Notes From Nick
Welcome to your new West Lafayette Public Library!
Letter from the Director - What's Nick Reviewing on WBAA?
Letter from the Director
Hello and welcome to the West Lafayette Public Library Director's Web Page.
My name is Nick Schenkel and I join with the library board and staff in welcoming you to our library's internet home.
Our community public library has long been a center of service for West Lafayette and surrounding communities.
Since we opened our doors to the public in 1923, we have grown from a small collection of books and magazines in a former fire station to our present two story main library building with collections that encompass the breadth of the human experience. Be it in print, audio, video, or internet format, our library strives to provide the very best to our community.
As for myself, my life long passion for libraries combined with my graduate education (M.A. in History and M.S. in Library Science) have given me both the curiosity and the practical tools to work with our library board and to lead our library's staff since the Autumn of 1981.
Come in and develop your mind, research that movie you saw last night, surf the internet with one of our public access computers (or bring your laptop and surf the web through wireless access) or just hang out with books. I'm glad you've chosen to visit with us!
Please let us know how we can better serve you by coming in and checking us out!
Nick Schenkel,
Library Director.
What's Nick Reviewing on WBAA?
Listen to Nick's book reviews every Friday afternoon at 2:40 during AM920 Magazine on Purdue's Public Radio station, WBAA AM 920. You can even listen online!
Beginning May 6, 2005, Nick's reviews are now archived and available to listen to anytime. Just go to Nick's Review Archive. Available in Real Audio and Windows Media.
July 1, 2005. "All the Presidents' Children: Triumph and Tragedy in the Lives of America's First Families" by Doug Wead.
A little bit biography, a little bit history, "All the Presidents' Children" is a behind the scenes look at the family side of the White House - both before and after these men and women were thrust into the national spotlight of their time.
June 24, 2005. "The Full Cupboard of Life" by Alexander McCall Smith.
"The Full Cupboard of Life" is a quiet and exquisitely told tale set in contemporary South Africa. Mma Ramotswe, owner/operator of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is a gem. Witty, wise, optimistic, but not unaware of the pitfalls of life, Mma Ramotswe is the type of person any of us would like to help us through a difficult patch in our life. Eschewing violence, guns, foul language, she depends on kindness, inquiry, and a shrewd mind as she solves the problems of others in the capital city of Botswana. In this installment of the popular series, Ramotswe investigates the suitors of a wealthy but unmarried woman and finally lands a marriage herself with her long time friend (and auto mechanic extraordinaire) Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
June 17, 2005. "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" by Harry Turtledove.
Turtledove is "alternate history's" best exponent. In this stand-alone book, Turtledove supposes that the Third Reich won WWII and went on to build a world wide empire. In the midst of this horrific turn of history, the story focuses on the tale of "hidden" Jewish families living in a Nazi run Berlin of 2010. Interesting, readable and with plausible characters, this is a good introduction to a popular niche of current fiction.
June 10, 2005. "CandyFreak!: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America" by Steve Almond.
Almond is truly a man who loves his chocolate, claiming he has eaten at least one piece of candy every day of his life! We follow Almond from his early years on the West Coast as he discovers his candy addiction and are toured nation-wide as we visit independently run candy factories - where the passion for candy thrives. Wry, sharp, and hip, CandyFreak is a treat not to be missed!
June 3, 2005. "Gluttony" by Francine Prose.
A worthy part of the series on the seven deadly sins, this is a short but intriguing look at the "sin" of gluttony. From the ancients through the Church Fathers and sweeping into today (is our culture's fascination with the "perfect body" a modern interpretation of this ancient "sin"?), Gluttony is a book worth enjoying.
April 21, 2005. "Breath" by Donna Jo Napoli.
The story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin town is retold. We travel back to the medieval world of Europe with an immediacy that only the best fiction and history writers can offer. Centered on the life of Salz, a boy afflicted with Cystic Fibrosis (thus the title BREATH) in a time when magic and spirits explained his world, not science, we experience a year over-run by rats and more, menaced by an ever increasing sickness that plagues at first the livestock and then the very people of Salz's town and farm. The tale of the piper is woven through the story, which culminates in an ending both expected and surprising. An engrossing read.
April 14, 2005. "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck
An award winning classic from 1931, THE GOOD EARTH is a moving and beautifully written look at one Chinese family in the years before the great Civil War that resulted in the rise of the People's Republic of China. Seen through the eyes of peasant Wang Lung, we follow the lives of this peasant family as it moves from poverty to wealth to likely dissolution. A parable of its time and for ours, this richly told story is one to savor.
April 8, 2005. "A Passion for Trains"
he book is filled with incredible black and white photographs of trains from the 1930's forward - when the age of steam trains was giving way to the new ear of Diesel. Photographed through the eye of a train aficionado, we are taken from urban centers to rural outposts, into bright sunny summer days and into cold snowy evenings. If you enjoy trains - or you know someone who does - do come by and check it out!.
March 11, 2005. "After the Dance: a walk through carnival in Jacmel, Haiti" by Edwidge Danticat.
Carnival--the sights, the sounds, the smells--is brought to life in this marvelous little book written by one of my favorite authors, Haitian emigre Edwidge Danticat. Taking us from the week just before all the way through the magical day and night that is Carnival in Jacmel, Danticat weaves a travelogue of special moments and people. Part of the Crown Publishers "Journey" series. After the Dance is another marvelous prose experience of a place by authors who write of what they know.
March 4, 2005. "Carole Lombard, the Hoosier Tornado" by Wes D. Gehring, Ball State University film professor. This book is part of a series of Indiana biographies.
February 25, 2005. "Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Become the Scourge of the Liberal Media" by John Stossel, ABC News reporter.
February 18, 2005. "Bound" by Donna Jo Napoli. It is a Cinderella tale told from the time of Ming China, featuring a poor step child, a not-so-kind stepmother and stepsister, a handsome prince, and of course, the missing shoe. Well written, the book places the well known fairy tale in a different time and place, giving readers an opportunity to learn a little more about Ming era China when foot binding and arranged marriages were often the norm and not the exception.
February 11, 2005. "THE GENUINE ARTICLE: A historian Looks at Early America" by Edmund S. Morgan, Professor Emeritus at Yale, and contributor to the New York Review of Books for over 40 years.
The book is a collection of essays by Professor Morgan, printed in the NYRB which looks at early American History (that's European/African American history) through the eyes of an inquisitive and thought-full writer. The emphasis is on biography (from John Adams to Benjamin Franklin to Grizzly Adams and back) and the complexity of human relationships in early colonial American history - be they among people of European or African origin, or the differences that developed among social classes North and South.
February 4, 2005. "Let Me Go" by Helga Schneider. Ms. Schneider's non-fiction account is one of the most searing stories I have ever read and would make an incredible two or three person play. It is a powerful memoir of an encounter between a daughter and her mother, a prison camp guard in Nazi occupied Europe.
January 28, 2005. "Shoot the Moon", a novel, written by Billie Letts. A mystery set in small town America; a page turner at its finest.
January 21, 2005. "Hong Kong Babylon: an insider's guide to the Hollywood of the East" Written by Fredic Dannen, Jackie Chan and many, many more.
January 14, 2005. "Indiana II", written by Alexander Thom and photographer Daryl Jones. Indiana urban and Indiana rural, seen through the pen and the lens of two thoughtful Hoosiers.
January 7, 2005."STAR!", a novel written by Pamela Anderson. What a story! Even with a ghost writer to help!