Obscene In The Extreme - Book Review

Obscene In The Extreme: The Burning And Banning Of John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath by Rick Wartzman

 A gripping account of the furor that surrounded the publication of Steinbeck's towering novel about the Great Depression. The book was especially denounced in Kern County, California, a pivotal setting in the novel, where officials tried to ban the book from the public libraries, igniting a firestorm of controversy that stretched across the country.

Reviewed by Alden Graves

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Concerto For Orchestra Violin Concerto Three Occasions by Elliot Carter - CD Review

Concerto For Orchestra Violin Concerto Three Occasions by Elliot Carter

 He's never heard of you, either... Nonetheless, at almost 100 vigorous years of age, Elliott Carter is America's greatest living composer. The Concerto For Orchestra and the other pieces on this disc-- all written after Carter's 50th birthday-- are magnificent examples of the unrepentant high modernist style: complex in structure, marvellously various in effect, bracing from start to finish. Let all owners of adventurous ears listen, and stand up and say, "Happy Birthday, Elliott!"

Reviewed by Bruce Anderson

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Proust Was A Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer - Book Review

Proust Was A Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer

 Anyone who is an artist will feel even more creative after reading this fascinating and fun book. The author makes a spectacular case for the ways painters, musicians, chefs and writers discovered and described various functions of our brains which are only now being documented by scientists. The famous example is Proust's memory connected to the taste of a "cookie" which along with many others clarifies what we all should know already, that art and artists are absolutely essential to humanity.

Reviewed by Karen Frank

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The Band’s Visit - DVD Review

The Band's Visit

When members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra find themselves stranded overnight in a small Israeli town, they are given shelter by local residents. Warmly entertaining reaffirmation of the brotherhood of man told without a trace of cloying sentimentality. The film features an captivating performance by Ronit Elkabetz, who is reminiscent of a young Anna Magnani, as the worldly-wise owner of a small restaurant. If you have to be stranded anywhere, hope that the experience will be as rewarding as the one shared by the characters in this fine movie. A rare treasure of a film that you will long remember.

Reviewed by Alden Graves

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A Voyage Long And Strange by Tony Horwitz - Book Review

A Voyage Long And Strange by Tony Horwitz

 Unlearn your basic elementary school history! The mythology about who was first to discover and settle North America is just that, it turns out-subjective, fictional and self-serving. In his own investigation of these myths following the historical trails of forgotten explorers, Horowitz discovers many errors in American's general understanding of the "discovery" of this country. He doesn't dismiss the value of such fictions, but his unfolding of the facts is fascinating and instructional!

Reviewed by Heather Bellanca

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The Mistress’s Daughter by A. M. Homes - Book Review

The Mistress's Daughter by A. M. Homes

 This is a look into the soul of an adoptee - what it feels like to wrestle with questions of family and identity. And the experience of having one's biological mother, the one who gave you up, make contact after 30 years. Homes has written a spell-binding, angry, and brave account of her discovery of who her biological parents really were. Unfortunately, they were not lost treasure returning to her. A bit like eavesdropping - you can't stop!

Reviewed by Heather Bellanca

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Journey Of A Thousand Miles : My Story by Lang Lang - Book Review

Journey Of A Thousand Miles : My Story by Lang Lang

 Lang Lang's autobiography takes the reader on a journey of incredulousness and admiration for the life he lead from a very early age toward the pursuit of piano perfection. It is also a story of the mindset and lost opportunities for his parents' generation during the Cultural Revolution, and the determination to fulfill dashed dreams through their children. A riveting read!

Reviewed by Marie Leahy

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The Glimmer Palace by Beatrice Colin - Book Review

The Glimmer Palace by Beatrice Colin

 The Glimmer Palace is an absolutely enthralling tale of Lilly Nelly Aphrodite's rise from young orphan to silent film star and everything in between. Lilly's journey is rife with War, Hunger, and disappointment, yet through the darkest of times her stoic nature allows her to endure. Detached and yet utterly endearing, Lilly entrances all who encounter her. Intelligent without being pretentious, Colin's striking portrait of WWI Berlin Flows seamlessly into the upheaval surrounding the Weimar Republic.

Reviewed by Ashley Middlebrook

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Breaking Dawn Party

August 1^st, 9pm - Midnight

It's so close, you can taste it! Be one of the first in the nation at the stroke of midnight to get Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn. Preorder your book to be entered into a drawing for The Flip camcorder (winner must be present).

Join us for the party!

• Music
• Costume Contest (Couples, Vampire & Werewolf categories)
• Trivia
• Betsey Johnson fashion show
• Human Chess
• Body Painting
• Giveaways
• Bella's Wedding Procession at midnight

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What Happened by Scott McClellan - Book Review

What Happened by Scott McClellan

 It was impossible for me to approach Scott McClellan's What Happened with a completely open mind, as it will be, I think, for many readers. But, if writing is a catharsis, the book must have seemed like the equivalent of five years of intensive therapy to its author.

Despite my initial respect for McClellan's courage in writing the memoir, I couldn't help feeling, as this detailed chronicle of the disintegration of George W. Bush's presidency unfolded, that the book is as much a self serving expiation as it is a revelatory examination of power run amuck. There is nothing particularly new to be learned here, only sad reaffirmations of what most of us have known for a long time. Oddly enough, What Happened is, by turns, appalling, preachy, and tedious. Its only genuinely startling aspect is the fact that Mr. McClellan was one of the hardcore loyalists, whose relationship with Bush stretches back to his time as governor of Texas.

Scott was the youngest of four sons born to Barr McClellan, an attorney, and Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a colorful, three-term mayor of Austin. The couple divorced when Scott was ten-years-old. He began his career working on his mother's campaigns. The young man's dedication was brought to the attention of Governor Bush, whom McClellan admired for his non-partisan approach to politics, his accessibility, and his wit (prompting me to wonder if the word "wit" means something different in Texas). McClellan was hired as the governor's deputy press secretary. Like many in Bush's Texas entourage, he went to Washington in 2000 with the newly elected president.

Bush was determined not to repeat what he regarded as a grievous fault of the Clinton years; the non-stop political campaigning that influenced nearly every decision emanating from the White House. To help effect his storybook transformation of government, the president brought along Karl Rove, an acclaimed guru of Texas Republican politics. Unencumbered with scruples, Rove had a reputation for ruthlessness that gave even the gentle-hearted McClellan pause, although not to the extent that he seriously questioned Mr. Bush's unwavering devotion to such a polarizing figure.

McClellan eventually served as White House Press Secretary from July 2003 until April 2006. Three momentous events shaped his tenure. Each, as it played out, had an impact upon his eventual disillusionment with the people for whom he worked: The failure to find any credible evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the federal government's disgracefully inept response to Hurricane Katrina, and, most damaging to McClellan personally, the divulging of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative in retribution for her husband's comments about the lack of evidence to support the urgency of invading Iraq.

My opinion of McClellan remained steadfastly ambivalent. He seems a curious mixture of idealistic Boy Scout, GOP team player, and master of self-deception. If he accuses Mr. Bush of hearing only what he wants to hear, the same might be said of McClellan, whose judgment of character seems roughly on a par with Elizabeth Taylor's instinct for good husband material.

McClellan may finally perceive George W. Bush as a deeply flawed man, but he can never quite bring himself to hold Bush fully responsible for his disastrous decisions (despite a few nods to the adage about where the buck stops), like an indulgent parent who refuses to acknowledge serious faults in his child. History, McClellan cautions, will be the final arbiter the Bush presidency. Sound familiar?

His early experiences working with Bush are so contrary to what we have come to know about the personality of the man as to make the reader wonder if Bush underwent some horrific Jekyll/Hyde transformation on the way to Washington from which he has never recovered.

The president emerges as his own cardboard ideal of what a great leader should be; a tireless dispenser of grade school civics platitudes in tandem with a fatal lack of concern for how they are implemented or any long-term impacts. "Freedom" is Bush's operative word, with very little substantive regard to its cost or, for that matter, if the people he is trying to foist it upon are even particularly interested. What matters is that he thinks that they should want it.

Even the barbs, aimed at those for whom McClellan clearly has little regard, seem cautiously blunted, except for Rove and for Condoleezza Rice, whom he believes bears a particular responsibility for the most catastrophic mistakes of the Bush administration -- coupled with a genius for shifting that responsibility onto someone else's shoulders. Cheney is mostly relegated to the status of the White House's resident spook -- elusive, deceptive, and pathologically secretive.

I waited for one line that never came in What Happened, at least not verbatim: "I was only doing what I was told to do." A lot of people used that excuse at Nuremberg. Mr. McClellan may not deserve the hangman's rope, but his belated mea culpa is still scant comfort to over 4,000 American dead and a country teetering on the edge of the abyss.

Reviewed by Alden Graves