Non-Fiction
Favorite books of 2009
- Overall Winner: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
ELPL has great deals on used books!
Did you know that the Friends of the East Lansing Public Library have used books for sale every day? It's the best deal in town! Stop in the library and check out the Friendshop, where you'll find tons of used books at great prices. There's something for everyone - adult fiction, mysteries, history, gardening, music CDs, magazines, children's books, and much more. You'll pay a fraction of the price of brand new, and when you're done, you can donate them back to the library! And remember, all proceeds benefit the library.
Check out the Friends' web site for more information.
We'll Always Have Paris : recent books that highlight the City of Lights.
Paris from the Ground Up, by James H. S. McGregor. Here’s the definitive portrait of Paris, combining chronological history with a cultural exploration of all things architectural, artistic and practical, from Gaul to DeGaulle. McGregor keeps it lively with public bath tours, the secrets of aqueducts and central heating, tales of martyrs from St. Denis to Joan of Arc, and unending cathedral construction (emphasizing Notre Dame); the Sorbonne, marketplace evolution and the great plague all play their part. The Louvre is explored meticulously in many permutations, as are the sewers and even the language.Compelling New Books on the Civil War
The Civil War period holds an enduring appeal for readers. Grab one of these recent histories that relate stories not often featured in the classroom.
No Quarter! : The Battle of the Crater, 1864, by Richard Slotkin.
Here’s an intellectually dazzling military history that recounts and reassesses one of the most devastating and dramatic battles of the Civil War. Slotkin chronicles the Union army's attempt to burrow a tunnel beneath a key Confederate position, the explosion that enabled the massacre of thousands of black Rebel soldiers, and the ensuing stalemate that prolonged the war for another year.Who's on First? Recent Baseball Biographies
Lemonade in hand, hammock at ready ... feed your passion for the Great American Pastime during these long summer afternoons by delving into one of these recent baseball biographies.
The Rocket That Fell to Earth: Roger Clemens and the rage for baseball immortality, by Jeff Pearlman. Clemens is fierce and hard-nosed, one of baseball's best pitchers, but deeply flawed. The Boston Globe says this book "develops a stark, unsparing picture of Clemens's life that surpasses anything that's come before."
Satchel: the life and times of an American legend, by Larry Tye. Leroy "Satchel" Paige could have been the star to break baseball's color line but Jackie Robinson got the first crack. It's taken this long, says Publishers Weekly, to get the definitive biography of this black showman-athlete, one of the finest pitchers ever, who finally was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.
A-Rod: the many lives of Alex Rodriquez, by Selena Roberts. Roberts captures one of baseball's greatest players as a tragic figure in pinstripes: the man once considered the clean exception of the steroid generation is revealed as an unmistakable product of its greed and dissolution.
Straw: finding my way, by Darryl Strawberry. Strawberry was dubbed "The Black Ted Williams," but he faced many personal challenges, including drug use, tax evasion, solicitation, and allegations of domestic violence. Strawberry tells his own story of finding redemption.
Yogi Berra: eternal Yankee, by Allen Barra. "One of America’s most insightful and precise sports writers artfully separates the myth from the reality of the iconic Yogi," in this gripping biography of the legendary Hall-of-Famer and one of the most quotable figures in American culture. (David Maraniss). "One of the best baseball books of the year," says Library Journal.
Reading List
