New Book Reviews

In this inaugural post for the CMC Alpine Library blog, we're going to link to some book reviews. Since it would take a whole heckuva lot of time to provide you with reviews for the more than 200 new books we've received, we are instead going to link to reviews for some of the titles that we think are pretty neat.

Please bookmark the blog or put it in your bloglines list, and check in with us as often as you can. Thanks, and welcome to the Alpine Campus Library blog!

Reviews

Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax"
by Philip C. Plait
John Wiley and Sons, 2002
Plait, a science writer who works in the physics and astronomy department at Sonoma State University, is appalled that millions of Americans don't believe the moon landing really took place...

The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design
by Leonard Susskind
Little Brown and Company, 2005
As modern physics has developed a better understanding of how the universe operates at its most fundamental levels, one thing has become increasingly clear: we're damned lucky to be here at all...

The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World
by Paul Roberts
Houghton Mifflin, 2004
All economic activity is rooted in the energy economy, which means a substantial portion of the current world economy is linked to the production and distribution of oil. But what will happen, Roberts asks, when the well starts to run dry?...

History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at How American History Has Changed in the Telling Over the Last 300 Years
by Kyle Ward
New Press, 2006
For this fascinating history of history, author and professor Ward (History Lessons) examined scores of textbooks published between 1794 and 1999 to see how the same American historical periods, events or figures have been portrayed at different times throughout the nation's past, uncovering startling discrepancies in writers' versions of everything from slavery to Vietnam...

The Informant: The FBI, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Murder of Viola Liuzzo
by Gary May
Yale University Press, 2005
Suspenseful and vigorously reported. The caution May sounds in The Informant is worth heeding, now more than ever...

Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression
by David Healy
New York University Press, 2006
An alarming book, the most disturbing part of the story Healy tells is not merely about the risks of SSRIs but about the efforts of the pharmaceutical industry to make sure those risks were not uncovered...

Powder Burn: Arson, Money, and Mystery on Vail Mountain
by Daniel Glick
PublicAffairs, 2003
On the face of it, this is the story of unsolved arson at a high-glamour resort, a mystery packed with suspects that range from crusty ski bums to radical tree huggers to the resort's own corporate honchos. But underlying this entertaining true-life plot is a greater theme that is playing out across America...

Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America
by Matthew Frye Jacobson
Harvard University Press, 2006
As critically important as it is engaging, Roots Too impressively shows how thoroughly "Ellis Island" whiteness has remade nationalism in the U.S. in the last half century. Our views are both complicated and deepened by this brilliant work of retrieval and analysis...

Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution
by David Carter
St. Martin's Press, 2004
Considering all that went before, the ongoing repression and corruption, and the scent of social and political liberation in the air, Carter's eloquent account makes it clear that something was bound to catch fire...