Reading and traveling, two of life`s greatest pleasures. Travel blogger Terri Smith claims the best of all worlds is combining reading and travel, but smart to plan ahead and travel with fellow bibliophiles. Visit the setting of your favorite novel or the birthplace of an author. Arrange a book club trip around your current month`s title selection. Not sure where to go first? Try Smith`s Off the Beaten Page, a literary travel guide with practical advice, reading lists and detailed itineraries for 15 favorite literary destinations. Visit Boston with Dennis Lahane`s Mystic River, or explore New Orleans with Anne Rice`s Vampire Chronicles. Armistead Maupin is an excellent tour guide to seeing the sights of San Francisco. So grab your favorite book, and get packing!

Reviewed by Kim W., University City Regional

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For contemporary icons, both Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe reluctantly embraced their signature mediums. In the late 1960s, they came together by chance in New York with surging creativity, but lacking resources. Smith’s Just Kids, recounts the support they gave each other as artists, keeping themselves afloat through money problems, identity, and health crises. Smith gently details Mapplethorpe’s all-consuming meticulousness, a trait he ultimately leveraged through his portraits and floral images. Fundamentally a poet, Smith also evolved into a visual artist and performer. She still writes and tours as she nears her seventh decade. Just Kids, is another gift of unconditional love to Robert, from Patti.

Reviewed by Lydia T., Main Library

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Three G` s and an E flat (followed by three F`s and a D) is possibly the most well- known phrase in classical music and the opening of Ludwig van Beethoven`s Fifth Symphony. Matthew Guerrrieri takes us through how these four notes and the fire that follows have grabbed listeners in various countries throughout the world. The Romantics envisioned the opening motto as Fate knocking at the door. The three short notes, one long note match the Morse code for `V` as in victory so would be taken by the Allies as a symbol of their coming triumph in World War II. Of course in the 4th movement with the addition of the trombone section, Fate kicks the door in.

Reviewed by John C., Main Library

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From the depths, come the words “Dona nobis pacem” rising higher as the high voices, trumpets and timpani join in. It is the music of the B Minor Mass reaching toward the almighty with that plea “Grant us Peace”. Johann Sebastian Bach was an innovator who took the musical forms of his time and molded them into works of great precision and still great passion. As Paul Elie relates, contemporary musicians such as Glenn Gould or Pau Casals and many others would take Bach’s works and reinvent them for the present day. The development of modern recording technology has actually taken away from the “special concerts and certain churches” and out into the world. Readers who love music will love this story of change and adaptation of Bach’s greatest works through the last hundred years.

Reviewed by John C., Main Library

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I have to admit that I never knew that Shakespeare had a tremor nor that Orwell had a cough. I received a delightful education on both, along with medical analyses of Hawthorne, Joyce, and other authors who sacrificed their health for their art. The author goes just far enough into historical and biological detail to entertain and intrigue, and provides fascinating tangents and sidebars to supplement the main courses. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the writers who appear in the book, and to anyone interested in an enjoyable exploration of historical medicine.

Reviewed by Erin R., Morrison Regional

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Are you a fan of “classic rock”? Did you know many of those recordings were not performed by the actual artist or group? When you read Kent Hartman’s The Wrecking Crew you will meet the unknown players who turned out some of the era’s most well known and well loved songs. Turns out it was cheaper and easier to keep the actual group out on the road and let some “professionals” do the heavy lifting in the recording studio. Glen Campbell is the most well known member of this group, but not the most talented. Meet this rag-tag team of musicians who made the older session players mad; as in “they’re wrecking our music business”.

Reviewed by Gina d., Main Library

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Photojojo is an entertaining non-fiction that helps you improve pictures you’ve already taken as well as photos you have yet to take. The book is laid out in sections with different types of ideas and projects for any photographer to take on. Many of the projects require supplies that go beyond just a camera and something to print out on, and some of them require a certain level of skill in other crafty endeavors, such as woodworking or sewing. The wording is playful and fun and the pictures that accompany the projects definitely entice the reader to want to try them out. I found the camera hacks chapter to be especially fascinating and can’t wait to try some of the techniques from the “not your typical photos” chapter.

Reviewed by Christen H., ImaginOn

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We are what we read, or as Leah Price suggests, what we own. `To expose a bookshelf is to compose a self` begins her unique collection of interviews highlighting the personal libraries of thirteen contemporary writers. From Alison Bechdel to Stephen Carter to Philip Pullman, each story offers an entertaining combination of personal histories, reading tastes, book collector insights, and personal recommendations for fellow bibliophiles. Interviews are interspersed with vivid and honest photos of bookshelves, bookcases and stocked libraries from the homes of each writer, from Bechdel`s obsessively organized shelves to Edmund White`s messy bedside stacks. A must read for book lovers and collectors. So what`s on your bookshelf?

Reviewed by Kim W., University City Regional

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Rocking in the New World by Bob Tulipan is a great book about how to go from having a band to being famous. In the beginning, you learn about how to form a band. There are some very good suggestions about how to find band mates and how to organize the power within the band. The book then moves on to talk about how to market your band and get your music to the right people and create a presence. There are a lot of practical, real world ideas for becoming a more popular group and the resources in the back of the book, like sample contracts and music industry contacts are an amazing source of information. This book would be great for anyone who would like to pursue a career in a band.

Reviewed by Christen H., ImaginOn

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In the last years of his life, Christopher Hitchens became known mostly as an outspoken atheist activist and supporter of the Iraq war. Behind this visage, however, lies a long, brilliant career as a literary critic and essayest. `Arguably` focuses on this aspect of his writing, giving a thorough sampling of his literary criticism, his essays on politics both foreign and domestic, and a smattering of his work reflecting his British-turned-American insight into society and the human condition. Not to be missed: his review of `The Singular Mark Twain` by Fred Kaplan, and his infamous Vanity Fair piece called `Why Women Aren`t Funny.`

Reviewed by Erin R., Morrison Regional

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