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January 2011 Archives

qp.fimbul.JPGFimbul-Winter (or Fimbulvetr) takes its title from Norse mythology: three winters with no summers between. Drawing from sources as diverse as Anglo-Saxon literature, Chinese poetry, Emily Dickinson, and the blues, these poems seek sustenance and consolation in a harsh landscape. "Here is a poet who listens, who weighs until all comes remote, comes close, from that place where poetry itself begins: 'the country of Erstwhile, of Meanwhile, of Still.'"

Cabell Library PS3551.L377 F56 2010

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.

qp.thomas.harris.jpgMaking Murder takes readers deep into the work of Thomas Harris and his iconic creation, Hannibal Lecter--one of modern fiction's most unforgettable characters. A former crime reporter, Harris's exhaustive research techniques have included extensive time with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit studying actual serial killers. Like no other available volume, the book explores the dark heart within Harris's novels--the unflinching look at evil that makes them so much more than just "good reads."

Making Murder looks at all five of Harris's novels, starting with the suspenseful terrorist thriller, Black Sunday, then moving through the quartet of books in which Hannibal Lecter gradually moves from malevolent presiding spirit to unsettling, recognizably human protagonist. Author Philip Simpson looks at the critical response each book received and explores the works themselves in terms of story, characters, writing style, allusions and symbols, and themes. An introductory chapter provides insights into the author's life, publishing history, and significant cultural impact.

Cabell Library PS3558.A6558 Z88 2010

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.

qp.slow.trains.jpegFew people writing today could successfully combine an intimate knowledge of Chicago with a poet's eye, and capture what it's really like to live in this remarkable city. Embracing a striking variety of human experience--a chance encounter with a veteran on Belmont Avenue, the grimy majesty of the downtown El tracks, domestic violence in a North Side brownstone, the wide-eyed wonder of new arrivals at O'Hare, and much more--these new and selected poems and stories by Reginald Gibbons celebrate the heady mix of elation and despair that is city life. With Slow Trains Overhead, he has rendered a living portrait of Chicago as luminously detailed and powerful as those of Nelson Algren and Carl Sandburg.

Gibbons takes the reader from museums and neighborhood life to tense proceedings in Juvenile Court, from comically noir-tinged scenes at a store on Clark Street to midnight immigrants at a gas station on Western Avenue, and from a child's piggybank to nature in urban spaces. For Gibbons, the city's people, places, and historical reverberations are a compelling human array of the everyday and the extraordinary, of poverty and beauty, of the experience of being one among many. Penned by one of its most prominent writers, Slow Trains Overhead evokes and commemorates human life in a great city.

Cabell Library PS3557.I1392 S57 2010

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.

qp.particular.sadness.JPGOn the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents' attention, bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother--her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother--tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.

The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden--her mother's life outside the home, her father's detachment, her brother's clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.

Cabell Library PS3552.E538447 P37

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.

qp.dead.republic.JPGAfter being saved from death by none other than Henry Fonda and engaging in a brief but ill-fated collaboration with legendary director John Ford, Irish rebel Henry Smart ends up settling into a quiet life in a village north of Dublin, where he finds work as a caretaker for a boys' school and takes up with a widow O'Kelly (who may be his long-disappeared wife). But a political bombing in Dublin in 1974 puts him in the spotlight, and suddenly the secret of his rebel past is out.

Cabell Library PR6054.O95 D43 2010

Note: Quick Picks are new to the collection. Some may not yet have reached the shelves. If you want to check out an item that is not yet available, click the "Is this item available?" link in the catalog record, then click the "Request" link.