Using original material from the collections of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Well presents the daily life and residences of Calvin Coolidge in Northampton, Massachusetts. She uses new…Using original material from the collections of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Well presents the daily life and residences of Calvin Coolidge in Northampton, Massachusetts. She uses new sources to document the unique and interesting personal life stories of Coolidge’s landlords and neighbors. Copies are also available to purchase in at the library or in our online store….
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Halting State
This science fiction adventure takes place in a semi-dystopian future in which our reliance on internet technologies and mobile devices has increased just enough to appear both futuristic and close at hand. The story, written from multiple perspectives and told entirely in the second person, follows a group of strangers brought together by a strange crime committed inside a computer game. The style takes some getting used to, but overall, this is…
McCartney
Paul McCartney’s first solo album, which was certainly unpopular with many critics and his colleagues at the time of its 1970 release, has proven to be an immensely influential and…yable, homemade recording. This album was produced mostly at McCartney’s house in London using a simple technique of sending tracks directly into a tape machine. He also performed each instrument himself and the majority of the vocals (some background vocals were sung by Linda McCartney). Home recording software and portable four-track machines are now sources where many artists, both professional and amateur, record their music. In retrospect, th…
Hippies
I have a friend who lives in Austin, TX who is constantly making me jealous. She likes to mention, with a trace of blasé, that she’s just seen some amazing…, blues, country or hip-hop artist perform just down the street from her house. Earlier this year, she recommended the Austin group Harlem (she had seen them perform live down the street!) and after listening to some songs online, I was hooked. I ordered the lp right away and suggested ordering a copy for Forbes. Harlem plays straight, unabashed garage rock without any pretension whatsoever. Catchy melodies and the spirit of rock n’ roll dominate…
Telegraph Avenue
Michael Chabon’s mastery of language alone is enough to recommend anything he writes. But the characters in Telegraph Avenue provide much more to enjoy. The story centers around two friends…rhood, customers, relatives, friends and enemies are portrayed with a warts-and-all detail that makes them very multi-dimensional, believable and relatable. The story unfolds at a deliberate pace but the humanness of the characters and the joy of Chabon’s writing will draw you in. For music buffs, there’s an extra nostalgic delight in vintage vinyl. Clarke Peters reads for Recorded Books in a rich, deep voice, delivering Chabon’s metaphors and dia…
At Home
At Home: A Short History of Private Life is not particularly short, and it is too rambling and unfocused to be a useful history, but it is full of surprising…fe is not particularly short, and it is too rambling and unfocused to be a useful history, but it is full of surprising facts and entertaining anecdotes about our homes and how they got that way. We learn about architecture, gardening, furniture, food, sanitation and much else besides. Although we learn a little about life in ancient times, and a wee bit about homes in the Middle East and in North America, the bulk of the content focuses on Britis…
True Grit
After learning that I was a fan of the recent True Grit film the Coen Brothers released in 2010, a co-worker told me that the novel which it was based…d by a Texas Ranger by the name of LaBoeuf. The three set out on the trail of murderer Tom Chaney. True Grit is a real page turner of an adventure novel where stakeouts and gun fights are standard fare. Author Charles Portis also chooses to use a great deal of humor in the storytelling thanks to the wild Cogburn his constant one-upmanship between he and LaBoeuf. There’s also the constant reminder that the young Mattie is more educated and sensible…
Gods Behaving Badly
The immortal Greek gods are in reduced circumstances in the 21st century, living in a dilapidated house in London and pretty tired of each other’s company by now. Their relationships among themselves…re in reduced circumstances in the 21st century, living in a dilapidated house in London and pretty tired of each other’s company by now. Their relationships among themselves and their interactions with the modern world are perfectly in character, smart and very funny. Now that the gods have had to get day jobs, Aphrodite does phone sex, Artemis is a dog walker, and Apollo is still chasing mortal women. It’s an ingenious concept and Phillips carri…
Out of the Silent Planet
In this early work of science fiction (Out of the Silent Planet was first published in 1938) C.S. Lewis tells the story of a philology professor, much reminiscent of Lewis’s…scent of Lewis’s friend J.R.R Tolkien, who, while exploring a mysterious house in the English countryside, is kidnapped and brought to the mysterious planet of Malacandra aboard a strange space–going vehicle. The professor escapes his captors soon after they land, and he finds himself terrified in an unfamiliar world. His curiosity overcomes his fear, however, when he discovers that many of the native creatures possess the ability to speak and sha…
One of our Thursdays is missing
Jasper Fforde’s latest offering in the Thursday Next series is a metafictional tour de farce. The original Thursday — literary police Special Operations Agent (ret.) and the star of her…ecial Operations Agent (ret.) and the star of her own series of novels-with-novels — has disappeared, and it’s up to her fictional character to find her by impersonating the real Thursday. There’s a border dispute in BookWorld between the genres of Racy Novel and Women’s Fiction, and if Thursday doesn’t show up for the peace talks, war might ensue. Fforde sprinkles his story with characters and allusions from the classics and popular fiction, and…
The Bones of All Men
This album marries two of my favorite genres of music: specifically, 16th century Renaissance dances and British folk-rock of the 1960s and ’70s. Richard Thompson and some ex-Fairport Convention comrades…s and British folk-rock of the 1960s and ’70s. Richard Thompson and some ex-Fairport Convention comrades joined conductor and multi-instrumentalist Philip Pickett (who has Albion Band credentials as well as early music) in 1998 to rock out on a selection of tunes by William Byrd’s contemporaries. When I used to play electric harpsichord for English Country Dancing back in the early ’90s, this was the sort of sound I dreamed of achieving. Imagine a…
Cutter’s Way
“These are just the facts, Rich. I mean, I haven’t even begun to let my imagination loose on this thing.” A film about our first head librarian? Telling a tale…Bone, a yacht salesman who doubles as some sort of refined-hippie-vagabond-couch-surfing dude, witnesses the disposing of a body after a murder. He decides to flee the scene and not get involved (not getting involved happens to be a central theme of Richard Bone), but winds up being questioned and finds himself on the front page of the paper. Cutter, in turn, becomes obsessed with this case and is convinced he knows who has committed the terrible…
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