Medical History

Nurse. Photograph. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/139_1891082/1/139_1891082/cite. Accessed 1 Nov 2017.

Even better: an iron lung. I’ve never seen an iron lung, but the newspapers had pictures of children in iron lungs, back when people still got polio. These pictures – the iron lung a cylinder, a gigantic sausage roll of metal, with a head sticking out one end of it, always a girl’s head, the hair flowing across the pillow, the eyes large, nocturnal – fascinated me, more than stories about children who went out on thin ice and fell through and were drowned, or children who played on the railroad tracks and had their arms and legs cut off by trains. You could get polio without knowing how or where, end up in an iron lung without knowing why. Something you breathed in or ate, or picked up from the dirty money other people had touched. You never knew.
~Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

What do you think about when you think about medical history? For us, it's the Mutter Museum exhibit we saw at the Albuquerque Museum several years back. It's T. Coraghessan Boyle's The Road to Wellville, Andrea Barrett's The Air We Breathe (and New Mexico's own history of "lungers"), The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the movie Burke & Hare. We think of what we've heard about medicine during the wars - amputations during the Civil War, aftereffects of the deadly use of mustard gas in WWI, MASH (did you know the movie and TV series were based on a book?). Stories about the influenza pandemic in 1918, like Katherine Anne Porter's poignant "Pale Horse, Pale Rider".  We're just waiting to see how the PBS TV series Victoria deals with Queen Victoria being given chloroform for the birth of her last two children after birthing seven other children without anesthetic. And, of course, the iron lung, as Margaret Atwood has referenced above.

Of course, we know there's a lot more to the history of medicine than what our smattering of education, a lot of it garnered from pop culture and media, has provided us with. We thought you might be interested in exploring this fascinating topic with us, so we present you with the following list of books from our library catalog.

The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris

Strange Medicine: A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages by Nathan Belofsky

Hysteria  text by Richard Appignanesi ; drawings by Oscar Zarate

Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World It Made by Richard Rhodes

The Man Who Touched His Own Heart: True Tales of Science, Surgery, and Mystery by Robert Dunn

Pandora's DNA: Tracing the Breast Cancer Genes Through History, Science, and One Family Tree by Lizzie Stark

The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon and the Mysterious Disease That Bears His Name by Cherry Lewis

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World by Laura Spinney

Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation At the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

Bleeding Blue and Gray: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine by Ira M. Rutkow

Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine by Steve Parker

Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs: Frontier Medicine in the American West by Wayne Bethard

Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital by David Oshinsky

For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich

The Daily Practice of Compassion: A History of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Its People, and Its Mission, 1964-2014 by Dora L. Wang

The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease by Meredith Wadman

The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek by Howard Markel

The Well-Read Witch

Witches: five silhouetted figures. [Photograph]. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest.
http://quest.eb.com/search/125_1229428/1/125_1229428/cite

One thing I know for sure is that I am too lazy, disorganized and anti-social to be a competent witch who belongs to a close-knit coven. I never know what phase of the moon we are in and my black thumb prevents me from cultivating the necessary herb garden for effective rituals and spells. I don't even cook from recipe books, so putting together a whole spell is out of the question. I have never read any of the Harry Potter books.   However, that doesn't mean I'm not intrigued by witches, Wiccans, pagans, and the spiritually adventurous.

Whether you celebrate Halloween, harvest festivals in the church parking lot, or Samhain, witches are a part of our collective imagination and historical record and autumn is the time they are most likely to be on our imaginative radar. Witches, witchcraft, witch hunters, and witch panics make for riveting reading in the categories of fiction and non-fiction. So keep one lamp on for yourself, pretend you're not home to hand out candy, and read about witches.

Non-Fiction

America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft After Salem by Owen Davies
A Brief History of Witchcraft by Lois Martin
Brujas, Bultos, y Brasas: Tales of Witchcraft and the Supernatural in the Pecos Valley collected and edited by Nasario Garcia
The Crafty Witch: 101 Ideas for Every Occasion by Willow Polson
The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World by John Demos
The Penguin Book of Witches edited by Katherine Howe
Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials by Aarilynne Roach
Wiccan Celebrations: Inspiration for Living By Nature's Cycle by Silver Elder

Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants by Claudia Muller-Eberling, Christian Ratsch, and Wolf-Dieter Storl

Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English
Witches, Rakes, and Rogues: True Stories of Scam, Scandal, Murder,and Mayhem in Boston, 1630-1775 by D. Brenton Simons


Fiction

Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness
The Book of Spirits by James Reese
Brida by Paulo Coehlo
Bruja Brouhaha by Rochelle Staab
The Burning Times by Jeanne Kalogridis
The Circle by Bentley Little
Dark Birthright by Jeanne Treat
Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

Lasher by Anne Rice
Taltos: Lives of the Mayfair Witches by Anne Rice

History of the Human Body

Hands. Photography. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/132_1280923/1/132_1280923/cite. Accessed 13 Oct 2017.

You've enjoyed popular works that combine science, history, and culture, such as books by Mary Roach (Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers) and Diane Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses). Your interests are many and varied, and don't exclude the cosmetic. You are curious about the workings of the human body and how the body has been regarded over time - physiognomy and phrenology are ideas you've heard about before, for instance - and are not squeamish. You like to know how things work, and you don't mind finding out through observation rather than experimentation. If some or all of these statements apply to you, we have just the booklist for you!

Teeth

Teeth: The Untold Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle For Oral Health in America by Mary Otto

Hair

Hair: A Human History by Kurt S. Stenn

Plucked: A History of Hair Removal by Rebecca M. Herzig

Country Music Hair by Erin Duvall

Hair Fashion and Fantasy by Laurent Philippon

Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair by Christopher Oldstone-Moore

Feet

Leonardo's Foot: How 10 Toes, 52 Bones, and 66 Muscles Shaped the Human World by Carol Ann Rinzler.

Nose

Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell by Alexandra Horowitz

Ears

Balance: A Dizzying Journey Through the Science of Our Most Delicate Sense by Carol Svec

Human Sexuality

The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic by Joanna Ebenstein

Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Wilson

Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf

The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to da Vinci, From Sharks' Teeth to Frogs' Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come From by Edward Dolnick [eBook]

Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story by Angela Saini [eBook]

Impotence: A Cultural History by Angus McLaren

Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo

Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners by Therese Oneill

General

Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body by Hugh Aldersey-Williams

Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin

The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel Lieberman.

Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums by Samuel J. Redman.

Illness & Death

In the Kingdom of the Sick: A Social History of Chronic Illness in America by Laurie Edwards

The End of Memory: A Natural History of Aging and Alzheimer's by Jay Ingram

Death's Summer Coat: What the History of Death and Dying Can Tell Us About Life and Living by Brandy Schillace

Cities of the Past, Cities of the Future

Cities are where most of humanity’s creative and intellectual ideation, communication, and innovation takes place, so understanding cities is vital to understanding our civilization.
~Maria Popova, "Understanding Urbanity: 7 Must-Read Books About Cities"

We always enjoy a good biography...even if its subject is not a person, but a city! We've put together a list of books about cities around the world, because how urban centers evolve seems very interesting. Each metropolis grew up differently, to meet different needs, with different agendas. To give you an idea of how cities grow, particularly now in the era of green cities, we've included some books about urban planning.

It's also helpful to remember that we live in a city with its own unique history! The City of Albuquerque website is a great resource for finding out how to get around in town, to register your business, learn housing codes, find volunteer opportunities, view the pollen count, get hold of public records, look up city construction projects and city contracts with vendors, find a job, and read essays about the city history during different periods, such as Territorial.

City Histories

Berlin Now: The City After the Wall by Peter Schneider

Paris at the End of the World: The City of Light During the Great War, 1914-1918 by John Baxter

Floodpath: The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th-Century America and the Making of Modern Los Angeles by Jon Wilkman   

St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of America's Hippest Street by Ada Calhoun

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

Buenos Aires: The Biography of a City by James Gardner

Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died Under Nazi Occupation by Anne Sebba

A History of Spirituality in Santa Fe: The City of Holy Faith by Ana Pacheco

The City: A Global History by Joel Kotkin

Beijing Welcomes You: Unveiling the Capital City of the Future by Tom Scocca 

Dancing With the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro On the Brink by Juliana Barbassa 

Thrilling Cities by Ian Fleming

 
Genoa, 'La superba': The Rise and Fall of a Merchant Pirate Superpower by Nicholas Walton

The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle by Francisco Goldman

We're Still Here, Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City by Roberta Brandes Gratz

Los Angeles Plays Itself [DVD]

City Planning & Urbanization

Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier by Edward L. Glaeser

Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next by John D. Kasarda, Greg Lindsay 

Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World by Wade Graham 

Atlas of Cities edited by Paul Knox 

Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution by Jennifer Cockrall-King

A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook 

On the Grid: A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems That Make Our World Work by Scott Huler 

Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture by Justin McGuirk  

Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves From the Automobile by Taras Grescoe 

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

Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design by Charles Montgomery  

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond  

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck 

Start-Up City: Inspiring Private & Public Entrepreneurship, Getting Projects Done, and Having Fun by Gabe Klein ; with David Vega-Barachowitz  

Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America's Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World by Catherine Tumber 

Where We Want to Live: Reclaiming Infrastructure For a New Generation of Cities by Ryan Gravel 

City by City: Dispatches From the American Metropolis  edited by Keith Gessen and Stephen Squibb 
  

 

FSA Photography, The Works Progress Administration, and the New Deal

Contrary to popular association, photography was not the primary work of the Farm Security Administration. The FSA was a New Deal agency designed to combat rural poverty during a period when the agricultural climate and national economy were causing great dislocations in rural life. The photographers who worked under the name of the FSA were hired on for public relations; they were supposed to provide visual evidence that there was need, and that the FSA programs were meeting that need. Beyond serving this institutional image, the photographers were to document aspects of "the American way of life" that caught their eye. This looser and farther-reaching mission ultimately accounted for the vast file of photographs (over 80,000 black and white images) that is now considered one of the most famous documentary photography projects ever.
~Juliet Gorman 

We have long had an interest in the Great Depression and the New Deal - perhaps early exposure to the musical Annie is to blame, or we got too caught up in the drama of 1999's Cradle Will Rock, or we saw Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" photograph at an impressionable age. But when New Deal Photography: USA 1935-1943  rolled across our desk one day, we thought now might be a good time to delve deeper into this topic!

Recently we were at Roosevelt Park in southeast Albuquerque and noted its sign:

We had never before considered how the New Deal had touched New Mexico - in fact, had touched all the states, if the amount of  WPA state guides in the library catalog are anything to go on. But what was it, exactly? We had always thought of the Works Progress Administration (sometimes called the Works Project Administration) in terms of the murals, posters, and the photography. But  that was just the tip of the iceberg, we discovered.

The WPA was created in 1935 as a work project for the unemployed. There were 11 million unemployed in 1934 and the WPA put 8 million of them to work, constructing roads, creating parks, building public buildings, bridges, and airports, and, as the Federal Arts Project, Federal Writers' Project, and Federal Theater Project, entertaining. There was even an arm of the WPA responsible for finding part-time jobs for youth. Critics of the program called it " a device for creating a huge patronage army loyal to the Democratic Party," and that the work it created was unnecessary; Harry Hopkins, one of FDR's advisers, believed  “giv[ing] a man a [handout]… you save his body and destroy his spirit. [But by giving] him a job… you save both body and spirit.” The WPA only endured 8 years, ending in 1943 with some charges of mismanagement and with the employment boom of the wartime years.

For more about the WPA, the Farm Security Administration (also created in 1935, to fight rural poverty - many famous Depression-era photographers got their start in this branch of the New Deal), and how they affected New Mexico, consider checking out one of the items from the library catalog listed below.

Russell Lee's FSA Photographs of Chamisal and Peñasco, New Mexico  edited by William Wroth 

Pie Town Revisited by Arthur Drooker 

Gordon Parks  introduction by Paul Roth 

Bound For Glory: America in Color, 1939-43  introduction by Paul Hendrickson 

Official Images: New Deal Photography by Pete Daniel ... [et al.]  

Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon 

Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning [DVD]

The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food - Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal, Regional, and Traditional - From the Lost WPA Files edited and illustrated by Mark Kurlansky 

America Eats!: On the Road With the WPA - The Fish Fries, Box Supper Socials, and Chitlin Feasts That Define Real American Food by Pat Willard 

Public Art and Architecture in New Mexico 1933-1943: A Guide to the New Deal Legacy compiled by Kathryn A. Flynn 

Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography by Errol Morris 

On the Ropes by James Vance and Dan E. Burr 

The Muralist: A Novel by B. A. Shapiro 

The New Deal: A Modern History by Michael Hiltzik  

A More Abundant Life: New Deal Artists and Public Art in New Mexico by Jacqueline Hoefer  

America 1933: The Great Depression, Lorena Hickok, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Shaping of the New Deal by Michael Golay  

Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time by Ira Katznelson 

A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression by Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe

  

 

Links

Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives [Library of Congress]

The Dust Bowl by Ken Burns: Photo Gallery [PBS]

America's Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal [Digital Public Library of America]

Eating Your Words: Adventures in Food Etymology and History

There are very few men and women, I suspect, who cooked and marketed their way through the past war without losing forever some of the nonchalant extravagance of the Twenties. They will feel, until their final days on earth, a kind of culinary caution: butter, no matter how unlimited, is a precious substance not lightly to be wasted; meats, too, and eggs, and all the far-brought spices of the world, take on a new significance, having once been so rare. And that is good, for there can be no more shameful carelessness than with the food we eat for life itself. When we exist without thought or thanksgiving we are not men, but beasts.
~M. F. K. Fisher, The Art of Eating

Sometimes we feel like we need a dictionary to go to a restaurant. What's a reduction? Is pork belly the same thing as bacon? Why has the food been deconstructed? Or, we're eating something, and we think, who first thought up preserving food and how many people died before they got it right? When was yeast first used to make something rise, and how was that property of yeast discovered? We have been cooking for centuries, though ingredients and diets have changed over time, but who originally  thought up all these cooking techniques?

Well, some of these questions are now answerable, and you need look no farther than your library catalog for some of those answers. You could start with browsing the Larousse Gastronomique, but that's a big book, covering a lot of ground - you might be better served by something more specific, such as one of the following books featuring food etymology and/or history:


Words to Eat By: Five Foods and the Culinary History of the English Language by Ina Lipkowitz

Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat by John McQuaid

Eatymology: The Dictionary of Modern Gastronomy by Josh Friedland [eBook]

The Deluxe Food Lover's Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron Herbst

The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson 

Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession with Meat by Marta Zaraska 

Sweet As Sin: The Unwrapped Story of How Candy Became America's Favorite Pleasure by Susan Benjamin 

100 Million Years of Food: What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today by Stephen Le

Rhapsody in Schmaltz: Yiddish Food and Why We Can't Stop Eating It by Michael Wex 

Chilled: How Refrigeration Changed the World and Might Do So Again by Tom Jackson 

Food in the Air and Space: The Surprising History of Food and Drink in the Skies by Richard Foss 

Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection by Catherine Price  

First Bite: How We Learn to Eat by Bee Wilson 

The Tastemakers: Why We're Crazy for Cupcakes But Fed Up With Fondue (Plus Baconomics, Superfoods, and Other Secrets From the World of Food Trends) by David Sax

Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get It Back by Ann Vileisis

Fear of Food: A History of Why We Worry About What We Eat by Harvey Levenstein

In Meat We Trust: An Unexpected History of Carnivore America by Maureen Ogle 

The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites by Libby H. O'Connell

Do you have a burning culinary question that you don't think would be answered by one of the books on this list? Let us know in the comments, and we'll try to find you a match!
 

 

Fans

Here at abcreads, we confess to a fascination with antiquated social customs, especially those from the Victorian era. Imagine employing the language of flowers in daily life - we can never disparage a gift of carnations now, knowing they might mean "My heart aches for you" (red) or "I'll never forget you" (pink). Or having to use calling cards again, and all the complicated etiquette that that involved. Steampunk has brought us back corsets, bustles, petticoats, and other Victorian finery. There was even a museum exhibit of mourning jewelry a couple of years ago. Personally, we'd like to see fans make a comeback.

There are a couple of books about fans in the library catalog, of particular interest to fashion history buffs. For instance, to quote from the library's holdings, we find that from 1700-1800, "Fans of majestic proportions (à grand vol) balanced skirts held out by paniers. They dwindled to 'imperceptibles' to match the deflated skirts of Revolutionary times. To carry a fan of grand luxe became unfashionable as well as politically unwise"; in the 19th century, there was a "European fashion for articles in the Chinese taste" [chinoiserie], so many fans featured art from the East; and "since 1914, the story of European fans has been essentially one of decline... In the 1920s extravagant feather fans were considered the perfect accessory for a slimline evening dress, but since then fans have enjoyed only fitful popularity..."

If we have piqued your interest in fans, check out:

Fans by Avril Hart and Emma Taylor

Fans in Fashion: Selections From the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco by Anna G. Bennett, with Ruth Berson

Fans From the East edited by Carol Dorrington-Ward 

We would also like to encourage the use of fans in ordinary life. It certainly gets hot enough in New Mexico to warrant carrying one around, and you can get the ones that fold up very cheaply! Plus, you can use them to communicate amongst an elite circle of fan aficionados, using the language of the hand fan (courtesy of the website elAbanico):
 
To hold the fan with the right hand in front of the face.
Follow me.

To hold it in the left ear.
I want you to leave me alone.

To let slide it on the forehead.
You have changed.

To move it with the left hand.
They are watching us.

To change it to the right hand.
You are imprudent.

To throw the fan.
I hate you.

To move it with the right hand.
I love another.

To let slide it on the cheek.
I want you.

To hold it closed.
Do you love me?

To let slide it on the eyes.
Go away, please.

To touch the edge of the hand fan with the fingers.
I want to talk to you.

To hold it on the right cheek.
Yes.

To hold it on the left cheek.
No.

To open and close it.
You are cruel.

To leave it hanging.
We will continue being friends.

To fan slowly.
I am married.

To fan quickly.
I am engaged.

To hold the fan in the lips.
Kiss me.

To open it slowly.
Wait for me.

To open the hand fan with the left hand.
Come and talk to me.

To strike it, closed, on the left hand.
Write me.

To semiclose it in the right and on the left.
I can't.

To hold it opened, covering the mouth.
I am single. 
 

History Through Objects

The idea of presenting popular history through objects got a boost from Tom Standage’s popular A History of the World in Six Glasses (Walker. 2005), which discusses human development from the Fertile Crescent, where they drank beer, to today’s Coca Cola–fueled society. The trend has really taken off lately, though, with readers who like a reference browse delighting in books that explore various aspects of our world and its history through…stuff. Collections of 100 items are particularly the rage, and are also fascinating. More than, say, six drinks, a compilation of 100 objects gives the author space to get a little whimsical or unexpected. Like any list that claims to be definitive, the chosen artifacts can spark some knotty discussions. Which items were chosen, and why? What’s missing? Which choices are odd, or expand the definition of the title?

~Henrietta Verma,  "The Things They Carried: History 100(ish) Objects at a Time"

In our experience, reading history books can sometimes be a little dry. That's why we've been enjoying these books which present history using objects (well, not all objects, exactly, some use ideas or people or what have you). For instance, one book has chosen 7 flowers and shown how they have "exerted power or influence of one kind of another, whether religious, spiritual, political, social, economic, aesthetic or pharmacological".*  Another tome has a linguist expert selecting words "that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences, and events that have helped to shape our vernacular".* How about "A book you can read straight through and also use in the kitchen...a perfect gift for any food lover who has ever wondered about the origins of the methods and recipes we now take for granted"?* It's an interesting take that makes history seem tangible - probably too simplistic for a scholar, but helpful for the layman. Consider:

A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects by Richard Kurin 

Shakespeare's Restless World: A Portrait of an Era in Twenty Objects by Neil MacGregor 

The Civil War in 50 Objects by Harold Holzer and the New-York Historical Society

A History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell

A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects: Bringing the Spiritual to its Senses by S. Brent Plate 

Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A History of the World in Three Castes by David Priestland 

A History of America in Thirty-Six Postage Stamps by Chris West 

American History in 100 Nutshells by Tad Tuleja 

The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites by Libby H. O'Connell

A History of Life in 100 Fossils by Paul D. Taylor & Aaron O'Dea

A History of War in 100 Battles by Richard Overy 

The Story of English in 100 Words by David Crystal  

Seven Flowers and How They Shaped Our World by Jennifer Potter 

The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors by John Gribbin


Can you think of any other histories presented in this fashion? Let us know in the comments!

*all comments borrowed from book blurbs
 

Behind the Scenes of Children's Literature

The first children's picture book is said to have appeared in 1658 - Orbis Sensualium Pictus, or The World of Things Obvious to the Senses Drawn in Pictures. Children's books were pretty utilitarian for a long time after that, consisting primarily of hornbooks, alphabet books, and school primers to learn their letters from, and of course the Bible.  But by John Locke's time, he was already recommending "in his Thoughts on Education (1691)...that when a child begins to read, some easy, pleasant book, like AEsop's Fables or Reynard the Fox, with pictures if possible, should be put into his hands," and by the 18th century, publishing was flourishing and an interest in children's literature was on the rise.  Children's literature has only gone from strength to strength since - from early moral, fairy, and adventure tales to an exponential rise in "relatively inexpensive high-quality illustrated books" published during the twentieth century to today.

Maybe you never thought you wanted to know some of the backstories of children's literature, but trust us, you do! Why do children read what they read? Are there books children should be reading? How has children's literature changed over time? What are the stories behind the classics of the genre? The books listed below attempt to answer these questions, and more.


Wild Things!: Acts of Mischief in Children's Literature by Betsy Bird, Julie Danielson and Peter D. Sieruta

Did Laura Ingalls cross paths with a band of mass murderers? Why was a Garth Williams bunny tale dubbed "integrationist propaganda"? For adults who are curious about children's books and their creators, here are the little-known stories behind the stories. A treasure trove of information for a student, librarian, new parent, or anyone wondering about the post-Harry Potter book biz, Wild Things! draws on the combined knowledge and research of three respected and popular librarian-bloggers. Told in affectionate and lively prose, with numerous never-before-collected anecdotes, this book chronicles some of the feuds and fights, errors and secret messages found in children's books and brings contemporary illumination to the warm-and-fuzzy bunny world we think we know. Secret lives, scandalous turns, and some very funny surprises -- these essays by leading kids' lit bloggers take us behind the scenes of many much-loved children's books.

Children's Literature: A Reader's History, from Aesop to Harry Potter by Seth Lerer

Children's Literature charts the makings of the Western literary imagination from Aesop's Fables to Mother Goose, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Peter Pan, from Where the Wild Things Are to Harry Potter. Seth Lerer here explores the iconic books, ancient and contemporary alike, that have forged a lifelong love of literature in young readers during their formative years. Along the way, Lerer also looks at the changing environments of family life and human growth, schooling and scholarship, and publishing and politics in which children found themselves changed by the books they read. This ambitious work appraises a broad trajectory of influences--including Shakespeare's plays, John Locke's theories of education, Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and the Puritan tradition--which have each shaped children's literature through the ages as well.

100 Best Books for Children by Anita Silvey

Because children are young for such a short time, we need to give them their literary heritage during these brief years. Just as every literate adult knows certain books, every child should know specific children's books. If we fail to present these books to children, they reach adulthood without a basic literary heritage. [from the introduction]

Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature by Leonard S. Marcus

An animated first-time history of the visionaries--editors, authors, librarians, booksellers, and others--whose passion for books has transformed American childhood and American culture. What should children read? As the preeminent children’s literature authority, Leonard S. Marcus shows incisively [that] that’s the three-hundred-year-old question that sparked the creation of a rambunctious children’s book publishing scene in Colonial times. And it’s the urgent issue that went on to fuel the transformation of twentieth-century children’s book publishing from a genteel backwater to big business. [from Amazon]

Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children About Their Art

Unique anthology of twenty three artists have shared the story of their work, their art and their lives as creative people and were among the first to exhibit their work at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.


*descriptions can be found in the library catalog unless otherwise noted

 

 

The Enduring Appeal of Abraham Lincoln

The vast amount of literature on Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) is almost unmatched in the English language, behind only that on Jesus and William Shakespeare. Interest in the 16th president of the United States has never abated, but the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth (2009) along with the sesquicentennials of the Civil War (2011) and Lincoln’s death (2015) have spurred even more interest in his character and the consequences of his presidency.
~Randall M. Miller, "Lincoln, 150 Years On"

There's still time this year to observe the sesquicentennial of the death of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. There is indeed a wealth of material to delve into - besides the non-fiction list we've assembled below, there have been two recent related feature films, Lincoln and The Conspirator, there's a book and a movie about Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, and Jennifer Chiaverini, best known for her quilting novels, has been writing loosely related historical fiction set in the Civil War period which directly references the Lincoln family, most notably Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker. Our society's fascination with Lincoln extends to our presidents - earlier this year, The New York Times published an article called "Abraham Lincoln, the One President All of Them Want to Be More Like". His funeral train, his hat, his poetry - everything has been discussed, it seems.


The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows by Gabor Boritt 

Lincoln's Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months That Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War by Todd Brewster

Abraham Lincoln and White America by Brian R. Dirck

Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election That Brought On the Civil War by Douglas R. Egerton

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America by Allen C. Guelzo

Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion by Harold Holzer

Writing the Gettysburg Address by Martin P. Johnson

Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer by Fred Kaplan

Tried By War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson

Mr. Lincoln Goes to War by William Marvel

Lincoln and the Jews: A History by Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell 

Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War by Mark E. Neely [eBook] 

Lincoln's War: The Untold Story of America's Greatest President as Commander in Chief by Geoffrey Perret  

Lincoln's Body: A Cultural History by Richard Wightman Fox 

Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass & Abraham Lincoln by John Stauffer 

The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words by Ronald C. White, Jr.

 House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, A Family Divided By War by Stephen Berry 

  

DVDs

You Are There: Abraham Lincoln's Great Moments 

The Address

Looking at Lincoln (J) 


For more new items in the library catalog, try a subject search of "Abraham Lincoln" sorted by date. 

Links

Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project 

This useful resource offers documents, articles, images, biographical videos featuring major Lincoln scholars and interactive resources on the president’s Illinois years.

Abraham Lincoln’s Classroom

Cartoons, biographies, articles, book excerpts, maps, quizzes, bio-sketches of Lincoln-era figures and his life.

App

Abe App

Available for Google Play and iTunes. For students of all ages, an interactive resource produced in conjunction with the Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation.