Books for every mood… We’ve updated our book list brochures — all lists available on our website at Reading Room — Book Lists. Award winners, Art In Fiction, and much more! Find your next read in the Reading Room @ CMCL.
July 16, 2009
May 22, 2009
Sourcebook to Public Record Information, 4th Ed (2009)
The Sourcebook (REF 352.387 SOU 2009) provides detailed information on how to retrieve public records at the county, state, and federal levels. Its directories of state, county and local agencies and record departments are excellent tools. (more…)
January 28, 2009
Armchair sleuthing, in crime and in art
I read mysteries, particularly ones that are have a strong sense of place. I’m very fond of two series set in Italy: Guido Brunetti of Venice (by Donna Leon; #1: Death at La Fenice) and Michael Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen series (#1: Ratking). I’ve had a chance to visit that country, and I read both to get into a bit of the culture and atmosphere of old cities. They also speak to more modern conceits as the Mafia, government corruption, and how “business as usual” is different than (and sometimes similar to) where I live. I spent my tourist time in Florence, and those books helped me to visualize what it is like to live in places like Venezia, Siena or Firenze. Recently I read two non-fiction books that connected strongly with my memories of that trip to Italy. Pick one up, sit back with a vin santo to sip, and enjoy!
The monster of Florence / Douglas Preston, with Mario Spezi. New York : Grand Central Pub., 2008
New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston teams up with Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to present a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence, Italy. This is a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide–and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi are caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.
Dark water : flood and redemption in the city of masterpieces … / Clark, Robert : Doubleday, c2008.
Ostensibly about the floods of 1966 that devastated so much of the cultural heart of Florence, Italy, it becomes a meditation on the relationship of a city to art and its inevitable conflicts with the river it embraces, and how the city and its art is perceived by the rest of the world.
November 7, 2008
Get out to Wordstock this Weekend!
The yearly book extravaganza that that is Wordstock is underway – check out all the events happening in the next three days, with readings and writers’ workshops, poetry slams and gala balls (Go to the dance at the Text Ball at the Left Bank Building), or the Oregon Book Awards on Sunday night. The Book Fair is open Saturday and Sunday at the Oregon Convention Center: check the schedule, read what people are saying and thinking at the festival blog, and come on out to the biggest book celebration in Portland!
September 26, 2008
Beautiful books about birds and stories
It’s great to see new books that use graphics and art so well, particularly in smaller formats. This week we received a new, fully revamped Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America (also available for checkout) plus a copy of 500 Essential Graphic Novels: the Ultimate Guide. Both books pack a lot of information and beauty in a small package.
