A long winter’s nap

I’ll be taking a break from blogging about new materials during the winter holiday break. When the library reopens in January, I will probably need a few days to set things in order before I can get back to cataloging. (It takes me a few days to sort through all the journals and packages that arrive while we’re closed.)

Until then, I hope everyone has safe and happy holidays.

Music

Hentoff, Nat. At the jazz band ball: sixty years on the jazz scene. Berkeley: University of California press, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Dunaway, David King, and Molly Beer. Singing out: an oral history of America’s folk music revivals. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.(Publisher’s description)

Rasmussen, Karl Aage. Sviatoslav Richter: pianist. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Religious studies

Bretherton, Luke. Christianity and contemporary politics: the conditions and possibilities of faithful witness. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Ruden, Sarah. Paul among the people: the Apostle reinterpreted and reimagined in his own time. New York: Pantheon Books, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Eire, Carlos. A very brief history of eternity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.(Publisher’s description)

Moltmann, Jürgen. Sun of righteousness, arise!: God’s future for humanity and the earth Trans. Margaret Kohl. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010.(Publisher’s description)

Art

Debray, Cécile, ed. Lucian Freud: the studio. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2010.(Publisher’s description)

Harrod, Tanya, ed. Ann Stokes: artists’ potter. Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2009. (Publisher’s description)

Bryant, Julius. Anthony Caro: figurative and narrative sculpture. Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2009. (Publisher’s description)

Moorhouse, Paul. Anthony Caro: presence. Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Reid, Mary. Anthony Caro: drawing in space. Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2009. (Publisher’s description)

Smith, H.F. Westley. Anthony Caro: small sculptures. Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Wilkin, Karen. Anthony Caro: interior and exterior. Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2009. (Publisher’s description)

Ethics

Irvine, William B. A guide to the good life: the ancient art of Stoic joy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. (Publisher’s description)

Teehan, John. In the name of God: the evolutionary origins of religious ethics and violence. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Noddings, Nel. The maternal factor: two paths to morality. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Religious studies

Attridge, Harold W., ed. The religion and science debate: why does it continue? New York: Yale University Press, 2009. (Publisher’s description)

Mathewes, Charles, and Christopher McKnight Nichols, eds. Prophesies of godlessness: predictions of America’s imminent secularization, from the Puritans to the present day. Oxford: Oxford University press, 2008. (Publisher’s description)

Kessler, Edward. An introduction to Jewish-Christian relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Kugle, Scott Siraj al-Haqq. Homosexuality in Islam: critical reflection on gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims. Oxford: oneworld, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Criminology and policing

DeKeseredy, Walter S. Contemporary critical criminology. New York: Routledge, 2011.(Publisher’s description)

Gannon, Theresa A., and Franca Cortoni, eds. Female sexual offender : theory, assessment and treatment. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Sen, Sankar. Enforcing police accountability through civilian oversight. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Art

Madoff, Steven Henry, ed. Art school: propositions for the 21st century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009.(Publisher’s description)

Thea, Carolee, and Thomas Micchelli, eds. On curating: interviews with ten international curators. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 2009. (Publisher’s description)

Krämer, Felix, ed. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: retrospective. OstfildernL Hatje Cantz, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

History

Valeri, Mark. Heavenly merchandize: how religion shaped commerce in Puritan America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.(Publisher’s description)

Dishman, Chris D. A perfect Gibraltar: the battle for Monterrey, Mexico, 1846. Norman Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

Titone, Nora. My thoughts be bloody : the bitter rivalry between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth that led to an American tragedy. New York: Free Press, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

The best book of the year

My Cataloger’s Stamp of Approval for the best book of the year goes to:

Marlantes, Karl. Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press; Berkeley, Calif.: El León Literary Arts, 2010. (Publisher’s description)

I’ve read over 30 works of literature on the Vietnam War, and this one stands out for how tactile it is.  Many books about Vietnam describe the colors of the triple canopy jungle, where even the sunlight appears green.  But none have come this close to expressing the way everything feels – from the ground underfoot to the razor-sharp elephant grass. Even the smells are evoked in a more immediate way than in other works.  The characters are well-developed, especially the main character, Waino Mellas.  He’s just a guy, and the reader can be rather indifferent towards him, since Marlantes doesn’t make him into a hero.  It’s this sort of complexity that makes this novel stand out, too.

I can’t do this book justice, in trying to describe why it is so outstanding.  I’ll just say this: Atlantic Monthly Press published this novel after it already had a small publishing run with El León Literary Arts.  The Atlantic Monthly Press edition is about 40 pages shorter.  This book is so damn good that, when I finished reading it, I got a copy of the El León Literary Arts edition, so when I read it next, I can read those other 40 pages.  Marlantes is an amazing writer, and I hope we don’t have to wait another 30 years for his next book.

Perhaps the other readers who have gotten over being dumbstruck by this book will have more helpful reviews for your consideration; you can read some here or here.