2012 Staff Favorites

Janice, Youth Services

Favorite Novel:  All Things New by Lynn Austin
Favorite Movie:  Courageous
Favorite Biographies:  Running for My Life by Lopez Lomong and Through the Glass by Shannon Moroney

Running for My Life by Lopez Lomong is a gripping book about Lomong being captured as a 6-year-old boy in war-torn south Sudan.  He ran with 3 older boys for 3 days to Kenya.  There he survived a refugee camp with other boys for 10 years.  Finally he was allowed to come to the United States and was taken in by a loving couple.  He was able to go onto college and became a U.S. citizen.  He even competed as a runner in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics.  He is now partnering with World Vision on the "4 South Sudan" project to bring clean water, health care, education and nutrition for people in South Sudan.  Go to www.LopezLomong.com to learn more.  I highly recommend this book!

Judy, Reference

Favorite Movie: Moonrise Kingdom
It’s Wes Anderson’s most recent film; his films are very stylized but this one really captures the essence of growing up and falling in love for the first time. It also makes you think about the choices we make and how things don’t necessarily change for us as we go into adulthood; we are faced with similar problems that we had as children, but we make them more complicated because we are adults. I could probably watch this film over and over and not get sick of it; it’s excellent! Frances MacDormand, Edward Norton, and even the unknown youngsters in the film Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman really steal the show.

Favorite Book: Underwater Dogs by Seth Casteel
The premise for the book of canine photography is simple, but the results that Mr. Casteel achieves are extraordinary. There are canines that look cute and cuddly on the surface, but when underwater the dogs really show their primal side, teeth bared and all. Sometimes they look downright absurd other times they look like monsters! The way the water manipulates the dogs’ movements and features is really spectacular. It’s definitely a fun book to look through.

Megan, Reference

Favorite Novel: The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
This is a fascinating novel about aging, success, parents, art, love, and the surprising ways that people evolve--and don't. In the past, I have found Houellebecq to be so focused on being shocking that he forgot to do much else, but here he has crafted something hauntingly beautiful.

Favorite Nonfiction Book: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
Cain takes a nuanced look at the brain mechanics of introversion and the ways in which they play out in our hyper-extroverted culture. Forget YOLO and GIF, 2012 was the year of the amygdala! 

A New Blog from an Acorn Patron

Judy Walnoha, an Acorn patron and member of the Tuesday Night Bookies, has recently started her own blog. Judy's first post is about the Bookies and it can be found here: http://venturegalleries.com/blog/confessions-of-a-book-bookie/.

If you are interested in joining a book club this winter, read the blog to find out more about the Bookies.

This Week's Staff Favorites: Volume 6

The Vow by Kim and Krickitt Carpenter
This weekend I read the book The Vow by Kim and Krickitt Carpenter.  It is a true story about love, pain, determination, healing, perseverance, and falling in love all over again.  The story makes one think about keeping one's marriage vow, no matter what. It makes one think about how much we take life for granted and how we can appreciate each moment and each memory with a loved one.  That inspiration might be something to keep in mind especially this Christmas season.  I recommend this quick read.

Acorn also owns the DVD The Vow based on the #1 best selling book (although I haven't seen it, I can tell from the case Hollywood has made quite a few changes from the book's storyline.  Just be prepared to accept that.) Both the book and the film are available through SWAN.

-Janice, Youth Services

Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon
This book explores the challenges and rewards of parenting a child with an ostensibly different orientation--be it deaf, schizophrenic, autistic, prodigy, or criminal. Solomon is an extraordinary thinker, researcher, and empath, so the sensitive subject matter is handled with the utmost grace and skill. This is simply one of those books that leads the reader to a deeper and wiser understanding of the human condition. My highest recommendation.

-Megan, Reference

Death in Breslau by Mark Krajewski
This is the first of a quartet of historical murder mysteries from Polish author Mark Krajewski. The setting is the German city of Breslau (current-day Wrocław, Poland) in the summer of 1933. The murder of a local Baron’s daughter sparks an investigation by Criminal Director Eberhard Mock, a typical anti-hero familiar to fans of hardboiled crime novels. The tense setting, dark characters, and surprising conclusion made it a great read. Death in Breslau is available through SWAN.

-Mike, Reference

Downton Abbey Gingerbread House
This is a quick but detailed video by cookie artist Curtis Jensen. Every year he apparently constructs a famous building and this Christmas he made a gingerbread replica of Highclere Castle, the castle that is featured on Downton Abbey. This is definitely worth a watch, even if you haven't gotten sucked into the popular series!

-Judy, Reference

This Week's Staff Favorites: Volume 5

The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin:
Charles Martin's The Mountain Between Us is a novel about two plane crash survivors. The strong character development, substance, and truly satisfying ending make this book a standout. Plus, it's touching without being sappy.

-Dawn, Circulation

Scrooged:
Probably one of my favorite versions of the classic Dickens' holiday tale. Bill Murray portrays a cutthroat television executive who learns to eventually see past his own jadedness and the materialization of Christmas, and learns to love from the bottom of his heart. It's classic Bill Murray humor; Carol Kane portrays a particularly hilarious Ghost of Christmas Present (with a tutu and tiara to boot!) Available at Acorn and through SWAN.

-Judy, Reference

Soundcloud.com:
I rarely listen to music through anything other than Soundcloud. I like it more than Pandora and Spotify because there are no commercials and I choose what music is played. You can stream, download, and upload all of your favorite music for free. The best part is that musicians upload their own music, so don’t feel like you are cheating them or pirating anything. Other perks are the time-specific comments, continous play, tags to improve browsing, and the wide selection of music. If you’re tired of commercials, try SoundCloud.

-Mike, Reference

Mean Girls:
While avoiding holiday shopping last weekend I happened across Mean Girls on TV.  I hadn't seen the movie since it was released in 2004, and I was reminded of how smart, funny and relevant the movie is, as well as just how far Lindsay Lohan has fallen in the last 8 years.  Lohan plays Cady, a naive home-schooled teenager who is abruptly thrust into the treacherous world that is high school.  Cady has to learn to  navigate social cliques and is eventually befriended by The Plastics, a group of the school's most popular and exclusive girls. As expected, catty jealousy over a boy ensues.  Superficially, the movie is a teen movie and all that normally goes along with that genre.  What makes this movie better than average is Tina Fey's screenplay influenced by the book Queen Bees and Wannabes and a talented cast including Fey, Amy Poehler,  Amanda Seyfried, Neil Flynn, Tim Meadows, Rachel McAdams, and of course Lohan, pre-criminal record.

-Jennifer, Youth Services

One Week// One Band:
The music blog One Week // One Band makes good on Tumblr's unique formatting to present a different band or artist each week written by music writers, fans, and professional critics. The posts are a mix of factual information, personal thoughts, pictures, videos, and quotes and range from popular artists to more obscure indie outfits. What makes this blog unlike many of its peers is the enthusiasm and honesty that pervades each piece: whether a writer divulges his or her own personal anecdote in connection to a song, admits an initial distaste for a musical genre, or simply rambles about what makes the artist so appealing, strange, lovely, wonderful, unique, or comforting, the posts retain the spirit of what makes music and music culture so fun to talk about.

-Anna, Youth Services

The Town:
You're heard that Ben Affleck is the Next Great American Director, right? Well, now is the perfect time to dig into his oeuvre! Though he made a successful directorial debut with 2007's Gone Baby Gone, he cemented his status as something decidedly other than Matt Damon's smirky sidekick/J-Lo's manicured yacht accessory with 2010's The Town, a kinetic thriller about Boston's notorious Charlestown bank robbers. I usually find action movies to be cliché-ridden blobs of bombast, but this one sharply captures each heist as an obstacle course of logistical ingenuity and acute emotion. The performances are uniformly strong--most notably Jeremy Renner as the mercurial, merciless Gem--and even the secondary characters (e.g. Jon Hamm's manipulative FBI agent, Blake Lively's misguided but loyal townie) are nuanced and intriguing.

-Megan, Reference

This Week's Staff Favorites: Volume 4

Coexist  by the XX:
This British Rolling Stone-acclaimed indie band's second album, supposedly inspired by "club music", has more of a haunting, chilling rhythm than the abnormal pulsating beat that you would find in standard club music nowadays. It's simplistic - almost minimalist in style. But there's experimentation almost everywhere and the use of steelpans and other unusual percussion instruments definitely give the music a softer edge.

-Judy, Reference

A Klingon Christmas Carol:
This stage production is a fun and novel take on Dickens' classic!  I am not at all a Trekkie, and had pretty low expectations when I agreed to go with my husband and his friends.  This version is all in the
Klingon language (with super titles projected above the stage for those of us who aren't fluent) and features a cowardly Scrooge who is visited by three ghosts.  Spock narrates, the actors are great (all their lines are in Klingon!) and there is even a Klingon Tiny Tim puppet.  I highly recommend this show to anyone who is looking for something different to do this holiday season!

-Jennifer, Youth Services


This Generation by Han Han:
Han Han is a novelist, the world’s most read blogger, a professional race car driver, and the source of much controversy in his native China--where he is criticized for both his frankness and self-interested circumspection. This book offers a glimpse into China’s complex dynamics of unprecedented change, censorship, promise, and corruption by way of Han’s pithy entries. This Generation can be found at Acorn and through SWAN, and his translated blog posts can be found here.

-Megan, Reference


Mister Rogers and Me:
This is basically just a bunch of interviews with people who knew Mr. Rogers. I'm not really sure if it's "good," at least in terms of its editing, sound, storytelling, etc. However, as I'm sure you are aware, Fred Rogers was an extraordinary man, filled will so much kindness and wisdom and love as to seem almost inhuman. If you love Mister Rogers, and you should, watching this movie is sure to be a moving, uplifting experience.

-Eric, Director

Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi:
I’ve only had the chance to cook a few of the recipes from the book, but I’ve really enjoyed them. The authors were both born in Jerusalem (one in the Jewish West and one in the Arab East) and they offer recipes from each of the city’s ethnic groups including Iranian, Georgian, Palestinian and Sephardic Jews. The photographs of the food will make your stomach growl and the street scenes offer a glimpse of city life. Some of the ingredients are uncommon in the typical pantry, but once you try the dishes you’re sure to want them in your kitchen. Jerusalem: A Cookbook is available at Acorn and through SWAN. Leftovers are welcome!

-Mike, Reference

Patron Review: Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland

Didn’t finish reading it, but learned this:  in 1950, a manufacturer in the USA could not take advantage of the laborer in say, India, for $0.60/hour, but instead had to pay $16.60/hour for a laborer here. Now, with the age of globalization and the transfer of capital abroad, the manufacturer can locate where the cheapest labor is.

Eventually, Ms. Freeland posits, working people world wide will earn the same wage.  Earnings for workers in western democracies are lowering, and wages in Africa and Asia are rising.  One day they will meet.

I think that the revelations in this book call for citizen diligence.  After all, it was Congress that brought globalization to bear.  Trevor Potter, a former chair of the Federal Elections Commission, told Bill Moyers recently that elected officials spend more and more of their time raising cash, and less and less time attending to the economy, war, international affairs, health and welfare of citizens, and all the myriad responsibilities of elected office. 

Public financing of elections is the best way to remove the pernicious influence of lobbyists and corporate deep pockets, including ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), that is responsible for state initiatives such as voter IDs, “stand-your-ground”, privatized prisons, chartered schools, concealed carry…

If we want Congress responsive to us, instead of to the corporation, send an email or letter to those in elected office, and make your desires known.

-Janice Gintzler, Acorn patron