New & Novel: History of Punk

What is punk? Simply put, a music genre with a heyday in the 1970s, but also, culturally, an anti-establishment movement rooted in freedom of expression.  A lot of people have embraced punk, from fashion designer Vivienne Westwood to musician Billie Joe Armstrong to actor Noomi Rapace.  Musicians like Robert Smith, Kurt Cobain, Jack White, Beth Ditto, Florence Welch, Sufjan Stevens,and Moby have all talked about the impact punk played on their lives. Here's a few quotes from some of the major players of punk in an attempt to encapsulate the movement:

To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom not to be successful, freedom to be who you are.  It's freedom.
~Patti Smith

Questioning anything and everything, to me, is punk rock.
~Henry Rollins

Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s.
~Jello Biafra

People forget the punk thing was really good for women. It motivated them to pick up a guitar rather than be a chanteuse.  It allowed us to be aggressive.
~Siouxsie Sioux

To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain and standing up and saying 'This is who I am.'
~Joey Ramone

I never wanted to go back and relive the glory days; I just wanted to keep moving forward. That's what I took from punk.  Keep moving.  Don't look back.
~Paul Simonon

We recently saw an internet meme that showed a picture of punk rockers Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins (as they look today) with the caption "Punk rock is not dead. It is, however, graying, balding, and going to bed at a much more reasonable hour..." With that on our minds, and the recent memoirs published by Patti Smith (M Train) and Carrie Brownstein (Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl) in the library catalog, and with a little help from the folks at Book Riot, we thought it might be a good time to revisit the history of one of our favorite genres. Here's some items dealing with history of punk from the library catalog:


From the Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History For a Post-Punk World by Clinton Heylin [eBook]

Girl In a Band: A Memoir by Kim Gordon

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes; Music, Music, Music; Boys, Boys, Boys: A Memoir by Viv Albertine

Punk: The Whole Story edited by Mark Blake

Totally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews and Overviews by Simon Reynolds  [eBook]

Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life as a Ramone by Marky Ramone with Richard Herschlag

Dancing with Myself by Billy Idol

Anger Is an Energy: My Life Uncensored by John Lydon

Punk by Stephen Colegrave & Chris Sullivan

The Punk Rock Fun Time Activity Book by Aye Jay  [eBook]

Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, 1977-1981 by Liz Worth [eBook]

Punk Rock, So What?: The Cultural Legacy of Punk edited by Roger Sabin [eBook]

Punk Rock: An Oral History by John Robb [eBook]

For Kids 

The Story of Punk and Indie by Matt Anniss (J)

DVDs

The Punk Singer: A Documentary Film About Kathleen Hanna 

Punk Revolution NYC

The Decline of Western Civilization Collection 
(See the Penelope Spheeris' "crucial, compelling statement of the most significant and influential youth movement and musical transformation of the past 3 decades" at The Guild Cinema November 20-21!)

We Are the Best!


For more punk, try a subject search of "Punk rock musicians" or "Punk culture". You can even find some fiction with punk rock themes, like Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, I Am China by Xiaolu Guo, The Unnoticeables by Robert Brockway, Tyler McMahon's How the Mistakes Were Made, The Predictions by Bianca Zander, and The Listeners by Leni Zumas.

Back Pain

Dennis D. Potokar / Photo Researchers / Universal Images Group

Rights Managed / For Education Use Only

Have you never experienced back pain?  Can you say you have never described yourself as having "a bad back"?  Consider yourself lucky. Back pain is an all-too-common ailment, whether it's caused by bad habits (incorrect posture, not following recommended lifting techniques), injury, or accident, and it can affect your lower back, your middle back, cause neck pain, or show up as sciatica. We are long time sufferers (who knew you could throw out your back sneezing in the shower?) and we've tried all sorts of remedies to try to assuage the pain - Aleve, Tiger Balm, hot water bottles, electric blankets, yoga, exercise, chiropractic...and books from the library catalog, of course!  Here are some helpful reads for those times when your back is out of whack, because, even when you're flat on your back, most of the time you can read.

Are there any books or remedies you recommend?  Let us know in the comments!


Ending Back Pain: 5 Powerful Steps to Diagnose, Understand, and Treat Your Ailing Back by Jack Stern, M.D., Ph.D 

Healing Yoga: Proven Postures To Treat Twenty Common Ailments-- From Backache to Bone Loss, Shoulder Pain to Bunions, and More by Loren Fishman, MD

7 Steps to a Pain-Free Life: How to Rapidly Relieve Back, Neck and Shoulder Pain by Robin McKenzie with Craig Kubey

Change Your Posture, Change Your Life: How the Power of the Alexander Technique Can Combat Back Pain, Tension and Stress by Richard Brennan [eBook]

Yoga For Back Pain by Loren Fishman, Carol Ardman

End Back Pain Forever: A Groundbreaking Approach to Eliminate Your Suffering by Norman J. Marcus 

Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move With Confidence by Eric Goodman, Peter Park

Trigger Point Therapy For Low Back Pain: A Self-Treatment Workbook by Sharon Sauer, Mary Biancalana [eBook]

Exercises For Back Pain by William Smith [eBook]


If you are experiencing back pain or another ailment or want to find out more information about a health condition, you can also try using one of our health and medical databases.   Some of these resources require a valid library card number and PIN to access. Please be aware that neither books nor eResources should replace advice from a qualified medical practitioner.


Consumer Health Complete: A reliable, user-friendly resource featuring medical, health and wellness articles, guides, videos, reports, fact sheets and more.  Available in many languages.

Medline Plus: a service of the National Institutes of Health, produced by the National Library of Medicine.  Timely and authoritative health and medical information presented with the needs of patients and their community of family and friends in mind.

WebMD: A dynamic, interactive consumer health site bringing together health guides, news and communities.

Health Reference Center Academic: A full-text database featuring articles and reference resources for consumer health researchers, students and medical professionals.  

Sports Medicine & Physical Therapy Collection: Both researcher and practitioner alike will find relevant, authoritative content in this collection, which includes over 100 titles covering the fields of physical therapy and sports medicine. Covering a wide spectrum of information, researchers will have access to a diverse, but focused set of topics in the field, including proven treatment techniques, experimental research theses, and many more. 
 

Horror: What is it?

Since I've been reading nothing but horror books this month, I was interested to read the posts Kelly Jensen, of Stacked Books, has written about it. I've never given much thought to what makes a horror story--does it have to include paranormal elements? Or is it something that could happen in real life? If someone asked, I suppose I would say horror needs to include a paranormal element, based on the fact that so much of Stephen King's novels could never happen in real life.

But then I read the Horror Writers Association's definition of horror fiction, which to summarize, is any fiction that elicits a painful or intense fear, dread, or dismay in readers. As the Horror Writers Association goes on to mention, this means horror fiction doesn't have to be limited to just one thing. It's not just supernatural stories, like a ghost story. It can be anything that elicits the emotions, so it could be a story about a serial killer. According to author Ellen Hopkins, horror has the possibility of being something like peer pressure (though in an interview, she stated she's not sure if peer pressure can be horror fiction, though it can be horrifying to teens).

Since reading some of these ideas, I've been thinking about what horror is to be. Can horror fiction be supernatural? Absolutely. Any ghost story written with the intent to scare is horror. Stories with serial killers can also be horror, but not all of them are--some are mysteries. To some people, maybe that's the same thing. What I think is interesting is that some people think a series like Barry Lyga's I Hunt Killers is horror, because it deals with a protagonist whose dad is the world's most notorious serial killer, and the dad wants the protagonist to be exactly like him, but to me, the I Hunt Killers series isn't horror at all. For me, it's a mystery series.

As some people, such as Kelly Jensen, have suggested, horror fiction is getting harder and harder to define, and I agree with them that it's in part because what elicits intense fear in one person is different from what elicits intense fear in another person. It's such a personal thing that it might not be easy to define what is horror fiction and what isn't, hence the blurring of boundaries.

What is horror fiction to you? Whether it's just a definition of what it means, or a list of some books that you consider horror, let me know in the comments!

Foodie Fest: Baked Goodies

Various cooking and baking utensils on shelf and hanging from rail. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 5 Sep 2015.

Who knew there was so much variety in baking? Vegan baking, baking with less sugar, gluten-free, raw (?!), America's favorite desserts, cakes and cupcakes with a surprise inside, cakes with evil designs, vintage bakes, baking traditions from around the world, baking to make yourself happy, the Great British Bake Off  (anybody else watching it on PBS?). This was an easy list to compile - the difficulty was not placing a hold on every book so we could drool over the glossy pictures! 


Honey & Jam: Seasonal Baking From My Kitchen in the Mountains by Hannah Queen

Custom Confections: Delicious Desserts You Can Create and Enjoy by Jen Besel (J)

Cake My Day!: Eye-Popping Designs For Simple, Stunning, Fanciful, and Funny Cakes by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson 

Back in the Day Bakery, Made With Love: More Than 100 Recipes and Make-It-Yourself Projects to Create and Share by Cheryl Day and Griffith Day 

Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break, With Recipes For Pastries, Breads, and Other Treats by Anna Brones & Johanna Kindvall

Baking With Less Sugar: Recipes For Desserts Using Natural Sweeteners and Little-To-No White Sugar by Joanne Chang of Flour Bakery + Café

Rawsome Vegan Baking : An Un-Cookbook for Raw, Gluten-Free, Vegan, Beautiful and Sinfully Sweet Cookies, Cakes, Bars and Cupcakes by Emily von Euw, founder of ThisRawsomeVeganLife.com

 
Baked Occasions: Desserts For Leisure Activities, Holidays, and Informal Celebrations by Matt Lewis

Baking Chez Moi: Recipes From My Paris Home To Your Home Anywhere by Dorie Greenspan  

The Secret Lives of Baked Goods: Sweet Stories & Recipes For America's Favorite Desserts by Jessie Oleson Moore 

Bake It Like You Mean It by Gesine Bullock-Prado

Bake It In a Cupcake: 50 Treats With a Surprise Inside by Megan Seling [eBook] 

Great British Bake Off 2013  by Linda Collister 

Surprise-Inside Cakes: Amazing Cakes For Every Occasion-- With a Little Something Extra Inside by Amanda Rettke 

Let Us All Eat Cake: Gluten-Free Recipes For Everyone's Favorite Cakes by Catherine Ruehle with Sarah Scheffel 

Saved By Cake: Over 80 Ways to Bake Yourself Happy by Marian Keyes 

Twisted Cakes: Deliciously Evil Designs for Every Occasion by Debbie Goard [eBook] 

A World of Cake: 150 Recipes For Sweet Traditions From Cultures Near and Far by Krystina Castella 

Vintage Cakes: Timeless Cupcakes, Flips, Rolls, Layer, Angel, Snack, Chiffon, and Icebox Cakes For Today's Sweet Tooth by Julie Richardson   

Modern Art Desserts: Recipes For Cakes, Cookies, Confections, and Frozen Treats Based on Iconic Works of Art by Caitlin Freeman

If you enjoy baking,  have you considered checking out a cake pan from the library? The library catalog also has lots of books about baking bread...we just didn't choose that as our focus. Because dessert.

 

Foodie Fest: Food and Literature

Various cooking and baking utensils on shelf and hanging from rail. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 5 Sep 2015.

Are you a fan of culinary mysteries? Do you enjoy novels and memoirs with recipes, such as Like Water for Chocolate, A Homemade Life, Relish: My Life in the Kitchen, My Berlin Kitchen, and Julie & Julia? We'd like to recommend more delicious literary feasts to you! Whether it's taking inspiration from literature (and, occasionally, from television and art) or cooking one's way through great books and the history of world literature, these books should tickle your palate for reading, or eating, or both!


Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books by Cara Nicoletti

From Goldy's Kitchen: Recipes and Words on Writing, Culinary Adventures, and Life by Diane Mott Davidson

The Modern Art Cookbook by Mary Ann Caws

Kafka's Soup: A Complete History of World Literature in 14 Recipes written and illustrated by Mark Crick

The Bloomsbury Cookbook: Recipes for Life, Love and Art by Jans Ondaatje Rolls

My Prairie Cookbook: Memories and Frontier Food From My Little House to Yours by Melissa Gilbert 

Mary Poppins in the Kitchen: A Cookery Book With a Story by P.L. Travers [eBook]

Dinner With Mr. Darcy: Recipes Inspired By the Novels and Letters of Jane Austen by Pen Vogler 

Susan Mallery's Fool's Gold Cookbook: A Love Story Told Through 150 Recipes by Susan Mallery 

 

   

Foodie Fest: Single Subject Cookbooks

Various cooking and baking utensils on shelf and hanging from rail. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 5 Sep 2015.

Sometimes you pick up a cookbook because you are a fan of a celebrity chef (hello, Nigella) or a cuisine (Ethiopian, anyone?) or a lifestyle (many, many people are giving veganism a try) or a cooking technique (barbecuing/grilling, for example).  But have you ever tried a cookbook that is based around a specific food? We recently saw that the catalog was featuring 3 cookbooks devoted to yogurt, and we thought, what other cookbooks revolve around a single subject?  The list we came up with is kind of...eclectic. Are there any single subject cookbooks you've been intrigued by or would recommend?  Let us know in the comments!

Yogurt

Yogurt: Sweet and Savory Recipes For Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner by Janet Fletcher

Yogurt Culture: A Global Look at How to Make, Bake, Sip, and Chill the World's Creamiest, Healthiest Food by Cheryl Sternman Rule

The Greek Yogurt Cookbook: Includes Over 125 Delicious, Nutritious Greek Yogurt Recipes by Lauren Kelly [eBook] 


Vegetables

Brassicas: Cooking the World's Healthiest Vegetables - Kale, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts and More by Laura B. Russell  

Salad Love by David Bez

Fifty Shades of Kale: 50 Fresh and Satisfying Recipes That Are Bound to Please by Drew Ramsey, MD & Jennifer Iserloh

Garlic: An Edible Biography - The History, Politics, and Mythology Behind the World's Most Pungent Food, With Over 100 Recipes by Robin Cherry 

 

Animal Ingredients

Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World's Most Versatile Ingredient by Michael Ruhlman

Haute Dogs: Recipes For Delicious Hot Dogs, Buns, and Condiments by Russell Van Kraayenburg 

Pork: More Than 50 Heavenly Meals That Celebrate the Glory of Pig, Delicious Pig by Cree LeFavour  

Meat: Everything You Need to Know by Pat LaFrieda and Carolynn Carreño

 

Miscellaneous

The Donut: History, Recipes, and Lore from Boston to Berlin by Michael Krondl 

Bitter: A Taste of the World's Most Dangerous Flavor, With Recipes by Jennifer McLagan 

Puddin': Luscious and Unforgettable Puddings, Parfaits, Pudding Cakes, Pies, and Pops by Clio Goodman

 

Foodie Fest: One Dish, One Bowl, One Pot

Various cooking and baking utensils on shelf and hanging from rail. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 5 Sep 2015.

We don't know about you, but when we get home from a hard day at the library, we want our dinner to be simple and fast to make. That doesn't mean it has to be frozen or boil-in-a-bag or takeout, though!  Here are some cookbooks - there's even a baking book - of food you can make that won't have you cooking on all burners and cleaning up a mess of dishes afterwards. Enjoy a homecooked meal  without using every pot in the house!

Sheet Pan Suppers: 120 Recipes for Simple, Surprising, Hands-Off Meals Straight From the Oven - Plus Breakfasts, Desserts, and Snacks, Too! by Molly Gilbert

Savory Bites: Meals You Can Make in Your Cupcake Pan by Hollis Wilder 

One Bowl Baking: Simple, From Scratch Recipes for Delicious Desserts by Yvonne Ruperti 

One-Dish Vegan: More Than 150 Soul-Satisfying Recipes For Easy and Delicious One-Bowl and One-Plate Dinners by Robin Robertson

One Pot: 120+ Easy Meals From Your Skillet, Slow Cooker, Stockpot, and More from the kitchens of Martha Stewart Living

One Good Dish: The Pleasures of a Simple Meal by David Tanis

Ready When You Are: A Compendium of Comforting One-Dish Meals by Martha Rose Shulman

One Pot of the Day by Kate McMillan

Salad as a Meal: Healthy Main-Dish Salads For Every Season by Patricia Wells 


For slow cooker recipes, try a search using the subject "electric cooking, slow" or the keyword "slow cook*" (an asterisk at the end of a word will search for all variations of the word beginning with cook - cooking, cooker, etc.).


Not a meal, but looks like fun:

One-Hour Cheese by Claudia Lucero

 

Links

The Story Behind the One-Pan, Nine-Minute Pasta Recipe That Took Over the Internet [Slate] 

Healthy one-pot recipes [BBC] 

One-Dish Wonders [Whole Foods Market]

How to Eat Healthy [President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition]