Non-Required Reading: Mornings on Horseback

Facing a long plane ride later this summer, or need something to keep you occupied before summer classes start? Some of us here thought we'd share recommendations for some recent reads and perennial favorites. Today, Associate Director Jack Ray makes a recommendation.

Mornings on Horseback
by David McCullough

David McCullough is a writer who puts the "story" in "history." His works are exhaustively researched and scrupulously documented in endnotes, but are as absorbing and eloquent as good novels. Right now I'm reading "Mornings on Horseback" (1981), the story of Theodore Roosevelt's youth and early career. The entire Roosevelt family and their nineteenth-century New York milieu come to life in this vivid account. Struggling from childhood with debilitating attacks of asthma, young TR was nevertheless inspired by his father to achieve greatness, and after graduating from Harvard he embarked upon a tumultuous career in New York State politics. It's a great read, like all of McCullough's works.

Get it at our library, or from the Enoch Pratt Free Library or your public library at home, wherever that may be.

Non-Required Reading: The Fabric of the Cosmos

Facing a long plane ride later this summer, or need something to keep you occupied before summer classes start? Some of us here thought we'd share recommendations for some recent reads and perennial favorites. Today, Research & Instruction Librarian/Web Support Specialist John Breitmeyer makes a recommendation.

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
by Brian Greene

The Fabric of the Cosmos popularizes science -- specifically physics -- in a manner somewhat reminiscent of efforts made by Carl Sagan and other (good) science writers to reach and educate the general public. By a kind of prose miracle, it's entirely math-free, although Greene is frequently obliged to refer to the difficult mathematics underlying various physical theories in a "trust me--the math bears this out" sort of way. However, his presentations are clear and convincing, and he succinctly, and excitingly, conveys a sense of the historical controversies and progress in physics to the layperson.

Greene manages to engagingly and clearly summarize over three hundred years of physics (it begins with Newton), and at the same time convey the vertiginous sense of wonder that comes from discovering how deeply strange and mysterious the universe is.

Get it at our library, or from the Enoch Pratt Free Library or your public library at home, wherever that may be.

Non-Required Reading: Short takes

Facing a long plane ride later this summer, or need something to keep you occupied before summer classes start? Some of us here thought we'd share recommendations for some recent reads and perennial favorites. Today, two librarians share short takes on some books read in the last few months.

Joanne Hélouvry
Head of Research & Instruction Services

With gas prices going up and organic foods abounding, I would recommend Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Just be careful not to be sucked into the guilt that I felt when eating asparagus in November. Request it from Hood, and have it delivered right to LNDL!

Philip Fryer
Digital Media Librarian

I recently helped Dr. Pat Dwyer perfect slides for a presentation on assessment of education, and that brings to mind Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. The book is really a sequel to his earlier work, Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools and is as dismaying as it is well-written and researched. Check out our copy of The Shame of the Nation (LC212.62 K69 2005) or Savage Inequalities (LC4091 .K69 1991).

Of course, you can also check these out from the Enoch Pratt Free Library or your public library at home, wherever that may be.

Non-Required Reading: Empire Falls

Facing a long plane ride later this summer, or need something to keep you occupied before summer classes start? Some of us here thought we'd share recommendations for some recent reads and perennial favorites. Today, Digital Access Librarian Danielle Whren makes a recommendation.

Empire Falls
by Richard Russo

Russo's Pulitizer Prize-winning novel is a look in time at a small, blue-collar town in Maine. Through the eyes of protagonist Miles Roby, the reader sees the people of the town and how they all got where they are now. Russo's excellent character development allows the reader to truly experience the lives of the people living in Empire Falls.

Get it at our library, or from the Enoch Pratt Free Library or your public library at home, wherever that may be.