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February 2013 Staff Reviews & More
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Greetings!
Here are three new staff reviews for you! We also have some great readings coming up. Plus, check out what's new in Science.
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Staff Reviews
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Our staff brings you three new favorites:
Married Love and Other Stories
by Tessa Hadley
reviewed by Pat
These are contemporary stories with an unerring ear for the way
children and their parents communicate and an eye for the subtle details
that divide us along class lines. In the title story, a promising young
violinist announces to her family that she will marry her music
professor, never mind that she's never had a boyfriend and her betrothed
is 45 years her senior. In a few thousand words we get the family
reactions, the wedding, the children to follow, and the love that
continues despite the losses. The day after I read this story, I carried
it with me like a gem that I could take out of my pocket and examine at
will.
Make It, Take It
by Rus Bradburd
reviewed by Will
The strange and sheltered business of college basketball, where coaches
and players alike perilously teeter between personal and professional
ruin and waver between adulthood and adolescence, is the setting for
this often hilarious and ultimately disturbing novel. A range of
character sketches reveal a world where everyone is playing everyone
else to get ahead--and the basketball games themselves are a mere
backdrop to the often harebrained scheming. Bradburd has exposed the
dark, dank underside of a shady business and has seemingly picked up a
rock to expose the creatures that slither out: venal coaches, dishonest
recruiters, opportunistic administrators, and disloyal teammates.Make It, Take It is a wisely funny novel with a jaundiced view of a very American social institution.
Waiting for Sunrise
by William Boyd
reviewed by Edie
 Lysander Rief is a young English actor who finds himself in Vienna,
before WWI (1913), to see a psychotherapist. Circumstances find him
falling head over heels in lust with a gorgeous woman. Lysander feels he
is a worldly man (mainly due to the praise in London
for his work on the stage) and is therefore shocked to be accused of
rape. The British consulate comes to his rescue, but not before
extracting promises for his help with an espionage problem. Vienna
and the coming war are characters in this exciting and sometimes
hilarious thriller--and we watch Lysander's life change from one of
pseudo-sophisticated ease to one with purpose and determination. Boyd
has written a number of prize-winning books and this one is no
exception.
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Readings
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We have some great readings coming up:
Chloe Coscarelli
Chloe's Vegan Desserts
Monday, February 25, 7:00 PM
Chef Chloe's first all-dessert cookbook will satisfy your sweet tooth
from morning to night with more than 100 recipes for cakes and
cupcakes, ice cream and doughnuts and pies-oh my! And you just will not
believe these delicious dishes are vegan. Go ahead and lick that
spoon-there are no worries when you bake vegan! With gorgeous color
photography, clever tips, and a comprehensive section on vegan baking
basics to get you started, Chloe's Vegan Desserts will be your new vegan dessert bible.
Chasity Glass
even if i am.
Wednesday, March 6, 7:00 PM
Chasity thought she knew what love was--until she meets Anthony, the
handsome video editor she works with in a busy Hollywood office. As
their bond grows, we follow their blossoming relationship through
heartfelt emailed conversations. Soon, they are writing six to ten
emails a day to each other. One email leading to the next, the two fall
in love. Then, just as love begins, Anthony is diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. This
memoir offers self-discovery through poignant and vulnerable prose,
capturing the hearts of all those who believe in the power of love.
Amanda Coplin
The Orchardist
Monday, March 11, 7:00 PM
 At once intimate and epic, The Orchardist
is historical fiction at its best, in the grand literary tradition of
William Faulkner, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Ondaatje, Annie Proulx,
and Toni Morrison. In her stunningly original and haunting debut novel,
Amanda Coplin evokes a powerful sense of place, mixing tenderness and
violence as she spins an engrossing tale of a solitary orchardist who
provides shelter to two runaway teenage girls in the untamed American
West, and the dramatic consequences of his actions.
Candace Walsh
Licking the Spoon
Tuesday, March 19, 7:00 PM
In her food memoir, Walsh tells how, lacking role models in her early
life, she turned to cookbook authors real and fictitious (Betty
Crocker, Martha Stewart, Mollie Katzen, Daniel Boulud, and more) to
learn, unlearn, and redefine her own womanhood. Through the lens of
food, Walsh recounts her life's journey--from unhappy adolescent to
straight-identified wife and mother to divorcée in a same-sex
relationship--and she throws in some dishy revelations, a-ha moments,
take-home tidbits, and mouth-watering recipes for good measure.
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New in Science
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Here are some of the latest titles from our Science section:
How to Create a Mind
by Ray Kurzweil
The author presents a provocative exploration of the most important
project in human-machine civilization--reverse engineering the brain to
understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create
even more intelligent machines. Kurzweil discusses how the brain
functions, how the mind emerges from the brain, and the implications of
vastly increasing the powers of our intelligence in addressing the
world's problems. He thoughtfully examines emotional and moral
intelligence and the origins of consciousness and envisions the radical
possibilities of our merging with the intelligent technology we are
creating.
The Universe From Nothing
by Lawrence Krauss
One of the few prominent scientists today to have crossed the chasm
between science and popular culture, Krauss describes the staggeringly
beautiful experimental observations and mind-bending new theories that
demonstrate not only can something arise from nothing, something will
always arise from nothing. With a new preface about the significance of
the discovery of the Higgs particle, A Universe From Nothing
uses Krauss's characteristic wry humor and wonderfully clear
explanations to take us back to the beginning of the beginning,
presenting the most recent evidence for how our universe evolved--and
the implications for how it's going to end.
A Little History of Science
by William Bynum
This inviting book tells a great adventure story: the history of
science. It takes readers to the stars through the telescope, as the sun
replaces the earth at the center of our universe. It delves beneath
the surface of the planet, charts the evolution of chemistry's periodic
table, introduces the physics that explain electricity, gravity, and
the structure of atoms. It recounts the scientific quest that revealed
the DNA molecule and opened unimagined new vistas for exploration.
The Universe Within
by Neil Shubin
 In The Universe Within, the author of Our Inner Fish
starts once again with fossils. He turns his gaze skyward, showing us
how the entirety of the universe's fourteen-billion-year history can be
seen in our bodies. As he moves from our very molecular composition (a
result of stellar events at the origin of our solar system) through the
workings of our eyes, Shubin makes clear how the evolution of the
cosmos has profoundly marked our own bodies.
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