New This Week
June 21, 2010
Column: At the Library
From: Cranbrook Public Library
By Mike Selby
Best known for her beauty and sex appeal, Raquel Welch discusses the struggles she has had to face in her autobiography BEYOND THE CLEAVAGE. From growing up with an abusive father, struggling to pay bills as a single mother, and her survival of menopause and empty-nest syndrome, Welch offers much advice in this deeply personal look at her life.
Thriller writer Brad Meltzer has compiled a list of role models he hopes will influence his own children in HEROES FOR MY SON. Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks and Jim Henson are just a few of the figures profiled in this collection of ordinary people who grew up to achieve the extraordinary.
The Friends\' Travelogues are off for the summer but will resume in the fall. If you would like to present a travelogue, please contact Sheila McDonald at 250-417-1597 or gsmcdonald@cotr.bc.ca
The Library has 3 fantastic summer reading clubs this summer:
1. READING ROCKS SUMMER READIN CLUB.
This program includes storytimes, coloring contests, movie nights, cybercamps, story writing contests and even a rock concert.
Registrations starts June 26th, or sign up any day afterwards
Free for everyone aged 3 to 12.
Toddlers also have a program.
2. GET INTO CHARACTER TEEN READING CLUB.
Open and free to all teens. Get started at website www.teenrc.ca
This program provides teens the opportunity to read books, post their own reviews and personal writing, participate in online chats with peers and authors, and the chance to win weekly prizes.
3. PASSPORT TO READING ADULT BOOK CLUB
Open and free to all adults. Simply pick up your passport at the Library, and enjoy a summer full of great reading. Prizes included. Registration begins June 26th.
For more information please contact Kristen at 426-4063, or drop her an email at kmacdonald@cranbrookpubliclibrary.ca
Don’t forget to check out our wonderful Ktunaxa Nation display.
ADULT NEWLY AQUIRED SHELF:
Compact Cabin " Gerald Rowan (728.73)
End Procrastination Now " William Knaus (155.232)
Master Mountain Bike Skills " Brian Lopes (796.63)
Dying for a Home: Homeless Activists Speak Out " Cathy Crowe (362.50971)
The Complete Root Cellar Book " Steve Maxwell (641.452)
D-Day: The Battle for Normandy " Antony Beevor (940.5421421)
The Vegetarian Slow Cooker " Judith Finlayson (641.5636)
Complete Guide to Container Gardening (635.986)
Side by Side: Mother Daughter Program for Conflict Free Communication (646.78)
Eyewitness Austria 2010 (914.26)
More Favorite Traditional Quilts Made Easy " Jo Parrot (746.46)
The Rational Optimist " Matt Ridley (339.2)
Us: Transforming Ourselves and the Relationships that Matter Most " Lisa Oz (158.2)
Raquel: Behind the Cleavage " Raquel Welch (bio)
The Telling " Beverly Lewis (fic)
Come Thou Tortoise " Jessica Grant (fic)
The Queen’s Lady " Barbara Kyle (fic)
Men and Dogs " Katie Crouch (fic)
Intercept " Patrick Robinson (fic)
Heart of the Matter " Emily Giffin (fic)
The Burning Wire " Jeffery Deaver (mys)
Supreme Justice " Phillip Margolin (mys)
Under the Moon (DVD)
Transformers (DVD)
Transformers 2 (DVD)
The Big Blue: The World’s Largest Creature (DVD)
Chihuly in the Hotspot (DVD)
The Normans (DVD)
Great White Odyssey (DVD)
Winter " John Marsden (MP3)
YOUNG ADULT & CHILDREN’S NEWLY ACQUIRED ITEMS:
Runaway " Meg Cabot (ya fic)
For Keeps " Natasha Friend (ya fic)
Fading Echoes " Erin Hunter (ya fic)
Shattered Peace " Erin Hunter ya fic)
The Time Pirate " Ted Bell (ya fic)
Boom " Mark Haddon (ya fic)
The Monkey Face Chronicles " Richard Scarsbrook (ya fic)
In a Heartbeat " Loretta Ellsworth (ya fic)
Spirit Quest " Susan Rocan (ya fic)
Draco’s Child " Sharon Plumb (ya fic)
The Reckoning " Kelley Armstrong (ya fic)
The Red Pyramid " Rick Riordan (ya fic)
The Owl Keeper " Christine Brodien-Jones (ya fic)
Northward to the Moon " Polly Horvath (ya fic)
There’s A Barnyard in My Bedroom " David Suzuki (j 508)
The Salmon Bears " Ian McAllister (j 599)
Patrick’s Wish " Karen Mitchell (j 616.9792)
Heroes for My Son " Brad Meltzer (j 920.02)
The Ship of Lost Souls " Rachelle Delaney (j fic)
Owl Tree " R.A. Montgomery (j fic)
Cryptid Hunters " Roland Smith (j fic)
The Kind of Friends We Used To Be " Frances O’Roark-Dowell (j fic)
Dreamquest " Brent Hartinger (j fic)
Harris Finds His Feet " Catherine Rayner (j pic)
My Father Knows The Names of Things " Jane Yolen (j pic)
My Truck is Stuck " Kevin Lewis (j pic)
Butterfly Birthday " Harriet Ziefert (j pic)
Ten Terrible Dinosaurs " Paul Stickland (j pic)
MIKE’S BOOKNOTES:
“History and legend bind us to the past, along with unquenchable memory. Growing up in Dallas’s working-class suburb of Oak Cliff in the 1940s and ‘50s was the second experience in my life that I never got over.” So wrote Grover Lewis in 1992; one of the greatest writers of the 20th century that no one has ever heard of.
His anonymity is odd considering he was surrounded by celebrities most of his life. His parents grew up with and were close friends of the real Bonnie and Clyde. In turn, Lewis himself grew up with and was best friends with author Larry McMurtry. He saw Elvis get beat up one night at a bar, and was standing beside publisher Larry Flynt when was shot. Hollywood directors invited him to movie sets to write “on location” pieces, and soon Lewis was having drinks with Sam Peckinpah, Robert Mitchum, Paul Newman and Jack Nicholson. While visiting the set of The Last Picture Show, Lewis was actually cast for a small part in the film.
Apart from hobnobbing with Hollywood’s finest, Lewis was also highly regarded by his peers. While his work has been called “unwashed greatness”, “beautifully styled”, and “some of the finest writing ever,” he himself has been labeled “the defining voice in new journalism,” and “a gift to American letters.” The North Texas State College English professor who taught both Lewis and McMurtry stated “Larry’s good, but his friend is better.” Fellow journalist Tim Cahill summed up everyone’s opinion when he said “He was the best of us.”
Grover Virgil Lewis was born in 1934, in San Antonio Texas. He was raised by his parents until he was 8, when he was sent to live with his abusive aunt and uncle. They beat him so bad he became almost blind, and could only read by moving his head back and forth. Yet it was reading which rescued him from his white trash guardians, and soon enough he and his friend Larry McMurtry were attending college; both of them growing into outstanding literary talents. After graduation Lewis tried teaching, but found he was better suited for newspaper and magazine work. His articles began appearing in dozens of Texas papers, along with magazines such as Rolling Stone, Playboy, and the Village Voice. His work"such as Splendor in the Short Grass and Buried Alive in Hype"both won National Magazine Award nominations. Lewis’s work was innovative, stylish, and surprisingly honest. His two books published at the time, ACADEMY ALL THE WAY and I”LL BE THERE IN THE MORNING IF I LIVE, expertly capture the culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Ultimately, all his talent and innovation wasn’t welcome in the ‘80s. Editors didn’t want lengthy and honest portrayals of the times; they wanted short puff pieces, ones approved by corporate sponsors. Texan stubborn, Lewis found himself unwilling to change, causing his work to be published less and less. He also began to drink heavily, which quickly alienated him from his friends while blacklisting himself from magazine publishers. He was such a mean drunk that Larry McMurtry"who had dedicated his novel HORSEMAN PASS BY to Lewis"had the dedication removed.
This terrible phase of his life went on until 1992, when what was left of his eyesight began to degenerate. Feeling his seeing-life was short, he typed out one thing he was terrified to write about: his youth. Texas Monthly published his story about Oak Cliff, the Texas town where Lewis spent the best part of his childhood (which, editor Dave Hickey pointed out, “had no best part at all”).
“In the spring of 1943,” Lewis began, “my parents"Grover Lewis, a truck driver, and Opal Bailey Lewis, a hotel waitress"shot each other to death with a pawn-shop pistol.”
This was the “first” experience of his life Lewis never recovered from. After his mother had left his father, he had stalked them across Texas, shooting his mother five times (as he always promised he would if she left), who then seized the gun and shot him back.
It was this nightmarish work of childhood terror which caused book publishers to flood Lewis with lucrative offers for his complete biography. He began work on it immediately, titling it GOODBYE IF YOU CALL THAT GONE. It was this book which would of probably made Grover Lewis a household name if he hadn’t up and died after typing only 11 pages. This is why"in a dedication to his work"Dave Hickey wrote that Lewis “was, after all, the most stone wonderful writer that nobody ever heard of.”
