Downtown & Business Staff Picks

Celebrate Poetry Month - take a poetic journey through America with famous poets & unknowns as well who have gotten carried away by a particular place of the American landscape. A wonderful anthology of postcards from the road to lift your spirits & your heart.

Even though Spring is just around the corner, the Winter doldrums may still have some feeling down. Neil Pasricha was experiencing some pretty low times in his life when he started the blog, “1000 Awesome Things” to help himself and others find some daily optimism. The blog won such rave reviews that he was approached to write this book, which you can check out in eBook format. Going to the library and using its many resources is definitely an awesome thing in our book!

This classic novel written as an autobiography spans 100 years of an African American woman's life, her struggle for freedom, dignity & justice as a plantation slave through the Civil Rights era of the 1960's. An important story of race in America, it is an excellent choice for Black History month reading.

The eye-catching cover of this book invites the reader to look inside, where they will find the rest of the book equally engaging. The editors take a potentially difficult, even dry, subject - the history of economics, B.C. to present day - along with its many theories and theorists, and turn it into something readable. It is filled with snippets of information in sidebars, charts, timelines and quotes which complement the main idea of the chapter. This book is easy to move around in, going from one idea to another with "see also" references at the top of the page for most subjects covered. The book ends with a "directory" of influential economists and a glossary. The easy access format is especially good for somebody just learning about this field, particularly students, but would be enjoyed as a fresh look for those already versed in economics.

In spite of all of the ink already spilled chronicling the complex life and deeds of Andrew Carnegie and his contemporaries, author Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr. has found a unique angle on the legacy of this American icon. The Carnegie Veterans Association (CVA) operated as a somewhat secretive group of philanthropic capitalists that included such ex-Carnegie lieutenants as William Abbott, Webster R. Balsinger, William Dickson and James Gayley among many others. Stung by the misdeeds perpetrated at Carnegie Steel, these mavericks attempted to practice a kinder, gentler form of capitalism, one tempered by a sensitivity to the plight of the worker. While their noble attempt ultimately failed, the details behind it will both inform and fascinate. Mr. Skrabec's exhaustive research encompasses newspaper articles, personal letters and monographs, and provides compelling reading when rendered by his spartan authorial voice. The Carnegie Boys provides a fresh look into the life and legacy of this complicated man and the many men who worked closest to him.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Díaz's first book, Drown, established him as a major new writer with "the dispassionate eye of a journalist and the tongue of a poet" (Newsweek). His first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, was named "#1 Fiction Book of the Year" by Time magazine. Now Díaz turns his remarkable talent to the haunting, impossible power of love -- obsessive love, illicit love, fading love, maternal love. On a beach in the Dominican Republic, a doomed relationship flounders. In the heat of a hospital laundry room in New Jersey, a woman does her lover's washing and thinks about his wife. In Boston, a man buys his love child, his only son, a first baseball bat and glove. At the heart of these stories is the irrepressible, irresistible Yunior, a young hardhead whose longing for love is equaled only by his recklessness -- and by the extraordinary women he loves and loses: artistic Alma; the aging Miss Lora; Magdalena, who thinks all Dominican men are cheaters; and the love of his life, whose heartbreak ultimately becomes his own. In prose that is endlessly energetic, inventive, tender, and funny, the stories in This Is How You Lose Her lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weakness of the human heart.

In 1912, four year old Bobby Dunbar disappeared from a family campground in Louisiana. After a highly publicized eight month search, investigators returned a boy fitting his description to the Dunbar family. Soon, another woman claimed that the child was actually her own missing son, Bruce Anderson. This engrossing exploration of disputed identity before DNA testing, touches on themes of class, family and media in unexpected ways.

Living in southwestern Pennsylvania is wonderful because it is a place where nature, history, technology and culture abound. Two magazines in our collection highlight these aspects of our state and local region in fine form: Pennsylvania Magazine and Edible Allegheny. Pennsylvania Magazine features unique people, places and events, both current and historic. Recent articles cover topics from bird watching to baseball and railroads to rock skipping. Edible Allegheny definitely has great recipes, but also has articles that feature local farms, restaurants, shops and tasty events across the region that focus on sustainable living, buying local and organic.

Pulitzer Prize winner Deborah Blum gives a compelling account of the birth of forensic science focusing on poisons, which were often undetectable by the medical standards and practices of the 1920s. Battling widespread corruption and ignorance regarding poisons and their effects, Dr. Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler worked together to further the science of forensics. With each chapter focusing on a different murder by poisoning, The Poisoner's Handbook is a gruesome, yet fascinating look into true crime.

Sherman Alexie, regarded as one of America's best-known Native American writers, was awarded the 2010 Pen/Faulkner fiction prize for War Dances, a unique collection of short stories and poems that touch on the universal themes of illness, death, love and redemption. Be sure to read the title story, a son's moving tribute to his father in his final hours as he succumbs to alcoholism and diabetes, a "natural" Indian death.

A deeply moving story of love, ambition & betrayal set in Jazz Age Paris, this novel is based on an unforgettable couple, Ernest Hemingway & his wife Hadley Richardson.

Since 1937, the Library of Congress has chosen the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. This splendid anthology includes selected works by Billy Collins, Robert Penn Warren, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Frost, Robert Lowell and more. A biographical and critical essay introduces each contributor and provides a framework for the poems that follow.

In the introduction to this memoir/tongue-in-cheek self-help book, Baratunde Thurston acknowledges that "The idea of a book that claims to cover 'how to be black' is, of course preposterous, but I'm doing it anyway." Thurston helps us examine the absurdity of persistent stereotypes through dry humor and sharp observations.

A passionate manifesto on finding meaning beyond money and status, this book delivers a sound blueprint for living well on less. By author John Robbins, a crusader for planet-friendly food and lifestyle choices, who lost his entire savings in an investment scam.

These stories, songs, & sketches from the Prairie Home Companion radio program are delightful fare for the holiday season . . . or anytime.

Julia Child and Avis DeVoto started corresponding in 1952. What started out as an exchange over the deplorable condition of knives in the United States soon turned into a close friendship conducted primarily through letter writing. These fascinating letters also follow the creation of Child's infamous cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". DeVoto was instrumental in finding a publisher for the book as well as offering suggestions on the recipes, consulting on the goods found in American markets, and offering keen editing advice. Covering a wide range of personal, political, social, and food related topics, this is a book you can really sink your teeth into!

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff reveals her meticulous research to portray one of the world's most intriguing women, Cleopatra. Using her great wealth and intelligence, Cleopatra was able to make shrewd political decisions, military alliances, and foster relationships that kept Egypt at the height of power in the ancient world. Nearly 2000 years after her rule, Schiff gives new life to the myth and exposes the reality of the Egyptian queen and the world in which she lived.