The Lamont News-List Special Intersession Issue January 23,2006

The Lamont News-List lamontnews-list(a)fas.harvard.edu January 23, 2006 http://hcl.harvard.edu/lamont *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Be well, stay safe, have fun and rest up! See you back in Lamont on February 1st! ********************************************************** THE INTERSESSION *R & R* SPECIAL ISSUE: -- Books That Harvard Students Recommend 16 titles for Intersession reading -- New Films in Morse Music & Media Recent and classic film titles we've acquired -- Lamont Library Hours During Intersession Just in case you plan to stay in town ********************************************************** BOOKS FOR INTERSESSION READING 16 titles that Harvard Students recommend ** WARPED PASSAGES: UNRAVELLING THE MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE'S HIDDEN DIMENSIONS, by Lisa Randall. Ecco, 2005. In her effort to translate theoretical physics into terms that ordinary readers can understand, Harvard professor Lisa Randall follows in the tradition of popular science writers like Stephen Hawking (_A Brief History of Time_) and Brian Greene (_The Elegant Universe_). In _Warped Passages_, she considers the possibility that the world we perceive in the three spatial dimensions and in time may actually be composed of many, many more. One consequence of extradimensionality is the perspective it offers on a host of cosmic quandaries, such as why gravity is so much weaker than magnetism. Lin Cong '09 attended a public lecture by Professor Randall and was "really intrigued" by what he heard. _Warped Passages_, which was a _New York Times_ "Notable Book" in 2005, is something Lin wants to read as soon as he has free time. ** DECLINE AND FALL, by Evelyn Waugh. Grosset and Dunlap, 1929. Alex Lemann, an Adams House senior, describes _Decline and Fall_ as "something lighthearted to chase away those mid-winter exam period doldrums." Waugh's first novel, it is also considered his finest comic production. Alex writes that _Decline and Fall_ is a "hilarious, meandering tale about a young man [Paul Pennyfeather] who is unfairly kicked out of Oxford for bad behavior and decides to become a prep-school teacher." By the end of the novel, Paul is back at Oxford, having met a series of strange characters and having had a series of odd experiences along the way. ** A SWIFTLY TILTING PLANET, by Madeleine L'Engle. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1978. This is the third book in Madeleine L'Engle's classic children's collection, the Time Quintet. Fifteen-year-old Charles Wallace Murry, whom readers first met in _A Wrinkle in Time_, has a little task to accomplish as the novel opens. In 24 hours, a mad dictator will destroy the universe by declaring nuclear war -- unless Charles Wallace can go back in time to change the lives of one of four Might-Have-Beens in history. The freshman who recommends _A Swiftly Tilting Planet_ points out that while it is a "kid's book, that doesn't stop it from being an incredibly deep story. The book is a combination of science fiction and fantasy, and L'Engle really involves the reader in the quest." ** WORD CIRCUS, by Richard Lederer. Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1998. "Words teetertottering, words spinning their unicycles, words breathing fire. . ." This is how Marc Janke '08 characterizes _Word Circus_, by Richard Lederer. It is, he writes,"a book about anything and everything about the English language--homophones, anagrams, acrostics, spoonerisms, anachronisms . . . it's all there." _Word Circus_ presents "more English contortions than any one person can possibly handle in one sitting." But it sure sounds like a fun book! ** PANTHER IN THE BASEMENT, by Amos Oz. Trans. Nicholas de Lange. Harcourt Brace, 1997. Hezzy Smith '08 describes the plot of Oz's novel, set in 1947 Jerusalem, this way: "At the nexus of language, politics and social rapport, a young, word-hungry Israeli boy encounters and befriends a British soldier in the company occupying his homeland. He fancies himself an intelligence operative in order to justify his growing attachment, but ultimately has to face the question of whether one can forge personal alliances across political lines without eroding one's identity." When _Panther in the Basement_ appeared in an English translation in 1997, one reviewer even hailed it as "further evidence of Oz's increasing claim to serious Nobel Prize consideration." ** PASTWATCH: THE REDEMPTION OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, by Orson Scott Card. TOR, 1996. It's the 23rd century. Three travelers, who belong to an organization called "Pastwatch," journey back from the ruined and doomed earth they inhabit to the time of Columbus's landing in North America. They hope to alter events so that the contact between Europeans and indigenous peoples will prove less disastrous. Orson Scott Card is probably best known for his award-winning novel, _Ender's Game_, and its sequel, _Ender's Shadow_. But one News-List reader is just as impressed by _Pastwatch_, which is equal parts sci-fi and alternative history. "It explores the always interesting topic of what 'might have been,'" writes Kimberly Soo '09. "Plus, it was very neat to see how big a turning point 1492 was." If you like _Pastwatch_, Kimberly suggests you also dip into _MAPS IN THE MIRROR: THE SHORT FICTION OF ORSON SCOTT CARD_ (TOR, 1990). It's a collection of 46 stories which range from fantasy and sci-fi to horror and theological speculation. "Card has a perspective on life that's pretty different from a lot of other authors I've read and it's pretty cool to see how he explores life using these stories." ** HARVARD YARD, by William Martin. Warner Books, 2003. Legend has it (in William Martin's novel, at least) that William Shakespeare brought John Harvard's parents together and wrote a play for them called "Love's Labours Won." That play was widely assumed to have been lost in the fire that destroyed the Harvard Library in the late 1600s. However, Harvard had wisely bequeathed the prized manuscript to his best student, young Isaac Wedge, cautioning him to safeguard the play until its artistic value could be appreciated. After 12 generations of Wedge heirs, the play's whereabouts have been lost -- until, that is, an enterprising Harvard graduate student unearths clues that suggest the play may still exist, secreted somewhere in Harvard Yard. "It's very enjoyable," according to Philip Kenner '09, and "even more so for students who attend Harvard. It features all of our favorite buildings on campus and is a fast read." ** GENIUS: THE LIFE AND SCIENCE OF RICHARD FEYNMAN, by James Gleick. Pantheon Books, 1992. James Gleick is considered one of best popular science writers around and when his biography of Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Fenyman was published in 1992, the _Washington Post_ called it a "jewel." Richard Feynman's career touched on every area of modern science, from the Manhattan Project to quantum electromechanics; and it was his now famous experiment, conducted on live TV, that solved the mystery of the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1985. Like any good biographer, Gleick helps us to know something about the man who was once described as a "cross between Groucho Marx and Albert Einstein." More importanly, however, Gleick affords us a fascinating glimpse into how science is done by a brilliant mind. _Genius_ was recommended by freshman Lin Cong. ** IN COLD BLOOD: A TRUE ACCOUNT OF A MULTIPLE MURDER AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, by Truman Capote. New American Library, 1965. The release of the movie _Capote_ last fall has renewed interest in the 1965 book that many consider this writer's masterwork. _In Cold Blood_ created a new genre -- a literary hybrid that Capote himself dubbed "the nonfiction novel." It details the brutal 1959 murder of four members of a Kansas farming family, the arrest of the two men responsible for the crime, and their eventual executions. Recommended by a Lowell House junior, who calls it "chilling and absolutely engrossing at the same time." ** THE EVOLUTION-CREATION STRUGGLE, by Marc Ruse. Harvard U P, 2005. Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science at Florida State University, traces creationism and evolutionism back to a common origin: the crisis of faith during the Enlightenment. Ruse follows the history of this great debate through the Victorian era and up to its recent expressions in the work of evolutionist Richard Dawkins on the one hand and the proponents of "intelligent design" on the other. Harvard student Sally Elliot found it a "bracing, rigorous, and opinionated piece of intellectual history" and "highly recommends" it to News-List readers. ** THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY, by Michael Chabon. Random House, 2000. During World War II, two boys (one a Czech refugee, the other his American cousin) invent a comic strip hero called the Escapist. _The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay_ won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, and rightly so. As freshman Rachel Pollack observes, "the novel is funny, informative, and richly touching. Chabon depicts the characters so colorfully that one feels sad to leave them when the book ends." ** MERE CHRISTIANITY, by C.S. Lewis. Macmillan, 1952. "I read this book last year and really loved it," writes freshman Kim Soo. "Lewis's style is a lot of fun; he gives a lot of concrete examples that make even highly abstract things understandable. Plus, I love the way he reasons things from the ground up. And it's a good introduction to Christianity whether you're looking at it from a non-Christian perspective (to understand what that religion is about) or from a Christian perspective." Two other C. S. Lewis titles also come highly recommended by Kim. _TILL WE HAVE FACES_ (1956) is a reworking of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche and a study of the struggle between sacred and profane love. "But it tells the story from an interesting perspective" (that of Psyche's older, less attractive sister) and "Lewis uses the device of an 'unreliable narrator' to reveal something significant about the way a lot of people think." _ THE GREAT DIVORCE_ (1946) has a title that's a bit misleading, Kim tells us, since it isn't at all about divorce "in the marital sense." Instead, Lewis reflects upon "the separateness of Heaven and Hell (the 'divorce' between them)." Cast as a dream vision, the story is told in the first person, a device that "allows the reader to see Lewis (the giant that he is) as a human with his own shortcomings and dependencies." ** THE GRIZZLY MAZE: TIMOTHY TREADWELL'S FATAL OBSESSION WITH ALASKAN BEARS, by Nick Jans. Dutton, 2005. In October 2003, 46 year-old Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend, 32 year-old Amie Huguenard, were killed and eaten by a grizzly in Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve. Treadwell, a self-proclaimed bear expert had spent thirteen summers living mostly alone in the Katmai "grizzly maze," filming and interacting with these wild animals. To some, like those who joined his bear appreciation group, "Grizzly People," Treadwell was a pioneer and an environmental hero; to others, including the park rangers who worried about his safety, he was a reckless crackpot. Jans's book presents Treadwell in his complexity but is most interesting, according to the student who recently finished it, for the "questions that are raised -- but not fully answered -- about interspecies contact." Treadwell, by the way, was also the subject of a Werner Herzog documentary, "Grizzly Man," released in 2005. ********************************************************** NEW FILMS IN MORSE MUSIC & MEDIA Recent and classic titles added to our collection ** RAY. Morse Music & Media DVD PN1995.9.B55 R39 2005x Oscar winning performance by Jamie Foxx in the title role. Originally released in 2004. ** ONCE WERE WARRIORS. Morse Music & Media DVD PN1995.9.A835 O53 2005x New Zealand film about the hard lives of a Maori family in a poor suburb in contemporary Auckland. Based on the novel by Alan Duff; released in 1994. ** LAST DAYS. Morse Music & Media DVD PN1995.9.M463 G87 2005x Gus van Sant's film about the final hours in the life of Nirvana front-man, Kurt Cobain. ** KING KONG . Morse Music & Media DVD PN1995.9.M6 K56 2005x The 1933 original--still the best! ** BETTY. Morse Music & Media DVD PN1995.9.S87 B48 2005x A lethal game of cat and mouse, based on the novel by George Simenon; in French, with English subtitle. Originally released in 1992. ** HOTEL RWANDA. Morse Music & Media DVD PN1995.9.A43 H68 2005x The story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel worker who sheltered and save the lives of 1200 people during the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Originally released in 2004. ** ISLE OF THE DEAD and BEDLAM. Morse Music & Media DVD PN1995.9.H6 I85 2005x starring role in both films. Originally released in 1945 and 1946. ********************************************************** LAMONT LIBRARY HOURS DURING INTERSESSION Just in case you'll be in town Tuesday, January 24 8:00am - 4:45pm Wednesday, January 25 - Sunday, January 29 CLOSED Monday, January 30 - Tuesday, January 31 8:00am - 4:45pm Regular hours resume on February 1. The Quad Library closes for Intersession on Tuesday, January 24 at 5 p.m. It reopens at 3 p.m. on February 1. ********************************************************* HAVE A TOPIC you'd like to see us cover in a future issue of the Lamont News-List? A research question you need answered? A tip you want to pass along to other Lamont News-List readers? All suggestions welcome! Send your thoughts and comments to sgilroy at fas.harvard.edu. ********************************************************* You received this email because you subscribed to the Lamont News-List. 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