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Browsing all posts tagged 'history'

Redemption of Criminal Youth

Title: Last Chance In Texas
By: John Hubner

The most violent criminal youth find hope in an unlikely place, "punish-'em-hard" Texas, The Giddings School, where all-day, one-on-one and group therapy sessions led by dedicated professionals teach the juvenile offenders to take responsibility for their crimes and to develop empathy and compassion for others. Instead of coming back into ... [Read more]

Posted by calln on Nov. 11, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, history, young adult
0 Comments

It's A Long Drive Down Interstate 5, or that's a lot of cotton!

Title: The King of California, J.G. Boswell and The Making of A Secret American Empire.
By: Mark Arax

This book dovetails perfectly if you happen to be reading John Steinbeck, or studying the photographs of Dorothea Lange. A biography which examines the life of a very powerful farmer (at one point owning over 200,000 acres of rich farmland) used to driving bargains across bar stools and shaking down ... [Read more]

Posted by pollockl on Oct. 20, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, history, biography
0 Comments

Ever worked a weird low-level job?

Title: Nickel and Dimed, on (not) getting by in America.
By: Barbara Ehrenreich

Haven't we all worked at some kind of wretched job at some point in our lives? And thought to ourselves "I am so over-educated for this!" In this book, Ms. Ehrenreich conducts an experiment, using herself for the test subject: find work in meaningless jobs and write about the experience ... [Read more]

Posted by pollockl on Oct. 4, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, history, biography
1 Comment

Pathways to Santa Cruz County & Its People

Title: Pathways to the Past: Adventures in Santa Cruz County History
By: Alverda Orlando and 21 others

Pathways to the Past is not the first book on the history of Santa Cruz County. As a matter of fact, at the time of this writing, our library catalog alone shows 135 titles on its history from early ones like Illustrations of Santa Cruz County, California, with historical sketch ... [Read more]

Posted by Hui-Lan on Aug. 29, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, history, biography
1 Comment

Endearing biography of Doris Day

Title: Doris Day: the untold story of the girl next door
By: David Kaufman

Are you a "Dayniac" too? This biography is so much more than just the usual tell-all book about America's sweetheart Doris Day with the superb voice and acting career. This book will give you the real low-down on her smarmy manager/husband, Marty Melcher. Miss Day was one of the biggest ... [Read more]

Posted by pollockl on July 16, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, history, biography
0 Comments

Lime Kilns in the Limelight

Title: Lime Kiln Legacies
By: Frank A. Perry, and others

Lime Kiln Legacies is the first complete history of the lime industry in Santa Cruz County. The rise and fall of the lime industry in Santa Cruz County coincides with the developing history of California. In the first half of the 1800s, only small amounts of lime began to be ... [Read more]

Posted by Hui-Lan on July 1, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, history
3 Comments

The Wife of a Famous Man

Title: Song Without Words
By: Sophia Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy's wife bore him 13 children. He scribbled his novels in notebooks that only she was able to read so she spent all night copying in a legible hand everything he wrote the previous day...think about THAT the next time you see a copy of WAR AND PEACE. But ... [Read more]

Posted by Ruby Boggs on June 11, 2009
Tags: history, biography, photography
0 Comments

Watching The Oscars Will Never Be The Same.

Title: The Big Show : High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards
By: Steve Pond

All the in-fighting and back-stabbing and shocking shenanigans of Hollywood and the behind-the-scenes gossip of the biggest show we all love to watch! Written by an observer extraordinaire who loves juicy gossip as much as we do. Now I know just how quirky the hosts can be, and it's the ... [Read more]

Posted by pollockl on May 12, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, history
0 Comments

A Colorful History

Title: Color: A Natural History of the Palette
By: Victoria Finlay

Doesn't this sound like something that would be assigned in a dry history class? If you think so, you'd be wrong! Victoria Finlay, an excellent writer, has given us a history of the development of color in paint that is actually a page-turner. Extensively researched, we learn that each hue ... [Read more]

Posted by Ruby Boggs on May 2, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, history, biography, art
0 Comments

French wine makers in WWII: an inspiring story!

Title: Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure.
By: Don and Petrie Kladstrup

The authors interviewed several members of five prominent wine making families in France. Very interesting stories of how they personally hid Jewish refugees in wine caves and smuggled members of the Resistance in wine barrels! We read of grape harvests ruined because of the shortage of horses, sulfur dust and ... [Read more]

Posted by pollockl on March 19, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, history
1 Comment

Friends in the Kitchen

Title: M.F.K. Fisher and Me: A memoir of Food and Friendship
By: Jeannette Ferrary

If only it were my kitchen! I would prove to both Jeannette and Mary Frances that when I scramble eggs, or sear a pork chop, it was their advice that helped me make them turn out so "right." What serendipity! Jeannette is a cookbook writer and writes M.F.K. a fan ... [Read more]

Posted by pollockl on Feb. 26, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, history, biography
0 Comments

Correspondence from the German Occupation

Title: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
By: Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Upon a strong recommendation and kind provision of the book, I started to embark on the reading of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. However I had a slow start. For some reason, I was deterred by its format consisting of letters or correspondence between the protagonist Juliet ... [Read more]

Posted by Hui-Lan on Feb. 17, 2009
Tags: fiction, history
4 Comments

History You Can't Put Down

Title: The Great Bridge
By: David McCullough

Part biography, part engineering study, and part political history, The Great Bridge tells the story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. Popular historian David McCullough brings history to life in this book, which has all of the interest, characters and plot of a good novel. Even those (like myself) ... [Read more]

Posted by fatorangecat on Nov. 4, 2008
Tags: non-fiction, history
0 Comments