Making Jewelry

Are diamonds really a girl's best friend?  Not sure about that, but we have written before about our love for jewelry. But we can't always get what we want, as the song goes. Why not make our own jewelry?  These days people are festooning themselves with all sorts of interesting decorations, not just gemstones - fabric, wire, even steampunk creations! If you are a crafty person, the library catalog has a great selection of new (and not-so-new) and definitely novel jewelry-making handbooks! Consider:


Creating Your Own Antique Jewelry: Taking Inspiration from Great Museums Around the World by Cris Dupouy

Bohemian-Inspired Jewelry: 50 Designs Using Leather, Ribbon, and Cords by Lorelei Eurto, Erin Siegel

Rustic Wrappings: Exploring Patina in Wire, Metal, and Glass Jewelry by Kerry Bogert.

Chained: Create Gorgeous Chain Mail Jewelry One Ring at a Time by Rebeca Mojica [eBook]

Metalwork Jewelry: 35 Step-by-Step Projects Inspired by Steampunk by Linda Peterson

Amulets and Talismans: Simple Techniques for Creating Meaningful Jewelry by Robert Dancik

Fabric Jewelry: 25 Designs to Make Using Silk, Ribbon, Buttons, and Beads by Teresa Searle

Felted Jewelry: 20 Stylish Designs by Candie Cooper

Seed Bead Fusion: 18 Projects to Stitch, Wire, and String by Rachel Nelson-Smith [eBook]


For more titles, try a subject search using "Jewelry making".


Jewelry coveters might also take note of these related tomes:


Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat's Jewel Box by Madeleine Albright
The former secretary of state tells the stories behind the jewelry she collected from around the world.

Precious Objects: A Story of Diamonds, Family, and a Way of Life by Alicia Oltuski
A fascinating look at the diamond industry.

Novels in Verse for Adults & Teens

Poetry can be a hard sell. Adults are wont to say they don't "get" poetry, and if teens are exposed to classic narrative poetry in high school, they might find it dry and never crack open anything labeled "poetry" again.  But it doesn't have to be that way! Below read two arguments for introducing teens, especially reluctant readers, to some new and novel narrative verse, and a list of some recommended reads and books from the library catalog that even adults might take a fancy to.

Narrative poetry is as ancient as Homer's tales of the Iliad and Odyssey, Dante's Divine Comedy, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but today's novels in verse are far from boring. Many verse novels tackle difficult topics while others offer lighter stories of love and friendship. Novels in verse are easy to pick up and hard to put down. With fewer words on each page, these books are perfect for reluctant readers and busy teens (and they're great for book reports because they don't take long to read).
~Sarah Tregay, "Novels in Verse"

For many kids, “poetry” is a dirty word. Plenty of my own students tune out, glaze over, roll their eyes, or outwardly groan at its mere mention... When getting the right book (sometimes any book!) into the hands of the right reader can be such a challenge, finding a way to invest students in poetry can be an uphill battle. For some readers, the gateway might just be fiction, and verse novels are a fantastic blend of poetic form and fiction narrative.
~"Top Ten Novels in Verse by Lauren Strohecker"


Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow

Lies, Knives and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge

Collateral by Ellen Hopkins

Forget Me Not by Carolee Dean

The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic by Allan Wolf

This Full House by Virginia Euwer Wolff

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

May B. by Caroline Starr Rose
(featured on the 2014 New Mexico Battle of the Books Elementary and Middle School booklists)

October Mourning by Lesléa Newman

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan

Pieces of Georgia by Jennifer Bryant


Also check out the Novels in Verse booklist on our Teen Reads Booklist page!

We need more data!

I'm kind of a sucker for non-fiction that purports to explain human behavior through economics or statistics or some math that I never took in college.  I'm not sure if it's because I always want proof or because I have an insatiable curiosity about why people do the things they do (or maybe it's those long subtitles!).

In the library, there are constant opportunities to observe human behavior, explainable or otherwise.  Really, anywhere there are people, there are opportunities to be baffled by their actions.  Sometimes, it may not be obvious, even to ourselves, why we do certain things or react in specific ways.  If you'd like to participate in a little armchair anthropology, arm yourself with these books:

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt

Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average by Joseph T. Hallinan

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not by Robert A. Burton

The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher F. Chabris and Daniel J. Simons

Pop Culture Reads

Popular culture is the entirety of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images, and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century.
~Wikipedia

We've got a bit of the culture vulture bent here at abcreads, and we like to stay abreast of the latest trends, to read the backstory of the most ubiquitous memes, and generally to find out what makes our culture tick. To this end we've assembled a list of books to entertain, enlighten, and, for good measure, show you one man's quest to be the ultimate hipster.


The End: 50 Apocalyptic Visions from Pop Culture that You Should Know About-- Before It's Too Late by Laura Barcella

In Praise of Messy Lives: Essays by Katie Roiphe

Distrust that Particular Flavor by William Gibson

Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea, and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools-- Including the Author-- Who Went in Search of Them by Donovan Hohn

Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture: What the World's Wildest Trade Show Can Tell Us about the Future of Entertainment by Rob Salkowitz

Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays on the Classics and Pop Culture by Daniel Mendelsohn [eBook]

The Ruby Slippers, Madonna's Bra, and Einstein's Brain: The Locations of America's Pop Culture Artifacts by Chris Epting [eBook]

James Dean Died Here: The Locations of America's Pop Culture Landmarks by Chris Epting

Bowling, Beatniks, and Bell-Bottoms: Pop Culture of 20th-Century America by Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast, editors

Pop When the World Falls Apart: Music in the Shadow of Doubt edited by Eric Weisbard

Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now--Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything by David Sirota

HipsterMattic: One Man's Quest to Become the Ultimate Hipster by Matt Granfield [eBook]

Happy Mother's Day!

Madame Vigée-Le Brun et sa fille
(self portrait)

In Mexico City, there is a monument called Monumento a la Madre with an inscription that translates as "To her who loves us before she meets us."  After mom meets her kids, though, it's no holds barred - there are as many different mothering experiences as there are mothers!  Here's a dip into the offerings on motherhood from the library catalog.


Just for Fun

Baby Laughs: The Naked Truth about the First Year of Mommyhood by Jenny McCarthy

Confessions of a Slacker Mom by Muffy Mead-Ferro

It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita by Heather B. Armstrong

Lift by Kelly Corrigan

Four of a Kind: A Treasury of Favorite Works by America's Best-Loved Humorist by Erma Bombeck



Mothering Guides

No More Perfect Moms: Learn to Love Your Real Life by Jill Savage

Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth about Parenting and Happiness by Jessica Valenti

Good Enough is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood by Becky Beaupre Gillespie & Hollee Schwartz Temple [eBook]

Beyond the Baby Blues: The Complete Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Handbook by Catherine Knox [eBook]

How to Rock Your Baby: And Other Timeless Tips for Modern Moms by Erin Bried



Dealing with Loss

Comfort: A Journey Through Grief by Ann Hood

Blue Nights by Joan Didion

The Still Point of the Turning World by Emily Rapp

Paula by Isabel Allende


Grandmothering

Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son by Anne Lamott with Sam Lamott



Empty Nest

Fun Without Dick and Jane: Your Guide to a Delightfully Empty Nest by Christie Mellor [eBook]

Beyond the Mommy Years: How to Live Happily Ever After--After the Kids Leave Home by Carin Rubenstein


New Memoirs

Shocked: My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me by Patricia Volk

Chanel Bonfire: A Memoir by Wendy Lawless

Lucky Me: My Life With--and Without--My Mom, Shirley MacLaine by Sachi Parker, Frederick Stroppel

The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet--A Memoir by Dara-Lynn Weiss [eBook]

Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story by Carol Burnett

The Sacred Thread: A True Story of Becoming a Mother and Finding a Family, Half a World Away by Adrienne Arieff

Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected--A Memoir by Kelle Hampton



Mothering Mother


Welcome to the Departure Lounge: Adventures in Mothering Mother by Meg Federico

Mothering Mother: A Daughter's Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir by Carol D. O'Dell

A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents--And Ourselves by Jane Gross



For other recommendations, see our Mother's Day 2012 post.  Or try a subject search of  "Mothers".

On Writers, Writing and Reading

What goes into the writing life? Writers, as you might imagine, often seem to be avid readers as well, and full of opinions about books they've read.  Not to mention the advice they're eager to share about their craft!  Here are some books by writers about what they read, how they write, and a few more things besides.

The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories from 125 Writers and Artists edited by Larry Smith

Housekeeping vs. the Dirt by Nick Hornby

Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick

How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard

Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

Making Mischief: A Maurice Sendak Appreciation by Gregory Maguire

Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon

The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman

Stranger than Fiction: True Stories by Chuck Palahniuk

The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books by Robertson Davies


Many of these titles were suggested by the "You Might Also Like These..." feature, which you can find beneath the book's copy status in the catalog for most titles!

Cat Writers' Association Communications Contest

Recently a piece in The Guardian asked, "Are cats top dogs in the world of literature?" The Cat Writers' Association, Inc. (CWA) certainly thinks so! The CWA is an organization of professionals writing, publishing and broadcasting about cats. Member authors include Clea Simon, Lesléa Newman, Shirley Rousseau Murphy, and Carole  Nelson Douglas.  Every year the CWA have a Communications Contest, open to anyone whose work qualifies (see their website for more information).  Winners include magazine articles, newspaper columns, poems, short stories, humor, health care, and DVDs.  Here are some of the winners you can find in the library catalog!


Cat Fancy [magazine]

Cat Telling Tales: A Joe Grey Mystery by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Bambino and Mr. Twain by P.I. Maltbie

The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook by Joanne Rocklin

Defending the Defenseless: A Guide to Protecting and Advocating for Pets by Allie Phillips [eBook only in our catalog]


For more cat-related items in the library catalog, try a subject search of "Cats".