Book of the Week #4

"I Touch the Future..." The Story of Christa McAuliffe by Robert T. Hohler (NY: Random House, 1986)

On January 28, 1986 the space shuttle Challenger was scheduled to launch with the a NH school teacher--the first civilian to be part of a shuttle crew--on board. The morning's launch ended in tragedy when Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after lifting off killing everyone on board.

This volume tells the story of that NH teacher, Christa McAuliffe. Author Robert T. Hohler was a reporter at the Concord Monitor and covered the story of McAuliffe's selection to be part of the Challenger mission.

"Even for those who knew Christa only a short time, a sense of loss lingered long after her death. But the pain was soothed by memories of Christa in life: memories of a teacher who asked to be nothing more than an ordinary woman on an extraordinary mission. This book is intended to preserve those memories. It was written with deep fondness for Christa and great respect for her family and the families of the entire Challenger crew. And written, too, with the hope that others will continue her mission to improve education for our children." (from the preface, p. viii)

In addition to this book there are numerous books about Christa McAuliffe held by NH libraries.

Book of the Week #3

Cat in the Clouds by Eric Pinder; illustrations by T. B. R. Walsh (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2009)

New Hampshire author Eric Pinder has crafted a lovely story about Nin, one of several cats who have made their home at the Mount Washington Observatory. The book is illustrated with watercolors by T. B. R. Walsh.

Book of the Week #2

Templates: A novel by Ronna Flaschner (Portsmouth, NH: Osiail Publishing, 2009)

This novel, the first by New Hampshire resident Ronna Flaschner, won the Independent Publisher Book Award's silver medal in the US North-East - Best Regional Fiction category.

“Like a tattered string of paper dolls, maternal patterns reappear generation after generation. How much of a mother’s history is reflected in the decisions and challenges faced by her daughter?
Reacting to her husband’s affair with his research assistant, Sara flees her secure life in suburban Boston, uprooting her two children and moving into a family lake house in Winnesquall, New Hampshire. There, Sara’s life reels in unanticipated directions.
Living in a small cottage next door is down-to-earth single mother, Cindy, a local woman with little patience for ‘outsiders’ like Sara and her children. Yet something in Sara’s struggle pulls Cindy in, ultimately leading to heartbreak, redemption, and, through Sara’s actions, the fracturing of Cindy's hard exterior.
Worlds apart, the two women share an uneasy bond as they grapple with inherited templates for womanhood and discover the distinct garland of paper dolls lingering in the shadows of their lives.”

ALA Recognizes NH Author

The American Library Association is holding its midwinter meeting and part of that meeting is the announcement of lots of book awards. Among this year's awards was well deserved recognition for New Hampshire's own Tomie DePaola. He won the 2011 Wilder Award.

Book Events This Week

Tuesday, 1/11/11

• Thomas Weisshaus, author of Not a Victim!: Tales of Survival in Nazi Budapest will be at River Run Bookstore at 7pm

Wednesday, 1/12/11

• Open Mic Poetry at Water Street is back.
  Great readings are expected in 2011 and will start off with Chris Elliot and Tammi Truax. As always, their readings will be followed by an open mic opportunity. Bring one or two poems to share, or just come to listen and support the poets in our community. Event starts at 6:30pm.

Thursday, 1/13/11

• Alex & Nick Humez, and Rob Flynn will be at Gibson's talking about Short Cuts at 7pm.
  " Our everyday lives are inevitably touched--and immeasurably enriched--by an extraordinary variety of miniature forms of verbal communication, from classified ads to street signs, and from yesterday's graffito to tomorrow's headline. Celebrating our long history of compact speech, Short Cuts offers a well-researched and vibrantly written account of this unsung corner of the linguistic world, inspiring a new appreciation of the wondrously varied forms of our briefest exchanges."
  
• Anne Trubek will give a talk on her nonfiction book, A Skeptic’s Guide to Writers’ Houses, at RiverRun Bookstore at 7pm.
  
• The Hyla Brook Reading Series kicks off the New Year
  Poet Becky Dennison Sakellariou will kick of the series for 2011 with a reading on Thursday, January 13, 2010, 6:30-8:30pm. The series, affiliated with the Robert Frost Farm, takes place at BeanTowne Coffee House & Café (201 Rte 111 in Hampstead, NH) Also reading is Melissa Juchniewicz, a member of the Hyla Brook Poets. The Reading Series is free and open to the public.

Saturday, 1/15/11

• Bob & Ellen Kaplan will be at Toadstool Books, Peterborough at 11am discussing Hidden Harmonies: The Lives and Times of the Pythagorean Theorem.
  
• At 1pm Barnes & Noble, Manchester will host D. G. Stern, author of Winter Wonderland: The Adventures of Charles Dog Detective, #4.

Book-of-the-Week Widget

The first book-of-the-week for 2011 was published today so it was time to update the Book of the Week widget. If you have the widget on your website or blog it should be all set automatically (the date at the top is now 2011).

If you don't have it on your site you can add it by visiting http://nhbookcenter.blogspot.com and clicking on the "get widget" link at the bottom of the widget itself (located at the bottom of the right hand panel of the blog).

Book of the Week #1

The Poets Laureate Anthology (in association with the Library of Congress) edited and with introductions by Elizabeth Hun Schmidt; foreword by Billy Collins (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010)

William McGuire wrote what may be the only history of the position of U.S. Poet Laureate, a book entitled Poetry's Catbird Seat. This volume tells this story in a different way.

"... this history is told for the first time by some of the very poems that distinguish these forty-three title holders. The anthology offers a generous sample of their work and provides a sweeping aerial view of the shifting ground of American poetry from 1937 to the present. Like any poetry colection, it can be read in any order according to each reader's whims--front to back, back to front, or dipped into anywhere--but editor Elizabeth Hun Schmidt's decision to put the poets in reverse chronological order encourages readers to begin with W. S. Merwin, holder of the office as of fall 2010, and move back in time, stepping plot by plot over the landscape of poetry, arriving finally at the verses of Joseph Auslander, the first to hold the post. This reversal of chronological order may remind readers that literature not only progresses, but it recedes; it moves forward toward an unknown future, but it also backpedals toward its origins." (Foreword by Billy Collins, p. xxxix-xl)

Each poet--including the five New Hampshire poets who have held the office--is introduced by their own thoughts on the office and a brief overview of their life and work. The selected poems include the famous ones and a few that might surprise you. For example, Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" shares a page with "Design," which terrified Lionel Trilling.