The History of Our Food

Why do we eat the things we do? And how did this come to be the case? Read the fascinating histories behind some of our most common and beloved ingredients.

Butter: A Rich History by Elaine Khosrova

From the ancient butter bogs of Ireland to the sacred butter sculptures of Tibet, Khosrova details its surprisingly vital role in history, politics, economics, nutrition, even spirituality and art.

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

Only Kurlansky, winner of the James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing for Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, could woo readers toward such an off-beat topic. Yet salt, Kurlansky asserts, has "shaped civilization." A piquant blend of the historic, political, commercial, scientific and culinary, the book  is sure to entertain as well as educate.  

Garlic: An Edible Biography by Robin Cherry

While this book does not claim that garlic saved civilization (though it might cure whatever ails you), it does take us on a grand tour of garlic's fascinating role in history, medicine, literature, and art; its controversial role in bigotry, mythology, and superstition; and its indispensable contribution to the great cuisines of the world.  

Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages by Anne Mendelson

In a recipe book that is part cultural critique and part culinary history, Mendelson reaps nearly 400 fascinating pages from that most elemental of ingredients. 

Fiction Featuring Historical Women

Historical fiction often features the more well known figures in history, particularly when it comes to women.  Here are some works that highlight the lives of less well known, but very important women figures in history.

The Other Einstein - Marie Benedict

Mitza Marić has always been a little different from other girls. Most twenty-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.  Fictional account of the wife of Albert Einstein who was also a brilliant physicist.

The Moon in the Palace - Weina Dai Randel 

A Palace concubine, young Mei knows nothing of these womanly arts, yet she will give the Emperor a gift he can never forget. Mei's intelligence and curiosity, the same traits that make her an outcast among the other concubines, impress the Emperor. But just as she is in a position to seduce the most powerful man in China, divided loyalties split the palace in two, culminating in a perilous battle that Mei can only hope to survive.  Mei, also known as Wu Zetian, went on to become  Empress Wu, was involved in the expansion of China. 

Margaret the First - Danielle Dutton

Margaret the First dramatizes the life of Margaret Cavendish, the shy, gifted, and wildly unconventional 17th-century Duchess. The eccentric Margaret wrote and published volumes of poems, philosophy, feminist plays, and Utopian science fiction at a time when 'being a writer' was not an option open to women. As the English Civil War raged on, Margaret met and married William Cavendish, who encouraged her writing and her desire for a career. After the War, her work earned her both fame and infamy in England: at the dawn of daily newspapers, she was "Mad Madge," an original tabloid celebrity. Yet Margaret was also the first woman to be invited to the Royal Society of London--a mainstay of the Scientific Revolution--and the last for another two hundred years.

Hild - Nicola Griffith

Tells the story of Saint Hilda of Whitby.  Daughter of a poisoned prince and a crafty noblewoman, quiet, bright-minded Hild arrives at the court of King Edwin of Northumbria, where the six-year-old takes on the role of seer/consiglieri for a monarch troubled by shifting allegiances and Roman emissaries attempting to spread their new religion.

Terrible Virtue - Ellen Feldman 

A fictional portrait of one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century follows the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, who sacrificed two husbands, three children, and scores of lovers in her fight for sexual equality and freedom.

Great Women in Comics

In honor of Women's History Month, here are some of my favorite books and graphic novels featuring strong female characters, written by amazing female writers.

Ms Marvel: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson

Kamala Khan is an ordinary girl from Jersey City -- until she's suddenly empowered with extraordinary gifts. But who truly is the new Ms. Marvel? Teenager? Muslim? Inhuman? Find out as she takes the Marvel Universe by storm! When Kamala discovers the dangers of her newfound powers, she unlocks a secret behind them, as well. Is Kamala ready to wield these immense new gifts? Or will the weight of the legacy before her be too much to bear? Kamala has no idea, either. But she's comin' for you, New York!

Lumberjanes: Beware the Kitten Holy by Noelle Stevenson

Friendship to the max! At Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet's camp for hardcore lady-types, things are not what they seem. Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams. Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together...and they're not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way!

Batgirl: The Darkest Reflection by Gail Simone

The nightmare-inducing brute known as Mirror is destroying the lives of Gotham City residents seemingly at random. Will Barbara be able to survive her explosive confrontation with this new villain, as well as facing dark secrets from her past?

Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie by Anne Martinetti

The life of Agatha Christie was as mysterious and eventful as her fiction. This beautifully illustrated graphic novel traces the life of the Queen of Whodunnit from her childhood in Torquay, England, through a career filled with success, mischief, and adventure, to her later years as Dame Agatha.

Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel

From the best-selling author of Fun Home, Time magazine’s No. 1 Book of the Year, a brilliantly told graphic memoir of Alison Bechdel becoming the artist her mother wanted to be.

Something New by Lucy Knisley

In 2010, Lucy and her long-term boyfriend John broke up. Three long, lonely years later, John returned to New York, walked into Lucy's apartment, and proposed. This is not that story. It is the story of what came after: The Wedding.

Pretty Deadly by Kelly Sue Deconnick

Presents the collected opening arc of the author's series that marries the magical realism of Sandman with the western brutality of Preacher. Death's daughter rides the wind on a horse made of smoke and her face bears the skull marks of her father. Her origin story is a tale of retribution as beautifully lush as it is unflinchingly savage.

After BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, Try...

Disney's live action remake of Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens as the title characters, won the box office this weekend. Did you go see it? Here are some similar movies to watch either before or after you check out Disney's latest hit:

La Belle et la Bête (1946): Jean Cocteau's classic take on the "tale as old as time" might be different from what you remember, but its magical production design is not to be missed!

King Kong (1933): "It was beauty killed the beast." A very different imagining of the story, but also a classic! And hey, there's also a new King Kong movie in theaters now.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001): While this new Beauty and the Beast is a more traditional retelling of the fairy tale, this Spielberg film is a wildly new take on Pinocchio. 

Big Fish (2003): Seamlessly blending wild fantasy with our everyday world, Big Fish has a big heart and a lot of imagination.

Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History: Women's History Month

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's quote has always been one of my favorites. Who were these women that we did not learn about in a standard history class? Were they really so wild?

Or were they just trailblazers for their time in society? 

Take a look at a few of these titles and make your own decisions.

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon--and the journey of a generation by Shelia Weller

Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Carly Simon remain among the most enduring and important women in popular music. Each woman is distinct: King is the product of outer-borough, middle-class New York City; Mitchell is a granddaughter of Canadian farmers; and Simon is a child of the Manhattan intellectual upper crust. They collectively represent, in their lives and their songs, a great swath of American girls who came of age in the late 1960s.

Flappers: six women of a dangerous generation by Judith Mackrell

A biography of six women who declared their independence during the Jazz Age. British heiresses Diana Cooper and Nancy Cunard, Russian artist Tamara de Lempicka, African-American entertainer Josephine Baker, actress Tallulah Bankhead and aspiring writer Zelda Fitzgerald were daring women who defied expectations about what a woman's life should be.

The Scarlet Sisters: sex, suffrage, and scandal in the Gilded Age by Myra MacPherson

Describes the adventures of  Victoria Claflin Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee (Tennie) Claflin who tried to overcome the male-dominated social norms of the late nineteenth century and achieved a remarkable list of firsts, including the first woman-run brokerage house and the first woman to run for president.

Wonder Women: 25 innovators, inventors, and trailblazers whochanged history by Sam Maggs

The title is a fun and feminist look at the brilliant, brainy and totally rad women in history who broke barriers as scientists, engineers, mathematicians, adventurers and inventors, along with interviews with real-life women in STEM careers.

Hidden Figures: the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race by Margot Lee Shetterly

An account of the previously unheralded but pivotal contributions of NASA's African-American women mathematicians to America's space program describes how they were segregated from their white counterparts by Jim Crow laws in spite of their groundbreaking successes. ( Our Book It book discussion group is talking about this title on March 22nd.)

And don't forget Vicki Leon's 'Uppity women' series of titles for short bios of fascinating women of their times. There is the Uppity women of the New World, Uppity women of the Renaissance, Uppity women of medieval times , and the Uppity women of ancient times. 
                

So try one of these titles and take a look at her story. You might find a side of history that you have never explored before!

A Reading of the Green: Irish Authors to Enjoy for St. Patrick's Day

Check out these riveting titles by Irish authors to get you in a St. Patrick's Day mood:

The Green Road
by Anne Enright

Rosaleen Madigan's four children enter adulthood in Western Ireland at a time of great change. In the decades that follow, they all forge their own paths through life, but a visit home one Christmas forces them to face their mother's aging and the decision that she's made that will have repercussions on all their lives.







In the Woods
by Tana French


Twenty years after witnessing the violent disappearances of two companions from their small Dublin suburb, detective Rob Ryan investigates a chillingly similar murder that takes place in the same wooded area, a case that forces him to piece together his traumatic memories.











The Dubliners
by James Joyce


In this collection of masterful stories, steeped in realism, James Joyce creates an exacting portrait of his native city, showing how it reflects the general decline of Irish culture and civilization









By the Lake
by John McGahern


A year in the lives of the unforgettable inhabitants of a modern-day Irish village--the Ruttledges, Londoners seeking a new way of life; the womanizing John Quinn; Jimmy Joe McKiernan, local head of the IRA; locals Jamesie and his wife Mary; and "the Shah," the wealthiest man in town--unfolds through a cylce of work, play, religious festivals, and the changing seasons.




Felicia's Journey
by William Trevor

Young and pregnant, Felicia leaves her Irish hometown to search for her boyfriend in the English Midlands, only to fall in with the obese, fiftyish Mr. Hilditch, in a tale of psychological suspense.

A Year of Reading March 2017: Women's History Month

In January, the library introduced a Year of Reading - a list of carefully selected monthly book picks. March is Women's History Month.

Here are some more titles if you enjoyed our March selections:

Girls of Atomic City: the Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II 
by Denise Kiernan

The town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, boomed on U.S military-owned acreage between 1942-1944. Its electricity usage matched that of New York City, and its population reached 75,000 - yet it didn't appear on a single map during World War II. Many new residents were women, recruited at top-dollar wages for positions from chemists to couriers. Sworn to strict secrecy protocols, they were told only that their work would ensure a swift, final World War II victory. The nuclear blast at Hiroshima at last revealed their hidden roles. The Girls of Atomic City brilliantly illuminates a long-overlooked chapter of both World War II and women's history.

The Astronaut Wives Club: a True Story

by Lily Koppel

With selection of the first crew members of the Mercury space program in 1959, a small group of women who had been ordinary military wives became celebrities. As role models and representatives of the space program, NASA demaneded their perfection, from their clothing to the meals they served at home.This intimate, informative group portrait chronicles how they formed a support group (ater extending to the wives the Gemini and Apollo astronauts) and became an essential resource behind the scenes of the space program's early years.

Wild Women: Crusaders, Curmudgeons, and Completely Corsetless Ladies in the Otherwise Virtuous Victorian Era

by Autumn Stephens

A fascinating and sometimes humorous glimpse into the lives of 150 19th-century American women who refused to whittle themselves down to the Victorian model of proper womanhood.

The Aviator's Wife (fiction)

by Melanie Benjamin 

A story inspired by the marriage between Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh traces the romance between a handsome young aviator and a shy ambassador's daughter whose relationship is marked by wild international acclaim.

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker (fiction)

by Jennifer Chiaverini

Presents a fictionalized account of the friendship between Mary Todd Lincoln and her dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley, a former slave.

Reese Witherspoon Reading List

Guess who people are following for great reads recommendations? That's right Reese Witherspoon!

When your favorite celebs aren’t hard at work filming an upcoming movie or TV show, many love to dive into a good book. Academy Award–winning actress Reese Witherspoon is a self-professed bookworm, and her Instagram account has become a social media book club named #rwbookclub where she highlights the books she’s reading with artful photographs. Hundreds of fans chime in with their thoughts on her selections, and offer their recommendations as well.
Check out the Time Magazine article on Reese Witherspoon and building a powerful book club.
Reese is optioning books that have strong protagonist characters and making them into film. She has purchased the rights to Wild and Gone Girl which made for a remarkable first two movies racking up a collective three Oscar nominations and five Golden Globe nods. They both happened to stem from bestselling books. Reese and her partners started the company, Pacific Standard with one goal in mind: to develop and produce film and television with complex and interesting female characters.

Reese Witherspoon is adding to her literary bonafides by writing her own “lifestyle” book, which will celebrate her Southern roots. The so-far-untitled book by the actress, producer and book lover “will celebrate the American South’s signature style, grace, and charm and illustrate how 21st century women can incorporate these elements into everyday life”. The book will be published in 2018 by Touchstone and Simon & Schuster U.K. and will include color photographs and “personal essays about the people and places that influenced” Witherspoon.

Check out some of Witherspoon’s book recommendations from #rwbookclub.

1. Second Life by S.J. Watson

2. Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knolls

3. Ashley's War by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

5. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

6. The Girl On the Train By Paula Hawkins

7. Little Big Lies by Liane Moriarty
8. You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein
9. The Dry by Jane Harper
10. The Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person

11. Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight
12. All Is Not forgotten by Wendy Walker

13. Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

14. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

15. Opening Belle by Maureen Sherry

16. In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Were

17. The Girls by Emma Cline
18. First Comes Love by Emily Griffin

19. The Outliers by Kimberly McCeight

21. Wild by Cherly Strayed

22. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
23. The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin

These are books that Reese Witherspoon has loved and her company Pacific Standard Films is set to create into movies.

Lincoln In The Bardo

I'm not sure when the last time I read a New York Times #1 bestselling novel that was also my favorite book I've read (this year). For me, and while I know it's only March, I can't imagine another book this YEAR eclipsing this incredible debut novel, LINCOLN IN THE BARDO, by George Saunders. Set in the early stages of the Civil War, the book's dazzling writing and unique format gets at grief and hope and love with rare insight and sympathy, as Abraham Lincoln struggles with the loss of his young son, Willie. Told in a wide range of voices from a liminal state between "that previous place" (life) and a final resting spot, it's at turns hilarious, heartfelt, and deeply moving. Colson Whitehead calls the novel "a luminous feat of generosity and humanism” and the Guardian says Saunders first novel "is a brilliant, exhausting, emotionally involving attempt to get up again, to fight for empathy, kindness and self-sacrifice.” I can't say enough good things about this one, and it's got a mounting holds list, so give a call to the Reader Services Desk (or click here) to place a hold AND check out one of Saunders’ short story collections (Tenth of December,  Pastoralia) while you wait. 

After LOGAN, Try...

Did you go see LOGAN in theaters this weekend? Its unique take on the superhero genre might leave you craving more similar titles. Here are just a few suggestions.

3:10 to Yuma: While Logan isn't your typical Western film, it does draw from Western movies for its look. 3:10 to Yuma is also directed by James Mangold, the director Logan. This remake of a classic Western stars Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.

First Blood: If you like your action movies with a little bit less action and a little bit more emotion, than both Logan and this first entry to the RAMBO series might appeal to you.

Shane: Don't miss this classic Western, and don't miss the reference to it in Logan!

Unforgiven: A contemporary Western influenced by Shane, and also cited by Logan's director as an influence. Unforgiven is one of Clint Eastwood's most critically acclaimed films.

Little Miss Sunshine: Maybe not the most apparently similar movie on the list, but both are road movies with themes of family.

Looper: Both Looper and Logan use their science fiction elements sparingly, and both use similar central locations. Both are great action films with great stories.

Wilco, the local band

Want to get to know Wilco? The alternative rock band, from sweet-home Chicago, just wrapped up a four-night gig at the Chicago Theater. The Chicago Theater is one of my favorite venues. I love the vintage feel and there really isn't a bad seat in the house, plus I love going downtown. If you are a fan or want to get to know them better, check out what we have. Don't forget you can also download music with your library card using Hoopla.

Schmilco  2016

Star Wars 2015

(The Album) 2009
Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rare Tracks 1994-2014

What's Your 20?: Essential Tracks 1994-2014

The Whole Love Deluxe edition 2011

Sky Blue Sky 2007

Kicking Television 2005

A Ghost Is Born 2004 

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 2002

Summerteeth 1999