Feature Articles, Humanities, Just for Fun

The Great American Read on PBS

May 22, 2018 Arianne Hartsell-Gundy

The Great American Read premiers on PBS tonight at 8:00 pm. It’s going to be an 8 part series hosted by Meredith Vieira. They have a list of the 100 titles selected (along with a checklist you can download) on their website, and voting opens after the first episode. You can see how they selected the titles on their about page.

As you can imagine, we have many of the titles here in our library. I’ve randomly selected a couple of titles from each of the nine categories to highlight some of what we own (these are no indication of how I will be voting).

Mystery/Horror

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Read their brief description.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Read their brief description.
The Stand by Stephen King. Read their brief description.

Romance

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Read their brief description.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Read their brief description.
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. Read their brief description.

Classic

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Read their brief description.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. Read their brief description.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Read their brief description.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Read their brief description.

Science Fiction/Fantasy

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Read their brief description.
Dune by Frank Herbert. Read their brief description.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Read their brief description.

Adventure

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel. Read their brief description.
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. Read their brief description.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Read their brief description.

Coming of Age

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Read their brief description.
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya. Read their brief description.
The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah. Read their brief description.

Young Adult

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. Read their brief description.
The Giver by Lois Lowry. Read their brief description.
A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Read their brief description.

Contemporary

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Read their brief description.
White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Read their brief description.

Literary

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Read their brief description.
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead. Read their brief description.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Read their brief description.

You might also check if Durham Public Library and Chapel Hill Public Library have copies!

Join the conversation by using their hashtag #GreatReadPBS. I’m thinking about starting a campaign to include Mrs. Dalloway and Kindred!

Feature Articles, Humanities, Just for Fun, Lilly Library

What to Read this Month: May 2018

May 15, 2018 Arianne Hartsell-Gundy

Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy and Current Literature collections for some good reads to enjoy!

Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans, VICE futures editor and lead singer of the band YACHT. She presents the first social history of women and the internet. These innovators, concentrating where computers have made our lives better, richer, and more connected, are the unsung heroes of network culture. The book features women who have pioneered technology, like Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Stacy Horn, as well as database poets, desktop thespians, cyber-ingenues, glass ceiling-shattering entrepreneurs, and the self-proclaimed “biggest bitch in Silicon Alley.” You can read an interview with the author here, and a book recommendation from the editors of Scientific American.

Circe by Madeline Miller. In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child–not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power–the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man’s world. Read reviews here, here, and here. You may also like this interview with the author.

How To Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Price. Packed with tested strategies and practical tips, this book is the essential, life-changing guide for everyone who owns a smartphone. Is your phone the first thing you reach for in the morning and the last thing you touch before bed? Do you frequently pick it up “just to check,” only to look up forty-five minutes later wondering where the time has gone? Do you say you want to spend less time on your phone–but have no idea how to do so without giving it up completely? If so, this book is your solution. You can read some of her advice in this NYT article.

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell. Ann Patchett had this to say about this book: “I Am I Am I Am is a gripping and glorious investigation of death that leaves the reader feeling breathless, grateful, and fully alive. Maggie O’Farrell is a miracle in every sense. I will never forget this book.” This astonishing memoir recounts the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life. Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O’Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O’Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.

Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala. In the long-anticipated novel from the author of the critically acclaimed Beasts of No Nation, a revelation shared between two privileged teenagers from very different backgrounds sets off a chain of events with devastating consequences. It explores what it means to be different in a fundamentally conformist society and how that difference plays out in our inner and outer struggles. It is a novel about the power of words and self-identification, about who gets to speak and who has the power to speak for other people. You can read reviews here, here, and here.

Collections, Collections Highlight, East Campus Libraries, Exhibits, Film, Humanities, Lilly Library, Uncategorized

Forever Duke – Alumni in Literature and the Arts

May 14, 2018 Carol Terry

Lilly Collection Spotlight

Oh, the places they have gone!

Our Lilly Collection Spotlight shines on talented Duke Alumni including authors, broadcasters, researchers, as well as many who are accomplished in popular entertainment – both on screen and behind the scenes. Their studies while at Duke are varied, and for many, their majors were not directly related to their career. The featured books encompass a range of genres and styles – from sociological research to critically acclaimed fiction to sports journalism. Duke alumni working in film and television produce and appear in a variety of films including comedies, drama and thoughtful documentaries. Actors, directors, writers – they experience success both in front of the camera and behind. What they all have in common is their “Duke experience”.

Check out the entire list of books in the Lilly Collection Spotlight and visit Lilly Library to view the exhibit Duke Alumni on the Screen and Behind the Scenes.

Among the Duke Alumni Books in the Collection Spotlight:

Vinegar girl : The taming of the shrew retold

Pulitzer Prize winner and American master Anne Tyler’s inspired, witty and irresistible contemporary take on one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies. Tyler graduated from Duke in 1961.

The Legends Club : Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an epic college basketball rivalry
In the skillful hands of John Feinstein (Duke 1977), this extraordinary rivalry–and the men behind it–comes to life in a unique, intimate way. The Legends Club is a sports book that captures an era in American sport and culture, documenting the inside view of a decade of absolutely incredible competition.

Dollars and sense : how we misthink money and how to spend smarter
Bestselling author (Predictably Irrational) and behavioral economist Dan Ariely (PhD Business 1998) teams up with financial comedian and writer Jeff Kreisler to challenge many of our most basic assumptions about the precarious relationship between our brains and our money.

The Gaza Kitchen: a Palestinian culinary journey

This is a richly illustrated and researched cookbook that explores the distinctive cuisine of the area known prior to 1948 as the Gaza District–and that of the many refugees who came to Gaza in 1948 and have been forced to stay there ever since. In summer 2010, Laila El-Haddad (Duke 2000) and Maggie Schmitt traveled throughout the Gaza Strip to collect the recipes and shoot the stunning photographs presented in the book.

Forever Duke: On the Screen and Behind the Scenes

Accompanying the books in the Collection Spotlight, the current exhibit in the Lilly Library foyer is Forever Duke: On the Screen and Behind the Scenes. The works of Duke alumni filmmakers, writers and actors featured include films and series found in the Lilly Library collections. A few of the more well known titles or personalities:

We Were Soldiers
Directed by Randall Wallace (’72) Wallace wrote and directed We Were Soldiers. Nominated for an Oscar as screenwriter for Braveheart, he also worked on films such as Pearl Harbor and The Man in the Iron Mask.

Community and The Hangover

Ken Jeong (’90) was a premed student at Duke. A licensed physician, Jeong found fame in comic roles in both television and film.

Other Duke luminaries include actress and Baldwin Scholar Annabeth Gish (’93) who stars in the current X-Files, Martin Kratt (’89), the co-creator of the beloved children’s series Zoboomafoo and Wild Kratts, Oscar and BAFTA nominee cinematographer Robert Yeoman (’73) , film editor Alisa Lepselter who has worked on Woody Allen films such as Midnight in Paris and Match Point, and documentary filmmakers Ryan White (’04) and Rossana Lacayo (’79).

The Duke campus and Durham have also been featured in film and television; productions include Bull Durham, The Handmaid’s Tale (the film), The Program, Main Street, Iron Man 3, Kiss the Girls, Brainstorm and the late 1990’s coming-of-age television series Dawson’s Creek. Whether it’s American Pie 2, Mystic Pizza, The Squid and the Whale or Parks and Recreation, you will find a Blue Devil!

Collections Highlight, Feature Articles, Film, Humanities, Just for Fun, Lilly Library

May 2018 Collection Spotlight: From Page to Screen

May 7, 2018 Arianne Hartsell-Gundy

This month’s collection spotlight is “From Page to Screen,” where we are featuring books that have been turned into films or television shows in the last couple of years. You can check out this display at the Collection Spotlight rack near our Perkins Library Service Desk on the first floor of Perkins. Here’s a brief selection of the titles you will find there:

You probably know that The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is now a Hulu television show, but did you also know that there was a 1990 film adaptation with scenes filmed here in Durham?

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy was adapted in 2015. It stars some familiar faces, such as Carey Mulligan and Michael Sheen, and features some beautiful scenery. There was also an 1967 film adaptation.

The Price of Salt was adapted into the 2016 film Carol starring the Academy Award Winning Cate Blanchett. It was published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan but was written by Patricia Highsmith (author of the classic The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was itself adapted in the 2000 film of the same name).

I Am Not Your Negro is an interesting case because while the text is from James Baldwin, it was compiled and edited together by the filmmaker Raoul Peck. He worked with Baldwin’s published and unpublished work, selecting passages from his books, essays, letters, notes, and interviews to piece together the fulfillment of an idea of a book that Baldwin had envisioned about Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. The resulting documentary was a powerful examination of race in American and garnered a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Thank You for Your Service by David Finkel was adapted into a 2017 film. David Finkel is a MacArthur Fellow and Pultizer Prize winning reporter who embedded with the men of 2-16 after their deployment ended as a continuation of his work in the 2009 book The Good Soldiers.

You can find many of the films featured in our Collection Spotlight in our Lilly Library collection.

Click here, here, and here to see some of our previous Collection Spotlights.

Monthly Archives: May 2018