Top Ten Best Albums

About a month ago, I checked out 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, edited by Robert Dimery. As a music lover, I was curious to see what albums Dimery included in the book, and while there are some great albums and artists represented in his book, there are so many more that aren't there. It's partly due to the fact that the book was published in 2006, and some amazing albums have come out since then.

Since I looked through 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, I've been thinking about what albums I think everyone should listen to. These are my go-to albums whenever I'm stressed or just wanting to listen to something I know I will love and never get tired of.

Backstreet Boys: In a World Like This
Backstreet Boys: Millennium

Black Hawk Down soundtrack

Luke Bryan: Crash My Party
Luke Bryan: Tailgates & Tanlines

Eric Church: The Outsiders

Crosby, Stills, and Nash: Crosby, Stills, and Nash

Lady Antebellum: Golden
Lady Antebellum: Own the Night

A.J. McLean: Have It All

Update: The library now has most of these albums! I've created a playlist on Spotify so you can enjoy some of the songs on most of the albums (the exception is the A.J. McLean album, which isn't available on Spotify).

If you like Kate Bush...

If you are a music geek, you probably know that Kate Bush is performing live for the first time in 35 years!  Her residency at London's Eventim Apollo started on August 26th and will finish on October 1st.  Back in March, her 22 shows sold out in 15 minutes, and once her live performances began, she racked up 8 albums in the Official Albums Chart at the same time - the first woman to do so, and just behind the achievements of Elvis Presley (12 simultaneous top 40 entries) and The Beatles (11).

Kate burst onto the scene in the late 1970s at age 19 with her single "Wuthering Heights", the first woman to have a UK number one with a self-written song. (Pink Floyd's David Gilmour heard Kate's early demo and was instrumental in getting her signed to EMI at the tender age of 16!) She released 4 albums in quick succession: The Kick Inside, Lionheart, Never For Ever, and The Dreaming. It was at this time that she built a private studio and was able to spend more time crafting the album many believe to be her masterpiece, Hounds of Love. A compilation disc, The Whole Story, was released in 1986. The albums The Sensual World (the title track is a paean to James Joyce's Ulysses) and The Red Shoes followed at her own pace, and then there was a 12 year gap before her next album, Aerial. In 2011, Kate released 2 albums, Director's Cut (a reworking of some earlier songs) and 50 Words For Snow.

Throughout her career, Kate Bush has been a fascinating and innovative artist. She has roots in the Progressive Rock movement, and many recall her collaboration with "Prog God" Peter Gabriel, "Don't Give Up".  She was an early embracer of the Fairlight CMI synthesiser and often employed musical instruments from many different cultures - and musicians from other cultures too, such as Bulgaria's Trio Bulgarka.  Her songs abound with literary references.

ABC Library has some of Kate's later albums in the library catalog, as well as a documentary film and an eBook about her! Whether you are discovering her charms or revisiting them, we hope you find something to entertain you.

The Whole Story

Director's Cut

50 Words for Snow

Kate Bush, Under Review [DVD]

Kate Bush and Hounds of Love by Ron Moy  [eBook]


Besides having a big effect on us (we've been fans since the mid-1980s), many musicians have declared themselves fans and/or cited her as influential on their work. Check out our playlist, with some recommended Kate Bush tunes and listenalikes that you can find in the library catalog, including Tori Amos, Jane Siberry, Bjork, and Goldfrapp.



 
Links

"This woman's work: How Kate Bush inspires female artists" [Guardian]

"Why we love Kate Bush, by the musicians she's influenced" [London Evening Standard]

"The inimitable Kate Bush: Musical pioneer? Reclusive genius? 21st-century witch?" [Independent]

"My hero: Kate Bush by Jeanette Winterson" [Guardian]

Banned Books Week

Artwork courtesy of the American Library Association.

Celebrate your freedom to read during Banned Books Week, September 21-27! Banned Books Week is an annual event, taking place the last week of September, with the goal of "highlight[ing] the value of free and open access to information" [ALA]. This year's focus is banned or challenged comics and graphic novels, in light of recent challenges on the genre - perhaps most famously, Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.

From bannedbooksweek.org:

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982 according to the American Library Association. There were 307 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2013, and many more go unreported. The 10 most challenged titles of 2013 were:

1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
   Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence
2. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
   Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
   Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
6. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
   Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
9. Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
   Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
10. Bone (series), by Jeff Smith
    Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence

Links

Banned Books Week

American Library Association: About Banned and Challenged Books

Banned Books That Shaped America

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund: Banned Comics

¡Globalquerque!

In just a couple of days, you can check out ¡Globalquerque!, New Mexico's own celebration of world music and culture - this year will be the 10th annual! This festival is the brainchild of Neal Copperman of AMP Concerts and Tom Frouge of Avokado Artists. More than a musical event, you can also check out the Global Fiesta, free Saturday daytime programming with educational workshops, activities and performances, and the Global Village of Crafts, Culture and Cuisine, with diverse offerings for your browsing and shopping pleasure. This year, there is also a month-long International Cinema Series, presented in partnership with the National Hispanic Cultural Center, taking place every Thursday in September at 7 PM.

We here at abcreads look forward to¡Globalquerque! every year. The event takes place on 3 stages at the National Hispanic Cultural Center - "the intimate setting of the Fountain Courtyard, the state of the art Albuquerque Journal Theatre, and...outside on the Plaza Mayor." Neal and Tom always schedule such an interesting array of musicians from places as small as La Réunion, as faraway as Bulgaria and New Zealand, and as close to home as Native American artists from the Zuni and Diné tribes. It's always a tough decision - listen to a whole set by an artist or run from stage to stage, trying to catch as many artists as possible? We usually find ourselves on the the run.

ABC Library always tries to have music by ¡Globalquerque! artists available in the catalog.  Here's the offerings you'll find by this year's artists:

Golem, Citizen Boris

Los Texmaniacs, Texas Towns and Tex-Mex Sounds

Calypso Rose, Queen of Trinidad

Söndörgő, Tamburocket: Hungarian Fireworks

Lo'Jo, Cinéma el Mundo

The Rough Guide to the Music of Cuba [sampler with a song by the Afro-Cuban All Stars]

Native America [sampler with a song by Robert "Tree" Cody]

We don't currently have any music by Oumar Konaté in the library catalog, but musically-inclined customers may remember his library concert earlier this year, at the Ernie Pyle branch. He had the whole neighborhood dancing!

Want a taste of what's in store?  Check out our library playlist!



You can read more about this year's artists (and past artists!) on the ¡Globalquerque! website.
 
Links

Globalquerque: It Takes A Village [Local IQ]

Globalquerque! [Local Flavor, page 44]

 ¡Globalquerque! World Music Festival Celebrates 10 Years [World Music Central]

Hollywood's Golden Age

A lot of celebrities have passed away recently...Joan Rivers, Robin Williams, Sir Richard Attenborough, Don Pardo, Elaine Stritch, to name but a few.  The deaths of James Garner and Lauren Bacall, though, set us on a nostalgia kick for the Golden Age of Hollywood, leading us to compile this book list from the library catalog about some of Tinseltown's biggest stars and including a few tomes about the era itself.  Did we miss anyone?  Let us know in the comments!

By Myself and Then Some by Lauren Bacall

Ava Gardner: "Love is Nothing" by Lee Server

Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan

Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn by William J. Mann

A Life of Barbara Stanwyck : Steel-True 1907-1940 by Victoria Wilson

Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox by Lois Banner

The Garner Files: A Memoir by James Garner

You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood's Golden Age by Robert J. Wagner with Scott Eyman

Becoming Mae West by Emily Wortis Leider

Robert Mitchum: "Baby, I Don't Care" by Lee Server

Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles by David Thomson

Fifth Avenue, 5 AM: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman by Sam Wasson

Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford by Donald Spoto

Steve McQueen: A Biography by Marc Eliot [eBook]

Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Richard Rhodes

Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando by Stefan Kanfer

Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century by Sam Kashner, Nancy Schoenberger

Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light by Patrick McGilligan 

Spencer Tracy: A Biography by James Curtis

The Golden Girls of MGM : Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Others by Jane Ellen Wayne

Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart by Stefan Kanfer

Rita Moreno: A Memoir by Rita Moreno

Thank Heaven: A Memoir by Leslie Caron

The Million Dollar Mermaid by Esther Williams with Digby Diehl

Unsinkable: A Memoir by Debbie Reynolds and Dorian Hannaway

Cary Grant: A Biography by Marc Eliot

The Man Who Saw a Ghost: The Life and Work of Henry Fonda by Devin McKinney

Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris


Links

Behind the scenes of Hollywood with Bob Willoughby - in pictures  

Spooky Young Adult Reads

It might only be September, but as I've been preparing one of my October young adult book displays, I've been thinking about all the things I love about fall, and all the spooky books I want to read during October. Some I've read before, but there are plenty I haven't read yet. Today, I have a list of my favorite scary young adult books (whether they're actually horror novels or just mysteries/thrillers), and the ones I can't wait to read.

What I've read

Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Christine by Stephen King (This isn't a YA book, but Stephen King truly is the master of horror, and he certainly appeals to young adults.)

I Hunt Killers and Game by Barry Lyga

What I can't wait to read

Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga

MARY: The Summoning by Hillary Monahan

Another Little Piece by Kate Karyus Quinn

Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves

Feral by Holly Schindler

Do you like to read scary books during October? If so, which are your favorites?

Made in New Mexico: Western Roundup

Around this time of year, when the State Fair rolls around and all the livestock are on display, we here at abcreads are reminded that we live in the West, and that we can get closer to New Mexico in Westerns than True Grit and Longmire (although New Mexico stands in for various locations in the movie and Wyoming in this series). To celebrate our Western heritage, here are some of the newest Westerns and Western-related items from the library catalog that have ties to New Mexico.

Westerns

The Killing Trail by Johnny D. Boggs

Shawn O'Brien, Town Tamer by William W. Johnstone with J.A. Johnstone

Here By the Bloods by Brandon Boyce

She Returns From War by Lee Collins

Cantrell: A Western Duo by by T.T. Flynn

Between Hell and Texas by Dusty Richards


Not strictly Western fiction

The Witches of Ruidoso by John Sandoval [YA]"In the last years of the 19th century in the western territory that would become New Mexico, young Elijah falls in love with a girl who has strange insights and abilities with animals. Together, they come of age in a land of mountains and ravens, where witches terrorized both white men and Apache Indians."

Handful of Sky by Tory Cates"Shallie Larkin has chosen to make her way in the rough and tumble world of the rodeo, where women are seen as trophies to be won and discarded, not as serious competition. But just as Shallie can see the hidden beauty in the stark landscape of New Mexico, she is determined to find the inner strength to fight for her dream of being a rodeo contractor."  Western-themed non-fiction 

Red Ryder & Little Beaver: Painted Valley Troubleshooters - Fred Harman's Newspaper Comic Strip Heroes in Comic Books, Novels, Radio Shows & Motion Pictures by Bernard A. Drew  
"Harman worked in a studio on his small ranch in Colorado. In his later years he turned to fine art and co-founded the Cowboy Artists of America. He helped create the Little Beaver Town theme park near Albuquerque, New Mexico."

The Wrath of Cochise: The Bascom Affair and the Origins of the Apache Wars by Terry Mort"In a gripping narrative that often reads like an old-fashioned Western novel, Terry Mort explores the collision of these two radically different cultures in a masterful account of one of the bloodiest conflicts in our frontier history."