Category: Books

The Last Great Walk by Wayne Curtis

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last great walkIn 1909, Edward Payson Weston walked from New York to San Francisco, covering around 40 miles a day and greeted by wildly cheering audiences in every city. The New York Times called it the ” first bona-fide walk . . . across the American continent,” and eagerly chronicled a journey in which Weston was beset by fatigue, mosquitos, vicious headwinds, and brutal heat. He was 70 years old.

In The Last Great Walk, journalist Wayne Curtis uses the framework of Weston’s fascinating and surprising story, and investigates exactly what we lost when we turned away from foot travel, and what we could potentially regain with America’s new embrace of pedestrianism. From how our brains and legs evolved to accommodate our ancient traveling needs to the way that American cities have been designed to cater to cars and discourage pedestrians, Curtis guides readers through an engaging, intelligent exploration of how something as simple as the way we get from one place to another continues to shape our health, our environment, and even our national identity. Not walking, he argues, may be one of the most radical things humans have ever done. (description from publisher)

My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira

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The Iowa Center for the Book recently announced the 2015 All Iowa Reads title at the Iowa Library Association annual meeting and the book they choose is My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira.

my name is mary sutterAn enthralling historical novel about a young woman’s struggle to become a doctor during the Civil War

In this stunning novel, Mary Sutter is a brilliant, head­strong midwife from Albany, New York, who dreams of becoming a surgeon. Determined to overcome the prejudices against women in medicine – and eager to run away from her recent heartbreak – Mary leaves home and travels to Washington, D.C. to help tend the legions of Civil War wounded. Under the guidance of William Stipp and James Blevens – two surgeons who fall unwittingly in love with Mary’s courage, will, and stubbornness in the face of suffering – and resisting her mother’s pleas to return home to help with the birth of her twin sister’s baby, Mary pursues her medical career in the desperately overwhelmed hospitals of the capital.

My Name Is Mary Sutter powerfully evokes the atmosphere of the Civil War period. Rich with historical detail (including marvelous depictions of Lincoln, Dorothea Dix, General McClellan, and John Hay among others), and full of the tragedies and challenges of wartime, My Name Is Mary Sutter is an exceptional novel. And in Mary herself, Robin Oliveira has created a truly unforgettable heroine whose unwavering determination and vulnerability will resonate with readers everywhere. (description from publisher)

This title is also available as an e-book through the RiverShare Digital Library.

All Iowa Reads encourages all Iowans to read the same book during the year, providing materials and bringing authors and speakers to various venues and encouraging discussion.

Revolutionary Pizza by Dimitri Syrkin-Nikolau

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revolutionary pizzaWhy bore everyone at the dinner table with the same old cheese and sauce combination when you can have pizzas like The BBQ Porkabella, Steak ‘n’ Eggs, Spinach and Bean Quesadilla or Chicken ‘n’ Waffles?

With Revolutionary Pizza by Dimitri Syrkin-Nikolau you’ll be making tasty, one-of-a-kind pizzas that your friends and family will always remember. Dimo’s Pizza developed a cult following due to its delicious pizzas, specialty toppings and crazy selection of ‘zas, and this book takes all of that to the next level. With pies inspired by Chinese food, street vendors, dead celebrities, tasty salads, comic book characters, Southern desserts, late night food joints, Chicago staples and everything in-between, there’s truly a pizza for every mood and every craving.

If you want to make an over-the-top and unforgettable creation for your family and friends, Dimo has got you covered. You’ll never look at another cheese slice the same again. (description from publisher)

Eat More Dessert by Jenny Keller

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eat more dessertJenny Keller, baker to the stars, is best known for her amazing dessert tables she makes for celebrity parties. The secret is she makes it simple with batch recipes and by doctoring boxed cake mix to easily bake a whole table full of treats.

Dessert table themes include *Princess Tea Party *Ice Cream Shop *Shipwrecked *Spring Garden *Love Is Sweet *Vintage Baby *Campout *Fall Bounty *Down on the Farm *North Pole Bakery You’ll also learn how to design the perfect dessert table, from choosing a theme to styling your sweets. Each theme has multiple desserts to fill the table, ranging from simple, crowd-pleasing sugar cookies to show-stopping, over-the-top cakes–and everything in between.

With Eat More Dessert you’ll create celebrity-status desserts that’ll dazzle your friends, family and kids. (description from publisher)

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

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secret history of wonder womanA riveting work of historical detection revealing that the origin of one of the world’s most iconic superheroes hides within it a fascinating family story – and a crucial history of twentieth-century feminism.

Wonder Woman, created in 1941, is the most popular female superhero of all time. Aside from Superman and Batman, no superhero has lasted as long or commanded so vast and wildly passionate a following. Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she has also has a secret history. Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has uncovered an astonishing trove of documents, including the never-before-seen private papers of William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman’s creator. Beginning in his undergraduate years at Harvard, Marston was influenced by early suffragists and feminists, starting with Emmeline Pankhurst, who was banned from speaking on campus in 1911, when Marston was a freshman. In the 1920s, Marston and his wife, Sadie Elizabeth Holloway, brought into their home Olive Byrne, the niece of Margaret Sanger, one of the most influential feminists of the twentieth century. The Marston family story is a tale of drama, intrigue, and irony. In the 1930s, Marston and Byrne wrote a regular column for Family Circle celebrating conventional family life, even as they themselves pursued lives of extraordinary nonconformity. Marston, internationally known as an expert on truth – he invented the lie detector test – lived a life of secrets, only to spill them on the pages of Wonder Woman.

The Secret History of Wonder Woman is a tour de force of intellectual and cultural history. Wonder Woman, Lepore argues, is the missing link in the history of the struggle for women’s rights – a chain of events that begins with the women’s suffrage campaigns of the early 1900s and ends with the troubled place of feminism a century later. (description from publisher)

Flight 93 by Tom McMillan

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flight 93United Airlines Flight 93, which took off from Newark Airport the morning of September 11th, 2001, is perhaps the most famous flight in modern American history: We know of the passenger uprising, but there’s so much more to the story besides its harrowing and oft-told climax. Amazingly, the definitive account of this seminal event has yet to be written.

Flight 93 : the Story, the Aftermath and the Legacy of American Courage on 9/11 offers the most complete account of what actually took place aboard the airplane – from its delayed takeoff in Newark to the moment it plunged upside-down at 563 miles per hour into an open field in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Flight 93 provides a riveting and complete narrative of the lead-up, event, and aftermath of the flight, based on interviews, oral histories, personal tours of the crash site and evidence recently made public. It examines the lead-up to that horrific morning; the stories of the victims who were launched into the center of history; the revolt that saved untold amounts of carnage on the ground and likely, the US Capitol; the eyewitnesses and first responders who rushed to the crash scene; the impact on family members; the effort to uncover evidence at the site; and the legacy the story leaves for future generations. (description from publisher)

The Wreath Recipe Book by Alethea Harampolis

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wreath recipe bookThe Wreath Recipe Book provides 100 “recipes” to make with flowering and leafy branches. These aren’t just evergreens for Christmas – the book is organized seasonally, with dozens of projects to make throughout the year.

In the spring, a cherry blossom bough gets a touch of whimsy with a colorful ribbon, and a tabletop is adorned with lilacs and olive branches. In the summer, a garland features sage with pomegranates and citrus-colored strawflowers. In the fall, wreaths are created with magnolias, rosemary, and plums, and gourds are used to create an unexpected garland. Winter highlights cedar, pine, and juniper, yielding unexpected table settings and new wreath shapes.

There are detailed ingredient lists and hundreds of step-by-step photos as well as chapters covering basic techniques, sourcing, and care information. (description from publisher)

The Kitchn Cookbook by Sara Gillingham-Ryan

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kitchn cookbookFrom Apartment Therapy’s cooking site, The Kitchn, comes 150 recipes and a cooking school with 50 essential lessons, as well as a guide to organizing your kitchen–plus storage tips, tool reviews, inspiration from real kitchens, maintenance suggestions, 200 photographs, and much more.

 
The Kitchn Cookbook offers two books in one: a trove of techniques and recipes, plus a comprehensive guide to organizing your kitchen so that it’s one of your favorite places to be.

For Cooking: – 50 essential how-to’s, from preparing perfect grains to holding a chef’s knife like a pro plus 150 all-new and classic recipes from The Kitchn, including Breakfast Tacos, Everyday Granola,  Slow Cooker Carnitas, One-Pot Coconut Chickpea Curry, and No-Bake Banana and Peanut Butter Caramel Icebox Cake.

For Your Kitchen – A shopping list of essentials for your cabinets and drawers (knives, appliances, cookware, and tableware), with insider advice on what’s worth your money, solutions for common kitchen problems like limited storage space and quirky layouts, a 5-minute-a-day plan for a clean kitchen, tips for no-pressure gatherings, and a look inside the kitchens of ten home cooks around the country, and how they enjoy their spaces

The Kitchn Cookbook gives you the recipes, tools, and real-life inspiration to make cooking its own irresistible reward. (description from publisher)

In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides

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in the kingdom of iceIn the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: the North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans, although theories abounded. The foremost cartographer in the world, a German named August Petermann, believed that warm currents sustained a verdant island at the top of the world. National glory would fall to whoever could plant his flag upon its shores.

James Gordon Bennett, the eccentric and stupendously wealthy owner of The New York Herald , had recently captured the world’s attention by dispatching Stanley to Africa to find Dr. Livingstone. Now he was keen to re-create that sensation on an even more epic scale. So he funded an official U.S. naval expedition to reach the Pole, choosing as its captain a young officer named George Washington De Long, who had gained fame for a rescue operation off the coast of Greenland. De Long led a team of 32 men deep into uncharted Arctic waters, carrying the aspirations of a young country burning to become a world power. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of “Arctic Fever.”

The ship sailed into uncharted seas, but soon was trapped in pack ice. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the hull was breached. Amid the rush of water and the shrieks of breaking wooden boards, the crew abandoned the ship. Less than an hour later, the Jeannette sank to the bottom, and the men found themselves marooned a thousand miles north of Siberia with only the barest supplies. Thus began their long march across the endless ice–a frozen hell in the most lonesome corner of the world. Facing everything from snow blindness and polar bears to ferocious storms and frosty labyrinths, the expedition battled madness and starvation as they desperately strove for survival.

With twists and turns worthy of a thriller, In the Kingdom of Ice is a spellbinding tale of heroism and determination in the most unforgiving territory on Earth. (description from publisher)

Air Plants by Zenaida Sengo

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air plantsAir plants, also known as tillandsias, are having their moment. Popular for their spiky shape and extremely low-maintenance needs, they are now widely available in garden centers, small boutiques, upscale food markets, and national retail stores dedicated to home furnishing and design.

Air Plants , by Zenaida Sengo who is the interior coordinator at the popular San Francisco-based Flora Grubb Gardens, shows how simple and rewarding it is to grow, craft, and design with these modern beauties. Decorating with air plants is made easy with stunning photographs that showcase ideas for using them mounted on walls, suspended from the ceiling, as living bows and jewelry, as screens, and in unique containers, like leather pouches, dishes, and baskets. Six step-by-step projects include a wood mount, a wall hook, lasso-and-hook wiring, a ceramic-frame garden, and three unique terrariums. This lushly designed guide is perfect for anyone with the desire to grow on air. (description from publisher)