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Posters for Teachers
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Tired of staring at blank walls in your classroom? Annie Bloom's gets
lots of promotional posters for children's books, and now we've started a
Teacher's Box (or two). So, teachers, next time you're in the store,
please ask to take a look.
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October 2012: Staff Reviews & More
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Greetings!
Here are three new staff reviews for you! We also have some great events coming up. Plus, check out what's new in Poetry.
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Staff Reviews
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Our staff brings you three new favorites:
The Secret Book of Frida Kahlo
by F. G. Haghenbeck
reviewed by Sharon
This book is a great way to learn about the life and art of Frida
Kahlo. Using a blend of creative fiction, biographical facts, and some
tasty sounding traditional Mexican recipes, Haghenbeck
brings us a vibrant rendition of Frida's life. Although she was plagued
by crippling health problems, her passionate and colorful personality
comes through. We learn of the near fatal bus accident that greatly
influenced her life, her tumultuous marriage to the well known artist
Diego Rivera (her second "great accident," according to Frida), and her
various friendships and affairs with the likes of Georgia O'Keefe,
Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Leon Trotsky, and Nelson Rockefeller.
The recipes from her "Hierba Santa Book" (Sacred Herbs Book) add zest
to the story by connecting her passion for cooking to the people that
she cared about. The story is told beautifully and imaginatively... and
in a style as brazen and colorful as the artist herself.
Economix
by Michael Goodwin & Dan E. Burr
reviewed by Andy
This is a wonderful, accessible, and funny run down of the entire
history of economics and a succinct explication of the current economic
crisis--which ends up showing the painful repetition of history in some
detail.If you know what a credit default swap is, or why you might want
to avoid the riskiest tranche in a mortgage backed security, this book
is too simple for you.If these terms mean nothing to you, or if you
don't know the similarities between the actions of Hank Paulson and
Andrew Mellon, this book is necessary reading.It is a great starting
point for exploring our current economic situation and its intimate ties
to politics.And, again, the author and illustrator have done the
impossible: it's funny and entertaining!It's actually a page-turner!
This would be an excellent book for a teenager, too.Go to economixcomix.com and you can see the list of references for this well-researched (if biased) book.
Toby's Room
by Pat Barker
reviewed by Pat
Elinor is a student at the Slade School of Fine Art in London when
World War I breaks out. She is a pacifist and wants nothing to do with
the war. Her fellow student, Kit, volunteers for service, as does her
beloved brother Toby. These men are interlinked in war and its aftermath.
After Toby is reported missing in action, presumed dead, Elinor becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to him. She isolates herself in the country where they grew up and mourns him by painting the pastoral landscape of their childhood. Seeking
more answers, she volunteers at the hospital where Kit, who served in
Toby's unit, is undergoing surgery to replace his missing nose. Her job
is to draw soldiers' ruined faces before and after surgery, in order to
help the surgeons record the progression of their work.
World
War I trench warfare exposed soldiers to a vast increase in facial
wounds. The author notes that the original portraits, along with the
case histories of many of the patients, are archived and available
online. I haven't had the courage to look.
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Readings
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Upcoming Readings at Annie Blooms:
Polly Campbell
Imperfect Spirituality
Thursday, November 1, 7pm
 Imperfect Spirituality
is filled with practical tips and dozens of examples, as well as
anecdotes from real people who are striving to grow both spiritually
and personally. Each chapter features fascinating research about how
the mind-body-spirit connection really works, as well as illuminating
quotes and informative, easy-to-do takeaways from leading-edge
academic and spiritual experts who both study and practice the
techniques explored in the book.
Polina Olsen with Michael Wells
Portland in the 1960s
Wednesday, November 7, 7pm
Portland boasted a vibrant 1960s culture of disenchanted and
disenfranchised individuals seeking social and political revolution.
Through stories from the counterculture, Polina Olsen brings to life
the beat-snapping Caffe Espresso, the incense and black light posters
of the Psychedelic Supermarket, and the spontaneous concerts and
communal soups in Lair Park. Olsen will be joined by Michael
Wells, editor and publisher of "The Willamette Bridge," Portland's
alternative newspaper of the late 1960s and early '70s.
Kim Stafford
100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: A Memoir
Thursday, November 8, 7pm
 Bret and Kim Stafford, the oldest boys of the Poet Laureate and pacifist William Stafford, were inseparable during childhood. Later, Bret--a
puritan in the summer of love, a conscientious objector in the Vietnam
era--became a casualty of his own interior war and took his life,
leaving the family to endure the loss. Through Kim's devotions, he
shares Bret's life and what it teaches us about the secret nature of
depression, the tender ancestry of violence, the quest for harmonious
relations, and finally, the trick of joy.
Harriett Wrye
Pulling Up Stakes
Monday, November 12, 7pm
On a High Sierra pack trip with her husband and their six llamas,
psychologist Harriet Wrye felt a millennial call to "pull up stakes" in
her life, as she did with tent stakes and llama stakes each day as they
moved along the trail. Inspired, she closed her Los Angeles
psychoanalytic practice of thirty years, they leased their house at the
beach and set out on a journey to the "back of beyond." Creating a
sabbatical from the familiar, her journey became a life-changing
spiritual pilgrimage that led to a deep practice of letting go of
assumptions, habits and patterns, and stepping into freedom. Pulling Up Stakes chronicles her journey.
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New Poetry
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Thousand Mornings
by Mary Oliver
Oliver returns to the imagery that has come to define her life's work,
transporting us to the marshland and coastline of her beloved home,
Provincetown, Massachusetts. In these pages, Oliver shares the wonder of
dawn, the grace of animals, and the transformative power of attention.
Whether studying the leaves of a tree or mourning her adored dog,
Percy, she is ever patient in her observations and open to the
teachings contained in the smallest of moments.
Finding My Elegy
by Ursula K. Le Guin
This collection distills Le Guin's life's work, offering a selection of
the best from her six earlier volumes of poetry and introducing a
powerful group of poems, at once earthy and transcendent, written in
the first decade of the twenty-first century. The seventy selected and
seventy-seven new poems consider war and creativity, motherhood and the
natural world, and glint with humor and vivid beauty. These moving
works of art are a reckoning with a whole life.
Mayakovsky's Revolver
by Matthew Dickman
At the center of this collection is the suicide of Dickman's older
brother. Known for poems of universality of feeling, expressive
lyricism of reflection, and heartrending allure, Dickman is a powerful
poet whose new collection explores how to persevere in the wake of
grief. From the title poem: "In the dark I can see my older brother
walking through the tall brush of his brain. I can see him standing in
the lobby of the hotel, alone, crying along with the ice machine."
Blood Sisters of the Republic
by Wendy Wills
 Portland poet Wendy Willis is an adjunct fellow at the Attic Institute and has published her works in a variety of national and regional journals. Blood Sisters of the Republic is her debut poetry collection. Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen writes: " Willis'
splendid poems make one astonishing yet satisfying leap after
another. Each line is chock-a-block with a jazzy, jostling sound all
her own."
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