Song Gang on the other hand is a steady, generous, and studious child. But, as the novel progresses, and the characters struggle against the brutality of poverty, political expediency, selfishness, and fear, they become three dimensional and compelling.

Both Song Gang and Baldy Li are smart in their own ways and it is good because at an early age they must fend for themselves. Brought together by their parents' marriage, they are separated when Song Gang's father dies, a victim to the political extremism of the cultural revolutionaries. When Baldy Li's mother dies, they are rejoined. Baldy Li is all bravado, having earlier fed himself on his story of having glimpsed the town beauty's behind (told for a bowl of house special soup), and Song Gang's steady and thoughtful nature, causing him to be careful with money, and a nurturer like his father, cooking and maintaining the household. Both Baldy Li and Song Gang find work. Baldy Li is given a job in the local charity factory that employs "idiots" and disabled members of society. He quickly takes over making the factory a raging success. Song Gang works in a factory as well. He wins the heart of the town beauty, something that Baldy Li wanted for himself. The brothers are separated by this love triangle. As the cultural revolution fades away and capitalism becomes the new way of doing things, Song Gang and his true love are beset by bad health and unemployment while Baldy Li masterminds another financial success.

Despite their falling out Baldy Li, a strange mix of thoughtlessness and generosity, continues to care about Song Gang, his pride never overtakes him. He attempts to help Song Gang, but either Song Gang's wife is unwilling, or Song Gang himself refuses the help. Baldy Li's enterprises remake the small village that he and Song Gang grew up in. His loss of his true love to Song Gang keeps him on an insatiable search for female affection. Finally, he holds a virgin beauty contest, which creates a market for the means for returning women to a physical state of virginity. I'll have to revisit this blog posting when I finally finish the book.

Brothers is filled with vulgarity and brutality and the characters are painted in broad strokes--subtlety is not a term that can be used to describe this novel. Yu Hua tells the story of
recent Chinese history as experienced within one small village. I was fortunate to hear Yu Hua talk shortly after the novel was released in the United States. He said that you could compare the change that happened in 500 years of European history to the change that took place in China over a period of 40 years--and this change has manifested itself in all ways, from modernization, to social morés, to political and economic philosophy.

This is indeed a hefty novel, but it is also a fascinating and rewarding read.

Burling 3rd Floor: PL2928.H78 X5613 2009

Librarianship and Legitimacy

2009-05-30T15:07:00.002-06:00

Raber, Douglas. Librarianship and Legitimacy: The Ideology of the Public Library Inquiry. Westport, CT: Greenwod Press, 1997.

R. Stuhr

Raber analyzes the 1949 Public Library Inquiry which had as its conclusion that public libraries could not possibly serve all people and their needs and so they should focus on readers and intellectually motivated inquirers. This set off a firestorm in the public library community because of its elitist overtones.

Public libraries have long served those least served by society. Although there has always been a corner of public libraries as represented by the large imposing structures that have often been the anchors of urban library systems that were meant as "temples of learning" for those occupying the upper rungs of society, there has also been a larger segment of the public library world serving the working class, the children, the immigrants.

Raber looks at the whole history of public libraries in the United States, and follows the attempt of library practitioners to determine a philosophy of service and to define their mission. The philosophy and mission has changed as society has changed but also as librarians have sought to find their place in the professional world.

The Public Library Inquiry was intended to both solidify the place of the professional librarian and to define a mission. Raber concludes that the Public Library Inquiry failed to provide a "lasting identity." He writes, that the public library must "become a dynamic institution capable of adapting to change while remaining true to its democratic purpose." However the library does evolve and as librarians face dilemmas of "purpose, direction, and identity," they should keep in mind the the role public library and librarians have served in sustaining American democratic society.

The Devil's Whisper

2009-05-30T14:09:00.002-06:00

Miyuki Miyabe. The Devil's Whisper. Translated by Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi. NY: Kodansha International, 2007 (first published in Japan in 1989).

R. Stuhr

Revenge is at the heart of this mystery by popular and prolific Japanese author Miyuke Miyabe. Mamoru is a young man who lives with his aunt and uncle after his mother dies. His father disappeared years before after being accused of embezzling his employer. Mamoru lives under the cloud of his father's wrong doing. In the meantime, several young women have inexplicably committed suicide. All of them knew each other and one from their group still survives but fears for her life. Mamoru's uncle, a taxi cab driver, is the unwitting accomplice in the third young woman's death when she runs out in front of his cab. Mamoru, wanting to clear his uncle's name, sets out to investigate her death. He finds out that the three women were involved, along with a fourth, in a scam to woo lonely men with the aim of taking their money. Through his diligent investigation, now as interested in saving the fourth woman as well as restoring his uncle's reputation, Mamoru stumbles onto the mastermind or sorcer, Harasawa, behind the deaths of the three women. The murder's motivation is revenge.

At the same time as Mamoru is coming closer to solve the crime, a prominent businessman, Yoshitake, claims to have witnessed the accident. His testimony absolves Mamoru's uncle of any guilt. Mamoru discovers that the businessman has his reasons for coming to the aid of Mamoru's family, reasons that do not sit comfortably with Mamoru. Mamoru becomes better acquainted with the Harasawa and learns how he has compelled the three women to their deaths. Harasawa offers Mamoru the means to exact his own revenge. Mamoru must now decide whether he is a person capable of murder or can he be a person who can forgive wrongdoings. Harasawa finds ways to try to persuade Mamoru to his way of thinking even after his death.

The intricate plot of this novel pits two tormented souls seeking revenge against tormented souls begging to be absolved for their crimes. Mamoru, however, knows their is another way, and he is surrounded by friends and family who care about him, and who may possibly bring out his better side. Gramps, who teaches Mamoru to pick locks, is also the strongest influence on Mamoru not to use these skills in a criminal way. He is telling Mamoru that he trust him to do the right thing even when he has the means to do the wrong thing. It is this trust that Mamoru strives to live up to and that may save his soul.

Other books by Miyako Miyabe
Crossfire PL856.I856 K8713 2005
Shadow Family PL856.I856 R213 2004
All She Was Worth PL856.E856 K3713 1999

Oberlin College graduates are reading!

2009-05-09T10:25:00.006-06:00

Helen Stuhr-Rommereim, Oberlin College '09 is graduating with a major in Russian and Art. Considering this, her reading list is not surprising:

--Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The First Circle by New York: Harper and Row, 1968. (highly recommended!! A novel about a special prison where the prisoners perform high-level scientific research for the Soviet Union. It was published in 1968 and takes place in 1949 and is based on Solzhenitsyn's time in prison)
Burling 3rd floor PG3488.O4 K713x

--Vassily Aksyonov. Generations of Winter. New York: Vintage Books, 1994 and A Winter's Hero. New York: Random House, 1996. by Vassily Aksyonov (a little bit of a soap opera that covers the trajectory of three generations of a family from around 1929 until after the death of Stalin)
Generations of Winter: Burling 3rd floor PG3478.K7 M6713 1995
Winter's Hero: Burling 3rd floor PG3478.K7 T5813 1996

--Gary Shteyngart (an Oberlin grad!). The Russian Debutante's Handbook. New York: Riverhead Books, 2002.
Burling 3rd floor PS3619.H79 R87 2002

--Lydia Chukovskaya. Sofia Petrovna. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988 (Tragic story of a woman who's son is arrested and sent to Siberia during the purges of 1937)
Burling 3rd floor PG3476.C485 S5913 1988

--Jorge Luis Borges. The Aleph (a short story) found in The Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley. New York: Viking 1998.
Burling 3rd floor PQ7797.B635 A24 1998

Max Stasser Oberlin College '09 is graduating with a history major with an emphasis on the Middle East. His reading list includes:

--Jane Mayer. Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. New York: Doubleday, 2008.
Burling 2nd floor HV6432 .M383 2008

--Ron Suskind. The Way of The World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism.
New York: Harper, 2008
Burling Library 1st floor Smith Memorial HV6432 .S875 2008

--Carol Spencer Mitchell and Ellen Spencer Susman. Danger Pay: Memoir of a Photojournalist in the Middle East, 1984-1994.
Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2008.

The Bad Samaritans

2009-04-30T07:32:00.003-06:00

Ha-Joon Chang. Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism New York/Berlin/London: Bloomsbury Press, 2008.

Reviewed by T. Hatch

The neoliberal ideological belief that free trade benefits all economic participants is a risible notion. The agenda of deregulation, privatization, and the opening up of international trade and investment far from bringing prosperity to developing countries has, in the post-1980s world, increased poverty and decreased growth. Professor Chang argues that despite the best efforts the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (a.k.a. the “Unholy Trinity”), and establishment cheerleaders such as Thomas L. Friedman no wealthy country ever got that way by subscribing to the neoliberal orthodoxy.

Notwithstanding the free trade palaver to the contrary, no developing nation ever attained economic well-being by any other means than a combination of protection, subsidies, and discrimination against foreign investment e.g. South Korea. Besides ignoring the pernicious effects of colonialism and unequal trade deals that neoliberal globalizationalists seem to have overlooked, the post-1982 results of Bad Samaritan economic policies have been slower growth, greater instability, and a greater inequality of income distribution. With the already rich countries controlling 80% of output, 70% of international trade, and 70 to 90% of foreign direct investment, it is difficult to imagine a less developed country ascending to the economic promised land via a “level playing field.”

Chang maintains that “It is actually quite curious that free-market economists who are so much in favor of choice and autonomy do not hesitate to oppose it when it is by developing countries.” This raises the salient question of why it is that the orthodox neoliberals are so intent on forcing developing countries to comply with the international agreements that they are pushing? After all, this is directly counter to their beloved market logic. Why not let the developing countries who refuse to play along be punished or rewarded by investors?

There is also a healthy dose of hypocrisy in all of this Chang asserts. It is essentially a system of Keynesianism for the rich and monetarism for the poor. While the IMF demands that developing countries raise interest rates and run budget surpluses in the face of economic downturn this is precisely the opposite approach currently taken by the United States government. Recently for the paltry sum of twenty billion euros the government of Romania had to genuflect before the IMF, World Bank, and the European Central Bank and agree to austerity measures. Meanwhile, far from the “periphery,” the United States is currently running a fiscal deficit equal to approximately 12% of GDP with interest rates virtually at zero. This moral authority projected from the wealthy west is analogous to that of a four hundred pound aerobics instructor ruthlessly whipping their class into shape.

Burling 2nd floor HF1713 .C5185 2008

More from Ha-Joon Chang

Rethinking Development Economics, 2003.
Burling 2nd Floor HD75 .R47 2003.

Kicking Away the Ladder Development: Strategy in Historical
Perspective, 2002.
Burling 2nd Floor HF1359 .C439 2002.

Lord of the Flies

2009-04-30T07:09:00.003-06:00

William Golding. Lord of the Flies. London/New York: Wideview/Perigee, 1954

Reviewed by T. Hatch

Stranded on an island by an unfortunate plane wreck a group of English boys, inspired by the leadership of a strapping redheaded lad named Jack Merridew, are able to avoid starvation and are eventually rescued by the British Navy. All the while the boys learn many valuable lessons about nature and at the same time enjoy a smashing good adventure. This despite the disinclination of some of their number (namely Ralph and Piggy) to shake off the shackles of ritual and custom enforced by bureaucracy.

Shortly after their forced arrival on the island the natural born bureaucrats Ralph and Piggy convene a meeting of the survivors. Ralph in his untrammeled quest for power hastily arranges an election. Cynically using democracy as a prop Ralph successfully demagogues his way to control on a platform of having fun and being rescued. Jack and his fellow choirboys are initially cowed into submission. But even peace loving choirboys can only endure so much.

Jack and his group in addition to suffering the vicissitudes of oppression are the ones who disproportionately contribute to the well-being of their fellow castaways. In addition to risking great bodily harm to himself hunting wild pigs that inhabit the island Jack selflessly pledges himself to protecting the younger boys. Operating under the best intelligence available at the time Jack and his brave lads are prepared to defend the island society against the encroachment of a monster.

It was only when Ralph and Piggy fail to respond to the threat of the monster and deprive the majority of the means of making fire that Jack and his band of patriots are compelled to act. In a preemptive raid on the camp of the Ralph clique Jack and the boys seize the means of their liberation. In response Ralph, and the oppressive apparatus under his control, attempts to steal the fire starting glasses. Unfortunately it was during this time that Simon and Piggy both adherents to the Ralph tendency met untimely deaths. In the instance of the former it was because he impersonated the monster and in the latter case it was as a result of the defense of the fire starting spectacles. Like the sailors at the Kronstadt garrison these two deaths were a “tragic necessity.”

With the righteous majority victorious the criminal Ralph was on the lamb. But justice is rarely complete and before the will of the people could be achieved Ralph was saved by the British Navy. This too was a result of Jack's selflessness as he had set the fire that the naval war ship spotted. On balance it was a total triumph that only two boys perished. Alls well that ends well.

Burling 3rd floor PR6013 .O35 L6x 1959

More by William Golding:

The Brass Butterfly: A Play in Three Acts
London: Faber and Faber, c1958.
Burling Library Vault PR6013.O35 B7 1958.

The Scorpion God: Three Short Novels
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich [1972, c1971]
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 S36x 1972.

Close Quarters
New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1987.
Burling Library 3rd Floror PR6013.O35 C5 1987.

Darkness Visible
London: Faber and Faber, 1979.
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 D3x 1979.

The Double Tongue
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995.
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 D68 1995.

Fire Down Below
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1989.
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 F5 1989.

Free Fall.
New York: Harcourt, Brace [1962, c1959]
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 F7x 1962.

The Hot Gates, nd Other Occasional Pieces
New York: Harcourt, Brace & World [1966, c1965]
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 H6 1966.

The Inheritors.
New York: Harcourt, Brace & World [1962, c1955]
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 I5x 1962.

A Moving Target
New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1984, c1983.
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 M6 1984.

The Paper Men
New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1984.
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 P3 1984.

The Pyramid
London: Faber, 1967.
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 P9 1967.

Rites of Passage
New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980.
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 R5 1980.

Sometime, Never : Three Tales Of Imagination by William G. Golding, John Wyndham, Mervyn Peake.
New York: Ballantine Books [1967]
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR1309.S3 S65x 1967.

The Spire.
New York, Harcourt, Brace & World [1964]
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 S65 1964.

The Two Deaths of Christopher Martin.
New York, Harcourt, Brace [1957, c1956]
Burling Library 3rd Floor PR6013.O35 T8x 1956.

The New Paradigm

2009-04-30T06:57:00.002-06:00

Soros, George. The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means. New York: Public Affairs, 2008.

Reviewed by T. Hatch

George Soros writing in early 2008 (well before the bottom fell out of the world's financial markets) is quite blunt in his assessment. Unlike the previous economic crises of the past twenty five years or so the current economic woes represent the end of an era. The sea change that has occurred means that the half-century long expansion of credit with the U.S. as the dominant power, and the dollar as the main reserve currency of the world, is essentially over. Alas, the lust for leverage does come with a cost.

An interesting aspect of this book is that Soros makes an argument for being taken seriously as a philosopher. He seeks to explain the current state of economic affairs as well as providing a new way forward through his theory of reflexivity. He argues that market participants operate within a system where two functions simultaneously occur. The cognitive function is about seeking to understand the world while the participating or manipulative function is about a guide to action. Further, these separate functions of thinking and reality are often directly opposed to each other; sometimes they interfere with each other. This interference is “reflexivity.”

Buttressing Soros' concept of reflexivity is the notion of radical fallibility. The basic premise is that we are bound to be wrong. As a practical matter economic actors habitually operate on the basis of imperfect knowledge and their actions have unintended consequences. Unlike rational expectation theory (the basis of the old paradigm which Soros seeks to supplant) the new paradigm does not set out to create an artificial world in which equilibrium prevails. It is this belief in the market equilibrium orthodoxy that “is directly responsible for the current turmoil.” Regulators abandoned their responsibilities reckoning that the market would correct itself. This hubris was a direct result of those who held that equilibrium theory is a scientific theory. The days are clearly numbered for equilibrium theory and its “political derivative” market fundamentalism.

The irony of this largely persuasive argument is that Soros, an acolyte of the philosopher Karl Popper, is positing a fundamentally Hegelian system. It is this “dialectic” of thought versus action which propelled Soros to the top of the hedge fund universe. Another obvious irony is that Popper was stridently anti theory. It is problematic whether Soros' argument rises to the level of a philosophical system but nonetheless it does seem valid.

Burling 2nd floor HB3722 .S673 2008

Other books by George Soros at Burling Library

The Age of Fallibility: The Consequences of the War on Terror.
New York : Public Affairs, c2006
Burling 2nd floor HN65 .S5873 2006

The Bubble of American Supremacy: The Costs of Bush's in Iraq
New York : Public Affairs, c2004
Burling 2nd floor E902 .S67x 2004

Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism
New York : Public Affairs, c2000
Burling 2nd floor HB3722 .S67x 2000

George Soros on Globalization
New York : Public Affairs, c2002
Burling 2nd floor HF1359 .S65 2002

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

2009-03-23T12:58:00.002-06:00

Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. NY: Riverhead Books, 2007.

R. Stuhr

This is Díaz's first novel. His previous publication is a collection of short stories, Drown.

This story is narrated by a friend of Oscar's family and is written after Oscar's death. Oscar is a Dominican-American youth who is a seriously overweight, love lorn writer and reader of fantasy and science fiction. The novel is a history of Oscar's disappointing life, his mother, her family and its curse, and the violent and tragic history of the Dominican Republic. Díaz sprinkles the novel with long foot notes that explain historical events and people from the DR, primarily from the time of Trujillo. The narrator sprinkles allusions to Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, anime, and other science fiction or fantasy works in keeping with Oscar's own interests.

Oscar's weight and geeky interests keep him from connecting with women in a way that is expected of, according to the narrator, Dominican men. His state of virginity haunts him and drives him deeper into his solitary geekiness. Towards the end of the novel, Oscar falls in love with an aging Dominican prostitute and this passion speeds him toward his inevitably violent end.

This is not an easy novel to describe or summarize. It's a look at diaspora, the pain of being a teenager and especially of being excluded, family relationships, and love and loss. The combination of fierce women, the sorrowful Oscar, and the almost-anything-goes, living-life-to-the-fullest narrator make for a meaningful and entertaining novel.

Burling Library PS3554.I259 B75 2007

Drown: Burling Library PS3554.I259 D76 1996

A World I Never Made

2009-03-17T15:49:00.003-06:00

James LePore. A World I Never Made. Stamford, CT: The Story Plant, 2009.

Review by Sharon Clayton

It’s January 2004 and Pat Nolan has received a call from Paris informing him that his estranged daughter Megan (well-travelled, freelance journalist) has committed suicide. When he gets to Paris it is revealed that the body is not Megan and she has left behind a strange suicide note to stage her death. The plot thickens when he finds out she had been staying in Morocco for some time with an extended diplomatic visa and she is hiding from a powerful enemy who stops at nothing to exact revenge.

Pat’s all consuming quest is to find his daughter before her enemies do. He is aided by Officer Catherine Laurence, a hauntingly beautiful and competent Parisian detective who finds corruption in her department and puts her career on the line to help solve the mystery.
Intermixed with Pat’s story is Megan’s quest to stay alive. It starts in January 2003 with her visit to Morocco to do research and she meets Abdel Lahani, a Saudi businessman. With all her worldliness and experience with men, she has met her match and has made a dangerous mistake. Megan is running for her life, but can her father save her?

LePore’s first novel takes us to Paris, Morocco and the Czech Republic and is packed full of raw suspense, terrorism, corruption, and the love of a father who wants to save his daughter. I was hooked at the beginning and was not too surprised at the end, but I enjoyed the unique plot, diverse characters and exotic settings.

Not yet published. Available for order at virtual and actual bookstores.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

2009-03-11T10:29:00.005-06:00

Jamie Ford. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. NY: Ballentine, 2009

I count Jamie Ford as an Internet acquaintance and wasn’t disappointed when I bought his Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet as soon as it was published. I was emotionally satisfied with this debut novel, but impulsively wanted to tag it. So many hot buttons—all of interest to me—popped up: Asian-Americans, coming of age, 1940s jazz, Seattle, World War II, racism and parental conflict. I was biased in the book’s favor by feeling an immediate connection to these tags by having grown up in the Northwest during post-Pearl Harbor tensions.

The story of a widower reflecting on his youth and lost love is a traditional trope, but setting the locations in the city’s ethnically separated streets and an internment camp added dynamic tension to the plot. It was further enriched by the bond that a lost jazz recording has between Chinese Henry Lee and Japanese Keiko Okabe. Ford alternates events and plot developments during 1942 and 1986, providing a literary parallelism that leads the reader ineluctably to an ending in which all the questions are answered. Ford’s language is simple, straightforward and strong, although 13-year-old Henry’s voice sounded anachronistically adult.

A few minor characters might, I hope, lead Jamie Ford to write a sequel surrounding the white high school cook (who secretly supports young Henry’s forbidden infatuation) and Sheldon (the black street corner musician who’s a foil to Henry’s quests). Even old Henry’s son Marty and his Caucasian fiancée, Samantha, are a story worthy of an Amy Tan novel. More fiction—and Ford’s diligent research—needs to be published to examine this period, its strained ethnic relations and what it means to be an American.

Happily, friends tell me, Hotel is earning sales in the U.K. and Australia, although there it’s tagged as “American history.”

Walt Giersbach '61
http://allotropiclucubrations.blogspot.com

Available (actually checked out or on hold at most locations!) at Des Moines, Ames, and Marshalltown Public Libraries in Iowa, Delaware County Public Library System (PA) and Central Parkway of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Teen Critics at the Overbrook Park Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia

2009-03-06T07:14:00.004-06:00

Helen Perelman and Peter Barsocchini. Turn Up the Heat. High School Musical. NY: Disney Press, 2008.

Teeyanna Harris,a 6th grader at Lamberton School in Philadelphia, wrote the following summary and assessment of Perelman and Barsocchini's Turn up the Heat.

Summary: A baking program has a cake contest and Zeke, Troy, Gabriella, and Sharpay are in it.

Assessment: Teeyana writes, "I think that the winner of the contest desrved their prize. Also, I think that when Troy and too many people started showing up to help cook, that is when the problems started. The end was great because, before Zeke or anybody got too crazy and annoyed, they made a beautiful dessert and won."

Teeyana rates the book for popularity and quality:

Popularity: "A lot of teens will REALLY LIKE it!"

Quality: "Well written!"

You can find this novel at public libraries, including Des Moines and Ames area public libraries in Iowa, the Delaware County Library System in SE Pennsylvania, and 50 branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia, including Overbrook Park 7422 Haverford Avenue.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

2009-03-04T11:02:00.003-06:00

Jonathan Safran Foer. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.

If you are familiar with Foer's first novel, Everything is Illuminated, you will recognize his unconventional use of narrative and chronology. As in his first novel, Extremely Loud deals with loss in both the present and the future. Oskar, the nine year old protagonist in this novel, is coming to terms with the death of his father in the World Trade Center attack of 9/11/2001. By accident he finds a key at the bottom of a vase in an envelope with the word "BLACK" on it. After determining that Black must be a last name, he sets out on the improbable quest of visiting every one in the phone book with the last name of Black to see if they can help him find the lock that fits the key.

Oskar's grandmother, Mrs. Schmidt, lives in the apartment building across the street and Oskar visits her daily and talks with her at all hours of the night using a baby monitor set as walkie-talkies. Oskar's grandfather, Thomas, left before Oskar's father (also Thomas) was born. Oskar's grandmother and Thomas, grew up as neighbors in Dresden, he was in love with her sister Anna, and were separated after the fire bombing at the end of WW II. Anna, pregnant with Thomas's child, did not survive the fire bombing. Thomas's intense grief led to the loss of his ability to speak and when he and Oskar's grandmother met again in New York after the war, he could only communicate by writing. The story of their marriage and their individual efforts to recover from trauma and loss of the fire bombing constitute a second plot line.

The two plots intersect as the novel draws to a close; both Thomas and Oskar find a certain amount of resolution and healing.

Foer's writing is imaginative and beautiful. This novel includes typographical effects and photographs to enrich the prose. It is funny and sad and a moving remembrance of the loss of life during the fire bombing of Dresden and the 9/11 attacks. As we continue to fight wars with excessive and tragic loss of civilian lives, a novel such as this one keeps us in mind of the sorrow and pain of each innocent death-- so many deaths; sorrow and pain beyond comprehension.

Burling Library 3rd Floor PS3606.O38 E97 2005

Everything is Illuminated
Burling Library 3rd Floor PS3606.O38 E84 2002

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

2009-03-02T21:01:00.002-06:00

Charles Mackay. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. New York: L.C.
Page and Company, 1932 [1841]).

Reviewed by T. Hatch

As the title suggests Mackay is looking at the world through a Gibbonesque lens. Instead of concerning himself with the vagaries of the collapse of the Roman Empire Mackay's interest in mass human irrationality is more systematic. Starting with the Mississippi and South Sea bubbles (originally my interest in the book); he deals with alchemy; magnitisers; the Crusades; witchcraft; dueling and a short list of other topics which provide fertile ground for nurturing the ubiquitous seeds of credulity in human beings. In reading this 702 page frolic of a page-turner it was impossible to confine myself to the pertinent chapters that I hoped might reveal some larger truth pertaining to the current financial meltdown/tsunami/clusterf@#k and the inherent irrationality of financial markets.

Barnard Baruch, in his forward to the 1932 edition of this work, lamented that “All economic movements, by their very nature, are motivated by crowd psychology.” Whether the source of speculation is Peruvian gold mines or a perpetual ascent in real estate values any notion of caveat emptor is quickly discarded as unworthy of the popular imagination. Although it was three centuries ago when Robert Walpole argued against the South Sea Act in the British Parliament he might very well have been speaking of any number of more recent financial calamities e.g. the Savings and Loan debacle, the subsequent bubbles in bonds, telecommunication stocks, or more recently the credit derivatives market. “It would hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labour for a prospect of imaginary wealth.” In fact, it appears as if it has.

The disappointing aspect of this book is that so many chapters might have been written after 1841. MacKay had no way of anticipating Joseph Smith, the modern treatment of Santa Claus, the fascination with UFOs, assassination conspiracy lovers, or (the cherry on the parfait) the zealotry of the 9/11truth.org adherents. What the world really needs is another Burckhardt or Huizinga to pen something like “The Persistence of credulity: Why 30,000 years of natural selection have not yet made any difference.” A guy can dream.

Burling 1st floor AZ999 .M2 1932

Humpty Dumpty was Pushed

2009-03-02T20:52:00.006-06:00

Marc Blatte. Humpty Dumpty was Pushed. Tucscon, AZ: Schaffner Press, 2009.

Review by Sharon Clayton

“Humpty Dumpty was pushed. Nothing happens by accident and lightening can strike twice in the same spot.”

Who murdered the big man with the yellow socks? This story takes us from a hip-hop recording studio to a New York City nightclub to a socialite’s home in the Hamptons.

Detective Salvatore Messina, aka Black Sallie Blue Eyes, is a smart cop with a criminal profiler mind. He dreams of keeping the streets safe, but this case has got him working to keep his captain, the record producers and the socialites from breathing down his neck AND, as fate has it, his ex-wife is back in New York City.

Scholar, gritty ex-con, has a dream to be a top hip hop executive, but money and the higher ups are getting in his way. Even his cousin Biz, record producer, can’t help him reach his goal.

Vooko, Albanian nightclub bouncer, dreams about finding his cousin’s killer. Moving from a war torn country to the streets of New York City wasn’t much of a transition. It’s bad enough with the language barrier, but the traditions and ways of life are even more challenging.

Kal Kessler, wealthy socialite drug addict, dreams of earning his father’s approval. Unfortunately, he hangs with “the boys”, enjoys fast cars and hard drugs.

Marc Blatte’s first novel is “da bomb”. The suspense, colorful hip-hop slang, character nicknames and humorous banter kept me turning the pages. He has created the first “wonderful hip-hop noir mystery” that even a farm girl from Iowa couldn’t put down.

Available at Iowa City Public Library and Delaware County (PA) Public Library System.

Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman

2009-02-25T10:03:00.002-06:00

Wideman, John Edgar. Philadelphia Fire. NY: Holt, 1990.

Philadelphia fire refers to the 1985 bombing by Philadelphia police of the communal group known as Move and the resulting destruction of a city block in West Philadelphia and the deaths of six adults and five children. The novel is not strictly about this event, although it is central to the novel; it is more about the narrator's psyche exploding when he hears about it. The first part of Philadelphia Fire is a straight forward narrative. The narrator hears about the fire in Greece where he has been living and decides to return to Philadelphia and his old neighborhood, which is in the vicinity of the bombing. He wants to find the one little boy who survives the devastation. Unfortunately, he fails to find him. The rest of the novel is a pastiche of memories from the narrator's lfie in West Philly. He emphasizes the poverty and the lack of opportunity; the neglect, violence and degradation of the neighborhood. The novel ends with the narrator's attendance at a ceremony held to recognize the slain Move family members.

2nd floor Black Library PS3573.I26 P48 1990

Wideman's most recent books are a novel: Fanon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008 and a collection of short stories, God's Gymn. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

For other books by John Edgar Wideman at Grinnell College Libraries, follow this link:
http://cat.lib.grinnell.edu/search/a?SEARCH=wideman%2C+john+&sortdropdown=-

Teen Critics at the Overbrook Park Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia

2009-02-18T19:47:00.007-06:00

David Van Etten. Likely Story. NY: Knopf, 2008.

Rasheda Hinton, a ninth grader at Central High School in Philadelphia wrote the following summary and assessment of Van Etten's new young adult novel, Likely Story.

Summary: A girl and her mother (a soap actress) debate a lot. Then, the girl gets the opportunity of a life time . . . and more confusion occurs.

Assessment: Rasheda writes, "Overall I think Likely Story is an excellent story. The best thing about the story is the dialogue. Also, the characters have very descriptive personalities. The story is very realistic. I would read this again and recommend it to many people. I give it 4 stars. Oh, also, its sarcasm is humorous and the highlighted quotes in the tvs were brilliant."

You can find this novel at public libraries, including Des Moines area public libraries in Iowa, the Delaware County Library System in SE Pennsylvania, and 22 branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia, including of course, Overbrook Park 7422 Haverford Avenue.

Rebecca Stuhr is reading Louise Erdrich

2009-02-18T10:27:00.004-06:00

Rebecca recently read for the first time Erdrich's first novel, Love Medicine (1984). This was the first of Erdrich's cycle of novels centered around North Dakota, on and off the Indian reservation, with a complex and interrelated group of characters. In Love Medicine, Erdrich uses a fluid chronology and allows each of her characters to tell their own story. Many of the chapters work as individual short stories but are enriched in connection with all of the other chapters. The characters are lost, defiant, triumphant, in mourning or despair, selfish and giving. Rebecca is currently reading The Beet Queen, Erdrich's second novel. Erdrich uses the same technique of allowing each character to tell his or her own story, however, The Beet Queen is a more cohesive plot. These are new characters but the names of some of the characters from Love Medicine enter into the story, and one of the Beet Queen characters is a Kashpaw.

For a list of books by Louise Erdrich, or to which she has contributed follow this link to the Grinnell College Libraries catalog:

http://cat.lib.grinnell.edu/search/a?SEARCH=erdrich+louise&sortdropdown=-

Love Medicine. New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston, 1984. New and expanded version, 1993.
Burling 3rd floor PS3555.R42 L6 1984
Burling 3rd floor PS3555.R42 L6 1993

The Beet Queen. New York: Holt, 1986
Burling 3rd floor PS3555.R42 B4 1986

Civic Librarianship

2009-02-18T10:06:00.003-06:00

Ronald B. McCabe. Civic Librarianship: Renewing the Social Mission of the Public Library. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2001.

Ronald McCabe is advocating a return to the educational mission of the public library that he believes was discarded in favor of a mission of simply providing or distributing information. He traces a change in American society from a desire to serve the good of society to an emphasis on the individual without regard to the good of society. He sees this change arising out of the Romantic movement and, more recently, the counter-cultural movement of the sixties. Like so many things, intentions were good, but balance was lost in the effort to move away from a rigid social order.

McCabe looks at these two movements, romanticism and the American counterculture, as well as utilitarianism and libertarianism, which promote an economic imperative that coincides with the emphasis on the individual. We see something like this in several cycles of corporate excess, currently revisiting us in the form of bank failures and massive layoffs. He sees aspects of Libertarian and Utilitarian philosophies as promoting the making of money without regard to social costs; getting rich as the sole merit of success.

McCabe looks to the Communitarian movement for the renaissance of the public library through what he is calling civic librarianship. Communitarianism calls for respect for individual rights, but also emphasizes the need for individuals to take responsibility for the good of his or her community and for society.

Libraries can contribute to community building by providing civic space and the resources and assistance to promote an educated and involved citizenry; collaborating with other service organizations; providing public programming that encourages dialogue and interaction, while serving both individuals, groups, and community organizations.

Unfortunately, this book is not widely available. But, you can find McCabe's chapter, "Civic Librarianship," which summarizes his ideas in:

Libraries & Democracy: The Cornerstones of Liberty. Ed. by Nancy Kranich. Chicago: American Library Association, 2001.

Burling 1st floor Z716.4+.L459+2001

More Vampire Novels, this time for boys ...

2009-01-11T11:24:00.006-06:00

Martin Stuhr-Rommereim is a fan of David Wellington who has written a series of Zombie novels, see November .... Wellington has also written a trilogy of Vampire novels and he recommends them:

Thirteen Bullets. NY: Three Rivers Press, 2007
99 Coffins. NY: Three Rivers Press, 2007
The Vampire Zero. NY: Three Rivers Press, 2008

Martin also recently finished,

Dark Dude by Oscar Hijuelos. New York, NY : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2008
Burling Library, 1st Floor, Latino Collection, PS3558.I376 D37x 2008

The Ascent of Money

2009-01-11T11:16:00.002-06:00

Niall Ferguson. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008

Reviewed by T. Hatch

Rock star historian Niall Ferguson's latest effort concerns the subject of money as the root of all progress. It is money that has freed mankind from the Hobbesian brutishness of hunter gatherer societies and the drudgery of subsistence agriculture. “Though the line of financial history has a saw-tooth quality its trajectory is unquestionably upward.” Well, that's one reading of history!

Ferguson chronicles the rise of money, credit, the bond and stock markets, insurance, real estate, and the world of international finance. Despite nearly all of the evidence of human misery and catastrophe that he weaves into this page-turner of a narrative Ferguson is reduced to offering apologies such as “A world without money would be worse, much worse, than our present world.”

In concluding this tour de force (which is likely to be well received at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Cato Institute) Ferguson makes an explicitly social Darwinist argument in favor of modern capitalism. It is tempting to compare his view of economics to that of William Graham Sumner and the root-hog-or-die days of the Gilded Age but that would be unfair to the late professor Sumner insofar as Ferguson is much softer on imperialism.

Consistent with a recently made new year's resolution let me lavish encomia upon The Ascent of Money by saying that Thomas L. Friedman is not the author and the illustrations are first class.

On order for Burling Library

Catching up from 2008. Ann Patchett, Toni Morrison, and David Guterson

2009-01-11T10:35:00.004-06:00

To make up for the lack of reviews posted in December of 2008, I'm going to list a few books that I've been reading, all novels with titles of one word --not counting initial articles. Starting with:

Patchett, Ann. Run. NY: Harper, 2007
Burling Library PS3566.A7756 R86 2007 (currently Smith Memorial)

Patchett explores the complexity of family relationships and explodes the idea of the nuclear family as we think about it in American culture. Tip and Teddy Doyle, African-American boys, are adopted into a Irish-Catholic political family. Their adopted mother dies when they are still quite young, but not too young for them to be devastated at losing her. Their uncle is a Catholic priest, their father a prominent politician disgraced by the misdeeds of his oldest son (his biological son). The bereived father throws himself into raising the two youngest with hopes that they will enter into politics. Meanwhile, their biological mother and her daughter, actually the biological daughter of her best friend who died when her daughter was still an infant, has lived close enough to the family to keep an eye on the well being of her two sons. As the novel progresses, they are all thrown together and the experiences that result have life changing impacts on each of the characters. A noteworthy detail, apparently something the novelest actually saw and that provided some of the inspiration for her novel, is when one of the characters notices a sign in the the window of a college dorm room that says Obama 2012.

Morrison, Toni. A Mercy. NY: Knopf, 2008

Burling 3rd Floor PS3563.O8749 M47 2008

As usual, Morrison draws her readers right into another world. This time, her novel is set in colonial America during a time of the expansion of the slave trade. Florens is taken from her mother, a slave in the palacial estate of a Spanish plantation owner, as payment toward the plantation owner's festering debt with Jacob, an Anglo-Dutch trader. Jacob is opposed to owning slaves, but takes Florens because she is about the age of the daughter he and his wife just lost. Florens is raised by Lina, a servant in Jacob's household, herself abducted from her homeland in Africa. Sorrow, another child taken on by Jacob (but not purchased), wanders around freely and is pregnant with her second child. Other characters include two white men, who through various tricks and deceptions are permanently indentured, and a free African, a blacksmith who comes to help Jacob build a magnificent house. All of the characters have suffered great loss, whether it is the loss of their freedom and home, the loss of a parent, the loss of children, or the loss of a spouse or lover, the suffering is overwhelming. Some characters are able to find their way through suffering, but others cannot.

Guterson, David. The Other. NY: Knopf, 2008
Burling Library PS3557.U846 O75 2008 (currently Smith Memorial)

Two boys, growing up in Seattle, meet haphazardly on the high school track field, and become close as they hike through the forests and mountainous regions of the Pacific Northwest together. After college, the narrator, Neill Countryman, marries and becomes a high school English teacher. His friend, John Williams, always seeking the most extreme route, decides to live a life of complete seclusion without hypocrisy. The novel opens with the news of Williams' death and Countryman's inheritance of Williams' vast wealth.

Parecon: Life After Capitalism

2008-11-21T12:12:00.006-06:00

Michael Albert. Parecon: Life After Capitalism. London/New York: Verso, 2003.

Reviewed by T. Hatch

Michael Albert, founder of Znet and an acolyte of Noam Chomsky, has imagined a new economic system. In the parecon (i.e. participatory economics) councils of workers and consumers replace corporations. Instead of a system of buyers and sellers in a perpetual effort to fleece one another, where the means of production and output are hegemonic, the ethic of remuneration is altered to reward those who put forth the most effort and sacrifice. Essentially it is an anarchistic vision of the world's economic system that scraps the social contract rationale for earning on property that maintains itself because of unbalanced circumstances.

The values that the parecon holds dear are solidarity, diversity, equity, and participatory self-management. Markets as we know them would cease to exist. “Naked self-interest and callous cash payment” would take a back seat to cooperation and real bottom up participatory democracy. No longer would an anti-social agenda hold sway rewarding the most ruthless amongst us. Albert's effort is aimed at trying to create a world free of markets which he sees as “a no confidence vote on the social capabilities of the human species.”

He is critical of any system that maintains markets. This includes both the central planning and market coordinationist versions of Socialism as well as the fetish for localism that is embodied in Green Bioregionalism. “Economics is conducted by and for workers and consumers. Workers create the social product. Consumers enjoy the social product.” Accordingly, the watch word would be “to each according to effort.”

As laudable as the ethics of intention in economics might be those with a background in economics will have difficulty in swallowing Albert's prescriptions whole. Although the last section of the book is given over to a defense against possible criticisms of his parecon model of economy it is hardly comprehensive.

In a three hundred page treatise on an alternative economic system money is only mentioned once in passing; this only in relation to possible black market activity which would fizzle out because of the lack of possible reward. Forget about money aggregates and even the concepts of money as a store of value and a means of accounting. Beyond this if Albert is eliminating money as a medium of exchange he has not indicated how this might come about.

The parecon as advanced in the book is a global system. How would this come about? Would there be parecon in one country or would it require a international effort to accomplish? Would parecon start in the most advanced capitalist countries first or would there be a corollary on Trotsky's theory of combined and uneven development?

The most stunning part of Albert's work is his naïve belief in equilibrium which surpasses even that of an Alfred Marshall. Even conceding that human nature is not static and that markets are irrational and exploit large portions of humanity it is fanciful to see councils of consumers communicating to producers their needs in advance for a year at a time and having this come off smoothly. That Weberian cage is indeed constructed of iron.

Moonstone – Book One, The Unbidden Magic Series

2008-11-21T11:54:00.003-06:00

Brothers, Marilee. Moonstone – Book One, The Unbidden Magic Series. Smyrna, GA: Belle Bridge Books, 2008.

Contributed by Simone Sidwell, Teen Librarian at Grinnell's Stewart Public Library

Moonstone is a well-written and entertaining paranormal young adult novel from former high school teacher and debut author Marilee Brothers. The underclass/trailer-park setting of the novel in “Peacock Flats,” Washington adds an interesting social dimension to the novel, which chronicles the awakening of the “weird psychic powers” of our likeable and funny heroine, fifteen year-old Allie – and the grand mystical mission to come. Allie’s unemployed, single-parent mother suffers from a psychosomatic case of fibromyalgia, making Allie more of the caretaker than Mom. While struggling with the usual teen angst and joys (puberty, crushes, first-romances, school cliques, gangs, bullies), Allie also is visited by a comical hippy-dippy guardian angel who has been relegated to an afterlife in limbo at the local airport in town, and who alerts her to her new powers. This sets Allie off on an entertaining and dangerous adventure centered upon a mystical piece of jewelry - a moonstone necklace given to Allie by a close family friend – and the sinister minion after it. Allie discovers than in addition to weathering the usual ups & downs of a high-school student in Peacock Flats, she has a greater destiny to fulfill as a “star keeper” entrusted with the power Moonstone...Marilee Brothers’ novel stands out for its humor and Allie’s strong point-of-view as an underdog finding her place in the world. This is another [see her review for Bite Me] good choice for public library teen/fantasy collections - I look forward to the next title in this series.