Small Message, Big Impact: The Elevator Speech Effect
By Terri L. Sjodin
Adult Non-Fiction - Upper Level - 658.452 S

Here's a little light summer reading for all you wheelers and dealers! It is truly a small message (219 pages) with a big impact. There is so much good advice packed into this little tome; it is well worth your time to read it. Some key ideas include:

1. Craft a variety of elevator speeches or talking points and deliver the one that is most appropriate and relevant to the situation. For example, if you are at a work conference, you can introduce yourself to a session speaker using an elevator speech around the topic of the session.

2. The author gives advice for different presentation styles, but warns that ultimately you have to be you. You can try something really creative and kitschy, and that does work in the right situation, but you still have to be comfortable delivering it and it has to work for the audience.

3. This leads to the author's idea of being "scrappy." Find out about the person you want to add to your network and use that information to make connections. Do they like coffee? Bring them coffee and ask for three minutes of their time (the length of time it takes you to deliver your elevator speech).

4. The author also talks about how and when to be persuasive rather than informative and how to pass the “So what?” test. Superlatives like “best,” “largest,” “oldest," “newest,” and “most popular” are not helpful when you’re trying to be persuasive. You have to prove it. What makes you the best, largest, etc. and compared to what?  There are six general case arguments that work: How are you going to save them time, money, sanity, provide security, help them have fun, or make things easy?


Highly recommended!

Learn Something New Every Day

Learn Something New Every Day: 365 Facts to Fulfill Your Life
By Kee Malesky
Adult Non-fiction - Upper Level - 031.02 M

Here's a fun little book filled with random facts. The entries follow the calendar year, so naturally I went straight to my birthday. That date's fact is about the history of salt - which is much more fascinating in a one-paragraph blurb than you'd think!  That's the beauty of this book: each date has a paragraph-long fact, so you can literally learn something new every day with very little time or effort required.

 Big Questions from Little People and Simple Answers from Great Minds
Compiled by Gemma Elwin Harris
Adult Non-fiction - Upper Level - 031.02 B

The entries in this book are a bit longer - a few pages each in most cases. It is a fairly little book, though, so the pages are short. Questions answered include "Why does the moon change shape" (p.133), "Where did the first seed come from?" (p.137), and even philosophical questions like "Who is God?" (p.197, answered from multiple perspectives).  This is a great book for all ages! (Where did the first seed come from??)

The Where The Why and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science
By Jenny Volvovski, Julia Rothman, and Matt Lamothe
Adult Non-fiction - Upper Level - 502 V

Rounding out this "learn something new" theme is a book that answers questions about science with illustrations. Each section asks a question, gives a (fairly scientific) answer, and illustrates it with full-page artwork. These are mostly two-page sections - one for the question-and-answer and one for the illustration. There are awesome cross-sections like the one on the cover, beautiful intricate drawings like the one about the Circadian Clock (p.78), and a more fanciful drawing of giant sea creatures riding a giant wave to answer "Do rogue waves exist?" (p.46). This book is wonderfully browsable and the questions and answers are very interesting.

Grow Plants in Pots

Grow Plants in Pots

By Martyn Cox

New Book Shelves-Upper Level

GARDEN 635.986 C

It's gardening season!  Anyone can grow a container garden, regardless of how much space they have. Put a few pots on your apartment balcony or a pot of mixed herbs on a windowsill.  

If the thought of hoeing and weeding turns you off, containers are the way to go.  Just water and prune if necessary and you'll have a nice little harvest with a lot less work than a traditional row garden.

I grow a variety of herbs and vegetables in containers on my deck, and this book has inspired me to try growing things I hadn't previously considered.  For example, strawberries make a beautiful hanging basket and rainbow chard makes a colorful display in a big tin bucket.  I hadn't considered growing sprawling vines like zucchini in a pot, but this book shows that it's definitely possible.

Filled with lots of glossy, color photos, this small book goes plant by plant through a myriad of container plant options.

People Love You by Jeb Blount

 

The subtitle of this book is “The Real Secret to Delivering Legendary Customer Experiences.”  Well, it turns out that it’s not a secret at all.   But it’s also not what so many of the other business books try to teach you.  Where most other books focus on the mechanics of customer service, this one focuses on the underlying emotional elements inherent in all human relationships.  Research indicates that over 50 percent of a customer experience is about emotions.  You need to get them to love you. 

“Love” is not a term that is often associated with business relationships but it is a term that is used over and over again by customers in describing how they feel about a favorite place/employee.  People value personal and unique experiences.  They want you to listen.  They want you to respond in a genuine, helpful manner.  They don’t want to feel manipulated.   

It is human nature to recognize people who go the extra mile for us.  We forget about our expectations and instead focus on how good we feel.  So although you will do everything in your power to give them what they want, even if you can’t satisfy your customers specific needs at that time, they leave with a good feeling about their experience with you.  And that experience with you reflects on your company.  Common sense?  Maybe.  But common experience?  Not so much. 

This book was written for account managers and customer service professionals but has applications for anyone who deals with other people on the job.  After all, as human beings, aren’t we all in some sort of “customer service?” 

It appears that poet Maya Angelou was right when she said “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

Read this book and learn more about how to make that feeling a good one. 

Listening for Madeleine

Listening for Madeleine is a pointillist portrait of the Newbury Award-winning author, whose work for both children and adults is among my very favorite. It starts off with a short biography by the editor, but is mostly composed of lots and lots of thoughts by individuals who knew her, gained from letters and interviews. They are divided up by how people knew her: from childhood, as a writer, matriarch, mentor, friend or icon. They include friends from childhood, editors and publishers, writers like T.A. Barron and Mary Pope Osborne, her daughter, granddaughters, and former son-in-law, and lots of people whom she was friends with or mentored over the years. Many people referred to an unflattering profile of L’Engle that was published in the New Yorker in 2004, which I hadn’t read, but which I was able to pull up on Gale’s Biography in Context without any difficulty. (“The Storyteller”, by Cynthia Zarin.) Family members acknowledged the frustration of living with a writer whose published version of their life together – the writer’s perspective, warts airbrushed out – became the version that readers everywhere believed was true; the fictional works inspired by family life felt more true to reality than those published as nonfiction. Outside the family, people were generally horrified that family members were willing to air as much dirty laundry as they did while L’Engle was still alive. But the fact that these discussions are in the book give me the comforting feeling that this isn’t a hagiography, even though most of the people contributing to the anthology cared about her. For all the painful things voiced by her relatives, they were still there caring for her in her increasingly dependent old age. Balancing that were the many, many tales of her writing from the publisher’s side and of her support for young and aspiring writers especially.

The most negative profiles came in the Icons section. These, dealing with L’Engle’s writing, were perhaps ironically tougher for me to read, as a devoted fan of her writing who never met her in person. Jane Yolen, a writer whose work I also love, wrote about her horror at L’Engle’s spoken belief that there is magic in the world, as opposed to Yolen’s use of magic as metaphor in her books. Library professor and lesbian Christine A. Jenkins wrote about how she had to discourage her students from writing about L’Engle because L’Engle fans were almost universally unable to look at her work with anything but uncritical adoration. (Probably guilty as charged, I’m afraid.) She also had understandable problems with L’Engle’s attitudes about homosexuality – which were liberal, I’ve always thought, for someone born in 1918. There was also a final word from Cynthia Zarin, the author of the infamous New Yorker profile, talking about her experience writing the piece, coming at is as a fan but ending up with a piece that many fans found offensive. In any case, fans of L’Engle’s works, critical or uncritical, should enjoy this broad and varied look at her from so many perspectives.

Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough

Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough: The Medical Lives of Great Writers by John J. Ross, M.D.
New Book Shelves - Upper Level - 820.9 R

This is a fascinating book! Did you know that Shakespeare's handwriting became shakier and shakier throughout his adulthood? He may have had syphilis, and the treatments in the 17th century were quite barbaric. This book gives all the gory details. John Milton went blind, probably due to a detached retina. The book gives a short day-in-the-life snippet of each author's life, followed by a medical fact about him. Some background on the history of the time, treatments of the time, and the author concludes with a diagnosis of the author's malady, and what probably caused it. Chapters can be read independently, so you can pick your way through your favorites in any order you like. One part medical history, one part literary history, all parts unique and interesting!

Geek Mom

It’s like Christmas when I ask the librarians to buy something for me, and it shows up on the hold shelf for me. This was purchased by our lovely craft librarian.

Geek Mom by Natania Barron, Kathy Ceceri, Corrina Lawson and Jenny Williams.
New Book Shelves – Upper Level – CRAFTS 745.5 G

Geek Mom is a blog on Wired Magazine, related to the Geek Dad blog. Geek Dad the book came out a couple of years ago (my love got it for Father’s Day, and there are two others that we don’t have), and now there’s also a Geek Mom book. This, too, is full of projects and ideas for geeky parents, but written by the moms. It looks like I never reviewed it, and my memory is a bit hazy, the projects in that book looked awesome, but maybe requiring a bit more oomph in the supplies acquiring and time setting aside than we usually have. Geek Mom has more crafty, cooking and reading adventures than I remember from Geek Dad. There are still projects that involve electronics, explosions and computers, so don’t go thinking that being from moms makes the projects less cool in any way. There is the occasional fun sidebar, with topics like “10 Geeky Instruments We Wouldn’t Want to Live Without”. The first five were the accordion, ukulele, theremin, keytar, and moog synthesizer. I will note that the lute made the list, but the harp did not. Their Imagination chapter includes making a secret lair, steampunk and superhero costume ideas, learning about history through comics, exploring fandom with kids, and roleplaying with kids including recommended role-playing systems. Here my love opines that the Icons gaming system is much more kid-friendly than the Mouse Guard system they recommend, which is based on cute comic book mice but not especially simple. The Curiosity and Learning chapter includes lots of preschooler-friendly ideas, which can be tricky to find in books like these. It includes things like cartography, hosting a time travel party, topology, and linking classical and rock music. “Mothers and the Digital Revolution” covers a host of computer-related topics, including internet safety, screen time limits, website building, a history of computers (going back to when it was a job title!), and using tech for fitness. “Science at Home” has a lot of very fun projects, including self-propelled boats, a DIY lava lamp, a blob, making plasma in the microwave (only for use with microwaves you’re willing to risk losing) and much more. They use borax crystals to make a Cthulu rather than snowflakes. “Food Wizardry” includes directions for fixing a hobbit feast, catching wild yeast for sourdough bread, and a tetris cake and cephalopod cupcakes. Also, an essay on the pleasures of loose tea - yum. The sewing and crafting chapter includes felt monsters, a crocheted amigurumi, natural tie-dye, a battery light-up sculpture, and electric component jewelry. (Didn’t you make jewelry out of the resistors in high school physics?)

That was a very long list, and at that, just a sampling of the many cool projects. They are clearly described, with cost, age, time, and difficulty given at the start of each. Most of the projects are in the $5 to $10 range, with some more expensive and some with ranges depending on how much you want to put into them. The projects start working from about age 3, and some would be interesting up through the teen years, but most are aimed at elementary school aged kids. Yes, there were a few projects that I wasn’t interested in myself, some advice I didn’t quite agree with, but not enough to outweigh the many good ideas. This is an approachable book chock full of appealing ideas for active families to have all sorts of geeky fun together.

The Lucifer Effect

The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo
Adult Non-Fiction-Upper Level 155.9 Z

Human beings (and social psychologists in particular) have often wondered what drives people to do horrible things. Are the situations we find ourselves in partially to blame for why normal people do morally questionable things? Famed psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil examines how situational forces and group interaction can cause the average person to commit inhumane acts. Zimbardo is best known for the Stanford Prison Experiment in August 1971 which the majority of this book discusses in detail. In this experiment, Zimbardo took a group of college volunteers and randomly divided them up into “inmate” and “guard” groups while inside a mock prison environment. To complete the illusion, the guards were dressed in realistic guard attire and carried around wooden clubs while the inmates were called by numbers instead of names and were also locked up at night. Zimbardo was interested in seeing how much a certain setting or situation contributes to a person’s actions and sense of identity.

The experiment did not take long to spiral out of control. While the guards were not allowed to physically hurt the inmates, they found other ways of asserting their authority. The guards took away food, forced the inmates to do repeated pushups, and committed other dehumanizing acts. The inmates tried different techniques to rebel such as hunger strikes and blocking the doors to their cells. The experiment was supposed to run for two weeks but was stopped after six days. The participants had completely disappeared into their roles. In the rest of the book, Zimbardo applies his findings to more current events such as the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and discusses how the system failed the people involved. It appears that the book concludes that most people can be coerced into committing horrible acts under the right circumstances if the setting encourages it or does nothing to prevent bad actions. But all hope is not lost as Zimbardo offers steps to help people and society become more humane in order to make sure the situational factors which cause these atrocities can be lessened over time. All in all, a fascinating read for anyone who is curious about why mankind often strays from a nobler path.

The Richest Woman in America

The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age
by Janet Wallach Upper Level New Book - BIO Green

Hetty Green should be at the top of the list of feminist icons. From the 1870's until her death in 1916, she exemplified the feminist ideal in many ways; she ran her own business, lived her life her by her own rules, and went down to Wall Street every morning and beat the men at their own game on their own turf. Her business acumen earned the respect of contemporaries such as J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. She saved New York City from bankrupcy several times by loaning it money at below-market rates. And yet if she is remembered today at all, it is as "the witch of Wall Street", one of history's biggest misers.

In "The Richest Woman in America" Janet Wallach traces Hetty Green's life back to her Quaker upbringing that put her forever at odds with the media's idea of how women of her class should behave. They couldn't comprehend her plain personal tastes in someone with so much money. She simply didn't care about stylish gowns, opulent mansions, and lavish parties. And they mocked her relentlessly for it, ignoring the millions she spent building libraries and hospitals, endowing colleges, and helping those who genuinely needed it.

Hetty Green isn't remembered as one of the great american proto-feminists and iconoclasts because she never had time for the movement's marches and speeches and publicity stunts. She was too busy living the life that they wanted women to have the opportunity to lead. A fascinating life ably chronicled by Janet Wallach.

Quiet

Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking
by Susan Cain
New Book Shelves - Upper Level - 155.232 C

I am an introvert. I would not say that I'm shy, exactly, but definitely introspective. I need a lot of alone time, and generally think before I speak. I feel most confident when I know my subject well, and prefer to write than speak. That said, I can deliver an engaging presentation to a room of 300 people (and have!), but running a meeting of 5 or 10 people is absolutely torturous.

This book is about how undervalued introverts are. We're seen as quiet, shy, and even non-participants by those who believe in what Cain calls "The Extrovert Ideal." As Cain's research reveals, though, introverts are responsible for some of the greatest innovations and inventions of our time, as well as masterpieces of art and music. We are team players and often excellent listeners - which lends itself to good leadership.

This book is for everyone, whether introvert or extrovert. It teaches us how to understand and appreciate each other; especially the particular intricacies of introverts.

#DigitalVertigo

Digital Vertigo : how today's online social revolution is dividing, diminishing, and disorienting us by Andrew Keen
New Book Shelves - Upper Level - 302.231 K

Are you a member of a social network? If you're like me, you belong to several. Between Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Groupon, and any number of other online communities, it is easier than ever to connect to other like-minded people. Sounds great, right?

@ajkeen (the author, Andrew Keen's Twitter handle) disagrees. In this book, he makes the argument that the more connected we are, the lonelier and less powerful we become. He acknowledges that the social media revolution is the most significant since the Industrial Revolution, but at a cost. It is so easy to voice our opinions and share our ideas and our whereabouts that we often alienate others. People may say things online that they wouldn't necessarily say out loud, which can offend or just plain annoy our online connections. Also, the more we share online, the less weight our words carry. Our points of view become just a part of the stream.

Keen also points out that as we join more networks and make more connections, we share more information about ourselves in more places. We want to participate in our networks and share with our "friends." Meanwhile, we complain about online security and privacy and want to keep our online information to ourselves. There's a catch-22 between wanting to share more and wanting that information to be private.

Finally, Keen says that we become lonelier as the very term "friend" becomes more and more shallow. Our networks, whether made up of "followers" or "friends" or some other term, are often surface connections. People collect connections, but do not often seek out relationships with those people. Why do we want to be so connected to people we care so little for?

This is a great book to make social networkers think about the information they share and who they share it with. We should re-evaluate our goals in using social networks. This book is a real eye-opener!

Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze?

Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze? by New Scientist
Adult Non-Fiction-Upper Level 500 N

Life is filled with little questions that we sometimes do not even think about until they are spoken out loud. Why does skin become wrinkled after being in water? Why do birds not fall off their perches after falling asleep? What makes a boomerang come back to the thrower? And of course the age old question, why don’t penguins’ feet freeze? New Scientist magazine answers these types of questions and more in Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze which is a collection of questions written by the public to the magazine. Anyone who has had a random question such as these and cannot get to a librarian for answers would find much to enjoy in this book. The book is a quirky composite of scientific fact, trivia, humor, and also anecdotes from the experts in the various fields the questions come from and is sure to amuse all types of readers. Also pay attention to the penguin illustration on the far right of each page while flipping through the book to get a funny cartoon effect.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
Adult Biography - Upper Level - JANZEN

After a difficult divorce and a car accident, Rhoda Janzen returns home to her Mennonite parents to heal. She recounts her Mennonite upbringing and finds that all the things that drove her away as a young adult are the same things that she finds safe and comforting now. The author is funny in a sarcastic, plain-spoken way, and the passages about Mennonite traditions are especially entertaining. This is an easy, fast read - perfect for a summer weekend!

101 Places not to see before you die

101 Places not to see before you die by Catherine Price
Travel Collection-Upper Level 910.4 P

Human beings love to travel to various places in the world. Earth is filled with natural wonders or breathtaking man-made creations. Many people have a desire to see more than what they grew up being around at their homes. However, author Catherine Price warns us with her 101 Places Not to See Before You Die that some locations around the globe may be best to skip during the next family vacation this summer.

Price’s book is filled with places that run the gamut from the bizarre to the slightly unexpected. For instance, have you ever been to the Seattle Gum Wall or taken a literal beer bath at the Chodovar brewery in the Czech Republic? How about chasing a piece of cheese off a cliff during the Gloucester Cheese Rolling Competition? Not your idea of a well spent summer vacation I imagine. Many tourists may already see little reason to sightsee in locations such as the Beijing Museum of Tap Water or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch but the author also makes convincing arguments against touring more popular destinations such as Mount Rushmore, Stonehenge, or Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Some of the entries are also included for pure comedic effect such as Jupiter’s worst moon or a Monday morning at the Department of Motor Vehicles. More of a wacky trivia book than an anti-travel one, 101 Places Not to See Before You Die reminds us just how unique and occasionally weird the planet can be at times.

Reduced Shakespeare

Reduced Shakespeare by Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor.
Adult Nonfiction – Upper Level – 822.33 M

I’ve had Shakespeare on my Official List of Favorite Authors for years now, and only just realized that while I have a handful of Shakespeare plays that I love and have read and watched over and over again, there are many, many more that I haven’t read. I’m too tired these days to put out the effort that reading or watching Shakespeare demands, especially if I don’t know ahead of time that I’m getting into one of the good ones. The Reduced Shakespeare Company to the rescue! Like their show (which I loved on DVD), this is short and funny, as well as alarmingly accurate. This book covers all the bases in just 244 pages – Shakespeare’s biography (what’s known and the vast amounts that aren’t), the plays, poetry, authorship controversy, industry and films. I was most interested in their analysis of the plays and film adaptations, but I learned a lot about the authorship controversies that I’ve always been too skeptical to pay attention to before. For each play they include the title, date published, class (history, tragedy, comedy), setting, source, best known for, major characters, plot, one-sentence plot encapsulations, moral, famous quotes, best & worst features, a rating in bard heads, an interesting fact, and an essay question. Here are a few even more abridged examples:
Cymbeline
Best known for: Not being very well known. Two bard heads.
Hamlet
One-sentence plot encapsulation: Hamlet avenges his father, and it only takes four hours. Best feature: In all likelihood, this is the best play ever written. Five bard heads.
Henry IV
Essay questions: Does the sequel Henry IV, Part 2 have more in common with Godfather II or Rocky II? Why?

Because they are comedians, all of the reviews are so funny that I found myself laughing out loud and reading bits out loud to whatever hapless colleagues happened to be in the break room with me while I was reading it. The reviews for the less popular plays are probably even funnier than the ones for the good ones. Still, the bard head ratings could come in handy if you were trying to decide whether or not it would be worth hiring a babysitter to go see whatever Shakespeare play happened to be coming by locally, or even just reading through the text.

The reviews for the films also are very funny and include the bard head ratings as well as notes on how faithful to the play they are and whether or not they work as movies. They are organized by the original play, with straight-up adaptations (hint: the movie has the same name as the play) followed by films inspired by the play, like West Side Story and 10 Things I Hate About You, which they like better than any of the straight-up film adaptations of the Taming of the Shrew. Hilariously, they include the 2001 Charlie’s Angels as a Lear adaptation. There are also critiques and yet more funny making-of-the-film bits from classic and modern Shakespeare films. Now I need to check the book out again to make a list of all their favorites that I haven’t seen to add to my too-watch list. The biggest shortcoming with the book is its publication date – 2005 – which means they’ve not covered the many film adaptations and spin-offs that have come out since then. Update, please! In general, though, whether you’re a fan of the Bard or just need a little cultural literacy, this book is an entertaining way to learn more, and points the way to further (alas, more serious) learning if you want it.

Campaigns

Campaigns: A Century of Presidential Races by Alan Brinkley and Ted Widmer
Adult Non-Fiction-Upper Level 324.973 N


The presidential campaigning season is upon us. As the country becomes bombarded with political ads and nonstop debate on how important certain issues or states will be in this election, Americans need a reminder of how political campaigning in our democracy has both changed during the last one hundred years yet oddly stayed very much the same. Alan Brinkley and Ted Widmer’s Campaigns: A Century of Presidential Races examines the varies contests for the White House from years 1900 to 2000. While the authors do analyze the elections and issues of each era, this book is very much a visual guide as well. The New York Times has supplied over 350 election photographs along with 75 photos of campaign memorabilia. Political junkies and history nuts will find much to enjoy here.

Campaigns is striking in illustrating the changes that took place in America over these hundred years but also shows how many election strategies never change. Do you think that only modern politicians try to emphasize how just like the common man they can be by working low paying jobs for a day? Warren Harding pulled a publicity stunt by becoming a printer for a day at his Ohio newspaper in 1920. Have the political pundits or candidates convinced you yet that our current election is the most important in history and a literal apocalypse might occur if votes do not go their way? This bombast is nothing new as Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed, “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord” in 1912. The inventions of radio and television would clearly dramatically alter the nature of political campaigns and would usher in the modern campaigning structure and tactics all Americans love to hate. Campaigners could now spread their messages to millions more Americans. Appearance and image became vital as Nixon would discover by losing a television debate to the youthful and more confident looking Kennedy in 1960. Overall, Campaigns shows the paradoxical nature some Americans have with politics. We love democracy but seem to be perpetually frustrated with politicians in general just as people were a hundred years ago. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail
by Cheryl Strayed

New Adult Nonfiction 813.6 S


No stranger to impulsive decisions, Cheryl Strayed, a young woman from Minnesota with zero backpacking experience decided to solo hike 1100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. The PCT is the lesser know cousin of the Appalachian Trail, running from Mexico to Canada. Although the reader gets a pretty good sense of the trail and all its challenges – yes, there are bears and rattlesnakes -- this is not a travel guide. It is about her personal journey. And it’s a stunner.


Cheryl was a woman lost. She was 22 when her mother died, her remaining family crumbled, and her marriage disintegrated. She dabbled in all the dangerous things that lost people dabble in and she comes clean about all of it. A few years later, as she was hitting bottom, she decided that while she had done and been many things “A woman who walks alone in the wilderness for eleven hundred miles? I’d never been anything like that before. I had nothing to lose by giving it a whirl.” Nothing to lose? That might sound crazy to most people but Cheryl sold all her possessions, learned everything that the good folks at REI could teach her, and sent boxes with provisions ahead to all the outposts of civilization she would be near. And then she strapped on the backpack she refers to as “Monster” and headed off on the trail.


Cheryl quickly came to the conclusion that while she felt like an experienced backpacker due to all the advice she had received at REI, she really was ill-prepared for the journey. Her boots were too small; her backpack, too weighty; the money she sent ahead, too little. And yet… this woman has a fighting spirit that is just amazing. She endures.


Cheryl has a writing style that makes you feel like you are right there with her, every painful step of the way. Hers is a fascinating story of courage. And proof that, if you want to badly enough, you can change your life.

Women's Health Big Book of 15 Minute Workouts

The Women’s Health Big Book of 15 Minute Workouts by Selene Yeager.
New Book Shelves – Upper Level – 613.7 Y

I waited several months for this book, as I was not the only person in the library who thought that 15 minute workouts were a fabulous idea. For your benefit, dear reader, as well as my own, once I got my hands on the book, I decided to follow their program for the full three weeks that I was allowed the book (there is still a wait list on it, so I couldn’t keep it longer) and then report on it. Their program is to do their workouts every other day for a total of three days in the week, alternating with light aerobic activity and/or stretching on days 2 and 4. Day 6 is high intensity aerobics from the book – I did jump roping, as it was the only one I could do from home with equipment I already had. I developed a love-hate relationship with this book:

Love
- The workouts are designed to be done in 15 minutes. This is a stretch with my schedule, but it seems to be mostly possible.
- They make a very good case for 15 minutes of their routines being better for you than hours of less intense routines.
- The workouts have clear color photos with easy-to-follow written instructions under the photo of each step.
- The focus is on strength training with large muscle groups doubled up, making it hard enough work to count as cardio as well.
- There is a good variety of workouts – 85, grouped into the categories of lower body, upper body, core, fat-burning, by body type, anywhere, special gear, better sex, healing, sports, stretch and strengthen. You will not get bored, you’ll develop broader strength, and if you don’t like one workout on a topic, you can pick from several others.
- The models are a variety of different ethnicities.

Hate
-The models are all extremely fit, naturally small twenty-somethings.
- The workouts assume a pretty high fitness level – for example, assuming that you not only can do a full push-up, but that you’d like to make it even harder. And that you can assume a fairly challenging pose and hold it while lifting weights. They have few to no notes on adapting the exercises to a lower fitness level. If I can’t hold a full plank pose while lifting weights up to shoulder level.
- They use a lot of equipment, even within a workout, from free weights, therabands, and an exercise/birth ball, which I have, to medicine balls, aerobic steps of different heights, weight benches, a bosu, and even a cable pull-down station for the Michelle Obama Arms workout. Though the equipment list at the beginning says you don’t need all of this, it isn’t prioritized in any way, and they seem to assume that money and space are no object, and that most people have easy access to an already stocked gym. However, I was able to do almost everything using what I have, substituting a large squash for the medicine ball (until we ate it) and my son’s spooner board for the bosu in some exercises. Still, I would really have appreciated a “get started for under $100” list, and instruction on adapting the exercises for less equipment.
-Though Yeager’s bio says she’s a mother, she seems never to have heard of a diastasis recti, the separation of the vertical abdominal muscles that most mothers get. Crunches, especially cross-crunches & bicycles, double leg-lifts, and the Pilates V all make a diastasis worse and the tummy more rather than less poochy. These exercises appear in almost every workout.

I was able to stick with the program, which is in itself amazing, and am already noticing benefits in my increased strength and fitness. Even though I was frustrated with some of the aspects of the book, I found I enjoyed the challenge of doing lots of new things that I wasn’t able to master right away. You might enjoy it if you want a book with a good choice of challenging and intense but short work-outs with clear instructions. If you are a mother, I’d recommend looking at Julie Tupler’s Lose Your Mummy Tummy either instead or for alternative ab exercises that do take the diastasis into account.

A men’s version of this book, The Men’s Health Big Book of 15 Minute Workouts, by the same author, is also available.

The Coldest Winter

The Coldest Winter:A Stringer in Liberated Europe by Paula Fox
Adult Biography-Upper Level FOX


While the continent of Europe has an incredibly rich history, the Second World War era is one of the most prolifically written about in literature. The drama of the actual war and the immediate aftermath not only speaks to us on the horrific actions mankind is capable of, but also of the enduring hope and strength human beings have in the face of tragedy. In 1946, author Paula Fox visited various European countries and chronicled her experiences in The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe. Her memoir glimpses into the lives of several ordinary people during her travels.

Paula Fox was only twenty-two years old when she visited Europe in 1946. Her diverse travels saw her visit London, Prague, Warsaw, Paris, and parts of Spain. This book is not for someone looking for in-depth political analysis or debate. While the political atmosphere of Europe was starting to heat up with the communists consolidating their control in several nations she visited, Fox’s comments deal more with the thoughts and outlook of the everyday people she interacted with during this period and her own struggle to understand the world. Many of the people she meets have hauntingly sad stories to tell. On the Polish border, Fox visits an orphanage which houses children who were born in the concentration camps. In Warsaw, she is told how dead bodies will continue to be discovered when the brutal winter season ends. Despite these terrible situations, there are some encounters that are more hopeful. An elderly man tells her how he made an effort to rescue a terrified stray dog stuck on a railroad track. An opera house in Yugoslavia plays a violin concerto so beautifully that the audience is completely enthralled. These kinds of anecdotes may rarely make the headlines or turn the course of human history on their own, but they are a reminder of how ordinary people can rediscover meaning and find hope in life despite catastrophic events. In the current era of uncertainty that is gripping Europe and the world, that is a message more people need to be reminded of.

Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football

Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football  by John U. Bacon

Adult New Nonfiction 796.332 B


The Rich Rodriguez era of Michigan football can best be described as one thing, a nightmare. From the disorganized search to replace Lloyd Carr to the two day media circus surrounding Rich Rod’s dismissal, it’s a three year period we would all like to forget. However, John Bacon was given unfettered access to the program over these three years and now we can relive this period of tumult and learn what really happened. The results will come as no surprise to some, while others will have to begrudgingly accept what has been written here.

It all began with Michigan’s historic loss to Appalachian State and blowout loss the following week at the hands of Oregon. After these losses, public opinion began to turn against Coach Lloyd Carr, who announced his retirement at the end of the 2007 season. The process of finding a new coach was poorly handled as multiple candidates turned down the job. On the morning of the SEC Championship Game, ESPN reported that Michigan’s own Les Miles had agreed to come back and coach the Wolverines. However, Les was preparing his current team, LSU, for that SEC title game and a possible National Championship appearance. Miles held an impromptu press conference that afternoon denying the reports. The real story of that day, revealed in the book, will enrage most Michigan fans.

Rich Rodriguez’s tenure began on the wrong foot and the program was engulfed in controversy and losing for the next three years. Many have placed the blame solely of Rich Rod’s shoulders, but this is a mistake. Certainly he could have done more to help Michigan succeed, but various media members, boosters, and a former coach did whatever they could to undermine Rodriguez. If you would prefer to believe the narrative that Rodriguez was not good enough for Michigan and he alone damaged Michigan football, avoid this book. However, if you want to know what really happened in Ann Arbor from 2007 – 2010, this is definitely the book for you.