Katrina - 5 years later

Do you remember 5 years ago seeing the unbelievable footage on news channels of the whole city of New Orleans underwater?  Hurricane Katrina, a category five storm, struck 5 years ago this week.  For any readers who might not be old enough to remember, or those who want to take a look back on the event, here is a list of materials at PCL:
The great deluge/Douglas Brinkley - I highly recommend this extensive chronicle of the storm and it's brutality.
Breach of faith:  Hurricane Katrina and the near death of a great American city
Come hell or high water:  Hurricane Katrina and the color of disaster
Hurricane on the bayou/National Weather Channel
Sugarcane Academy: How a New Orleans teacher and his storm-struck students created a school to remember

The Road through Wonderland

Dawn Schiller's The road through Wonderland is graphic, saddening, and frustrating.  In this biography she describes her 5+ year relationship with the 1970's adult film star John Holmes.  The five years were during Schiller's teen years from 15 onward, while Holmes was already in his 30's.  That is not the only controversial issue in this book.  Schiller escaped a fractured homelife into a relationship with both Holmes and his wife, living in their home as a member of the family.  Her role as 'family' was not enough to protect her from the addiction, drug induced insanity, domestic violence, and police involvement all brought on by Holmes' controlling personality.  It saddened me to think that what should have been formative and personal discovery years for Schiller were manipulated by the antagonist.  I found many scenes frustrating as Schiller's youth and dependence on Holmes led her to continually make bad decisions, or to follow her boyfriend blindly.  Schiller was tough and strong, and miraculously alive when she finally broke all ties with Holmes after he had a major drug-related arrest.  She is presently involved in several national organizations advocating for women's rights and against domestic violence.  Holmes died of AIDS in 1988.  This biography will definitely hold your interest as you explore the private world of addiction.
More info:  Dawn Schiller's website
The road through Wonderland book website

The September Issue

I recently watched The September Issue which is focused around Vogue's Editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.  It gives an interesting fly-on-the-wall view into the world of high fashion.  I'm a big fan of Project Runway (I love the contestants' creativity) and saw some of the same characteristics of the industry shown in this documentary.  Vogue's thickest issue is September, a beginning to a new fashion year.  This documentary shows the push and pull between Vogue executives, staffers, photographers, and designers in the scramble to put out the most cutting edge fashion resource. Cover celebrities and models so in the spotlight on the glossy pages do not even play minor roles in the production process.   I found this highly entertaining, although everyone in The September Issue seemed so tall, I would have been likened to a small fry on the wall.  Although the library does not have a subscription to Vogue, I will have a copy of the 2010 September issue at the reference desk for in-library use.

Breath

Martha Mason tells her story in Breath:  A lifetime of rhythm of an iron lung...Her life changed at eleven years old when polio struck her family in the late 1940s.  The prior year she was collecting for the March of Dimes (read about the concepts and implementation of this charity organization in Polio: An American story) to help in attacking the disease that frequently struck children and for which there was no known cause or cure.  In the span of a week in September, Martha and her brother Gaston both contracted polio.  Gaston was gone within a few days; Martha was paralyzed from the neck down and needed the assistance of an iron lung to force her lungs to expand and contract.  Doctors told both Martha and her parents she would not live a year, as her heart was too damaged to sustain her body.  She went on to live over 60 years in the iron lung, a record for the 800 pound machine.  Martha accomplished many goals despite her condition.  With the assistance of her beloved mother, she graduated from high school and college (as valedictorian of each class), and achieved her dream of being a writer.  Her parents were devoted to her, as Martha was to them, and this respect was shown in multiple examples throughout this recounting.
I felt, as I read this book, that I was within her collection of friends, visiting and gaining insight into her daily routines, tribulations, and joys, which is the prime reason I have referred to the author by her first name throughout this entry. Her outlook on life remained stoically optimistic throughout 60 years of changing caretakers, societal values, and technological innovations. It is of course difficult to imagine a life lived within a cylinder, but Martha shows she collected friends, "visited" many places, and sampled and debated literary delights in her created salon circle.  An amazing woman tells a moving story, from which we can all learn.

Online resources:
NYT article on Martha Mason http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/us/10mason.html?_r=1
YouTube documentary produced by Gardner-Webb University Media Relations; May 2004 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiXFGc5ePVs&feature=related

Having been born too late to witness firsthand the polio epidemic, I read these PCL resources and learned a lot about the disease and its impact on American society:
In search of the polio vaccine [DVD] - a History Channel documentary
Polio: An American story by David Oshinsky

The Cove

Everyone should see The Cove.  I watched it last night and was inspired by the dedication and risks taken by activists to capture and publicize the story of dolphin slaughter on the mountainous coastline of Taiji, Japan.  Their covertly shot video was graphically disturbing and left me very angered.  Issues of toxic mercury levels in seafood, mis-labelling of retail seafood, cover-ups and denials by fishermen and city officials, and the brutal killing of mammals deemed as intelligent as humans were all tackled in this documentary.  The film, which featured Oceanic Preservation Society activists was 2009 winner of the Audience Awards at Sundance and the Newport Beach film festival.  Check The Cove website (the source of the PSA below) for more information.

Early Holiday Shopping

I tend to be very organized (a good trait for a librarian) and always start my holiday shopping in the summer months.  I've gotten some great deals since I started in July.  When I say shopping, I don't actually mean physical shopping.  I buy almost everything online.  When you order six months early there's no worry about the gift not arriving in time or having to pay for express delivery.  So make your list early and check out some of these deals I've snagged in the past 6 weeks.

Meritline.com - has different deals everyday.  I recently paid .79 cents (including shipping!) for an animal themed computer keyboard cleaning brush.  Sign up to have their deals sent directly to your inbox.   An example of one of today's deals:  1-LED Rotating Mini Clip Lamp for .39 cents (and that includes shipping!)

Woot.com - one day, one deal - Each day beginning at midnight woot offers a single item until it is sold out.  There is also shirt woot, kids woot, and wine woot.

National Geographic store online - Right now is offering 20% off on all books.  Also check the DVDs on sale.  I recently got several copies of March of the Penguins at $3.95.  (If you haven't seen this documentary, buy it for yourself!)

bookcloseouts.com - Thinking of buying books as gifts?  This site has some deeply discounted prices.  They are running a special deal on a selection of children's books for .99 cents & summer fiction paperbacks for $1.99.  One of their new arrivals is The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 4) for $2.99 and another, The bookseller of Kabul is priced at $4.49.  Their quantities are limited and selection changes daily as items are sold out, so buy it when you see it or it might be gone.

If you're buying for me, I'd like a nook from Barnes & Noble.  eBooks from PCL's netLibrary can be downloaded for free!  See my previous blog on netLibrary.

Happy bargin hunting!

The meth problem in small-town America

I read two books on the topic of methamphetamine in the past few weeks.  The first was the fictional Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell.  (The movie Winter's Bone won Best Picture & Best Screenplay at Sundance.) Throughout a long bitter winter in the Ozarks, Ree Dolly, a teenage high school dropout, cares for her two younger brothers and mentally unstable mother amid a town of kin who are all involved with meth, both in business and personally.  Strange characters drift through the story such as Ree's Uncle Teardrop, her newly married best friend, Gail, and distant female relations who physically attack Ree. All the while Ree is tracking her missing father whose life revolves around meth.  I found the characters poverty stricken, hopeless, and hopelessly addicted to a lifestyle on a downward spiral.  I wondered if there were small towns in America that were actually models for the story.

It turns out the next book I picked up enlightened me to small towns in America's heartland where meth has taken hold of the people, the economy, and is causing a way of life to vanish.  Methland: the death and life of a small American town focuses on Oelwein, Iowa.  Once home to a meat-packing plant that employed over 2000 residents at good wages, when the author visited first in 2005, he found Oelwein to be suffering from a decrease in family farms, high unemployment due to the closing of factories, and these factors effecting the atmosphere & economy of the whole town.  Nick Reding, the author, visited Oelwein and other Midwest towns which had become victims of meth.  Meth production went from small labs in rural settings to superlabs controlled by the international drug trafficking organizations back to small labs.  Oelwein has turned its reputation around by fundraising to make needed town improvements and attracting good paying jobs back to the newly renovated industrial park and the once abandoned meat production plant.  This book was a wake-up call to a problem which could become worse; the worse the economic outlook for the US seems.  This book touched on the political and social consequences of one of America's most popular and readily accessible narcotic.  Be sure to read both the epilogue and afterword which hypothesizes on the future of Oelwein and meth in the US.  Check the webpage for Methland and see notable awards this book has been given and read further reviews on the impact of this work. 
I highly recommend both works (along with Burning Bright by Ron Rash) for a comprehensive introduction to this current topic.