Staff Picks Reviewer: Ben

At Home by Bill Bryson [Book]

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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 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 British homes in the last few hundred years. Many sections of the book tell us little about the lives of all but the most wealthy, which is disappointing but also understandable, but Byrson makes up for this imbalance by keeping the text engaging, readable, and always interesting.

A Portland selection [Music CD]

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This CD is a companion to the very excellent tune book The Portland collection. On it you will find recordings of 36 of the tunes from that collection. The tunes are played simply with a small ensemble, but are full of energy; these recordings will be appreciated by all lovers of contra dance music, but especially by those who wish to learn and play the tunes themselves. George Penk is on fiddle, Clyde Curley on mandolin, octave mandolin, and tenor banjo, and Susan Songer on piano.

Songs of our fathers by Andy Statman and David Grisman [Music CD]

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This is a wonderfully joyful, sorrowful, simple, virtuosic, and just plain fun recording. Statman and Grisman, together with their very talented band (which includes Edgar Meyer on bass!) play traditional and original acoustic Jewish music with strong klezmer roots. Statman is a fine clarinetist, and both Statman and Grisman are masters of the mandolin; it’s a treat to hear them play!

Across Asia on a bicycle by Thomas Gaskell Allen, Jr. and William Lewis Sachtleben. [Book]

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After graduating from George Washington University in 1890, Thomas Allen and William Sachtleben, two American students wishing to expand upon their education with practical experience, decided to travel around the world. Wishing to meet the people along their route, instead of being insulated from them as they would have been had they traveled by more customary means, the two young men chose the newly invented “saftey bicycle” as their primary method of transport. This book tells the story of the most exciting portion of their travels, their journey across Asia, taking the seldom used northern route from Turkey, through Persia (now Iran) and through western China. (The safer and more used path would have led them south through India.)

This book is fascinating as much for what it reveals about the attitudes of these two Americans as it is for what it reveals about the people they met upon there way. It provides an interesting glimpse at the attitudes and politics of the time, and, of course, it is also a great adventure story.

Appalachian Journey by Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O’Connor [Music CD]

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Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O’Connor play with ideas drawn from traditional American fiddle tunes on this album; the results are great fun. The traditional tunes on this album are often played at a slower tempo than that which you may be accustomed to hearing, but this fantastically talented trio fills the resulting space well, using harmonies and polyphonic lines that give the music an almost classical feel.

Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Edgar Meyer, bass; Mark O’Connor, violin. James Taylor and Alison Krauss join the trio for a song and a tune each.

Halting State by Charles Stross [Book]

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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 a very fun book.

Cod: A Biography of the fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky [Book]

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This book will, of course, teach you a fair amount about codfish, but it will also teach you a great deal about history. As it turns out, the history of cod fisheries and the the trade in salted cod have had an enormous impact on world events, playing a crucial role in the slave trade, the exploration of the New World, and the American Revolutionary War. Mr. Kurlansky’s writing is engaging; he will make you excited about cod.

Fire & grace by Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas [Music CD]

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A fantastic collection of new and old Scottish fiddle tunes, with Alasdair Fraser on fiddle and Natalie Haas on cello. Alasdair Fraser is a master and Natalie Haas’s cello playing his perfect complement. Natalie plays beautiful counterpoint, but she has also mastered the fiddler’s “chop”, and uses it effectively in her driving rhythmic accompaniments. Having listened to this recording I find it difficult to understand why the cello is not used more often in this style of music!

The complete Flanders & Swann by Donald Swann and Michael Flanders [Music CD]

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I fell in love with the songs of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann as a teenager when I discovered At the Drop of a Hat among my parents neglected collection of LPs. I couldn’t imagine any songs more wonderfully silly than “The gnu song” and “The reluctant cannibal”, and Flanders and Swann’s delivery was charismatic, charming, more than a little endearing. The same album also contained the wonderfully clever “Ill wind”, which consisted of an amusing text set to the music of a Mozart horn concerto—complete with a cadenza. I was hooked.

The Complete Flanders and Swann contains all those familiar songs from At the Drop of a Hat, as well as songs from At the drop of another hat, The bestiary of Flanders and Swann, and some previously unreleased material. I recommend it!

Dans Les Airs by Le Vent du Nord [Music CD]

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I picked up this CD because of the album cover—I was intrigued because one of the band members was shown playing the hurdy gurdy. As it turns out, there is some great hurdy gurdy playing, but there is much more: wonderful vocal harmonies, great fiddling, Québécois foot percussion, and always infectious melodies and driving rhythms. A great album.

Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson [Graphic Novel]

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The first collection of Richard Thompson’s wonderful daily comic strip. Cul de Sac has been compared to Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes, and yet manages to hold its own. Quirky, funny, animated, and totally addictive.

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert [Book]

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A humorous look at our thoughts and perceptions around happiness. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains why our predictions of what will make us happy are often wrong. He also examines how our memories of happy times may be distorted. This is not a self-help book, but Gilbert does help us become more realistic in our search for happiness.