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.