Mad Science: Einstein’s Fridge, Dewar’s Flask, Mach’s Speed, and 362 Other Inventions and Discoveries That Made Our World, edited by Randy Alfred

This daily guide to memorable inventions and discoveries comes from Wired magazine’s popular blog “This Day in Tech.”  The book covers a wide range of subjects, including medicine, computers, food and war.  Each article is short (one page) and concise.  The daily entries also mention two other discoveries made on the same day, as well as two discoveries made in the same year. 

I found most of the articles to be entertaining and informative, the perfect material to use at your next cocktail party.  For instance, I thought it was interesting that on November 11th, 1930, Albert Einstein applied for a US patent for one of the few commonplace inventions of his life, a refrigerator that used a complex process involving ammonia, butane and water. It was exceptional because it didn’t use freon or electricity, but it was not nearly as efficient at cooling as standard refrigerators of the time, so it never became a commercial success. Modern researchers have tweaked his formula and have been able to increase the cooling capacity of his refrigerator, so the verdict is still out on Einstein’s fridge.

Some of these inventions didn’t catch on right away with the public. Sylvan Goldman of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma City came up with one of the first grocery carts on June 4, 1937.  He wanted to make it easier for his customers to carry their groceries, and at the same encourage them to buy more, but the public initially resisted using them. Women thought they were unfashionable and men feared that using them would make them look weak.  So he hired male and female models to push them around in his supermarkets, and before long the grocery carts became a huge success.

Some of these inventions had unintended uses that became much more popular with the public.  My favorite one in this category involved a Dr. John Kellogg, a strict Seventh-Day Adventist who taught the importance of a healthy diet to his mostly wealthy patients at his sanitarium in Michigan. He came up with bland cornflakes as a way for his patients to achieve a balanced diet. But his brother Will saw a different opportunity by adding lots of sugar to those cornflakes and, with lots of marketing savvy, the Kellogg cereal company quickly became a big business.  John  of course was very unhappy with the way his brother Will was using his cornflakes, and he sued him in court and lost.

Most of these articles can be found on “This Day in Tech” blog on wired.com.  The  online versions are slightly longer than those in the book, with larger pictures and text size, so they are easier to read. The online stories aren’t indexed, though you could try a Google search for “This Day in Tech” and the title of the entry you want to read.  I enjoyed reading these both online and in print, so I would encourage others do the same.

Highly recommended!

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King City by Brandon Graham

King City is more than a comic book, it’s a love letter to all of geekdom. Every drawing overflows with detail, containing little Easter eggs tucked into the background that make readers search each page before turning to the next one. A city setting is naturally dense, and artist/writer Brandon Graham doesn’t let any opportunity pass by to include a sly off-color pun, so everything from signs, graffiti, and character’s t-shirts are used as a canvas for amusement. This cacophony can be distracting, but it makes multiple re-reads an enjoyable requirement.

The story follows Joe, a ninja/spy/thief, who has recently returned to California after a few years away. During those years, he trained to become a Catmaster, and the main tool of his trade is a cat named Earthling whom he carries around in a bucket. But this is no ordinary cat; depending on the injection Joe gives it from a collection of syringes he carries around on his belt, the cat can transform into a variety of tools or weapons. Armed with his feline and his knowledge of the Way of the Cat, Joe travels the city.

Lest one think Joe is an anomaly in an otherwise normal population, we are introduced to a host of other misfits. Pete, Joe’s best friend, is a wrestling mask-wearing petty thief who falls in love with a water-breathing alien woman and embarks on a quest to free her from her captors. Anna, Joe’s ex-girlfriend, paints large and often intricate mustaches on billboard faces. And then there is Anna’s current boyfriend, Max, who is a veteran of the recent Xombie wars and is fighting the drug addiction he picked up in order to cope with his memories.

The artwork could be described as ska-punk manga and it is busy and sometimes manic. The plot twists over itself like a Moebius strip with no pretense of plausibility, so readers shouldn’t get caught up on the hows or whys of some situations while reading this book. Where Joe gets the syringes he needs to inject Earthling and who pays Anna to paint mustaches on billboards are questions that never get answered. There is sex and violence, but they play a secondary role to humor, taking the edge of seriousness off of both. Originally released as a serial, King City doesn’t really lend itself to that format. However, as a book, it is an engrossing experience, though definitely not a quick read. Recommended to readers of comics and humor.

Check the WRL catalog for King City.

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The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir, by Ken Harmon

In my opinion, any book that includes the tag line “Someone’s Playing Reindeer Games for Keeps” is worth reading.  Written in the style of a noir detective novel (think Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler), this is advertising copywriter Ken Harmon’s first novel.  It pokes fun at the genre, while creating a delightful yarn set in and around Kringle Town.  Mostly, the book is silly, funny and entertaining.  Harmon clearly has spent many hours immersed in classic Christmas imagery and stories.

The author fills his text with not-so-subtle puns and references to classic Christmas characters and fairy tales that most readers will recognize with a smile.  He includes well-known names like Comet, Tiny Tim, the Whos of Whoville, Frosty the Snowman, and Kris Kringle.  To these he introduces an enjoyable assortment of new, appropriately-named characters such as Charles “Candy” Cane, Dingleberry Fizz, Jubilee Rosebud, and the protagonist Gumdrop Coal.

Gumdrop is a 1,300 year-old elf who has been working by Santa’s side since the beginning.  He’s a tough little fellow.  For most of his career he was in charge of the Coal Patrol – a group of elves who deliver coal to kids on the naughty list.  As the story begins Santa fires him for being too mean and Gumdrop Coal is left to his own devices.  That’s when the intrigue starts and Coal finds himself up the North Pole, without a paddle.  He’s becomes a pariah, accused of mischief and murder.

The majority of the book is Gumdrop’s adventure trying to clear his name, get the girl and survive the twelve days of Christmas.  I found that a couple of times, Harmon is heavy-handed with his moral.  It seems out of place with the rest of the book, for me.  The book is wacky so often, when his message of good will toward all is so blatant it doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the story.  But, this is a Christmas story, so it’s not unexpected.

Harmon leaves himself room to write more stories with these characters.  Who knows, maybe the next title will be The Woman Behind The Fat Man.  In any case, The Fat Man isn’t a standard Christmas story and it isn’t a children’s tale either.  An easy read, it is a romp into silliness and a satirical tribute to noir detective novels.  Go ahead and read it.  I dare you.  I double dog dare you.

Check the WRL catalog for The Fat Man

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The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, 183rd Imperial Edition

It’s about time.  The world has long awaited the 183rd Imperial Edition of the 27-volume magnum opus of knowledge known to mankind.  Generously sponsored by the Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel Center for Knowledge Studies (coming soon to a town near you!), the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on subject experts have come to fruition in this classically bound beautiful work of reference that is far too difficult for the likes of you, even in this abridged one-volume form.  The fact that its introduction was written by T. Herman Zweibel from the iron lung that has kept him alive since 1868 is enough to demonstrate its worth.  That he transmitted it from his spaceship should be proof that this superior product ought not be used by mere mortals.

Therefore, I, as one of the uniquely qualified superhumans capable of synthesizing the pangorgian content, will give some clues as to the knowledge to be found in this book in order to encourage you to strive to meet this task:

• What is the most dangerous object known to man?  (Essential information if you are to survive as long as the Great Man himself, which is unlikely)
• Why Franklin Pierce is the most important and precedent-setting President of the United States (is the proximity of his death to the birth of T. Herman Zweibel coincidental?  The editors don’t say, but I have my suspicions)
• Which aspect of human life peaks at birth and steadily declines thereafter (except in T. Herman Zweibel’s case)
• Who Hop Sing was, and when he bought it (T. Herman Zweibel has an alibi: he was unconscious due to a near-overdose of Crawford’s Soothing Syrup given to him by his robot butler)

What makes the 183rd Imperial Edition stand out is the extreme care with which the editors have precisely defined each entry’s numerical value to the eighth significant digit to ensure absolute accuracy in ordering.  That care has been extended to the calculation of page enumeration, which is guided by a rigorous mathematical formula necessary for lesser users to comprehend their exact location in the tome.  Between the two, the user is precisely guided directly to the entries of interest, which will then fill a gap in his or her pathetic life.

Unfortunately, those lesser users will have a price to pay to obtain this known knowledge, and not only in dedicating their lives to the study of language, medicine, theology, marketing, and the laws concerning statutory rape.  While the Zweibel Center has underwritten the research costs, the actual production of the book carries additional burdens which the reader rightfully, according to the immutable laws of capitalism, ought to bear himself.  If not, taxpayer-sponsored law enforcement will be used to collect it. To streamline the process, I am personally collecting the required 15,664.43  Seychellois rupees ($1,200.00) per copy, and forwarding the amount due to the Zweibel Center.

LATE BREAKING UPDATE: I have just been informed that despite my formidabulary achievements, the Zweibel Center has withdrawn my eligibility to own this piece of junk due to my Irish heritage.  Hey Zweibel: I hope you run out of Crawford’s Soothing Syrup before you reach Mars!

In spite of everything, you can check the WRL catalog for The Onion Book of Known Knowledge 

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Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot

To continue last week’s leitmotif of books of cat poetry, I have gone back to what many people consider the original and the best. Rather than a series of poems from the cats’ own perspective, like I Could Pee on This, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is a series of narratives and how-tos about cats. It was first published in 1939 and has been in print ever since. Our library owns several versions with black and white drawings. We also have a winsomely illustrated version with only three of the poems called Growltiger’s Last Stand.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats is based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. I have never seen the musical and can’t quite picture how it would work as a musical, but I know it was hugely popular on the stage and is available at our library to borrow on DVD.

In some circles T.S. Eliot is most famous for his serious poetry like “The Waste Land” or “The Hollow Men.” Many students of English literature are familiar with these poems (willingly or not). And many of these same students of literature are surprised that the mind that produced the dark and cynical lines of his serious poems could also produce his light and lilting poems about cats.
Compare this gem from “The Waste Land”:

“I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.”

And from “The Hollow Men”:

Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

To the rollicking:

Macavity’s a mystery cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw –
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the flying sqad’s despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime — Macavity’s not there!

And

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were a very notorious couple of cats.
As knockabout clowns, quick-change comedians, tight-rope walkers and acrobats

T.S. Eliot’s skill and dexterity with language show through in both cases, lilting or dark. These are great read-aloud poems that roll off the tongue. Some of our copies of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats are shelved in the children’s section, and the poems are certainly suitable for and loved by children, but I also recommend them for cat lovers and lovers of language.

Check the WRL catalog for Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

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The Bagthorpe Saga, by Helen Cresswell

Have you ever wondered how British humor can be so consistently different from American humor? After all, the two countries share a language and much culture. Re-reading the Bagthorpe Saga by Helen Cresswell, I suspect the difference may persist because the training starts very young in dry, witty, ridiculous British humor.

The Bagthorpe Saga started in 1977 with Ordinary Jack. It continued for over 20 years with ten books chronicling the bizarre, but highly entertaining Bagthorpes, including Bagthorpes Abroad (1984) and Bagthorpes Haunted (1985). It was made into a T.V. series in 1981, which is looking dated now, but the books are still hilariously funny.

Eponymous Jack is certainly ordinary, far too ordinary to live in his overwhelming and extraordinary extended family. His three siblings are “genii” with multiple talents they call Strings to their Bows. His prima donna father writes scripts for the BBC while his mother writes an Agony Aunt column for her Problem people. His only ally is his mongrel dog, Zero, although he sometimes collaborates with his foppish Uncle Parker. Capricious and stubborn Grandma, Selectively Deaf Grandpa, along with precocious and out-of-control cousin Daisy round out the family. Other characters, like the put-upon cleaning lady Mrs. Fosdyke come in and out of the stories. Helen Cresswell managed to take the mickey out of over-scheduled children and helicopter parents before the terms were invented, because Ordinary Jack is the hero and the rest of the Bagthorpes are obnoxiously pretentious.

The humor is both dry and slapstick and relies a lot on wordplay. These books manage to be laugh aloud hilarious and also make comments about human nature.

I was surprised to discover that my library owned this older British series at all, and I was delighted to discover that we own three of the series on CD. I was even more delighted with Clive Mantle’s dry delivery. His sonorous and grave voice was a wonderful foil to the books’ over-the-top humor. In fact, I often thought he sounded like a commentator for a BBC nature documentary—ponderous, serious and reverberating.

Try Ordinary Jack or any of the Bagthorpe Saga for a quick and light read that may make you laugh out loud. Although it is a children’s series, I recommend it for fans of the absurd British wit of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Monty Python.

Check the WRL catalog for Ordinary Jack in book form.

Check the WRL catalog for Bagthorpes Unlimited in book form.

Check the WRL catalog for Ordinary Jack in CD form.

Check the WRL catalog for Bagthorpes Unlimited in CD form.

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Sacré Bleu, by Christopher Moore

 ”En garde!” said Toulouse-Lautrec, … boldly drawing a cordial glass from his walking stick. “Oh, balls. Run it is, then.”

I would read many more books in which crimes were solved by Count Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec, who frequently mixes up his sword cane with his flask cane, in which is concealed cognac and a cordial glass. The artist as inebriated detective is the best thing about this magical-realist historical farce, in which Toulouse-Lautrec teams up with Lucien Lessard, a baker and aspiring painter, to investigate the murder of Vincent van Gogh. It’s a romp through the cabarets, brothels, and studios of Impressionist Paris.

“Henri was finding the detective work did not agree with his constitution as it involved talking to people who were odd or stupid, without the benefit of the calming effect of alcohol.”

With his last breath, van Gogh warned his fellow artists against the Colorman, a pigment grinder who supplies his customers with a particularly potent shade of blue, and his female companion, a woman of many guises. Perhaps you’ve seen her as Manet’s Olympia, or the inexplicably nude picnicker in Le déjeuner sur l’herbe. Maybe she’s Whistler’s White Girl, or Toulouse-Lautrec’s Carmen Gaudin. Maybe she’s the mysterious and elusive Juliette, with whom Lucien Lessard has fallen in love. And if she is, Lessard is in trouble, because where this muse goes, madness and murder follow. As they say in France, cherchez la femme.

Moore’s humor often comes with its own rim-shot (of course Georges Seurat’s muse is named “Dot”), but the number of things that are played for laughs can’t disguise the fact that Moore has fallen deeply in love with this time period and its crazy bohemian painters, and his enthusiasm buoys the story.

As an added bonus, the text includes color reproductions of most of the paintings that are mentioned, so, although it may be like learning about Wagner from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, you can pick up quite a lot of art history. And if you want to know more, Moore has a time sink of a web site preserving his research notes, additional paintings, and photographs.

Check the WRL catalog for Sacré Bleu. 

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Angry Birds: 50 True Stories of the Fed Up, Feathered, & Furious by Mel White

I have been an avid birdwatcher for years and I am always on the lookout for new and interesting bird books in the library’s collection, so I was excited to see this on the library’s new book shelf.

This book is unique in that it shows what happens when real birds get angry.

Birds are grouped into four levels of angry behavior: annoyed, testy, outraged and furious.  Each level presents snapshots of a wide variety of birds, which include a photo of the bird, a helpful “rap sheet”  of useful facts about the bird that includes its species, physical description, known whereabouts, aliases, and a very brief description of its angry behaviors along with a one-page summary of the bird and its angry behavior.

I found a few of these birds and their behaviors to be quite common, like the Northern Cardinal fighting its reflection in a car window.  But most were new to me and I think they will be new to most readers here in the United States. I especially enjoyed reading about the following birds.

The Fieldfare is one of the annoyed birds. It is a medium-sized songbird from Europe that groups together for protection—when a larger bird like a raven encroaches on their territory, the alarm call is given, and a flock of fieldfares will mob the intruder and shower it with a burst of their collective poop.  This is not just nasty but can prevent the intruder from flying and staying warm, and can even lead to death.

The Masked Lapwing is a testy bird that looks like a character from a Stars Wars movie. It likes to hang out in open spaces like golf courses and playgrounds. It  screams at any people who get too close, and it will not hesitate to use the sharp spurs on it wings, which like a pocket knife can inflict painful wounds on any intruders.

My favorite bird is the Northern Fulmar, an outraged bird from the Arctic regions that protects itself in a unique way, by vomiting a noxious stomach oil onto its predators (or victims).  This particularly nasty oil, which is based on their diet of seafood that includes fish and shrimp, can cause death  to other birds and some rodents,  but can also be used as an emergency source of nourishment for the Fulmar if the bird is unable to hunt for food.  I think the photo of a baby Northern Fulmar engaging in this behavior is particularly amusing.

Interspersed among the snapshots of these real angry birds are two other features. The first is a series of short feathered facts about birds getting angry and taking action.  The second feature is a description of several of the major birds from the mega-hit Angry Birds game, including Terence, Chuck, Matilda and Red.  Each bird gets a background story, a  description of what makes them mad and a rap sheet much like the real angry birds, all of which can help you better appreciate the game.

This book would definitely appeal to younger readers with the tie-in to the popular Angry Birds game. But the interesting stories, high-quality photographs, and well-organized content make this a must-read for anyone interested in birds.  Highly recommended.

Check the WRL catalog for Angry Birds

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The 50 Funniest American Writers, according to Andy Borowitz

The Library of America, better known for republishing the works of classic novelists and poets in special editions, breaks new ground by letting humorist Andy Borowitz pick short pieces or excerpts from 50 of America’s funniest writers. The selections range from Mark Twain at the earliest up to several contemporary funny people.

Those who have followed American humor will find many pieces they recognize mixed in with plenty of funny new surprises. Humor is always in the eye (or perhaps it’s the funny bone) of the beholder, but part of the joy of this book is that with only a little over 400 pages and many contributors, the selections are brief and if one selection doesn’t make you giggle or smirk, the next comes quickly and probably will. Humor often lives on the edge of darkness or crudeness, and Borowitz does a fine job of walking that edge, picking pieces that are certainly not pasteurized but also aren’t vulgar or cheaply gross.

My favorites included H. L. Mencken’s vitriolic “Imperial Purple,” James Thurber’s “More Alarms at Night,” S. J. Perelman’s hilarious noir spoof “Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer,” E. B. White’s Hemingway spoof “Across the Street and into the Grill,” Peter De Vries’ “House of Mirth,” Lenny Bruce’s “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People,” Woody Allen’s “A Look at Organized Crime,” a three-writer effort called “Our White Heritage,” some of Charles Portis’s old “Your Action Line” columns, Veronica Geng’s newspeak masterpiece “Curb Carter Policy Discord Effort Threat,” director John Hughes’s story that originated, and is raunchier than, the film Vacation, Bruce McCall’s spoof of mail ads, Calvin Trillin’s spiteful “Corrections,” Dave Barry’s relationship tips, Susan Orlean’s baby-bashing “Shiftless Little Loafers,” Ian Frazier’s application of biblical language to “Laws Concerning Food and Drink,” David Sedaris’s “Buddy Can You Spare a Tie?,” Jack Handey on “What I’d Say to the Martians,” and George Saunders’s “Ask the Optimist.” But those are just my choices. Yours will be different.

There are bibliographic annotations at the end of the book for each of the writers, so read these excerpts, pick your favorites, and search the library for lengthier examples of their work.

Check the WRL catalog for The 50 Funniest American Writers

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Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin, by Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin is a national treasure, but one not known by enough readers. His lovely ode to his wife and muse Alice, About Alice, made a bit of a splash a few years ago, but for many readers Trillin still isn’t a household name because much of his best work was in the form of columns and short journalism pieces, many of which were published in The New Yorker.

Trillin is a homespun, peevish, wonderfully droll American humorist. He perhaps first made a name by writing about the foods that made America great, not high cuisine but regional dishes like ribs, cajun food, deep dish pizza, and chili. This writing is collected in The Tummy Trilogy, which I also highly recommend.

But over the years, Trillin has tried his hand at all kinds of writing, a novel that is mostly about parking in New York City, impish little poems that skewer our political process, short articles about the writing life, tales of the put-upon family man, a memoir of his father, and so on. To get a sample of all this variety, the easy place to start is with his 2011 collection Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin. It has selections from forty years of his work. My advice for those trying to get started with one of our best living humorists is to sample here, then pursue more of the kind of pieces that you like best.

Check the WRL catalog for Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin

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One Pair of Hands, by Monica Dickens

The popularity of Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs has brought interest back to old books like Below Stairs,  first published in 1968, and Rose, My Life in Service from 1975, not to mention older TV series like Flambards.

Another half-forgotten book in this category is Monica Dickens’s One Pair of Hands from 1939. Monica Dickens was the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens, but this isn’t her main claim to fame in her series of books about her forays into the working world in the 1930s.

Monica Dickens is unusual in the stable of domestic servant memoirists as she didn’t have to take on domestic servitude to prevent herself or family from becoming destitute. She came from a wealthy family and was a debutante who came out with all the glamour of a debutante ball. She became bored with her social existence and thought, “Surely… there is more to life than going out to parties that one doesn’t enjoy with people one doesn’t like?”. She was thrown out of drama school and had taken a class in French cooking, so she decided to turn to cooking.

I have difficulty believing that anyone would do the dishes who didn’t absolutely have to, let alone scrub a stone floor on their hands and knees using a wooden handled pig’s hair brush and harsh ammonia. As I said in my October post about Dick’s Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes, our ancestors had to work very hard in the domestic sphere. My children often claim (with good reason) that I seem to like the Roomba and the dishwasher more than them. It’s really that I appreciate how much work those esteemed appliances do for me, freeing up my time and energy to pursue more interesting tasks like writing blog posts (which is not something I can truthfully say about my children).

Her tone is light, but as I said, she does have the choice to go home to the comfort and support of her parents’ house. In her gentle way she sums up the cruelties acted upon the powerless servant class by saying “my jobs at various houses only served to convince me that human nature is not all it might be.” Her jobs are generally short term, but she does quit one job when a sleazy Butler tries to blackmail her.

The book is often funny as Monica Dickens points out the foibles of the personal lives of the people she meets. She makes even her most obnoxious employers amusing and shows the human side of the people below stairs.  ”I threw down my sodden dishcloth and went to gatecrash the most wonderful party that was being held in the kitchen. The Butler, a sporting old devil with white hair was taking advantage of his possession of the wine cellar key to celebrate his birthday in the best champagne and port that the house could offer. There he sat, jigging one the the parlourmaids on his knee.”

Unfortunately this is the only book by Monica Dickens that our library owns. She also wrote books about her other jobs as a nurse, One Pair Of Feet (1942,) and in a newspaper office, My Turn To Make The Tea (1951), and later went on to become a successful novelist and children’s book writer. One Pair of Hands will suit people interested in the upstairs/downstairs conflicts of Downton Abbey, but it will also be appreciated by readers of domestic humorists like Erma Bombeck.

Check the WRL catalog for One Pair of Hands.

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Darth Vader and Son, by Jeffrey Brown

Set four years after the events of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Jeffrey Brown’s Darth Vader and Son gives us a comic version of “Episode Three and a Half” depicting an alternate Star Wars timeline in which Darth Vader raises young Luke Skywalker.

Four-year-old Luke is just as precocious as you might think, and Vader’s exasperation is palpable. Much of Vader’s dialog comes directly from the Star Wars films, but it takes on an entirely new meaning as the context changes. Brown’s illustrations are vibrant and colorful with a touch of whimsy. Drawn with what appears to be markers and an inkpen, Brown has great precision and is skilled at coloring and shading.

As funny and inspired as the scenes are in Darth Vader and Son, true fans will find even more enjoyment in the background illustrations and in-jokes featured throughout the book. Nearly every significant Star Wars character is featured, many as child sized versions of their adult selves.

I have only one issue with this book, and it is a very small one. Why not feature Leia more prominently? I realize that this is Darth Vader and Son, and perhaps Brown intends to follow this up with Darth Vader and Daughter, but it would have been even harder on Vader to raise twins than to just have Luke underfoot. Leia is featured in only one comic and there could have been so much more. Vader at a tea party, Vader playing dress-up, Vader putting on makeup – think of the possibilities!

Check the WRL catalog for Darth Vader and Son.

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F in Exams, by Richard Benson

Question:  Name the successor of the first Roman emperor.

Answer: The second Roman Emperor.

I’m sure many of you have seen an emailed joke or Pinterest link to amusing answers given on real tests or quizzes.

Here’s a whole book of zingers that students came up with when faced with a question they had no hope of answering correctly.

Now whether the students realized they were being funny or not is another question…  but it won’t take away any of the enjoyment you’ll get from this short book.

The book is broken down into subject categories and each page has one or two questions and answers, some with illustrations.  It won’t take long to find one that you want to share with your friends.

Question: What is the meaning of the term “activation energy”?

Answer: It’s what is needed to get up in the morning.

Question: Name the area of calm at the center of a storm.

Answer: The pie in the sky.

In honor of school starting soon — check the WRL catalog for F in Exams

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The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg

I have actually made progress in breaking bad habits after reading The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.  As a bonus, I’ve gained insight into the many things I do that are habit-driven.  Unfortunately, I’m also more quick to observe it in others.  Thus, I’m trying to carefully refrain from practicing my new habit of pointing out others’ bad habits and their origins.  As the old saying goes, we are “creatures of …”

There’s a useful video online to help you get started on breaking your bad habits armed with the wisdom of Charles Duhigg’s research: How to Break Habits

I wanted to stop my habit of grabbing unhealthy snacks and eating even when I wasn’t hungry.  With the new insight I gained from reading Duhigg’s book, I was able to identify what cue was leading me to practice the bad habit, choose a suitable replacement food or beverage, and continue enjoying a reward brought on by satisfying the original cue!  I can’t say that my new good habit is perfected but at least I have a new solution that works (when I actually practice it).  I’m still just practicing.  A friend of mine mentioned that it apparently takes 21 consecutive days for a new habit to become a bona fide lifestyle-changing routine.

The book is an easily read narrative without too much science so it’s accessible to a general audience. There are funny anecdotes that convince the reader of Duhigg’s sincere and personal investment in his project.

Check the WRL catalog for The Power of Habit.

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Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, by Jennifer Reese

I like making food from scratch and I have been cooking almost all of my family’s meals from scratch for 20 years. My favorite cookbooks are splattered and grease stained–my favorite chocolate cookbook with a recipe for Black Forest Cake, even more than most. The finished cake is wonderful, but I am not sure if I am really willing to go to all the effort of melting, mixing and measuring for the finished product or the gustatory pleasures of licking out the bowl!

Cookbooks are perennially popular, and books about food (with or without recipes) are experiencing a boom. I like reading about food but find some of the recent books pretentious and sanctimonious.  Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn’t Cook from Scratch–Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods doesn’t take itself too seriously and has some great recipes. I don’t agree with all of Jennifer Reese’s pronouncements on which items should be made and which should be bought (buy rice pudding?) but I can’t go past any book that says: ”Here in Northern California, where you can’t throw a Birkenstock without hitting an artisanal bakery, it’s still hard to find finicky butter-based pastries like the croissant. “

I decided to rise to the challenge of croissants since I currently bake most of our own bread (with the help of a bread maker) and made croissants from scratch many years ago. I had some difficulties with milk that was too hot for the yeast and an oven that was too hot for the bottoms of the croissants on the lower tray but the five petits pains au chocolat that I made were just right. As Jennifer Reese says, it was an “unbelievable hassle” but the results were worth it.

Since I firmly believe that chocolate cookies should be in a food group of their own, another recipe I found intriguing was for homemade Oreos. Growing up in another country, I came to Oreos as an adult. I find them tasty in small doses, but somehow artificial tasting. Homemade has to be better, right? I think my first attempt at Homemade Oreos was a resounding success. My kids and work colleagues pointed out that I didn’t make Oreos because “real” Oreos always come in a packet. But everyone, including me, thought my creation of a rich crumbly, deep chocolate cookie with a creamy filling was much better than anything “real.”

This book is great for people who are thinking of making more of their own food from scratch and need recipes. It is also full of entertaining tidbits that started out in Jennifer Reese’s blog, The Tipsy Baker. I enjoy her lack of pretentiousness. In one story she talks about one of her dearest family memories consisting of blobbing in front of the TV to watch The Lord of the Rings on DVD while eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. She compares it to an occasion when she proudly and successfully made delicious and healthy homemade fried chicken from scratch, imaging a Waltons-like family gathering, including “corn likker,”  only to see everyone eat and disappear to their own affairs like the meal was nothing special. The take-away message from this amusing book is make the bread from scratch when you can because it is cheaper, tastier and healthier, but don’t beat yourself up for needing to run into the supermarket to grab Wonder Bread.

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The Master Blaster, by P. F. Kluge

Author of Gone Tomorrow and the stories that inspired the films Dog Day Afternoon and Eddie and the Cruisers, P. F. Kluge really knows the places that he writes about. In The Master Blaster, Kluge brings us to Saipan, the newest addition to the United States of America. The island was taken from the Japanese during WWII and administered by the US Navy until becoming part of a US Commonwealth in 1978. Since then, very few Statesiders have ventured to the island 4800 miles further west than Hawaii.

When visiting a tropical island, tourists rarely see beyond the veil of rain forests, beaches, resorts, boutiques, and night clubs. On the other side are poverty, corruption, racism, and crime. In this book an anonymous cynic known as the Master Blaster has dedicated his blog to reveal the harsh reality of life on the little known US-owned island of Saipan. He has worked hard to ensure that his site shows up in the front page of all search engines–much to the frustration of the local government, tourism board, and proud islanders.

The story follows four new arrivals to the island who meet while waiting in the baggage claim area of the airport.  An educator leaving a failed relationship, a businessman, a down-on-his-luck travel writer, and a foreign laborer all have high expectations and visions of personal success. Each one is convinced they will stay longer than the others. As the story unfolds they each become painfully aware of the Master Blaster’s truths. As they deal with their disillusionment it becomes a contest to see who will stay on the island the longest, challenging themselves to stick it out longer than they might have otherwise. Each character narrates his or her story and since they continue to interact in the tight-knit community, we hear multiple perspectives of the same events.

Having been residents for 17 years on Saipan, my husband and I felt transported right back to our Saipan lifestyle while reading The Master Blaster. I can attest that it accurately depicts life familiar to most Saipan residents, whether transplants from other places or local. Many new residents of Saipan go through the same painful adjustment period that these characters did and either hate life on the island until their employment contracts end (if they even last that long) or persevere to the point of loving the island despite its shortcomings and making it their home.

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What’s Your Number?

We’ve all done it, everyone does it. It is fun, interesting, and only takes a few minutes of your time. You almost can’t help yourself, the lure is too great. You find yourself ensnared. You open yourself to the possibilities and believe all that you’re told. You decide when you’re done that you’ll never, ever take dating advice from a magazine article again.

In What’s Your Number? Anna Farris plays Ally Darling, a woman who reevaluates her love life after reading an article in a woman’s magazine that states that a woman is doomed to be alone if she goes beyond the magic number of boyfriends. Unwilling to jeopardize her future by exceeding the number, Ally sets her sights on tracking down all of her old flames to find “the one” that got away.

Colin Shea, played by Chris Evans, is Ally’s playboy neighbor. Not interested in commitment, Colin has a bevy of beautiful women in and out of his apartment. In most cases Colin hides out until the poor girls get the clue that one night with him does not make a relationship. So the two broker a deal. Colin will hunt down Ally’s exes, and Ally will do her part to get the girls packing sooner rather than later.

In some ways this is the typical romantic comedy.  You’ll get a few laughs, a few “aw” moments, and a girl that finds herself and love in the end. But what I enjoyed most about this movie was that the humor didn’t solely rely on crude jokes. There were jokes but mostly about the pitfalls of dating and life. Ally and Colin were equally matched and played by two funny and endearing actors. The chemistry worked and I found myself wondering how things would play out even though I knew I was guaranteed a happy ending. There is a small deception. After all, you need conflict even in a romantic comedy, but you are saved from the “Big Secret” that makes you wonder what the script writer was thinking. This is a fun movie that’s not too sweet to watch with your significant other or to enjoy with girlfriends so you can commiserate over all the bad dating advice you ever took from a magazine.

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Paris in Love: A Memoir, by Eloisa James

Mary Bly has published a charming memoir and travelogue of her family’s one-year sabbatical in Paris under her pen name, which has been selling romance novels since the late 1990s. As herself, Mary Bly is a Harvard, Oxford and Yale educated literature professor teaching Shakespeare at Fordham University who secretly published romances (successfully enough to pay all of her graduate school loans!) until she obtained tenure. Eloisa James is now regularly on the bestseller lists.

Paris in Love is a compilation of snippets from her carefully-composed Facebook entries along with some longer essays reflecting upon her carefree year in the “city of love” without deadlines and with few obligations. This makes it a perfect book for picking up and dipping into any page for the amusement of reading just a few paragraphs whenever you’re waiting somewhere, or just keeping it on the bedside or coffee table like you would a magazine. I found that I easily kept turning the pages.

Both parents are college professors, so they found it easy to take time off from work. Mary really wanted to make this drastic change because she had just survived breast cancer and was trying to force herself to savor life a little more fervently. Paris had also been on her bucket list since she was little. Emboldened with this second lease on life, they even sold their New Jersey home and gave away many of their possessions before flying off to France. Some of their time is spent in Italy, where Mary’s Italian husband Allessandro has family. Their children, 15-year old Luca and 11-year old Anna, who did not want to leave her friends in the states, provide excellent fodder for laugh-out-loud moments throughout the book. The reader gets to know each family member’s idiosyncrasies as well as a lot of interesting detail about Paris life, people, and culture.  My favorite parts are about the daughter’s rebellious nature and her exploits at school.

Two things appealed to me about this little memoir: the extravagant idea of spending an entire year living quite whimsically from day to day in a famously romantic and decadent city like Paris, and the author’s background as an Oxford scholar and Shakespeare professor. I’d love to know what it’s like to feel so free from deadlines, and I find inspiration in Mary Bly’s success story for my teenaged daughter, who has her heart set on attending Oxford University and becoming a literature professor.

Eloisa James has an official web site where you can match her delightful descriptions with photographs of her family members, including the obese Chihuahua named Milo.

Check the WRL catalog for Paris in Love: A Memoir.

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