Schuyler’s Monster: A Father’s Journey with His Wordless Daughter by Robert Rummel-Hudson

Recommended by: Stephan J. Macaluso, Librarian
Call Number: Stacks RJ506.D47 H83 2008

Robert and Julie’s daughter, Schuyler, was born with a malformation of the folds of the brain. It robs Schuyler of speech and fine motor control. Robert refers to her condition as a Monster: it is a very rare disease with dire consequences and a frightening name; it lay in wait from before Schuyler’s birth, only to manifest itself at age three. Schuyler, Robert and Julie endured years of testing before her diagnosis--Schuyler was originally thought to be autistic. After much research, consultations with leading experts and a series of unforgettably enervating meetings with school officials, Schuyler began special classes and was given an electronic speech device, paid for in part by readers of Robert’s blog. This book is as much about a father’s unconditional love for his daughter as it is about a child with a complicated disease. Robert is a fine storyteller and this memoir is an honest, inspiring and very real look at fatherhood, coping, and a family’s resilience.

What is the What : The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers

Recommended by: Megan Coder, Librarian
Call Number: Stacks PS3605.G48 W43 2006

What is the What is a heartbreaking and heartwarming story about Valentino Achak Deng, a Lost Boy of Sudan. Dave Eggers tells his story through fact and some fictionalized accounts. It’s amazing to read all that Valentino went through during his flight from Sudan to escape the civil war where over two million people died. He had to leave his family without ever seeing them again, watch many of his dear friends die on the treks to Ethiopia and Kenya, endure countless days without food or water, and tolerate many trials and tribulations at various refugee camps. However, Valentino is a hopeful soul and though his tale is full of much sorrow What is the What is an inspirational read because of his positive attitude and resilience.

Nursing America: One year behind the nursing stations of an inner-city hospital by Sandy Balfour

Recommended by: Stephan J. Macaluso, Librarian
Call Number: Stacks RT34 .B34 2005

UK-based TV producer and journalist Balfour shadowed the nursing staff at the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, Tennessee (“The Med”) for more than a year and a half beginning in 2003. The Med treats a disproportionate share of the region’s crime victims, suicide attempts, high-risk deliveries and accident casualties. Many patients cannot possibly pay for the services they receive. One thing that makes The Med so special is its nurses, whose knowledge, optimism and sense of humor enable them to heal others while coping with the trauma they see each shift. Balfour introduces us to their families, their spiritual lives and their hopes for the future; we learn why they stay so long at The Med. Despite different backgrounds, they all display an inspiring level of caring and joy in their work. An enlightening look at the urban poor, the state of American healthcare and the diversity of the nursing profession.

Sleeping Arrangements by Laura Shaine Cunningham

Call Number: Stacks PS3553.U478 S5 2000

The One Book, One New Paltz selection for 2008.

This book, Laura Shaine Cunningham's childhood memoir, has been widely acclaimed. After her mother died of cancer when she was eight years old, Cunningham was raised and nurtured in a family made up of her two eccentric uncles and an equally unusual grandmother. Michiko Kautani in the New York Times described Sleeping Arrangements as a "wonderfully vivid chronicle of a young girl's coming of age...funny and sad, irreverent and generous...A model memoir."

Cunningham, who lives in the region and is a native New Yorker, is an award-winning novelist, playwright, and journalist. Her memoirs Sleeping Arrangements and A Place in the Country , were both excerpted in the New Yorker magazine. In addition, Cunningham has written for the Atlantic Monthly, Allure, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and the New York Times.

For more information about One Book, please visit: http://www.onebookonenewpaltz.org/

Hope in hell : inside the world of Doctors Without Borders by Dan Bortolotti

Recommended by: Stephan J. Macaluso, Librarian
Call Number: Stacks RA390 .F8 B67 2004

Better known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Doctors Without Borders has led humanitarian missions to the world’s most dangerous places, including Rwanda, Angola, Chechnya and Iraq. Under unimaginable conditions, MSF personnel administer local clinics and deliver food, vaccines and clean water to the world’s refugees in an effort to restore their health and dignity. The work is perilous: MSF workers risk falling victim to infection, assault and kidnapping. They are often helpless to remedy otherwise treatable conditions, like starvation, malaria and cholera.
After witnessing mass displacements and even genocide, many MSF workers simply cannot cope with post-mission home life, and MSF has become famous for speaking out against the injustices that give rise to disease and disaster. Hope in Hell tells MSF’s story through the eyes of its workers. Their stories are sometimes funny, sometimes shocking and heartbreaking. The volume includes an excerpt from the compelling and controversial Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech by MSF leader James Orbinski. An enlightening read for anyone who’s ever thought about volunteerism, humanitarian aid, or the state of global affairs.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Recommended by: Heather Whalen Smith, librarian
Call Number: PR4494 .M62 2007

At his death, Colonel John Herncastle bequests the Moonstone, a cursed diamond of great value stolen from an Indian temple, to his niece, Miss Rachel Verinder. The diamond disappears, however, the night after Mr. Franklin Blake delivers it to Miss Rachel. Who stole it? Was it the Hindu Indians that devoted their lives to recovering the diamond? Was it a guest at Miss Rachel's birthday party? Was it one of the servants? Franklin Blake devotes himself to the mystery of the Moonstone in hopes of winning Miss Rachel's affections. The story is narrated by multiple characters concerned with the disappearnce of the Moonstone.

The professor and the madman by Simon Winchester

Recommended by: Rachel Rigolino, Professor of English
Call Number: Audio Book PE1617.O94 W56 1998b

A great "listen" even if you are not especially interested in linguistics. Winchester has done a masterful job of telling this tale which would be considered unbelievable if it were a novel. Also, Winchester's accent is great and a pleasure to listen to!

Also available in print form: Stacks PE1617.O94 W56 1998

Medicine in the days of the pharaohs by Bruno Halioua and Bernard Ziskind

Recommended by: Stephan J. Macaluso, Librarian
Call Number: Stacks R137 .H3413 2005

Egyptian physicians were considered the best in the ancient world for more than a millennium: their work even influenced Hippocrates. They had an enormous herbal pharmacopoeia at their disposal, and they supplemented their prescriptions with religious practice and magic to address illnesses ranging from adolescent heartache to tetanus. Using CAT scans, ancient papyri, tomb illustrations and mummy autopsies, the authors uncover how Pharaonic physicians understood and treated disabilities, accident victims and congenital diseases.
Clever occupation-based chapters outline ailments common to farmers (serpents!), miners (scorpions!), fisherman (crocodiles!), scribes and even the mummy-making embalmers themselves. Halioua and Ziskind also offer a thought-provoking look at the pathology behind the plagues of the Old Testament. And, yes, they tell us how mummies were made. Enjoy!

The whistling season by Ivan Doig

Recommended by: Millie Marino, STL staff
Call number: Stacks PS3554.O415 W48 2006


In 1909, the recently widowed father of the Milliron family, a farmer of the Montana Prairie, answers a newspaper ad for a housekeeper who "can't cook, but doesn't bite."
What follows is the charming and often humorous story of a one-room schoolhouse, its eloquent and unlikely teacher and an endearing set of characters that practically beg us to go back to those simpler days. These are days when children create scrapbooks from the daily newspaper, call adults 'sir', chop wood and clean stables and roll in mud. Could it be that these children are a bit too good to be true? But how refreshing! Doig 's leisurely paced novel has everything in small amounts: mystery, tragedy, romance, and even a well-crafted villain.

The worst hard time: the untold story of those who survived the great American dust bowl by Timothy Egan

Recommended by: Matt L., Student
Call Number: Stacks F595 .E38 2006

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and author Timothy Egan follows a half-dozen families
and their communities through the rise and fall of America's High Plains during the Great Depression,
going from sod homes to new framed houses to huddling in basements with the windows sealed by
damp sheets in a futile effort to keep the dust out. He follows their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black blizzards, crop failure, and the deaths of loved ones. Drawing on the voices of those who stayed and survived, Egan tells a story of endurance and heroism against the backdrop of the Great Depression.

The Immortal Class: Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power by Travis Hugh Culley

Recommended by: Stephan J. Macaluso, Librarian

Call Number: Stacks HE 9751.C85 2001

Culley came to Chicago with thoughts of a career in art and theatre, and after rekindling his love of bicycles, he took a “day job” as a bike messenger. His newfound career consumed him. This lyrical memoir introduces us to the perilous life of a courier and urban cyclist: bike messengers have their own culture, honor code and language; the good ones, like Culley, live for speed and their passion for bikes runs deep. Culley vividly describes life at the intersection of art, physical labor, noise pollution, and [poor] urban planning. His descriptions of Critical Mass rides and urban racing are inspiring. His reflections on rage, fatigue, police altercations and the Chicago landscape are unforgettable. You need not be a cyclist nor a gearhead to approach this book, but if you aren’t one, it will surely entice you to ride!

Cuando era Puertorriqueña (When I was Puerto Rican) by Esmeralda

Recommended by: Wilma Feliciano, Professor of Spanish
Call Number: F128.9.P85 S2718 1994 (Spanish)

Call Number: F128.9.P85 S27 1994 (English)

The bittersweet coming-of age story of a girl trapped in a conflicted cultural identity: Is she black or white, rural or urban, Puerto Rican or American? The story begins on the island with family turmoil and tenderness in an idyllic setting dotted by economic distress, then moves to New York where the protagonist suffers a bewildering transition to American culture and loss of innocence.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Recommended by: Megan Coder, Librarian
Call Number: Stacks PS3562.A316 N36 2003

The Namesake tells the story of a young Indian couple, arranged by marriage, who emigrate to Cambridge, Massachusetts in the mid-1970s. Of course this takes some adjustment, especially for the wife Ashima, while her husband Ashoke pursues his engineering degree. They soon start a family and their first born is a son that they name Gogol, after the Russian author Nikolai Gogol. In this coming of age story, the reader gets to know Gogol from childhood to adulthood and his struggle to identify with his Indian and American roots. You will have to read this book to find out why Ashoke holds Nikolai Gogol close to his heart and if Gogol ever learns to accept his namesake.

The Empress of Weehawken by Irene Dische

Recommended by Peter D.G. Brown, Professor of German
Call Number: PS3554.I825 E47 2007

This is a debut novel written from the point of view of Dische's German grandmother, proudly "Aryan" and anti-Semitic, who marries a Jewish doctor and emigrates to New Jersey with him in the 1930s. It's a very funny and poignant semi-fictional account of three generations of this quirky German-American family of truly bizarre intellectuals.

El llano en llamas (The Burning Plain and Other Stories) by Juan Rulfo

Recommended by Wilma Feliciano, Professor of Spanish

Call Number:
In English: PQ7297.R89 L2613 1982

El llano en llamas (The Burning Plain and Other Stories) by Juan Rulfo, debunks the myth that the Mexican Revolution resulted in significant benefits for the lower classes. Rulfo lost his parents and family hacienda to wars in early 20th c Mexico, leaving him as orphaned and anguished as his characters. His work counterposes the promises of the Revolution to the doleful reality of peasant life in Mexico. A master of concise and lyrical expression, Rulfo’s characters define themselves by their painful prose in a style that infuses nature ( moon, wind, murmurs, land) with violence and poetry.