The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax by Tom Piazza

Alan Lomax was a renowned music documentarian as well as a singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist who is best known for his work (along with his father John) with the Library of Congress in preserving seminal American folk music. Between 1932 and 1942 Alan and his father worked as archivists for the Library of Congress’ Archive of American Folk song series. This was groundbreaking work that lead the Lomax’s to record important African American and Afro-Caribbean music as well as folk song traditions of the Ozarks and Appalachia, lumbermen, sailors, fishermen, bargemen, and Native Americans. They traveled out into the field to document the music - most of which was handed down from generation to generation and generic to its locality.

Alan Lomax also made the first recordings of bluesmen Muddy Waters, “Mississippi” Fred McDowell, Jelly Roll Morton and David “Honeyboy” Edwards – among others. He was also responsible for facilitating the careers of many well-known folk artists including, Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, Woody Gutherie, Burl Ives, Josh White, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Big Bill Broonzy, Wade Ward, Almeda Riddle and many more. In 1936 he and his father John produced the Slave Narrative project, now residing at the Library of Congress. Lomax had an insatiable hunger for discovering distinctly American original folksingers and tracing their influences. Much of the music he documented was found in the southern regions of the United States and often in rural, poor areas.

The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax is a compilation of photographs, words and music (a CD is included with 12 songs of some of the musicians Lomax recorded), spanning Lomax’s life’s work. The photographs and stories behind the people in them are wonderful and bring to life a better understanding of the music Lomax documented. The photographs cover the periods Lomax cultivated 1934-1978, but particularly emphasize his 1959- 1960 southern journey to the rural sections of Mississippi, Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia and Arkansas. These photos vividly tell a tale of the persons behind the music and span juke joints, back porches, farms, churches, and even penitentiaries.

The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax is a wonderful testament to a man doggedly devoted to recording the origins and legacies of American folk music. Lomax’s valuable work forever preserves the origins of not only the musical roots of the land, but perhaps more importantly portrays the history and culture of the country.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Beth and Jennifer are best friends, and they both work for The Courier - Beth writing movie reviews, Jennifer writing headlines for the Omaha paper.  They tell each other everything - usually via office email.  Beth is completely freaked out about being in her little sister's wedding (maid of honor, ugh), and is pretty sure her musician boyfriend Chris is never going to ask her to marry him.  Jennifer is worried about her maternal instincts - mostly, that she doesn't have them - and what to do about the fact that her high school marching band teacher husband really, really wants a baby.

Lincoln is the new IT guy, hired to work second shift mostly so he can monitor (read: spy for a suspicious administration sure that giving Internet access to employees basically means giving them free license to mess around on the clock) the interoffice email of his co-workers, who he really doesn't know, since he always works nights.  He doesn't really like reading other people's email for a living - but if he stays long enough, he can probably move out of his mom's house (who does, admittedly, make him some really excellent to go dinners).  He's also working on the Millennium upgrade, just in case the world ends in 2000.  Beth and Jennifer's emails to each other end up in his inbox as red-flagged all the time, but Lincoln can't bring himself to warn them to stop - and he also can't seem to stop reading them.  They're just so fun and nice and he loves how they really seem to care about each other - especially Beth.

This quirky romantic comedy is for devout fans of the movie Office Space, readers who swooned over author Rainbow Rowell's new, critically acclaimed novel, Eleanor & Park, or for everyone who loved the bizarre (but fabulous!) oddity of the characters in Matthew Quick's The Silver Linings Playbook.  For anyone who's ever stayed in a job just a little too long hoping to catch just one more smile from their crush while waiting for the elevator, Attachments is definitely one you should be reading on your lunch break - after all, maybe she'll ask you what you're reading!

Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham

Franny Banks has always wanted to be an actor.  After college, she packed up her things and moved to New York; giving herself three years to make significant strides in her acting career.  Now it's 1995 and the three year mark is looming. But it's taken Franny practically that long to get a decent waitressing gig at a comedy club and to get into a top-notch acting class. All she has to show for her hard work is a terrible commercial for Christmas sweaters and a contact at an agency who only sends her to auditions for commercials.  Franny's best hope is the showcase that her acting class is putting together.  There will be real agents in attendance and Franny hopes that if she does really well, this will be the big break she has been hoping for.  But then she falls in the middle of a monologue and, worse yet, maybe flashes the audience.  However, when Franny goes to Stavros afterwards for notes, he tells her that two different people were interested in her.  Two!  Franny immediately calls the prospective agents and sets up meetings.  

Barney Sparks of the Sparks Agency is a nice, if not older, agent running a one man talent agency.  He and Franny hit it off right away but Franny decides that she should at least meet the other agent before signing any official paperwork.  Then Franny arrives at Absolute Agency- one of the best groups in town.  She is immediately impressed by the big, shiny offices and the rather official Joe Melville. When Melville casually suggests that Franny go around the corner to a casting session, all thoughts of poor Barney immediately vanish.  

Franny learns a lot about acting during the course of the book.  Graham really pits her against a lot of different types of actors and you can see that though Franny is very talented, she is constantly floundering because she feels that she is missing something that everyone else has.  She has to work herself through many no's before she gets any yes's.  She has to decide what is most important about acting and what the craft means to her.  For example: will she appear topless for a few mere seconds in order to land a movie role?  Will she read each script as she thinks the casting directors want to hear it or will she take chances to let her own abilities shine through?  

Someday, Someday, Maybe was a delightful book.  That is not to say that it was fluffy and light, but the book itself made me feel warm and satisfied after reading it.  Lauren Graham has created a joyful romp through the life of an actress during the mid-90s and it is obvious that she had a lot of fun doing it.  And yes.  This is the very same Lauren Graham who starred in Gilmore Girls, Parenthood and Bad Santa.  Graham has a BA in English from Barnard College and clearly put her skills to use in a new way with her first novel.

Someday, Someday, Maybe will be published this coming Tuesday, April 30th.  The library received its advanced reader's copy from the publisher.  Place it on hold in CountyCat today!

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Mary Anning is a poor, working class woman living in Lyme Regis, England, a beach community. Elizabeth Philpot is a spinster with a passion for fish fossils.  Together they hunt fossils along the beach and find many varieties that were previously undiscovered.   Their friendship is tested by a fossil collector from London and questions raised about the authenticity of Mary Anning’s finds.   The novel begins in 1804, a time when women were not allowed out alone and their contributions to science were attributed to men.  Both of these women did live in Lyme Regis in the early nineteenth century and made valuable contributions to the study of fossils, though they were unacknowledged at the time.  Tracy Chevalier succeeds in making fossils fascinating with a novel that makes the beaches of England come to life.  From the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring, Remarkable Creatures is a richly drawn historical tale that brings little known people from famous moments in history vividly alive.

Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders

Tenth of December is a short story collection by an author who has mastered the art of the interior monologue. Alienated, damaged and disaffected characters are rendered understandable and likable by George Saunders’ insights into the workings of their minds. A young prisoner comes to understand the immorality of the pharmaceutical experiments he and others are being subjected to. A repressed young man must decide whether to ignore his father’s rules and help a neighbor. A veteran returns from the war, seething with resentment. A most endearing young boy and a middle-aged man with heart-breaking problems unwittingly put each other in grave danger. Suspense is created by the empathy Saunders’ readers feel for these and other characters. We hope all will turn out well but, as in real life, it might not.

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

Sage Singer bakes all night by herself.  She enjoys her solitary job because she doesn’t like being around people.  A scar on her face makes her self-conscious.  As Josef Weber from her grief support group starts dropping by the bakery she slowly lets down her guard and begins to enjoy his company.  Then Josef confesses he was a Nazi guard at a concentration camp and needs her to do something for him.  Her world is turned upside down as she discovers her history and is forced to confront evil and forgiveness.  This well-researched novel is sure to leave you with a different perspective on right and wrong.  Be sure to add bestelling author (and queen of the ethical dilemma and twist of an ending) Jodi Picoult's newest novel, The Storyteller, to your spring reading list!

Like a Rose by Rick Telander

Rick Telander is a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, who has written for Sports Illustrated, and has penned a number of sports-related books, most memorably Heaven Is A Playground – named one of Sports Illustrated’s top 100 sports books of all time. Like A Rose finds the author reflecting on his short stint as a prospective defensive back in the 1971 training camp of the National Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs. Subtitled, “Life Lessons from a Training Camp with Hank Stram and the Kansas City Chiefs,” the author cleverly juxtaposes his experiences playing football at the high school, college, and (albeit briefly) professional levels, with that of his own son’s passion for the game and the inherent dangers of the sport. Telander is at times conflicted between his love of football, the life lessons he took from the experience, and the increasingly publicized concerns about head injuries that his son faces while playing the sport. In between, Telander weaves an interesting story about finding a 15 cent spiral notebook diary he kept during his training camp with the Chiefs, and reflects on how the experience influenced the husband, father, and writer he became. Particularly poignant is Telander’s reconnection with his high school football coach and the author’s search for reasons why he became the star quarterback of his suburban Chicago school over thirty years prior. Throughout the book Telander throws out thoughtful gems of wisdom relating to the sport of football and lasting lessons it can teach. Perhaps most thought provoking is the idea that the game of football itself cannot exist without the very real potential for injury. Telander writes, “The possibility of injury – even severe injury – on any play was the very key to the game. If you couldn’t get hurt, if you didn’t stand the chance of hurting someone else….why play at all?” After his teenage son Zack is knocked unconscious during a game, Telander is left questioning the game he loves, “His eyes are closed and he is not moving. I look at his little boy’s face through his big man’s armor, and I feel as though I am looking at all my sins, all my stupidity, all my ignorance.” In the end, the author concludes that he cannot hold back his son’s passion for the game anymore than his own father could, and that for Telander the sport of football remains a teaching tool. Telander writes, “Football teaches you that life is hard, but it can be immensely rewarding….even thrilling.” Like A Rose is a short, easy read that will pleasantly surprise in the wealth of insight contained within.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Ursula Todd is born early on a snowy morning in February 1910 to a banker and his wife in a charming English home named Fox Corner. Or rather, Ursula is delivered still-born and then is promptly born again on a snowy morning in February of 1910.  Thus begin the lives of Ursula who finds new challenges in each life that she lives including: two world wars, death by drowning, almost being asphyxiated by a cat (and her older brother), death by falling off of a roof, an attempt on Hitler's life, domestic abuse, a creepy typing instructor, an illegal abortion, multiple deaths by Spanish Flu (Four times.  Four!), and a dismal marriage- among many other things.  The two sections of the book that are probably the most interesting are the depictions of war time with Ursula as a child whose father has gone to fight in WWI and then as an adult who has joined a rescue unit for civilians during the WWII blitz.  Ursula has extraordinary feelings of deja vu and in most instances these help her to find a way around some sort of potentially traumatic event.  But figments of lives past and the daily life of the present become entwined in a way which is hellish for poor Ursula.  At one point, Ursula ends up in a private clinic and tries her best to explain in as banal a way as possible: 

"Time isn't circular," she said to Dr. Kellet.  "It's like a...palimpsest." 

"Oh dear," he said. "That sounds very vexing."

The reader is never really sure if Ursula's lives will end or if she solves all of the problems that she is meant to.  But that is the way of things, in this book.  The layers of experience never really end.  

It is difficult to tell you a lot about this novel. A lot of critics have been describing this book as Groundhog Day meets The Butterfly Effect or Cloud Atlas.  But this book is more than that.  Though we see Ursula born time and time again, she owns a different personality, has different knowledge and different actions in each life.  We see the ways in which her family members differ in even the smallest of ways.  We see that no matter how hard Ursula works or tries to remedy a situation that life never turns out the way one plans.  I would highly recommend Life After Life to readers who enjoy an interesting non-linear style plot line or have enjoyed Atkinson's other novels.

The Spark by Kristine Barnett

It all started with alphabet flashcards that Jacob would bring to school every day. His teachers, and case workers thought that his parents had expectations that were too high for the 3 year old diagnosed with autism. They wanted to be sure he could dress himself, and learning the alphabet was too much to ever hope for. What they didn't know is that it wasn't his parents sending the cards with him. It was Jake who loved those cards.

Kristine Barnett tells the story of her oldest son Jacob or Jake and his diagnosis of Autism and how he exceeded expectations of his case workers and did learn to read, go to regular school and even attend college at the age of 9. But she's telling more than Jake's story, as she talks about the children she worked with at various autism groups she set up; children who were given reports of what they could not do, yet she found things they could do. It is also the story of parents of children with autism who are desperate for a community as well as advocates who see potential in their children.

Kristine is all of these things, advocate, support system and super mom. The Spark is an uplifting read and will have you looking for the great potential in every child you interact with. Author Kristine Barnett is the type of person you want to advocate for your children, and you know she would. Not just for parents of children with autism, any parent or person who works with children can benefit from the powerful message of The Spark.

The Spark will be published on April 9th. This review is based on an Advanced Reader's Edition sent from the publisher.