Stories from the Mohawk Valley: The Painted Rocks, the Good Benedict Arnold and More

Nestled in Upstate New York along the banks of the Mohawk River are the many communities of the Mohawk Valley. These villages, towns and cities have unique histories but are inextricably tied together by the waterways that run through them. The mills, railroads and the Erie Canal sustained early growth; the Painted Rocks beautified the landscape; and tales from the local Mohawk Nation still enrich the folklore. Many remarkable individuals have called the Mohawk Valley home, including psychedelic philosopher Benjamin Paul Blood, Queen Libby, the Daiquiris and actor Kirk Douglas. For over a decade, local native Bob Cudmore has documented the interesting, important and unusual stories from the region's past, and he has compiled the best of them here.(Check Catalog)

Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence

"The man who revolutionized the way we think about baseball now examines our cultural obsession with murder--delivering a unique, engrossing, brilliant history of tabloid crime in America. "
Celebrated writer and contrarian Bill James has voraciously read true crime throughout his life and has been interested in writing a book on the topic for decades. Now, with "Popular Crime, "James takes readers on an epic journey from Lizzie Borden to the Lindbergh baby, from the Black Dahlia to O. J. Simpson, explaining how crimes have been committed, investigated, prosecuted and written about, and how that has profoundly influenced our culture over the last few centuries-- even if we haven't always taken notice.
Exploring such phenomena as serial murder, the fluctuation of crime rates, the value of evidence, radicalism and crime, prison reform and the hidden ways in which crimes have shaped, or reflected, our society, James chronicles murder and misdeeds from the 1600s to the present day. James pays particular attention to crimes that were sensations during their time but have faded into obscurity, as well as still-famous cases, some that have never been solved, including the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Boston Strangler and JonBenet Ramsey. Satisfyingly sprawling and tremendously entertaining, "Popular Crime "is a professed amateur's powerful examination of the incredible impact crime stories have on our society, culture and history. (Check Catalog)

The Voyage of the Rose City: An Adventure at Sea

Home on spring break from Wesleyan College in 1980, Moynihan declared to his parents the late senator Patrick Moynihan and his wife, Elizabeth, who lovingly shepherded her sons book into print that he was planning to join the Merchant Marines for the summer; at the end of the spring semester, hes standing in line at the Seafarers International Union to get his papers as an Ordinary Seaman, shipping out on a Merchant Marine ship the next day. From the moment of his induction through the challenging and revealing days and nights at sea aboard the SS Rose, he kept a journal of his daily life, his sometimes frightening dreams, and his reflections on the meaning of life. Entries from his journal are woven through the narrative that is as listless as the sea in calm weather. When his shipmates discover that his fathers connections helped him to his position on the ship (thereby taking away an opportunity from the seaman next in line for the job ticket), they give him the cold shoulder. He feels alone and trapped with no friends, and many of his shipmates go out of their way to remind him that he is not one of them. Moynihan finds solace in the beauty of the sea, in the occasional marijuana joint, and in books, and he achieves his dream of sailing part of the way around the world during the 103-day voyage. Moynihan died in 2004, the result of a reaction to acetaminophen. (Check Catalog)

Following Atticus: Forty-Eight High Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary Friendship

Journalist Ryan shares the heartwarming, surprisingly suspenseful story of his bond (and adventures) with his intrepid and loyal miniature schnauzer, Atticus Maxwell Finch. Mourning a friend who has recently died, Ryan decides to hike all 48 of the 4,000-foot peaks of the White Mountains twice in the 90 days of winter with Atticus. Despite contracting Lyme disease, Ryan and his faithful companion embark on their journey and face a host of dangerous storms, fierce winds, and temperatures registering 30 degrees below zero. Their greatest challenge, however, arises not on a mountain but in the veterinarians office where its discovered that five-year-old Atticus has cataracts and presumed thyroid cancer and requires surgery. Through their love for the mountains they climb and their devotion to each other, along with some good luck, the pair are able to continue doing what they love the most being together. Part adventure story, part memoir, but most important, a love story, this entertaining and joyous book proves that dog really is mans best friend and vice versa. (Check Catalog)

Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961 Contributor(s): Hendrickson, Paul (Author)

From a National Book Critics Circle Award winner, a brilliantly conceived and illuminating reconsideration of a key period in the life of Ernest Hemingway that will forever change the way he is perceived and understood.
Focusing on the years 1934 to 1961--from Hemingway's pinnacle as the reigning monarch of American letters until his suicide--Paul Hendrickson traces the writer's exultations and despair around the one constant in his life during this time: his beloved boat, "Pilar."
We follow him from Key West to Paris, to New York, Africa, Cuba, and finally Idaho, as he wrestles with his best angels and worst demons. Whenever he could, he returned to his beloved fishing cruiser, to exult in the sea, to fight the biggest fish he could find, to drink, to entertain celebrities and friends and seduce women, to be with his children. But as he began to succumb to the diseases of fame, we see that "Pilar" was also where he cursed his critics, saw marriages and friendships dissolve, and tried, in vain, to escape his increasingly diminished capacities.
Generally thought of as a great writer and an unappealing human being, Hemingway emerges here in a far more benevolent light. Drawing on previously unpublished material, including interviews with Hemingway's sons, Hendrickson shows that for all the writer's boorishness, depression, and alcoholism, and despite his choleric anger, he was capable of remarkable generosity--to struggling writers, to lost souls, to the dying son of a friend.
We see most poignantly his relationship with his youngest son, Gigi, a doctor who lived his adult life mostly as a cross-dresser, and died squalidly and alone in a Miami women's jail. He was the son Hemingway forsook the least, yet the one who disappointed him the most, as Gigi acted out for nearly his whole life so many of the tortured, ambiguous tensions his father felt. Hendrickson's bold and beautiful book strikingly makes the case that both men were braver than we know, struggling all their lives against the complicated, powerful emotions swirling around them. As Hendrickson writes, "Amid so much ruin, still the beauty."
"Hemingway's Boat" is both stunningly original and deeply gripping, an invaluable contribution to our understanding of this great American writer, published fifty years after his death. (Check Catalog)

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic

Professor X, who embarks on teaching literature and composition evening classes at two colleges (one private, one community) as a supplement to his full-time job to avoid foreclosure, describes his time in academia in a slow-going memoir. Taking the reader through the minutiae of teaching how he found his job, what he said to his first class, his grading principles, how he meets plagiarism along the way, he tosses in how his marriage is going and what he thinks of the mortgage crisis. He sprinkles his account with vignettes of literary analysis and reports from professional and media education specialists. The subjects Professor X approaches are the critical ones facing the growth, spread, and direction of American higher education, but his treatment of them is sadly shallow and self-absorbed. A book-length version of a June 2008 Atlantic Monthly article that was much discussed (which he comments on) becomes essentially an extended grouse about the inadequacies of the students and the institutions they attend.(Check Catalog)

Is This Normal?

Is it normal to forget where you parked your car? Do we really shrink as we grow older? Does everyone experience lower libido as they age?
More than 78 million American adults are nearing the age when unexpected aches and pains, weight gains, sudden illnesses, and confusing mental changes begin to occur. As children, our questions about how our bodies will change are met with knowledge and patience--anything to make the transition as seamless as possible. But at 50 or 60, there's no one to help us figure out whether the changes we're experiencing are a cause for concern or just a normal part of aging.
"""Is This Normal?" is a guidebook that focuses on putting this generation at ease by answering their most common questions. From superficial concerns to everyday aches and pains to more serious medical problems, Dr. John Whyte, chief medical expert at Discovery Channel, cuts through the confusion and provides practical answers for the most common age-related health issues. In "Is This Normal?," he answers a broad range of questions, such as:
- How much weight gain is normal as we age--and why is it so hard to lose?
- Is it normal to need a pair of reading glasses just to decipher a restaurant menu?
- What are the signs of Alzheimer's versus normal memory loss?
With compassion, reassurance, and friendly guidance, Dr. Whyte provides cutting-edge medical advice for the effects of aging we face every day--from gray hair and wrinkles to cardiovascular health. "Is This Normal?" arms readers with the essential knowledge and preventive strategies they need stay healthy and vital for decades to come. (Check Catalog)

What Your Doctor Won't Tell You about Getting Older: An Insider's Survival Manual for Outsmarting the Health-Care System

Aging well frequently involves feeling your way blindly through a complex medical world: dealing with multiple doctors, facing baffling financial decisions, and figuring out whether you or a parent needs care outside the home. "What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Getting Older" turns the lights on, illuminating potential pitfalls and showing a way around them. This book is an indispensible survival guide, gathering all the information you need to have but that too often doctors just don't give you. Writing with great experience and good humor, renowned geriatrician Mark Lachs explains how to choose your doctors, stay out of the emergency room, plan financially for retirement, outfit your house to stay safe, and, most important, how to have as many healthy years as possible. (Check Catalog)

Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon

Today he is known as Dr. Q, an internationally renowned neurosurgeon and neuroscientist who leads cutting-edge research to cure brain cancer. But not too long ago, he was Freddy, a nineteen-year-old undocumented migrant worker toiling in the tomato fields of central California. In this gripping memoir, Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa tells his amazing life story--from his impoverished childhood in the tiny village of Palaco, Mexico, to his harrowing border crossing and his transformation from illegal immigrant to American citizen and gifted student at the University of California at Berkeley and at Harvard Medical School. Packed with adventure and adversity--including a few terrifying brushes with death--"Becoming Dr. Q" is a testament to persistence, hard work, the power of hope and imagination, and the pursuit of excellence. It's also a story about the importance of family, of mentors, and of giving people a chance. (Check Catalog)

The Hypnotist

A "New York Times" Bestseller
In the frigid clime of Tumba, Sweden, Detective Inspector Joona Linna has been assigned to a gruesome triple homicide. The killer is still at large, and there's only one surviving witness---the boy whose family was killed before his eyes. With one hundred knife wounds on his body, the boy lies in a state of shock, scared into silence. Linna sees only one option: hypnotism. He enlists Dr. Erik Maria Bark to mesmerize the boy, hoping to discover the killer through his eyes. It's the sort of work that Bark has sworn he would never do again---ethically dubious and psychically scarring. When he breaks his promise and hypnotizes the victim, a long and terrifying chain of events begins to unfurl.  (Check Catalog)

Nightwoods

National Book Award recipient Fraziers third novel (after Thirteen Moons) turns around Luce, a beautiful and lonely young woman who has retreated to a vast abandoned lodge in the mountains of Appalachia. Traumatized by negligent parents (Mother a long-gone runaway. Father, a crazy-ass, violent lawman), Luce now lives off the land in relative contentment until her sister Lily is murdered, and Lilys deeply damaged twins, Dolores and Frank, are sent to live with her. We are briefly allowed to hope for happily-ever-after when an old flame of Luces, a thoughtful and kind man by the name of Stubblefield, reenters her life, but he is not the only newcomer to town. Unbeknownst to Luce, her sisters husband and killer, Bud, on the prowl for money he believes Lilys children stole from him, has arrived and will readily perform sudden, cold violence on anyone who stands in his way. Fraziers characters lack nuance (they are either very, very good or very, very bad) and his prose is often self-consciously folksy. But his great strength, as well as presenting us with a fully realized physical backdrop, is the tenderness with which he renders the relationships at the core of this book, creating a compelling meditation on violence and the possibility that human love can heal even the deepest wound. (Check Catalog)

The Language of Flowers

Diffenbaugh's affecting debut chronicles the first harrowing steps into adulthood taken by a deeply wounded soul who finds her only solace in an all-but-forgotten language. On her 18th birthday, Victoria Jones ages out of the foster care system, a random series of living arrangements around the San Francisco Bay Area the only home she's ever known. Unable to express herself with words, she relies on the Victorian language of flowers to communicate: dahlias for "dignity"; rhododendron for "beware." Released from care with almost nothing, Victoria becomes homeless, stealing food and sleeping in McKinley Square, in San Francisco, where she maintains a small garden. Her secret knowledge soon lands her a job selling flowers, where she meets Grant, a mystery man who not only speaks her language, but also holds a crucial key to her past. Though Victoria is wary of almost everyone, she opens to Grant, and he reconnects her with the only person who has ever mattered in her life. Diffenbaugh's narrator is a hardened survivor and wears her damage on her sleeve. Struggling against all and ultimately reborn, Victoria Jones is hard to love, but very easy to root for. (Check Catalog)