Best American Science Writing 2010

By Jerome Groopman

"Edited by New York Times bestselling author Jerome Groopman, The Best American Science Writing 2010 collects in one volume the most crucial, thought-provoking, and engaging science writing of the year. Distinguished by new and impressive voices as well as some of the foremost names in science writing---David Dobbs, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Larissa MacFarquhar among them---this eleventh edition features outstanding journalism from a wide variety of publications, providing a comprehensive overview of the year's most compelling, relevant, and exciting developments in the world of science. Provocative and engaging, The Best American Science Writing 2010 reveals just how far science has brought us---and where it is headed next."  (Publisher Description)  Check Our Catalog

Best American NonRequired Reading 2010

Edited By Dave Eggers
"Eggers here obliges the dictates of the "Best American" series—beloved of many public library habitués—with an eclectic mix of entries. The first section includes mostly ironic works, here under goofy headings, e.g., "Best American Patents" and "Best American Lawsuits." But the contents of "Best American Poems Written in the Last Decade by Soldiers and Citizens Fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan" are moving and well crafted, and their inclusion after such light, mocking fare jars and calls into some doubt Eggers's probity. The remaining 90 percent of the book contains longer short stories and journalism, and some of the more famous choices, e.g., Sherman Alexie's funny, wincing account of his father's hospitalization and Andrew Sean Greer's retelling of being gay at a NASCAR encampment, are ragingly humorous. George Saunders's faux-ethnography of life in another kind of encampment, among homeless crackheads in Sacramento, may be the piece that will have the longest shelf life. David Rohde's story of his abduction by and escape from the Taliban and Evan Ratliff's Wired assignment to try to disappear in a ubiquitously networked world are celebrated for what they chronicle, not how well they are written. Verdict Essential for public libraries, but colleges should pass. Readers may not consume this cover to cover, but some lesser-known writers and journals get much-deserved attention."  (Library Journal)   Check Our Catalog

Growing A Garden City: How Farmers, First Graders, Counselors...Are Transforming..Their Neighborhoods

By Jeremy N. Smith
"America is experiencing a food disconnect. On one hand, nearly one in four Americans say they regularly lack enough money to buy food. On the other, approximately one-third are considered to be clinically obese. It is a conundrum, to be sure, and yet the solution may come through something as basic as the community farm. In his profile of Missoula, Montana, Smith energetically demonstrates how one city embraced the local food movement through the establishment of city gardens, food kitchens, co-op subscriptions, college internships, and farm work-therapy programs to transform a population that was as much at risk as any in America into one that now stands as a model for community-supported agriculture. Through dynamic profiles of key players such as Josh Slotnick, director of the Program in Ecological Agriculture and Society; Tim Hall, head of Missoula's Community Gardens; and Tim Ballard, overseer of the Youth Harvest program for at-risk teens, the entire scope of this citywide confluence of actual needs and agricultural solutions is distilled to the personal level. Bright, vibrant, and buoyantly accessible, this effervescent celebration of the local food movement thrums with regional, national, and international implications."  (Booklist Reviews)   Check Our Catalog

The Dirty Life; On Farming, Food and Love

By Kristin Kimball
"Kimball chucked life as a Manhattan journalist to start a cooperative farm in upstate New York with a self-taught New Paltz farmer she had interviewed for a story and later married. The Harvard-educated author, in her 30s, and Mark, also college educated and resolved to "live outside of the river of consumption," eventually found an arable 500-acre farm on Lake Champlain, first to lease then to buy. In this poignant, candid chronicle by season, Kimball writes how she and Mark infused new life into Essex Farm, and lost their hearts to it. By dint of hard work and smart planning--using draft horses rather than tractors to plow the five acres of vegetables, and raising dairy cows, and cattle, pigs, and hens for slaughter--they eventually produced a cooperative on the CSA model, in which members were able to buy a fully rounded diet. To create a self-sustaining farm was enormously ambitious, and neighbors, while well-meaning, expected them to fail. However, the couple, relying on Mark's belief in a "magic circle" of good luck, exhausted their savings and set to work. Once June hit, there was the 100-day growing season and an overabundance of vegetables to eat, and no end to the dirty, hard, fiercely satisfying tasks, winningly depicted by Kimball."   (PW Reviews)  Check Our Catalog

How To Disappear; Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails and Vanish Without A Trace

By Frank A. Ahearn

"How to Disappear is the authoritative and comprehensive guide for people who seek to protect their privacy as well as for anyone who’s ever entertained the fantasy of disappearing—whether actually dropping out of sight or by eliminating the traceable evidence of their existence.

Written by the world’s leading experts on finding people and helping people avoid being found, How to Disappear covers everything from tools for disappearing to discovering and eliminating the nearly invisible tracks and clues we tend to leave wherever we go. Learn the three keys to disappearing, all about your electronic footprints, the dangers and opportunities of social networking sites, and how to disappear from a stalker.

Frank Ahearn and Eileen Horan provide field-tested methods for maintaining privacy, as well as tactics and strategies for protecting personal information and preventing identity theft. They explain and illustrate key tactics such as misinformation (destroying all the data known about you); disinformation (creating fake trails); and, finally, reformation—the act of getting you from point A to point B without leaving clues."  (Publisher Description)  Check Our Catalog

The Pledge; A History Of The Pledge Of Allegiance

By Jeffrey Owen Jones
"On a summer evening in Boston in the year 1892, a thirtyseven- year-old former clergyman named Francis Bellamy sat down at his desk and began to write: “I Pledge allegiance to my flag…” Neither Bellamy nor anyone else could have imagined at the time that the single twenty-three-word sentence that emerged would evolve into one of our most familiar patriotic texts. Who could have suspected, though, that the simple flag salute would become a lightning rod for bitter controversy? Congress’ 1954 decision to add “under God” to the Pledge has made it the focus of three U.S. Supreme Court cases and at least one other landmark appellate decision. The debate continues today, but along with it exists a widely held admiration and support for this simple affirmation of our shared patriotism." (Publisher Description)  Check Our Catalog

Eels; An Exploration, From New Zealand To tthe Sargasso, Of The World's Most Mysterious Fish

By James Prosek
"Ask your average North American: eels, those slimy snakelike creatures, are generally held in poor regard. For nature writer Prosek (Trout; Fly-Fishing the 41st), however, they are a compelling mystery, and in his riveting synthesis of cultural, geographical, and botanical sleuthing, he investigates their reputation at home and abroad. The author--for whom the eel was once merely bait for bass--delves into the closely held traditions of the Maori of New Zealand, where eels are revered; into the beliefs of the Micronesian island of Pohnpei, where eels are considered members of a tribal clan; into the heart of the largest seafood market in the world, in Japan, a nation that consumes more than 130,000 tons of eels each year; into the reclusive world of Eel Weir Hollow in the Catskills, where fisherman Ray traps and smokes as much as one ton of eels a season; and to the fabled Sargasso Sea, where eels are thought to start their trek to the world's lakes, rivers, and streams--though, even now, no one knows precisely where the world's population of eels spawns, an enduring scientific mystery awaiting a solution. "  (PW Reviews)  Check Our Catalog