Inyo County Free Library - New Acquisitions
January 2015 - February 2015
These are books and media new to the library and cataloged by the Inyo County Free Library.
Additional information about each title can be found in the catalog (click on the title). For older acquisition lists choose from Select another list. To request any of these titles please contact your local library branch.
Dashiell Hammett: man of mystery By Cline, Sally Publishing Date: c2014 Classification: 800 Call Number: 813.52 CLI In this compact new biography, Sally Cline uses fresh research, including interviews with Hammett's family and Hellman's heir, to reexamine the life and works of the writer whom Raymond Chandler called "the ace performer. |
By Didion, Joan Publishing Date: 2011 Classification: 800 Call Number: 813.54 DID In this memoir, the author shares her observations about her daughter as well as her own thoughts and fears about having children and growing old, in a personal account that discusses her daughter's wedding and her feelings of failure as a parent. It opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana's wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana's childhood, in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were missed or perhaps displaced. Seamlessly woven in are incidents Didion sees as underscoring her own age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept. |
By Miles, Barry Publishing Date: 2014 Classification: 800 Call Number: 813.54 MIL "Fifty years ago, Norman Mailer asserted, "William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius." Few since have taken such literary risks, developed such individual political or spiritual ideas, or spanned such a wide range of media. Burroughs wrote novels, memoirs, technical manuals, and poetry. He painted, made collages, took thousands of photographs, produced hundreds of hours of experimental recordings, acted in movies, and recorded more CDs than most rock bands. Burroughs was the original cult figure of the Beat Movement, and with the publication of his novel Naked Lunch, which was originally banned for obscenity, he became a guru to the 60s youth counterculture. In CALL ME BURROUGHS, biographer and Beat historian Barry Miles presents the first full-length biography of Burroughs to be published in a quarter century-and the first one to chronicle the last decade of Burroughs's life and examine his long-term cultural legacy. Written with the full support of the Burroughs estate and drawing from countless interviews with figures like Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and Burroughs himself, CALL ME BURROUGHS is a rigorously researched biography that finally gets to the heart of its notoriously mercurial subject. "-- |
Representative speeches, 2013-2014 Publishing Date: 2014 Classification: 800 Call Number: 815.6 |
Dear Mark Twain: letters from his readers Publishing Date: c2013 Classification: 800 Call Number: 818.409 Collects two hundred letters from readers of Mark Twain to the author himself, offering a glimpse into the lives and sensibilities of nineteenth-century children, preachers, con artists, inmates, and other fans of the author's work. |
The boy detective: a New York childhood By Rosenblatt, Roger Publishing Date: [2013] Classification: 800 Call Number: 818.8409 ROS A story of the author's childhood in New York City in the 1950s. |
Jonathan Swift: his life and his world By Damrosch, Leopold Publishing Date: 2013 Classification: 800 Call Number: 828.509 DAM Leo Damrosch draws on discoveries made over the past thirty years to tell the story of Swift's life anew. Probing holes in the existing evidence, he takes seriously some daring speculations about Swift's parentage, love life, and various personal relationships and shows how Swift's public version of his life--the one accepted until recently--was deliberately misleading. Swift concealed aspects of himself and his relationships, and other people in his life helped to keep his secrets. . Assembling suggestive clues, Damrosch re-narrates the events of Swift's life while making vivid the scents, sounds, and smells of his English and Irish surroundings.Through his own words and those of a wide circle of friends, a complex Swift emerges: a restless, combative, empathetic figure, a man of biting wit and powerful mind, and a major figure in the history of world letters. |
By Morris, Alan Publishing Date: 1996 Classification: 800 Call Number: 843.914 MOR Winner of some of France's most prestigious literary prizes, Patrick Modiano is considered one of the most fascinating French novelists alive today. This is the first English literary critique of this best-selling French author, whose works are found increasingly in translation throughout the world and who is attracting considerable critical attention outside France. In this lucid study, Alan Morris explores Modiano's fifteen major novels. He also traces Modiano's development as a writer and the tragedies which have influenced his works: the death of his younger brother, the neglect of his father and the horrors of the German occupation. Morris delves into Modiano's themes of time, memory, identity and the past, clearly demonstrating this intriguing writer's key place in French writing today.- (McMillan Palgrave) |
By Popoff, Alexandra Publishing Date: 2010 Classification: 800 Call Number: 891.733 POP A sympathetic profile draws on Leo Tolstoy's wife's unpublished memoir and reveals how the classic author's most devout followers actively suppressed the truth about Sophia's dedication to her husband and his work, presenting her as an intelligent and caring woman who shared Tolstoy's values. - (Baker & Taylor) |
By Nagai, Kafū Publishing Date: c2000 Classification: 800 Call Number: 895.6344 NAG American Stories is based on Nagai Kafu's sojourn from Japan to Michigan, Washington State, and New York City in the early years of the twentieth century. Like Tocqueville a century before him, Kafu casts a fresh, keen eye on a vibrant and diverse America, painting a broad portrait of the challenges of American life for the poor, the foreign born, and the disaffected. Many vignettes involve encounters with fellow Japanese or Chinese immigrants. Mitsuko Iriye's introduction provides important cultural and biographical background and literary analysis to fully appreciate the intellectual and artistic achievements of Kafu's collection.- (Columbia Univ Pr) |
Cold War: an international history By Fink, Carole Publishing Date: c2014 Classification: 900 Call Number: 909.825 FIN More than a bipolar conflict between two Superpowers, the decades-long Cold War had implications for the entire world. In this accessible, comprehensive retelling, Carole K. Fink provides new insights and perspectives on key events with an emphasis on people, power, and ideas, along with cultural coverage ́from the Beetle to the Beatles.́ Cold War goes beyond US-USSR relations to explore the Cold War from an international perspective, including key events and developments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Fink also offers a broader time line of the Cold War than any other text, charting the lead-up to the conflict from the Russian Revolution and World War II and discussing the aftermath of the Cold War since 1992. Based on the latest research and scholarship, Cold War is the consummate book on this lengthy and complex conflict for todaýs students and history buffs. --Amazon.com. |
By Judt, Tony Publishing Date: 2010 Classification: 900 Call Number: 909.831 JUD In "Ill Fares The Land," Tony Judt, one of our leading historians and thinkers, reveals how we have arrived at our present dangerously confused moment and offers the language we need to address our common needs, rejecting the nihilistic individualism of the far right and the debunked socialism of the past. To find a way forward, Judt argues that we must look to our not so distant past and to social democracy in action: to re-enshrining fairness over mere efficiency. |
By Wigge, Michael Publishing Date: c2014 Classification: 900 Call Number: 910.41 WIG Most people like to travel in comfort: they stay in fancy hotels, never leave tourist spots, and stay away from the locals. Michael Wigge isn't like most people, though. After traveling the world without money for 150 days, he faced his next challenge: to turn an apple into a house in Hawaii.Wigge visits fourteen countries and six continents exchanging goods for more valuable ones, and he meets an array of good-humored people who take his deals.-- from publisher's description. |
By Burgess, Douglas R. Publishing Date: 2008 Classification: 900 Call Number: 910.45 BUR Here's the story of how almost every well-known buccaneer of the "Golden Age of Piracy" enjoyed active sponsorship from England's governors in the American colonies- setting a pattern of official disobedience to the Crown that would ultimately contribute to the American push for independence. Relying on rare primary sources discovered in government archives in England, the Carolinas, Rhode Island, Jamaica, and elsewhere, Burgess combines true tales of derring-do with groundbreaking research in this fascinating history. - (McGraw Hill) |
The emperor's river: travels to the heart of a resurgent China By D'Arcy Brown, Liam Publishing Date: c2010 Classification: 900 Call Number: 915.1 DAR D'Arcy-Brown set out to be the first Westerner in modern times to travel the length of China's great wonder: the Grand Canal. During his journey, he attempts to reconcile the China which fascinated him as a child with the modern, more open China he sees now. |
Lives in ruins: archeologists and the seductive lure of human rubble By Johnson, Marilyn Publishing Date: c2014 Classification: 900 Call Number: 930.1 JOH An entertaining look at the lives of contemporary archaeologists as they sweat under the sun for clues to the puzzle of our past looks at the actual, nonglamorous working conditions they actually face, as well as what drives them to do this very important, yet often tedious, work. |
Belzoni: the giant archaeologists love to hate By Noël Hume, Ivor Publishing Date: 2011 Classification: 900 Call Number: 932.0072 NOE "Here is a story of naiveté, ambition, duplicity, avarice, and poverty...." So states Noël (former director, Colonial Williamsburg's archaeological research program) in his prologue. Belzoni (1778-1824) was, indeed, physically a giant; he also was a giant in terms of his impact on the Egyptian collections at the British Museum. This study explores his life and work as an artifact hunter, the context of his activities, and his fall from grace. The volume is attractively designed and includes numerous plates. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) - (Book News) |
World War II : stats and facts By Darman, Peter Publishing Date: 2009 Classification: 900 Call Number: 940.53 DAR A data book about all aspects of World War II: including information on Allied and Axis orders of battle, all major battles and campaigns, the hardware used, and detailed stats on civilian home front casualties, victims of the Holocaust, armaments production figures and medals and awards. |
Lost lives, lost art: Jewish collectors, Nazi art theft, and the quest for justice By Müller, Melissa Publishing Date: 2010 Classification: 900 Call Number: 940.53 MUL The legendary names include Rothschild, Mendelssohn, Bloch-Bauer{u2014}distinguished bankers, industrialists, diplomats, and art collectors. Their diverse taste ranged from manuscripts and musical instrushy;ments to paintings by Old Masters and the avant-garde. But their stigma as Jews in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe doomed them to exile or death in Hitler{u2019}s concentration camps. Here, after years of meticulous research, Melissa Müller (Anne Frank: The Biography) and Monika Tatzkow (Nazi Looted Art) present the tragic, compelling stories of 15 Jewish collectors, the dispersal of their extraordinary collections through forced sale and/or confiscation, and the ongoing efforts of their heirs to recover their inheritance. For every victory in the effort to return these works to their rightful heirs, there are daunting defeats and long court battles. This real-life legal thriller follows works by Rembrandt, Klimt, Pissarro, Kandinsky, and others. |
Death in the Baltic: the World War II sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff By Prince, Cathryn J. Publishing Date: c2013 Classification: 900 Call Number: 940.53 PRI Draws on survivor interviews and newly declassified records to offer insight into the sinking of the World War II refugee ship that killed over nine thousand people, an incident that was covered up by both Eastern and Western officials. |