In honor of this year's Karl Jonske '99 Lecture Series, the US Library is featuring a display of selected recent additions to the Karl Jonske Collection.  Stop by to see several of the 808 books that comprise this marvelous and growing collection of books selected specifically to promote reading for pleasure among Catlin Gabel's students.  It is a great legacy for generations of readers, and honors Karl, who was a smart, delightful, athletic bibliophile.

In celebration of the pleasures of good books,

--Sue Phillips, US Librarian

Every summer, the US Library likes to send its books on interesting vacations with students, faculty and staff.  Everyone from the bus drivers to students to teachers and administrators likes to stop by to carry off something interesting to read. 

Over the course of the coming weeks, I'll be adding all sorts of recommendations to this list. After Memorial Day weekend, Summer Borrowing begins!  Returning students, staff and faculty may check out an armload of good books that won't be due until mid-September. 

So, let's begin...

A Taste of the Arts

We've added some new titles on filmmaking, animé, origami, modern architecture, and music.  Here's a sampling.

Didier Boursin:  Origami Paper Animals
Barbara Isenberg:  Conversations with Frank Gehry
Maria Lafont:  Soviet Posters
Shereen LaPlantz:  The Art & Craft of Handmade Books
Steven Mithen:  The Singing Neanderthals:  The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body
Chris Patmore:  Movie Making Course
Simon Richmond:  The Rough Guide to Animé
Bee Shay:  Collage Lab
Stuart Shea and Robert Rodriguez:  Fab Four FAQ:  Everything Left to Know about the Beatles...and More!
Anna Deavere Smith:  Letters to a Young Artist:  Straight0up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts
 

Graphic Novels

Some are political, some are futuristic, and many of them are becoming classics of the genre.  

Charles Burns:  Black Hole
Alan Moore:  Saga of the Swamp Thing; Watchmen
Joe Sacco:  Palestine
Marjane Satrapi:  The Complete Persepolis

Southern Fiction

Hot, still afternoons, complex prose, solitude, thunderstorms, lemonade on the porch, and smoldering post-Civil War tensions are just a few of the characteristics of some of these books by southern authors.  

William Faulkner:  The Sound and the Fury; Light in August
Charles Frazier:  Cold Mountain; Thirteen Moons
Sue Monk Kidd:  The Mermaid Chair
Carson McCullers:  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Toni Morrison: A Mercy
Gloria Naylor:  Mama Day
Reynolds Price:  Kate Vaiden
Kathryn Stockett:  The Help
Eudora Welty:  Delta Wedding; Selected Stories

Fantasy Fiction

These books are filled with other worlds, elves, teenagers with magical powers, hobbits, daemons, and fine storytelling.

Charles de Lint:  Memory & Dream
Ursula LeGuin:  Powers
Christopher Paolini:  Brisingr (part of a series)
Philip Pullman:  The Golden Compass (part of a series)
J.R.R. Tolkien:  The Hobbit (the prelude to a great series)

Keep checking back for more recommendations!

--Sue

"I don't know if I would have lived had I not found poetry."--Jimmy Santiago Baca

The writer Jimmy Santiago Baca will visit Catlin Gabel this Thursday.  If you would like to learn a little bit more about him, here are a few options:

Visit the Poets.org website for a brief biography of Santiago Baca's life.  Three of his poems are listed on the Poets.org website in the upper right hand corner.  If you'd like to learn a little bit more about the writer, his personal struggles, and his approach to language and poetry, there is a good interview with Gabriel Meléndez on the Univ. of Illinois site.  

When you visit the Upper School Library, you can browse our display of books by Jimmy Santiago Baca just inside the door. 

--Sue, US Librarian

 Hi, everybody!

It’s just a few days before Winter Break, and I’d like to offer you some reading recommendations.  If novels and biographies aren’t your thing, we have books on programming in Python, codecracking, politics or history.  There are thousands of options, so stop by to find your perfect match. We’re open until 4pm on Friday, December 17th so you can find something good to read in your free time.  

Happy countdown to the break!

--Sue

In a Strange Room, by Damon Galgut  
In this newest novel from South African writer Damon Galgut, a young loner travels across eastern Africa, Europe, and India. Unsure what he's after, and reluctant to return home, he follows the paths of travelers he meets along the way. Treated as a lover, a follower, a guardian, each new encounter-with an enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers, a woman on the verge-leads him closer to confronting his own identity. Traversing the quiet of wilderness and the frenzy of border crossings, every new direction is tinged with surmounting mourning, as he is propelled toward a tragic conclusion. (from the book jacket).  This novel has received fine reviews, and was a finalist for the Man Booker prize, 2010.

Alan’s War, by Emmanuel Guibert
If you like graphic novels, check out this gritty account of a Second World War soldier’s experiences during and after the war, both in the US and Europe.  Nik Hall recommended this book to us, so if you read it, be sure to talk to him about it!

The Photographer, by Emmanuel Guibert
“A graphic novel and photo journal that follows reporter Didier Lefevre on a dangerous journey through Afghanistan with the Doctors Without Borders mission” (US library catalog).  If you’re interested in the range of the graphic novel across genres including history, politics, and biography, here’s a good read.  Notice that it’s also by the author of Alan’s War.  

Linus Pauling in His Own Words, by Linus Pauling
“Pauling's scientific career spanned nearly the entire 20th century, from his revolutionary Nobel Prize-winning theories on the chemical bond to his controversial work on orthomolecular medicine and vitamin therapy, which continued up to his death in 1994. To many, however, he is best remembered as an ardent peace activist and a crusader for human rights, which brought him his second Nobel. Throughout his career, he was called a genius, a visionary, a Communist, and even a crank. Nothing about Pauling was simple or obvious.” (from a review in Library Journal)

Small Island, by Andrea Levy
This is the story of a young woman who “arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, [and] her resolve intact.  Her husband, Gilber Joseph, returns from the war expecting to be received as a hero, but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second class”  (from the book jacket).  This novel won the Orange Prize and the Whitbread book of the year prize.  

By Lynn Silbernagel

From the Fall 2010 Caller

“The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts.” —René Descartes

Lynn Silbernagel has been Catlin Gabel’s Middle School librarian for 16 years. As a fused glass artisan, she has also taught several Catlin Gabel summer programs and Breakaway experiences.  

From the Fall 2010 Caller

History teacher Pat Walsh recently sent a list to incoming Upper Schoolers of books that had inspired faculty and staff members when they were teenagers. This is just a part of that glorious list, in which J.D. Salinger reigned supreme, with Kurt Vonnegut a close runner-up. Maybe your inspirations will be found here, too.

Deirdre Atkinson, drama teacher

Chris Bagg, English teacher

“If I were a rapper, I’d freestyle an ode to Crime and Punishment: I like big books. Dostoyevsky’s character arcs and setting transported me in a manner far more profound that any cinematic experience I’d ever had. I went from a child who wore a white bathrobe and braided her hair into Leia’s signature cinnamon rolls, to a young woman who spent an inordinate amount of time at the kitchen sink trying to wash the stain of Raskolnikov’s guilt from her own hands.” —Nance Leonhardt, media arts teacher

Nancy Donehower, college counselor

Enrique Escalona, Spanish teacher

“In Mr. Blue by Myles Connolly, I was attracted to a uniquely American character who embraced the challenge of living a pure life in adherence to a simple set of altruistic principles. Mr. Blue is a radical idealist, a mystic, a poet, and his example has prompted me to think more deeply about the values implicit in many of the decisions I have made in my life.” —Art Leo, English teacher

Peter Green, outdoor education director & dean of students

“I read Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find with a teacher who was passionate about her work. He introduced me to her writing as a comment on the human condition, and I was both shocked and completely captivated. It was a powerful and formative experience.” —Michael Heath, Upper School head

Andrew Merrill, computer science teacher

Lark Palma, head of school

Sue Phillips, librarian

Peter Shulman, history teacher

Nichole Tassoni, English teacher

Becky Wynne, science teacher

By Lark P. Palma, PhD, Head of School

From the Autumn 2010 Caller