27 May 2008
House Rules Booklist: If You Like House MD ...
... you might like these books, suggested by members of various library listservs.
The query I sent out was:
I'm looking for fiction that will appeal to someone who likes the FOX TV show, House MD, starring Hugh Laurie. The appeal factors could include medical diagnostics or medical mystery, interesting dynamics among medical professionals, cynical smart doctors, close co-dependent friendships between male doctors or men generally, an underlying belief that 'everyone lies,' and so on.
Here are the suggested authors, series, and titles. I haven't read any yet. I'd love additions, and comments if you have read them:
Ariana Franklin (pseudonym for Diana Norman). New historical thriller series set in the 12th century about cynical, smart female physician Adelia Aguilar who is brought to England to solve murder mysteries for King Henry II. She's a coroner. First in the series: Mistress in the Art of Death (2007). Last (and second): The Serpent's Tale (2008).
Eileen Dreyer. Standalone medical mystery thrillers featuring cynical, world-weary nurses and EMTs. Also writes a series featuring Molly Burke, forensic nurse and death investigator in St. Louis, MO. First in series: Bad Medicine (1995). Last: Head Games (2005).
Sequence (2006) and The Silent Assassin (2007) by Lori Andrews, medical thrillers featuring geneticist and forensic specialist Dr. Alexandra Blake, described as smart and edgy. (Reviews compare the books to the popular TV series NCIS).
CL Grace's series featuring Kathyrn Swinbrooke, a female doctor in medieval times when only men could be doctors. Titles: 1. A Shrine of Murders (1992); 2. The Eye of God (1994); 3. The Merchant of Death (1995); 4. The Book of Shadows (1996); 5. Saintly Murders (2001); 6. A Maze of Murders (2003); and 7. A Feast of Poisons (2004). Some romance. (Grace is a pseudonym for writer P.C. Doherty.)
Echo Heron's medical thriller series featuring nurse Adele Monsarrat, who has a quirky sense of humor. Titles are Pulse (1998), Panic (1998), Paradox (1998) and Fatal Diagnosis (2000).
Lifelines (2008) by C. J. Lyons. Set in a Pittsburgh hospital, involves the new attending physician whose first night doesn't go well. When she's accused of negligence in the death of the son of the Chief of Neurosurgery, she starts investigating to save her career.
The Bugman novels by Tim Downs: 1. Shoofly Pie, 2. Chop Shop, and 3. First the Dead. The main character, Dr. Nick Polchak, is a forensic entomologist in North Carolina who helps solve crimes based on what the bugs say. He has a wry sense of humor. The books are marketed as Christian fiction but are not preachy; values are implicit, not explicit.
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18 October 2007
Dogs, Blog, and Elephants
I'll be back to posting soon. For now, I'm spending most of my computer time updating booklists -- recently finished adult crime fiction, children's historical fiction, children's bibliotherapy, and now only about 30 more lists to go!
Don't forget to feed an animal today, and if you want more reason to care for critters, read this elephant rescue story.
And watch out for barking spiders! :-)
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25 September 2007
Spanish Lit
The Guardian is going on a Spanish literature tour for the next month (India and Pakistan were last month). Read other people's recommendations for the best in Spanish fiction, drama, or poetry, or make your own reading suggestions.
So far:
Javier Cercas's Soldiers of Salamis
Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote
Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste; Territorio Comanche
Miguel de Unamuno: Niebla (Mist); La tia Tula
Carmen Martin Gaite's The Back Room; Caperucita Roja (modern day version of Little Red Riding Hood)
Javier Marias: A Heart So White; Tomorrow In the Battle Think On Me; Todas las Almas (All Souls); Dark Back of Time
Juan Marse: Lizard Tails; Ultimas tardes con Teresa; Si te dicen que caí; El amante biligüe; El Embrujo de Shangai
Federico García Lorca: Blood Wedding; The House of Bernarda Alba; 'El Romancero Gitano'; Yerma
Camilo José Cela's La familia de Pascual Duarte; La Colmena
Ramon Llull's The Book of Blanquerna
Ramon J Sender's Requiem for a Spanish Peasant; Nancy's Thesis
Benito Perez Galdos's Torquemada; Jacinta and Fortunata
Antonio Gala's Pasion Turca
Napoleon Ponce de Leon's Five Black Ships
Manuel Pimentel Silves' El Librero del Atlantida
Miguel Ruiz Trigueros' La Noche de Arcilla
Carloz Ruiz Zafon's The shadow of the wind [bleah]
Calderon de la Barca's La vida es sueno (Life is a Dream)
Juan José Millas' El desorden de tu nombre; El orden alfabético; Dos mujeres en Praga
Armando Lopez Salinas' The Mine Rafael
Sanchez Ferlosio's Alfanhui
Emilia Pardo Bazan's Los Pasos de Ulloa
Juan Ramon Jimenez's Platero and I
Luis de Castresana's The Other Tree of Guernica
Gonzalo Torrente Ballester's The 'Los gozos y las sombras' trilogy
Leopoldo Alas' La Regenta
Francisco Umbral's Trilogia de Madrid
Juan Goytisolo's Count Julian (a 'hate-letter to Spain written in a stream of consciousness.')
Miguel Delibes' The Path; Los Santos Inocentes (The Holy Innocents); Cinco Horas con Mario; The Heretic
Ramón María del Valle Inclan's Lights of Bohemia
Antonio Munoz Molina's Sepharad; El jinete polaco; Plenilunio
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's 'Carvalho' series
Luis Sepulveda's Mundo del fin del mundo (The World at the End of the World); Un viejo que leía novelas de amor (The Old Man Who Read Love Stories)
poetry of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
poetry of Antonio Machado
Benardo Atxaga's Obabakoak; Esos Cielos
Joan Martorell's Tirant lo Blanc
Gabriel Aresti's Harri eta Herri
Luis Landero's Juegos de la Edad Tardía
Almudena Grandes Los Aires Dificiles
Enrique Vila Matas' Bartleby & Co
Rafael Reig's Blood in the Saddle
José Carlos Llop's El mensajero de Argel; La cámara de ámbar; La oración de Mr. Hyde
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16 August 2007
Thoughts, Reading, Doing
This week I seem to be trying to do too much at once, and not getting much done. Today I'd planned to work most of the day on my new library booklists site -- moving, reformatting, and link-checking a bunch of booklists to a new website -- and study French.
Instead, I added a new feature to that new website and added new content to that feature; I've read a lot of interesting articles online (more on that below); I pruned the wisteria to within an inch of its life, cut back the bleeding hearts which are finally yellowing, cut out some dying raspberry canes, and cut new arrangements for inside the house -- mostly hosta leaves and other foliage, as my garden is primarily shade and the local groundhog eats most of what flowers; swept the house and porch and did some spot-cleaning; took photos of a small beige-coloured frog that was clutching onto the wisteria; played with the dog; did some library blogging; made some phone calls; and updated the checkbook.
Some days I seem more able to stick to a to-do list (even if it's only in my head) than others. Lately, I have been on a de-cluttering adventure that seems to trump all other work and play. Yesterday, after going to Eucharist and having lunch with a friend, I cleaned out the kitchen pantry, tossing perishable food items (like flours and vitamins) brought with us to this house in 2002; cleaned up and re-defined the kitchen junk drawers and cubby holes; moved items off the countertops; and tossed old OTC and prescription medications -- some for the previous canine members of the family, who died in 2003 and 2004. Later, I enjoyed spending time with a college friend's son and his girlfriend who were driving through town. And I did cover a whole French lesson ("Entertainment') before hitting the hay last night.
So here's what I'm reading online and thinking about today:
>> Scott's blog entry on victims, another look at resentment (though he doesn't use the word)
>> An article in the WSJ, Waiting for the End: When Loved Ones Are Lost in Limbo by Jeff Zaslow. Apropos, as a friend's friend is in day 20 of a coma due to a hemorrhage.
"'We're prolonging life, but we're also prolonging dying,' says Mercedes Bern-Klug, an end-of-life researcher at the University of Iowa, who studies what she terms 'ambiguous dying syndrome.' Hundreds of thousands of people are surviving longer with advanced dementia or traumatic brain injuries, or in coma states. For their loved ones, 'coping with the ambiguity creates a unique type of stress,' says Dr. Bern-Klug. 'It's a form of angst we don't even have a name for in our culture.'"
>> Things I Talk Too Much About: 6 Annoying Fetishes at ZenHabits: "Here are 6 things I obsess over and am way too proud of and talk way too much about, annoyingly." His are coffee, Macs, Gmail, Firefox, Veganism, and Simplicity. Mine, off the top of my head, are Girardian ideas, dogs, Flickr, Google, and blogging. Others?
>> A Sense of Proportion at Everyday Wonderland:
"When there is something on the horizon in your life situation that you either want desperately to avoid or to acquire, in essence if there is a possibility of a future event with high stakes of some kind, a situation of gain or loss, the mind goes hyper with trying to do something about it. If there is something you want to avoid, the mind will either focus on it almost constantly, reasoning that remembering it gives you a certain level of control over the situation; or the mind will resort to boredom, which is little more than a tactic to cover up thoughts you want to avoid rising to the surface. Behind the stream of compulsive thinking that goes on in most people’s minds, day in and day out, is a deep seated belief that the thinking is a way of staying in control."
>> In Defense of Dangerous Ideas by Steven Pinker at Edge, reprinted in the Chicago Sun-Times. He asks questions that tend to appall, anger, shock, disgust, and incite people. He asks questions that get at "dangerous ideas" -- "ideas that are denounced not because they are self-evidently false, nor because they advocate harmful action, but because they are thought to corrode the prevailing moral order." These are "statements of fact or policy that are defended with evidence and argument by serious scientists and thinkers but which are felt to challenge the collective decency of an age." First I wondered why he didn't present these as statements rather than questions, but I think it's because even to ask the question and broach a conversation about it is too unthinkable for many people.
Examples:
- Has the state of the environment improved in the last 50 years?
- Do most victims of sexual abuse suffer no lifelong damage?
- Did Native Americans engage in genocide and despoil the landscape?
- Did the crime rate go down in the 1990s because two decades earlier poor women aborted children who would have been prone to violence?
- Is homosexuality the symptom of an infectious disease?
- Have religions killed a greater proportion of people than Nazism?
- Would Africa have a better chance of rising out of poverty if it hosted more polluting industries or accepted Europe's nuclear waste?
>> A couple of Readers' Advisory articles, which I micro-blogged at librarybooklists.
14:30 Posted in booklists , health and medicine , pop culture , simple living , theology, spirituality, philosophy , other people said it | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
04 April 2007
On Not Reading
Guy Dammann in the Guardian Book Blog opines about "abandoning" books midway through, the guilt this might evoke in us (he refers to the common "notion that unfinished and unread books are objects of shame"), and how to decide whether and how far into a book to read.
I like Rebecca's response to the column, including the Reader's Comment she culled:
"Squatting on my top shelf, 3 paperback volumes of the unabridged Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, about 1500 pages each, the first volume creased on its spine about a fifth of the way in, the rest of volume and the other two spines immaculate. A message screamed out to the perceptive observer, 'Here is a man who likes to be seen buying impressive books but whose pygmy intellect cannot cope with any book that hasn't had a murder and a rooftop chase by page 100'."
Like Rebecca, I read a fair number of of crime novels, probably 5 or 10 for every non-fiction title I read, and I can spend a year reading one non-fiction book, if it hurts my brain and also inspires me to think, wonder, synthesise, make synapse connections.
I tend to be a much less adventurous book reader than I used to be, preferring now to re-read fiction titles by some authors, to read crime novels in series, and generally not even picking up and thumbing through most books -- fiction or non-fiction -- other than field guides and garden books that are mostly pictures. The main reason I'm in a bookgroup is to read 12 books each year that I wouldn't read otherwise and I've skipped one already this year on the grounds that life is too short to read The Grapes of Wrath again.
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08 January 2007
A Reading Blog
Now I'm thinking I should start a blog just to record and do link maps for books I'm reading.
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21 October 2006
Notes on Girardian Thought
Girardian Anthropology and Mimetic Theory
Due to length, my current, idiosyncratic notes on Girardian anthropology and mimetic theory have been moved here.
09:30 Posted in booklists , books and reading , community , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture , theology, spirituality, philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
30 August 2006
Drowned Towns (Book List)
I became fascinated by the idea of a drowned town when I read Peter Robinson's In a Dry Season (1999) and Reginald Hill's On Beulah Height (1998), both set in Yorkshire, England, and both crime novels whose plots feature towns that have been evacuated and flooded to create reservoirs.
A drowned town is a town, city, village, collection of buildings, or other place that's submerged, inundated or flooded by water as a consequence of the building of dams and creating of reservoirs for water supply, hydroelectric power, irrigation, flood management, or job creation.
There are lots of real ones in the world, some of which are listed below.
And of course there are crime novels and other fiction books -- for adults, teens, and children -- written about the phenomenon, and I've listed some of those below as well. If you have additions, let me know!
DROWNED TOWNS
Mysteries and other fiction with a featured element of intentional submerging, inundating, and flooding of towns, villages, cities, and other places as a consequence of building dams and reservoirs for water supply, hydroelectric power, irrigation, flood management, and job creation. The core of this list was developed by a retired librarian in Pennsylvania, with additions by members of DorothyL and FictionL in August 2006. The apt term "Reservoir Noir" comes from crime novelist Peter Robinson.
Some descriptions are taken verbatim, or in essence, from review sources such as Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal, and from booksellers' descriptions.
Reservoir Noir (Crime Novels)
Alan Dipper, Drowning Day (1976): "The calm of a small Welsh town is shattered by the threat of annihilation. A vast reservoir already exists, poised three hundred feet above its rooftops, and now politics and greed demand that the valley itself should be flooded to provide water for new towns and industry. A tide of violence sweeps in from outside, and the people prepare to fight for their future." Listed in Allen Hubin's Crime Fiction II. 207 pp.
Eileen Dunlop, Valley of the Deer (1989): Young Adult. Set in Scotland. In 1964, 14-year-old Anne is living in a valley near Dumfries that is about to be flooded to make a reservoir, while her archaeologist parents excavate an ancient burial mound. When she finds an old family Bible behind a secret door in her house, she's led on a quest to solve the mystery surrounding the death in 1726 of a young Scottish woman, Alice Jardyne, accused of witchcraft. 139 pp.
Lee Harris, Christening Day Murder (1993): Set in New York state. Thirty years ago, the inhabitants of Studsburg, N.Y., relocated when the town was flooded to create a reservoir. Now that drought has left the small town temporarily high and dry, former nun Christine Bennett (in town for a baby christening) discovers the remains of a young woman hidden in the Catholic church (from PW review). 213 pp.
Reginald Hill, On Beulah Height (1998): Set in Yorkshire, England. Dalziel and Pascoe mystery. Fifteen years ago, the village of Dendale suffered double tragedies: three children were kidnapped, never to be found, while a fourth barely escaped with her life. Then the government forced the villagers to evacuate Dendale so they could flood its homes and shops to create a new reservoir. Now, a seven-year-old girl from Danby, the village where most of the Dendale's inhabitants retreated, disappears (from Booklist review). Excellent. 374 pp.
Donald James, Walking the Shadows (2004): "There is a drowned village in the South of France called St. Juste, a village where secrets were buried in the Second World War; a village swiftly coming back into the light of day as a summer drought empties the reservoir that hides it. Tom Chapel comes to St. Juste to discover why a local man, Marcel Coultard, has left his 28 million dollar fortune to his daughter Romilly, and why shortly after his bequest, Romilly was abducted and attacked, and left in a life threatening coma."
James D. Landis, The Taking (2003), aka Artist of the Beautiful (2005): Set in Massachusetts. Swift River Valley is doomed: set to disappear beneath the waters of the Quabbin reservoir. Jeremy Treat is the town minister, a man of deep faith trying to inspire hope in a place destined to be taken from its inhabitants. He is also the husband of Una, a voluptuous eccentric pining for her first love, and father of Jimmy, a seemingly perfect child prodigy. Into this tight-knit family comes Sarianna, a romantic student obsessed by the story of the Valley. Her ensnarement in the secrets and desires of the Treat family is the basis for this stunning gothic novel of sexual awakening, shifting identity, loss and love. Published in the UK as The Valley (2006).
Jane Langton, Emily Dickinson Is Dead (1984): Set in Massachusetts, at a poetry symposium in Amherst. Describes the 1939 flooding of the towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott to create the Quabbin Reservoir. One of her characters stuffs a body down Shaft 12 on the Hardwick shoreline of the reservoir. 247 pp.
Julia Wallis Martin, A Likeness in Stone (1997): Set near Oxford, England. A killer strikes again when long-dead victim Helena Warner surfaces from the bottom of a reservoir, and her three closest friends continue to maintain an eerie silence as Bill Driver tries to uncover their dark secret. Excellent. 280 pp.
Sharyn McCrumb, Zombies of the Gene Pool (1992): Set in eastern Tennessee. Mystery/science fiction. In the 1950s, a group of eight young men buried a time capsule containing their science fiction stories and other artifacts of the time. A dam was later built on the Watauga River, and a lake, Gene C. Breedlove Lake (known as the Gene Pool), formed over the place where the time capsule was buried. Now the lake must be drained for dam repairs. Since some of the eight men, who are now elderly, have become famous, the time capsule will be dug up. A writer who was supposed to have died 30 years earlier shows up, and when he is killed, science fiction writer Jay Omega sets out to discover who the killer is. 274 pp.
Michael Miano, The Dead of Summer (1999): Set in Connecticut. New York TV writer Michael Carpo vacations annually in the small town of Bridgewater, Conn., at the house of his friend, elderly African-American writer Jack Crawford -- but this year Carpo arrives to find him dead. It looks like suicide, but then Carpo learns that the village's older residents are dying at a suspiciously fast clip. The deceased, it turns out, are all linked to a ghost town submerged by a recently constructed lake. Carpo must find out who wanted them dead, and why, before the last of the lost town's survivors disappear (from PW review). 224 pp.
Ron Rash, One Foot in Eden: A Novel (2002): Set in Seneca, South Carolina. This debut novel combines a murder mystery with the occasion of the flooding of a South Carolina Appalachian valley by Carolina Power. The real Santee-Cooper Reservoir is mentioned. 240 pp.
Rick Riordan, The Devil Went Down to Austin (2002): Set near and under Lake Travis in Austin. As Riordan says in an interview: " When Mansfield Dam was built, and they flooded the area, you think that it all washes away, but it doesn't. There really are pecan groves down there still, and they say they even have the pecans on the trees -- the last pecans they ever grew. And barbed wire fences. What the land was like until it was taken and flooded." The book includes the description of a dive into the preserved pecan orchard at the bottom of the lake. [Thanks, Kathleen!]
Peter Robinson, In a Dry Season (1999): Set in Yorkshire, England. When a drought drains the local Thornfield Reservoir, uncovering the long-drowned village of Hobbs End and the skeleton of a murder victim from the 1940s, Detective Alan Banks and Detective Sergeant Annie Cabot investigate the decades-old crime, with quite a bit of WWII ambiance and history involved. Excellent. 422 pp.
Lisa See, Dragon Bones (2003): Liu Hulan, an agent for China’s Ministry of Public Security, and her American husband return to investigate murder and archaeological theft at the Three Gorges Dam, one of the most beautiful and controversial places on earth. When completed, the Three Gorges Dam will be the most powerful dam ever built and the biggest project China has undertaken since the building of the Great Wall. Yet, the reservoir formed by the dam will inundate over 2,000 archaeological sites and displace over 2 million people. 368 pp.
Paul Somers (aka Paul Winterton), Broken Jigsaw (1961): Set in England. An adulterous couple murder her rich husband and hide his body in a sinkhole that's about to be covered by the reservoir that will also drown the village of Alton. Two years later, a drought causes the reservoir to recede and the body must be retrieved and rehidden -- but in the meanwhile a nearby cottage has been rented by a writer who never seems to leave it and who is sure to observe such activities.
Julia Spencer-Fleming, Out of the Deep I Cry: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery (2004): Set in upstate NY. Crime novel that intertwines storylines from the 1930s, 1970s, and present. The 1930 storyline involves the building of the Conklingville Dam and the flooding of forty square miles of the Sacandaga River Valley, creating the Great Sacandaga Lake as well as Stewart's Pond, which is a focus of this story. When the flooding occured, many residents of the area were relocated to fictitious Miller's Kill, where this series is set. 336 pp.
Donald Westlake, Drowned Hopes (1990): Set in upstate New York. John Dortmunder's ex-cellmate, Tom Jimson, asks Dortmunder's help in reclaiming a $700,000 stash from an old robbery. The cash was buried in an upstate New York town that was subsequently flooded to become part of New York City's reservoir system. Jimson's plan to blow up the reservoir dam will doom nearby towns, so Dortmunder must concoct a more humane solution (from PW review). 418 pp.
John Morgan Wilson, Rhapsody in Blood: A Benjamin Justice Novel (2006): Set in California. In 1956, glamorous film star Rebecca Fox was murdered in the Eternal Springs Hotel in the Calif. desert. A young African-American man was blamed for the murder and was lynched by an angry mob led by the KKK, though new DNA evidence indicates that he may have been innocent of the crime. The government has since damned the valley for hydroelectric power and the waters of Lake Enid now cover the town where the viscious killing took place. Benjamin Justice accepts an offer from a reporter friend to spend a relaxing weekend at the Haunted Springs Hotel and becomes involved in both the old murder and current-day danger. 288 pp.
Stuart Woods, Under the Lake (1987): Set in Sutherland, Georgia, "a charmingly reconstructed town on a man-made lake." Investigative reporter John Howell becomes obsessed with the dark secrets of a local family that vanished after their farm was flooded a quarter-century earlier. 281 pp.
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Andrea Barrett, The Forms of Water (1993): Set in Massachusetts. At 80, Brendan Auberon, a former monk, is confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home. His last wish is to see the 200 acres of woodland where his family home once stood. Half a century ago, the owners of the land were evicted from their homes and the land was flooded to create a reservoir which would provide water for the big city. Brendan convinces his staid nephew Henry to hijack the nursing home van to make this ancestral visit.
Berlie Doherty, Deep Secret (2004): Young Adult. Set in England. Haunting novel about twins and generations in a village which is to be flooded to create a reservoir. Based on real events of the flooding of the small villages of Derwent and Ashopton in north-west Derbyshire to make way for the building of the Ladybower reservoir supplying water to Sheffield, Leicester, Derby and Nottingham. 264 pp.
Ivan Doig, Bucking the Sun (1996): Set in northwestern Montana. A Depression-era narrative largely devoted to the problems of building the Fort Peck Dam, which created a reservoir 135 miles long, provided flood control and was the biggest earth-fill dam in the world at the time. It focuses on the fictional Duff family and their roles in the mammoth dam project, and in the process describes the working conditions and way of life of the thousands of workers hired to construct the Fort Peck Dam, many of them homesteaders from upriver farms destined to disappear under the waters of the newly formed Fort Peck Lake (summary from Wikipedia). There are two murders, but the book is not essentially a mystery. 412 pp.
Sarah Hall, Haweswater (2002): Set in Cumbria, England. Won UK's Commonwealth Prize. Debut novel is set in 1936 in remote Marsdale village in the Lake District, and tells of the flooding of the dale to make way for a reservoir, against the wishes of many of the local hill farmers. When Waterworks representative Jack Ligget from industrial Manchester arrives with plans to build the new reservoir, he brings the much feared threat of impending change to this bucolic hamlet. And when he begins an intense and troubled affair with Janet Lightburn, a devout local woman, it leads to scandal, tragedy, and remarkable, desperate acts.
Mollie Hunter, The Walking Stones: A Story of Suspense (1970; illus Trina Schart Hyman). Ages 9-12. Set in the Scottish Highlands. Paranormal thriller. After receiving the gift of Second Sight from his old friend,the Bodach, ten-year-old Donald becomes responsible for safeguarding the ancient power of the walking stones before their glen is flooded by a hydroelectric company. 143 pp.
Jackie French Koller, Someday (2002): Ages 9-12. Set in Massachusetts. Fourteen-year-old Celie lives in Enfield, Mass. in 1938 and her town, along with three others, is to be flooded to create a reservoir. All the families have to move from their homes, but Celie's Gran refuses to do so. Celie's mother is angry with Gran and says she should face reality, but that's because Celie's mother is a city girl and really wants to leave. Based on the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir. 224 pp.
Kathryn Lasky, Home Free (1985): Young Adult. Set in Massachusetts. Fifteen-year-old Sam Brooks and his mother have moved to her hometown in New England, mourning Sam's father, who died in a car crash. Sam soon involves himself with a project to introduce eagles to an 'accidental wilderness' that exists because an entire valley, including four villages, was flooded to create a reservoir, forcing many families to relocate and leave their pasts behind. His work to save the wilderness helps an autistic girl return to reality and reveals her strange hidden power. 245 pp.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Colour Out of Space" (1927): Spooky science fiction. Set in Massachusetts. Forty years ago, a strange meteorite struck the town and farms of Arkham, Mass. Since then, nothing grows right here (inedible fruits, anatomically incorrect animals, oddly coloured plant life, a sort of phosphorescence in the air), and people have malaise, insanity, bad dreams.... Something is sucking life itself out of everything in the area, and its reach is growing larger and larger. Now, the entire blighted area will be flooded and the citizens of Boston will be drinking water from the created reservoir. The entire story is online.
Sue Miller, The World Below (2001): Set in Vermont. The Quabbin Reservoir and Harriman Reservoir are not central to the plot but are mentioned seven times between pp. 209 and 270.
June Oldham, Undercurrents (1998): Children's book. 202 pp. A heat wave begins to take its toll and a village, once drowned in the name of progress, gradually reappears as the reservoir that took its place subsides.
Margaret Paice, They Drowned a Valley (1969): Ages 9-12. Story of the people living in remote Upper Wambridge Valley in Australia, who face an uncertain future as the dam for the new reservoir is about to flood their homes. 192 pp.
Alice and Martin Provensen, Shaker Lane (1987): Children's picture book. An old rundown neighborhood, lovingly described, is flooded out when the county builds a reservoir. Only Mr. Van Sloop, who has opened an antique shop on a houseboat and still takes in stray dogs, is left.
Michael Shea, The Color Out of Time (1984): Science fiction. Set in New England. Homage to Lovecraft's 'The Colour Out of Space.' The flooded New England valley made a beautiful holiday spot, with twenty miles of secluded lakeshore. But visitors Gerald Sternbruck and Ernst Carlsberg soon realise that the still waters of the lake conceal a frightful evil that preys on flora, fauna, and human beings.
William F. Weld, Stillwater (2001): The story of fifteen-year-old Jamieson, a farm boy who finds first love with the unforgettable, dreamy Hannah. At the same time, life as he knows it is unraveling around him, as his town and four neighboring towns will soon be flooded to create a huge reservoir. Written by a former Mass. governor. 240 pp.
Jane Yolen, Letting Swift River Go (1992; illus. Barbara Cooney): Ages 5-9. Set in Massachusetts. Relates Sally Jane's experience of changing times in rural America, as she lives through the drowning of the Swift River Towns in western Massachusetts to form the Quabbin Reservoir. 32 pp.
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Non-Fiction about Drowned Towns
Thomas Conuel, Quabbin: The accidental wilderness (1981): When Quabbin reservoir was completed and filled in 1946, the engineers had created the third largest body of fresh water in New England and had accomplished one of the larger public works projects of the period. They had also uprooted and displaced the inhabitants of the valley, leveled and flooded four complete towns plus six villages -- and created a magnificent wilderness of some 85,000 acres.
James L. Douthat, Cherokee Reservoir Grave Removals by T.V.A. (2003): 222 pages. The more than 150 cemeteries that were flooded when the T.V.A. built the Cherokee Reservoir in upper East Tennessee are shown here with a plat of most of the cemeteries that were flooded with a cataloging of the burials and removals.
David and Joan Hay, Mardale, The Drowned Village: Being a Lakeland Journey into Yesterday (1976): Profile of life in the village of Mardale near Shap in the English Lake District which was drowned to create a new reservoir.
Allen Holt, Watergrove: A History of the Valley and Its Drowned Village (2002): In 1938 several small villages were submerged to form Rochdale's largest reservoir. 82 pp.
David Howarth, The Shadow of the Dam (1961): Chronicles the construction of the Kariba Dam in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and the forced migration of 35,000 Tonga tribesmen whose homes were flooded by the rising waters of the giant reservoir.
Elizabeth Peirce, Quabbin Valley: People and Places (2006): A collection of vintage photographs and an informative text provide a nostalgic look at the Quabbin Valley, from 1750 to 1938, documenting the everyday lives of the inhabitants of Dana, Enfield, Prescott, Greenwich, and their environs, until they were displaced when the region was flooded to create the Quabbin Reservoir. 128 pp.
Joyce Hunsinger Pogany, Austintown (2007): The damming of Meander Creek creating Meander Reservoir put Ohltown underwater and flooded some of West Austintown.
Lesley Ross, ed., Before the Lake: Memories of the Chew Valley (2004): The story of an area of North-East Somerset, flooded in the 1950s to provide a reservoir. An appendix gives details of the last occupiers of properties which were lost during the construction.
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Real Drowned Towns
in the U.S.
Alabama: the town of Irma, under Lake Martin
Arizona: Alamo Crossing, a mining town now under 100 feet of water in Lake Alamo; town of La Laguna, under Mittry Lake. Lake Havasu City (and lake), created with the construction of Parker Dam in the 1930s, drowned several small towns: 'When the thirst for water altered the terrain with the construction of Parker Dam in the 1930s, ... obscure little villages and communities were flooded and disappeared as the shoreline was widened. Left behind was a ghostly reminder of another time, as the tops of trees danced eerily beneath the surface of the blue waters.'
Arkansas: Several towns, including Miller, under Greers Ferry Lake on the Little Red River (1959-1962); the town of Custer by Norfork Lake; the town of Fir by Lake Ouachita; the town of Hand by Norfork Lake
California: Hetch Hetchy Valley, a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in California, was flooded in 1923 by O'Shaughnessy Dam, forming the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir; Jacksonville, near Sonora, under Lake Don Pedro; Melones, near Sonora, under New Melones Lake; Monticello, near Napa, evacuated for Lake Berryessa Reservoir, and Redbud Park inundated by same; Heroult, Kennett, Baird, and Copper City, for Lake Shasta in 1944; the town Lorraine by Thermalito Afterbay; the town of Minersville by Clair Engle Lake; the town of Pleyto by San Antonio Reservoir; the towns of Foster Bar, Bullards Bar, and Garden Valley by Bullards Bar Reservoir; the town of Salmon Falls by Folsom Lake; the towns of South Fork, Bloomer, Bidwell Bar, Bidwell, and Enterprise by Lake Oroville; the town of Mussey Grove by San Vicente Reservoir; the town of Isabella by Isabella Lake; the town of El Capitan by El Capitan Reservoir; the town of Cedar Springs by Silverwood Lake; the town of Auld by Skinner Reservoir; the town of Hullville by Lake Pillsbury;
the towns of Lexington and Alma, for the James J. Lenihan Dam and Lexington Reservoir (around 1950), near Los Gatos;the town of Petersburg, under the New Hogan Reservoir; town of Picacho, mostly submerged when Laguna Dam completed 1909.
Colorado: Sopris, for the Trinidad Dam and Reservoir; McPhee for the McPhee Reservoir; the town of Iola by Blue Mesa Reservoir
Connecticut: the village of Barkhamsted Hollow, for Barkhamsted Reservoir on the Farmington River (Saville Dam, 1940)
Florida: the town of Butler due to construction of the Jim Woodruff Reservoir.
Georgia: the towns of Petersburg and Lisbon when Strom Thurmond Lake was created; the town of Oketeyeconne by Walter F. George Reservoir; the town of Hunt by Chatuge Lake.
Idaho: the town of American Falls, for the American Falls Reservoir and Dam (1910s-1920s); the town of Montour, for the Black Canyon Dam.
Indiana: the town of Monument City, flooded in 1965 to create the Salamonie Reservoir.
Kansas: towns under Tuttle Creek Lake on the Big Blue River, near Manhattan (1962; one town was rebuilt elsewhere: Randolph, Kansas)
Maine: the towns of Dead River and Flagstaff, flooded in 1949 when the Flagstaff Dam was built and Flagstaff Lake was created on the Dead River in western Maine.
Maryland: the town of Conowingo when Conowingo Dam was built in 1928; 1809 mill town Triadelphia, inundated in 1931 by Triadelphia Reservoir; the town of Shamburg by Prettyboy Reservoir; the towns of Dulaney Valley and Bosley by Loch Raven Reservoir.
Massachusetts: the towns of Boylston, West Boylston, Clinton and Sterling, for the Wachusett Reservoir (1897-1908); town of Dana, North Dana, Millington, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott, on the Swift River for the Quabbin Reservoir
Missouri: the towns of Theodosia and Forsyth when the Bull Shoals Dam and Lake was built on the White River in 1951; the town of Shawnee Bend, inundated by the creation of the Lake of the Ozarks by Bagnell Dam in 1931.
Montana: the town of Nagos, inundated by Lake Koocanusa; towns and homes near Glasgow, Mont., flooded by Fort Peck Dam on the Missouri River (1933-1940), created to provide flood control, hydroelectric power, and 10,000 jobs during the Depression -- it is the largest hydraulically filled dam in the United States and created the fifth largest man-made lake in the U.S., Fort Peck Lake; the town of Armstead (inundated), plus Routes 91 (rebuilt as Interstate 15) and the main line of the Union Pacific RR, for Clark Canyon Dam and Reservoir in Beaverhead County (1961-1964), created for downstream irrigation and flood control; the town of Rexford, Highway 37, the Great Northern Railroad line, for Libby Dam and Lake Koocanusa (1970s).
Nevada: St. Thomas, under Lake Mead when the art deco Boulder Dam (aka Hoover Dam) was built on the Colorado River in 1931-1936, but due to drought conditions has been visible again since the late 1990s. Hills Camp is under Lake Mohave, which was created by Davis Dam.
New Mexico: town of Paraje, submerged by Elephant Butte Lake when Elephant Butte Dam built, 1912-1916
New York: Neversink and Bittersweet, New York, now under the Neversink Reservoir; the towns of Olive, West Shokan, Brodhead Bridge, Brown's Station, Boiceville, West Hurley, Glenford and Ashton (in the Catskills) to create Ashokan Reservoir; the towns of Beerston, Cannonsville, Rock Rift, Rock Royal and Granton, for Cannonsville Reservoir; the towns of Arena, Pepacton, Shavertown and Union Grove, for Pepacton Reservoir; the towns of Eureka, Montela and Lackawack, for Rondout Reservoir (1937-1954); the town of Gilboa for Schoharie Reservoir in the Catskills (1919-1927); the town of Southeast, on the Croton River (Sodom Dam), to create East Branch Reservoir, Middle Branch Reservoir, Bog Brook Reservoir and Diverting Reservoir (info and photos here); Concord, partially flooded in 1930 when the Conklingville dam created the Sacandaga Reservoir (now Great Sacandaga Lake).
North Carolina: the towns of Judson and Fontana, to create Fontana Lake; the town of Tuscola, inundated by the creation of Lake Junaluska and Lake Junaluska Dam.
North Dakota: Sanish (Old Sanish), Elbowoods, Lucky Mound, Shell Creek, Nishu, Charging Eagle, Beaver Creek, Red Butte, Independence, and Van Hook (some towns are part of Fort Berthold Indian Reservation), flooded for Lake Sakakawea in 1953 (see photo of foundations visible above lake); town of Moe, under the Garrison Reservoir (1950s).
Ohio: the town of Elk Lick by William H. Harsha Lake.
Oregon: the town of Arlington, in Gilliam County, relocated uphill from its original location to make way for the John Day Dam, constructed on the Columbia River (1958-1968) and creating Lake Umatilla, along with the towns of Boardman and Umatilla, also relocated for the dam.
Pennsylvania: the town of Corydon, and tribal lands and gravesites, flooded in the 1965 for Kinzua Dam and Allegheny Reservoir and in the 1990s partially uncovered due to low water levels; the town of Pritchard by Lake Cowanesque; town (Wilsonville?) under Lake Wallenpaupack (1924-1926)
Rhode Island: the towns of Kent, Richmond, Ashland, South Scituate, Saundersville, Rockland and Ponaganset, and mills at Clayville, Elmdale, Harrisdale and Glenrock, plus almost 1,500 graves (relocated), for the Scituate Reservoir (1915-1926).
South Carolina: the towns in the Saluda Valley, under Lake Murray (Saluda Dam, 1920s); the towns of Andersonville and Price by Hartwell Lake.
South Dakota: Bear Gulch II, submerged beneath the waters of Pactola Lake.
Tennessee: the town of Butler, in 1948 by the TVA for Watauga Dam and Reservoir; towns under Norris Lake, created by the TVA's Norris Dam (1933-1936), for hydroelectric and flood control structure, on the Clinch River; the town of Willow Grove, for Dale Hollow Reservoir (1942)
Texas: Guerrero Viejo, a colonial town from the 1750s -- which includes Nuestra Senora del Refugio, a historic Spanish mission -- when the U.S. and Mexico dammed the Rio Grande to create Falcon Lake Reservoir in 1953; the town of Old Zapata, inundated by the Falcon Dam Reservoir; the town of Calliham, for the Choke Canyon Dam and Reservoir (1982) on the Frio River (flowing to the Nueces River); the town of Addicks near Houston for the Addicks Dam Reservoir (mid 1940s); the panhandle town of Saints Roost, under water in the Greenbelt Reservoir; town of Swartwout, inundated by Livingston Dam/Reservoir on the Trinity River; houses, farmsteads, orchards, and farms, submerged by Lake Travis with the Mansfield Dam (originally called the Marshall Ford Dam), on the Colorado River, built in 1937-1941.
Utah: Connellsville, under Electric Lake; the old mining town of Hite, under Lake Powell; the town of Rockport, under the Rockport Reservoir (1950s).
Virginia: the town of Greenwood, inundated by Lake Moomaw
Washington: 3,000 people (including Indian tribes) in the towns of Kettle Falls, Peach, Keller, Lincoln, Inchelium, Gerome, Marcus, Gifford, Boyds, Fort Covile, and Daisy evacuated for Lake Roosevelt, formed by the Grand Coulee Dam (1933-1941) on the Columbia River, which was built for the purpose of irrigation; the town of Moncton, submerged by Rattlesnake Lake and Masonry Dam on the Cedar River Watershed (1912-1915) to provide drinking water for Seattle; the town of Roosevelt, relocated for the building of the John Day Dam and creation of Lake Umatilla on the Columbia River (1958-1968).
West Virginia: the towns of Yates, Sandy, and Stone House, inundated by Tygart Lake; the town of Morrison by Summersville Dam.
For more: Immersed Remains: Towns Submerged in America has more history, and photos, of some drowned towns in the U.S.
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outside the U.S.
Canada: the town of Minnewanka, Alberta, for Lake Minnewanka (1912; 1941); the mining town of Minto, British Columbia, for Carpenter Reservoir; towns of West Kootenay, British Columbia, including Arrowhead, Beaton, Needles and Waneta, drowned for reservoirs and power dams; the town of Upper Mill Ville by Mactequac Lake, New Brunswick; the towns of Mille Roches, Moulinette, Wales, Dickinson’s Landing, Farran’s Point, and Aultsville, near Cornwall, Ontario, for a hydro dam on the St. Lawrence River in 1958.
United Kingdom: the mill village of Goyt in Derbyshire; the towns of Derwent and Ashopton for Ladybower Dam; the village of Hambleton, inundated by Rutland Water; the town of Mardale in the Lake District, flooded by Haweswater Reservoir.
Australia: Old Jyndabyne Township, New South Wales, for the Jyndabyne Dam Project
New Zealand: Cromwell (South Island) partially flooded in the 1980s to create Lake Dunstan, to power a hydroelectric dam
Italy: the town of Fabbriche di Careggine, under Lake Vagli -- every ten years the lake is emptied for maintenance and the town is visible.
Argentina, S.A.: Federación was submerged (residents relocated) in 1979 when the Salto Grande Dam was built, on the border with Uruguay.
Colombia, S.A.: the old colonial town of Guatavita was flooded to create a hydro-electric reservoir, Tominé Reservoir (1967)
Brazil, S.A. : the original city of Nova Ponte plus 8 other municipalities, due to the Nova Ponte Hydropower Plant dam and reservoir (1987-1994)
India: the town of Harsud, in Madhya Pradesh, flooded in 2005 for the Narmada Dam project, to provide hydroelectric power and irrigation for crops; the village of Khandal, the town of Tehri, and other villages, for the Tehri Dam (1990s)
Burma: tens of thousands of people forcibly relocated for the proposed TA Sarong hydroelectric dam and its reservoir, on the Salween River in northeastern Burma (2000).
Russia: the town of Atalanka and others along the the shores of the Angara (in Siberia), intentionally flooded in 1961 as a result of the construction downriver of several dams and the Bratsk hydroelectric station.
China: millions of people are expected to be transplanted from 153 towns and 4,500 villages (and several temples submerged) when the Three Gorges Dam is completed.
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Helpful Sources
Re: dam-l towns submerged by lakes by Damon Scott
Underwater Towns -- Scuba Diving Board (Cached here)
Photo credit: Ghosts of North Dakota.com
23:45 Posted in booklists , books and reading , community , earthcare and environment , lists , science and tech , travel and place | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this
25 January 2006
If You Like the Movie "Brokeback Mountain" ...
I've posted a list of books (and a few movies) similar in style, content, and character depiction to the current film, "Brokeback Mountain," based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx, and starring Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist. Thanks to the folks on Fiction-L for their help compiling the list.
The book list is here.
21:50 Posted in booklists , books and reading , media, film, tv, radio , lists , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
17 August 2005
Books for Young Kids About Amputation and Missing Limbs
I've spent two hours so far this morning researching a query someone emailed me yesterday. She asked for book titles for her 5-year-old niece, who is afraid of her teacher because he is missing a hand.
I enlisted the help of the Fiction_L list, a mailing list of mostly librarians who are involved with Readers Advisory in their organisations. Readers Advisory focuses on helping people find the books they'll enjoy, usually based on knowing other books they enjoy, or aspects of books they enjoy ... such as fiction that also provides detailed historical or subject information, or non-fiction that reads like fiction, or fiction told from multiple points of view.
Surprisingly, it's been difficult to find many books that address amputation, missing limbs, or limb deformity, and there are very few for children under age 9 or 10.
Here's what I have gathered so far, and I'm still hoping for more suggestions from the mailing list; if you know of a book, please email me. Thanks.
- FICTION
- Harry and Willy and Carrothead by Judith Caseley (Illustrator), 1991, Willow Press. Harry, born without a left hand, enjoys playing games with his friends and is candid in responding to those who are curious about his missing hand. The book emphasises the similarity of Harry to his friends Willy and Carrothead (a redhead). Ages preschool to grade 2.
Oliver's High Five, by Beverly Swerdlow Brown and Margot J. Ott, Health Press, 1997, 32 pp. Oliver Octopus has only five arms but doesn't let it bother him. Sometimes, though, he has to correctmisconceptions others have about his missing arms. Ages 4-8. - Fanny by Stephen Cosgrove (a Serendipity book), Price Stern Sloan, 1986, 32 pp. Fanny, a grey cat with three legs, is able to do what others on the farm can do, except that she hops instead of walks; but the other farm animals don't talk to her, thinking she will be embarassed, until a puppy makes the first move towards acceptance and friendship. Ages 4-8.
- Connie the Three Legged Turtle by Nancy Northrop, 2002, 41 pp. Often feeling alone, a three legged turtle tries really hard to do her best, learns to swim, and rescues all the ants stranded in the stream.
- For older children (perhaps a read-aloud): The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg, which features a paraplegic 6th-grade teacher, Mrs. Olinski. For grades 4-7. Newbery Award. 1996.
- Good Luck, Mrs. K! by Louise Borden, 1999, 32 pp. A sensitive story about a third-grade class whose confident and well-liked teacher (Mrs. Kempczinski) is suddenly stricken with cancer. For ages 5-10.
- NON-FICTION
- Let's Talk About It: Extraordinary Friends by (Mr) Fred Rogers. Candidly answers common questions children have about people with disabilities and also provides introductory etiquette. Ages 4-8.
- Don't Call Me Special: A First Look at Disability by Pat Thomas, Barron's Educational Series, 2002, 32 pp. Young children can find out what a disability is and learn how people deal with their disabilities to live happy and full lives. Ages 4-8.
- Our Teacher's in a Wheelchair by Mary Ellen Powers, Albert Whitman and Company, 1987/1991, 32 pp. Photos depict Brian Hanson throughout his day as a nursery school teacher. Ages 5-8.
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The Making of My Special Hand: Madison's Story by James R. Heelan, 1998, 32 pp. A child who was born with one hand tells the story of how people at the hospital made a helper hand for her, how the new hand operates, how it feels, and how she can use it. Ages 6-10.
- For older children but might be helpful, especially the photos: Don't Feel Sorry for Paul by Bernard Wolf, 1974. An award-winning, intimate look in photographs and text at the active life of a 7-year-old boy with malformed hands and feet, who with the help of artificial limbs, lives, works, and plays alongside his peers. Ages 9-11.
- I found at least 15 biographies of Jim Abbott, the star baseball player who was born without a right hand, but none are written at the level that a 5- or 6-year-old would likely appreciate. Two books written for the 9-12 age group are Jim Abbott: Star Pitcher by Bill Gutman, The Millbrook Press, 1992, 48 pages, with 10 black-and-white photos; and Jim Abbott: All-American Pitcher by Howard Reiser, Children's Press, 1993, 48 pages (part of the Sports Stars series), with 24 black-and-white photos.
UPDATE 8/19/05: A Fiction_L member suggested two print bibliographies; although they were published more than 25 years ago, they are "annotated and full of wonderful suggestions." Notes from a Different Drummer: A Guide to Juvenile Fiction Portraying the Handicapped (Serving Special Populations Series) by Barbara Holl Baskin and Karen H. Harris, 1977, 288 pp., and More Notes from a Different Drummer: A Guide to Juvenile Fiction Portraying the Disabled (Serving Special Populations Series) by Barbara Holland Baskin and Karen H. Harris, 1984, 495 pp. They're out of print but available from used book sources. Similarly, there's a 1991 edition of Portraying Persons with Disabilities: An Annotated Bibliography of Fiction for Children and Teenagers by Debra Robertson, a "selective annotated bibliography [that] includes more than 650 fiction titles that promote acceptance and understanding of the disabled." It's apparently "a continuation of Bowker's Notes from a Different Drummer and More Notes from a Different Drummer. It's 482 pages and covers books written for children and young adults, from picture books to junior novels.
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