Leonard Nimoy 1931 - 2015

Leonard Nimoy

Today I lost a friend though I did not know him personally.  He has been a part of my life since I was ten years old and Star Trek first aired.  Leonard Nimoy passed away this morning.  He was 83.   His best known role was that of Mr. Spock, first officer of the USS Enterprise. The character Spock was a Vulcan/Human mix, not devoid of emotion, but able to suppress and control his emotional responses.  For many of us who thought we were different Spock gave to us a role model that showed us that we could overcome our limitations and excel in what we chose to do and be.  He told us it was okay to be different and that was really a good thing.     While Nimoy alternately tried to remove himself from the character of Spock and embraced it he was forever in our minds the symbol of diversity that epitomized Star Trek.  Spock’s devotion to logic inspired us to examine our situations and understand how they could be improved.

Without You, There is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite

This well-written memoir about teaching in a college in North Korea the year Kim Jong-il died sent shivers up my spine. The author, Suki Kim, an American writer, who spent part of her childhood in South Korea and is fluent in the language, had visited North Korea several times. Each time she felt divorced from the people and prevented by her “minders” (they were actually called that) from getting a true understanding of what contemporary life was like in the country.

Emotionally, Kim felt connected to the country because part of her family lived there. Kim’s mother had often told her stories about how her eldest brother disappeared and was never seen again when he was taken from a truck during the Korean War.  The family was divided from other aunts and uncles and cousins who lived across the divide.

Kim, primarily a journalist, had taught at a college in the states and sometime around 2010 heard that a Bible college, financed by Americans, was soon to open near Pyongyang. The very idea sounded strange—a culture that scorned religion was allowing westerners to open a bible college by the capital?

Joan Rivers 1933 - 2014

Joan Rivers passed away Thursday  September 4, 2014 after suffering complications from surgery.  Rivers was perhaps best known for her standup comedy and somewhat caustic wit.  In addition to her standup work she has been featured in a number of movies and authored a number of books.   The link below will produce a list of the many items in the MCPL collection that highlight her accomplishments

 

                   Joan Rivers

Richard Attenborough: 1923 – 2014

Richard AttenboroughThis last Sunday brought us the passing of actor, producer and director Richard Attenborough.  He is perhaps most recently remembered today as John Hammond, the eccentric founder of Jurassic Park.    However, he has been involved in the movies since 1942.  Besides being on screen as an actor he has produced thirteen films, including Gandhi and Cry Freedom. He directed twelve films including Gandhi, A Chorus Line and A Bridge Too Far. The library has a nice collection of his films.  We hope you enjoy them.

 

     Richard Attenborough

Lauren Bacall 1924 - 2014

Yesterday we lost one of the most memorial actresses of classic film, Lauren Bacall. She exploded on to the silver screen in 1944 in the film To Have and Have Not as Marie “Slim” Browning opposite Humphry Bogart.  Few could forget the sultry look and delivery of one her most famous lines, “You know how to whistle, don’t you?  You just put your lips together and blow.”   This film also introduced her to Humphry Bogart the man who would later become her husband, in a life imitates art moment.  They were together until his passing in 1957.

Robin Williams 1951 - 2014

Robin WilliamsLast night I read that we had lost one of the greats; Robin Williams was no longer with us.  When we think of him we most often think of his almost manic comedy.  He was one of the best, and perhaps one of the few that could go one on one with the late great Johnathan Winters in comedy improvisation.   We know however that Robin Williams was also a great actor.  Like many comedians his view of life gave him great insight into the human condition and he was able to bring this to his more serious roles.  He will be missed.  

          Books and Films by Robin Williams

New Life, No Instructions

Did you ever hobble around on crutches?  Discover that you most basic possession, your body, does not work as it once did? This excellent memoir about rehabilitation, friendship, loss, and the love of a great dog is a tearjerker at times, but always incredibly well-written. Wow, does Caldwell know how to spin a yarn.

Gail Caldwell suffered from polio as a small child. In this account she describes how her mother sprawled on the floor with her when she was young and did the tough leg exercises needed to strengthen Gail’s leg. 

All her life, Gail adapted to living with a bum leg. In her late fifties she decided to adopt a strong Samoyed pup. And as Tula grew, Gail soon found herself falling more and more often, and that she could no longer hike the three mile reservoir loop with her strong-willed pet.

Doctor after doctor told Gail that her limp, the weakness in her leg and her frequent falls were caused by her polio, but Gail finally sought another opinion. The new doctor asked to see her CT scans and X-rays but there were no recent ones. Upon doing them, he discovered that Gail’s hip was shattered with the ball absolutely flat.  She needed hip replacement immediately.

My Life in Middlemarch

Here’s what author Rebecca Mead said about a subject dear to our hearts, "Reading does not feel like an escape from life so much as it feels like an urgent, crucial dimension of life itself."  This book is both a biography and travelogue of what many consider the world’s best novel—Middlemarch.  It also is a personal memoir by Mead. 

In the first chapter Mead recalls how many times she has read the novel and how much it has changed for her over time. What drew her as a child to it was how full of adult life the book was. She also loved the intelligence of the characters, particularly the heroine, Miss Dorothea Brooke.

Along the way we learn about the novel itself, how it was first published as a serial in eight parts with the subtitle “A Provincial Life.” It bore a male author’s name--George Eliot but even Charles Dickens, a contemporary of Eliot’s knew immediately that it was written by a woman. He said, “I believe that no man ever before had the art of making himself, mentally, so like a woman, since the world began. “ Dickens also loved Eliot’s writing.  He said of her first novel, “Adam Bede has taken its place among the actual experiences and endurances of my life.”

Auto Focus

In the 1960’s one of the top rated TV shows of the time was a comedy about the unusual subject of a prisoner of war camp in Nazi Germany.    The show was the story was about a group of prisoners in Stalag 13 whose mission was to conduct secret operations behind enemy lines.  It was known as Hogan’s Heroes.   The film Auto Focus is not about this television show but about its star who found himself in the public’s eye and being held up to public as the example of the ideal family man.  His life and his actions were anything but ideal. 

A House in the Sky

This memoir is as compelling as any thriller, and much better written than most. In it a young Canadian describes how she escaped her family’s poverty and dysfunction in a small town in Alberta by reading National Geographic mags cover to cover. The family was so poor that she had to earn money to buy the used magazines herself, but while reading them she not only discovered the world, but was able to dream of a better, more interesting life.

Amanda didn’t have the money for college, so instead she became a waitress at high-end clubs and restaurants in Calvary when the money from oil and gas was flowing. She soon began to travel internationally to South America, India, Pakistan, and Nepal. Edgy, dangerous places appealed to her and those far off the tourist track. She went to

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