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New Non-Fiction Titles

The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known

Atom

in the Universe by Theodore Gray

“The book begins with an introduction to the arrangement of the periodic table. The first 100 of the elements are each profiled on a two-page spread.

The left-hand side of the spread features a large color image of the element in its true form, when possible.

The right-hand side includes various images of ways the element appears in the world and explanations of some of the compounds in which it can be found. Ostergard, Maren. "The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe." Booklist 1 Feb. 2011: 84. General OneFile. Web. 5 July 2012.


The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the

Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean Dmitri Mendeleev's creation of

the first version of the periodic table ("one of the great intellectual achievements of humankind") ranks alongside achievements by Darwin and Einstein.

Kean presents the history of science beginning with Plato, who used the Greek word for element for the first time in the belief that elements are fundamental and unchanging. "Kean, Sam: THE DISAPPEARING SPOON." Kirkus Reviews 15 Apr. 2010. General OneFile. Web. 5 July 2012


Of greatest interest are Appel's descriptions of the early years of the team--their fi rst park, the great stars of Murderers' Row (Ruth, Gehrig and company), the building--and later remodeling--of the original Yankee Stadium and its emotional razing eight decades later.

The author also off ers the odd detail (Yogi Berra used a woman's falsie to pad his catcher's mitt), close looks at the great and not-so-great Yankee managers (Huggins, Stengel, Houk and Torre among the former) and the bizarre hire-and-fire-and-rehire history of Billy Martin and the irascible George Steinbrenner. Appel, Marty: PINSTRIPE EMPIRE." Kirkus Reviews 1 Mar. 2012. General OneFile. Web. 5 July 2012

PINSTRIPE EMPIRE by Marty Appel


The author has developed the idea of vertical farming, which would move agriculture into high-tech greenhouses stacked up in specially constructed city buildings.

Horizontal farming requires 70 percent of available freshwater, uses 20 percent of fossil fuels yearly and produces runoff that is a major source of water pollution.

Vertical farms would rely on soil-free technologies: hydroponics and aeroponics, which grows plants in a nutrient-laden mist.

The only thing lacking, he writes, is the political will and the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to build a prototype. Despommier, Dickson: THE VERTICAL FARM." Kirkus Reviews 1 July 2010. General OneFile. Web. 5 July 2012.

The Vertical Farm by Dr. Dickson Despommier


Glock: The Rise of American’s Gun by Paul M. Barrett

“You rarely pull a gun to start a conversation, but when I recently told an in-law that I was writing about Glock pistols, he improvised a research project. Reaching beneath his jacket, he quickly unholstered, unloaded and handed me his Glock 9 millimeter .

The Glock is everywhere, in innumerable TV shows and movies, strapped to most law enforcement personnel, name-dropped in hip-hop songs.

The Glock is ''the Google of modern civilian handguns,” writes Barrett. The Glock achieved such market penetration and cultural cachet as much because of timing and marketing as any native characteristic of the gun.

Troubled by some of the gun's innovative features --the Glock lacks an external safety mechanism; its ''trigger safety'' is released by merely pulling the trigger-Congress convened hearings on the Glock.

Gun manufacturers like Glock found the assault weapons ban of the 1990s ''laughably easy to evade,'' and Glock, according to the author, created shell companies to shield revenue from the I.R.S. Meanwhile, the company's marketing team used the Glock's infamy and aggressive appearance to inaugurate the pistol's Hollywood career. Washburn, Michael. "The Business End." The New York Times Book Review 29 Jan. 2012: 22(L). General OneFile.

Web. 5 July 2012.


The Juice: Vinous Veritas by Jay McInerney

As someone who admits that he "had a reputation as a party animal; no one had ever accused me of being a connoisseur," he brings plenty of knowledge and experience with wine to the beat.

"Is any of this relevant to the average wine lover, as opposed to the wealthy collector?" he writes at one point. "I think it is, in several ways. Just as developments in Formula One race cars eventually inform the engineering of the cars the rest of us drive every day, just as haute couture trickles down into the wardrobes of those who have never attended a fashion show"--and so on. "McInerney, Jay: THE JUICE." Kirkus Reviews 1 Apr. 2012. General OneFile. Web. 7 July 2012.


Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Edward Humes

“We the people of America are "living in an official state of garbage denial," Humes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author (Eco Barons, 2009) . . . We, over the course of a lifetime, will generate 102 tons of trash.

Humes takes us on a garbage tour, which begins in a hoarders' home. He swings into a fascinating history of trash, from ancient Athens and the first municipal dump to the "legendary filth" of nineteenth-century New York City.”

The plague of plastic bags and bottles and mindless, credit-card-fueled consumerism has many dire consequences, the worst of which is the trashing of the oceans, which have become poisonous "plastic chowder."


Richard Dawkins

The Magic of Reality: How We Know

What’s Really True Dawkins jumps into his main

subject—to consider the universe in all its glory, magical without creator or deity in the sky.

He considers why bad things happen to good people (call it randomness-and, Dawkins stresses, the real question is, "Why does anything happen?"), the belief of some people in past lives, alien abductions and original sin. Dawkins, Richard: THE MAGIC OF REALITY. Kirkus Reviews 15 Aug. 2011. General OneFile. Web. 5 July 2012

Other Richard Dawkins Titles Dawkins, eminent Oxford scholar,

defender of evolution and spokesman for science delivers ten chapters arguing the non-existence of god, along with documentation of the atrocities religions have wrought.

This is exceptional reading--even funny at times. (A footnote declaims that in the promise of 72 virgins to Muslim martyrs, "virgins" is a mistranslation of "white raisins of crystal clarity.")

Accordingly, Dawkins focuses heavily on the monotheistic religions with quotations from the Bible and Koran that sanction genocide, rape and the killing of unbelievers. "Dawkins, Richard: The God Delusion." Kirkus Reviews 1 Aug. 2006: 764. General OneFile. Web. 5 July 2012.

More Dawkins Titles


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