Readers' Nook | Mechanics' Institute

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Readers' Nook

Readers Nook

by
Steven Dunlap

Everyone recognizes the name Albert Einstein, but the 20th century was "the century of physics," and we have many other brilliant people who made enormous contributions to our understanding of the universe at the atomic, or quantum, level. Here, we have a play about two of them: Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.  Although only about 16 years apart in age, many referred to Heisenberg as "Niels Bohr's eldest son." 

They met in Göttingen in 1922. According to one anecdote, after Bohr finished a lecture Heisenberg had a contentious exchange with him during the question and answer session, perhaps a case of a young man trying to show off. Bohr looked past the youthful hubris, realizing that the young scientist had demonstrated an understanding of the higher level physics Bohr pioneered in order to be able to ask sharp questions. Bohr approached Heisenberg afterwards and asked if they could talk more. From that day forward, the two men spent much time together, mostly taking hours long walks, talking about concepts in physics that only they and about a hundred other people in the world understood. 

Then World War II started. Heisenberg belonged to a non-observant German Lutheran family, while Bohr was a Danish Jew. Although not a Nazi, Heisenberg headed Germany's atomic energy program. The two met for the last time in Bohr's home in Copenhagen in 1941. Heisenberg left very soon after arriving. Neither of them nor Bohr's wife gave a clear account of what transpired between them. Playwright Michael Frayn created a fascinating speculative history dramatizing this last encounter that I found at once engaging, suspenseful and  educational. In addition to the drama of an old friendship disintegrating and the frightening prospect of Nazi Germany acquiring the atomic bomb, you also come away from this play with a pretty good lay person's understanding of quantum physics and the construction of the atomic bomb. Frayn even covers the speculation over the years that Heisenberg secretly sabotaged the Nazi atomic program.  

The Mechanics Institute Library has three versions of Michael Frayn's brilliant play, Copenhagen:

The original script in our book collection: Copenhagen 822 F847c

The TV adaptation of the play starring Daniel Craig and Stephen Rea DVD

The Radio play adaptation by L. A. Theatre Works as an eAudiobook

Everyone recognizes the name Albert Einstein, but the 20th century was "the century of physics," and we have many other brilliant people who made enormous contributions to our understanding of the universe at the atomic, or quantum, level. Here, we have a play about two of them: Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.  Although only about 16 years apart in age, many referred to Heisenberg as "Niels Bohr's eldest son." 

They met in Göttingen in 1922. According to one anecdote, after Bohr finished a lecture Heisenberg had a contentious exchange with him during the question and answer session, perhaps a case of a young man trying to show off. Bohr looked past the youthful hubris, realizing that the young scientist had demonstrated an understanding of the higher level physics Bohr pioneered in order to be able to ask sharp questions. Bohr approached Heisenberg afterwards and asked if they could talk more. From that day forward, the two men spent much time together, mostly taking hours long walks, talking about concepts in physics that only they and about a hundred other people in the world...

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by
Steven Dunlap

In the 1920s, when he was in his 40s, no less, Bela Bartok and a friend carried a reel to reel tape recorder, and big heavy batteries to power it, into the Carpathian Mountains! Among the first of what we now call ethnomusicologists, Bartok recorded Hungarian peasants playing their traditional instruments and singing songs passed down through generations. Whenever I think of what Bartok accomplished, a line from an old Jane Sibbery song, The Empty City, runs through my head: 

Because if no one gets this down -- then it's gone forever. 

Bartok saved an enormous body of music from loss through industrialization and modernity. Because the people creating the music were not educated in a music conservatory, they also did not have the limits a formal education could impose. What we called "modern" in the 20th century -- dissonance, atypical rhythms and meters, deviations from the Western standard diatonic scale -- we can hear in Bartok's music, inspired by and borrowed from the music that Bartok recorded on that heavy, cumbersome reel-to-reel tape recorder in the 1920s. He did similar research in Turkey in the 1930s and later worked at Columbia University Libraries with his wife classifying Serbian and Croatian folk music. 

Bartok immigrated to the United States in 1940, having antagonized the Hungarian government with his outspoken anti-fascist views. In the last 5 years of his life, his music did not enjoy much popularity, although he did earn some money from concerts. He died of leukemia in 1945. 

In the 1950s, another Hungarian-American, the comedian Ernie Kovacs, in an episode of his innovative television show, staged a wordless New York City street scene to Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. This segment, so unusual and wonderful, came out of that period of television programming in which brilliant people explored the possibilities of the new medium.  

Ernie Kovacs' Street Scene / Béla Bartók "Concerto for Orchestra"

In the 21st century, Bartok's music continues to appear on concert programs and new recordings and interpretations of his works have come out on CD and on classical music streaming services. Mechanics Institute Library has 13 Music CDs of Bartok's compositions.

In the 1920s, when he was in his 40s, no less, Bela Bartok and a friend carried a reel to reel tape recorder, and big heavy batteries to power it, into the Carpathian Mountains! Among the first of what we now call ethnomusicologists, Bartok recorded Hungarian peasants playing their traditional instruments and singing songs passed down through generations. Whenever I think of what Bartok accomplished, a line from an old Jane Sibbery song, The Empty City, runs through my head: 

Because if no one gets this down -- then it's gone forever. 

Bartok saved an enormous body of music from loss through industrialization and modernity. Because the people creating the music were not educated in a music conservatory, they also did not have the limits a formal education could impose. What we called "modern" in the 20th century -- dissonance, atypical rhythms and meters, deviations from the Western standard diatonic scale -- we can hear in Bartok's music, inspired by and borrowed from the music that Bartok recorded on that heavy, cumbersome reel-to-reel tape...

Continue reading...
by
Heather Miles

FICTION
Joe Milan The all-American : a novel Fic Milan
Isabella Hammad Enter ghost : a novel Fic Hammad
Don DeLillo The silence : a novel Fic Delillo
Ilʹi͡a Ilʹf The twelve chairs : a novel Fic Ilf
William Saroyan Little children Fic Saroyan
Franz Kafka The man who disappeared Fic Kafka

Historical Fiction
Thomas Mallon Up with the sun Fic Mallon
Eleanor Shearer River sing me home Fic Shearer

Mystery, Suspense, Thrillers, Espionage & Intrigue
Dale Harwin The Genesis backup Fic Harwin
John Sandford Dark angel Fic Sandford
Eleanor Catton Birnam Wood Fic Catton
Anthony McCarten Going zero : a novel Fic McCarten
Peter Swanson The kind worth saving : a novel Fic Swanson
Julia Bartz The writing retreat : a novel Fic Bartz

Comic Books, Graphic Novels & Comic Strips
Julian Voloj Black & white : the rise and fall of Bobby Fischer 794.1092 F52v Comics
Zach Weinersmith Bea Wolf 741.5 W4237 Comics
Eoin Colfer Global 741.5 C695 Comics

LARGE PRINT
Rebecca Makkai I have some questions for you Large Print Makkai

FICTION
Joe Milan The all-American : a novel Fic Milan
Isabella Hammad Enter ghost : a novel Fic Hammad
Don DeLillo The silence : a novel Fic Delillo
Ilʹi͡a Ilʹf The twelve chairs : a novel Fic Ilf
William Saroyan Little children Fic Saroyan
Franz Kafka The man who disappeared Fic Kafka

Historical Fiction
Thomas Mallon Up with the sun Fic Mallon
Eleanor Shearer River sing me home Fic Shearer

Mystery, Suspense, Thrillers, Espionage & Intrigue
Dale Harwin The Genesis backup Fic Harwin
John Sandford...

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by
Heather Miles

PRINT BOOKS

NON-FICTION
Biography & Genealogy
Judy Chicago The flowering : the autobiography of Judy Chicago 750.92 C53f
Paris Hilton Paris : the memoir 305.4821 H656
Paul W. Williams Harvard, Hollywood, hitmen, and holy men : a memoir 791.4 W721

Business & Economics
Naomi Oreskes The big myth : how American business taught us to loathe government and love the free market 330.122 O669
Bill Perkins Die with zero : getting all you can from your money and your life 332.024 P448
Craig Freshley Together we decide : an essential guide for making good group decisions.
Amy Porterfield Two weeks notice : find the courage to quit your job, make more money, work where you want, and change the world 658.11 P849
Mariana Mazzucato The big con : how the consulting industry weakens our businesses, infantilizes our governments, and warps our economies 658.46 M459

Chess
Nathan Rose Chess opening names : the fascinating & entertaining history behind the first few moves 794.1 R79

Health & Medicine

Dasha Kiper Travelers to unimaginable lands: stories of dementia, the caregiver, and the human brain 616.831 K57
Kelly Starrett Built to move : the ten essential habits to help you move freely and live fully 613.71 S796b
Wendy Dean If I betray these words : moral injury in medicine and why it's so hard for clinicians to put patients first 362.1 D281
Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling If it sounds like a quack ... : a journey to the fringes of American medicine 615.856 H757
Peter Attia Outlive : the science & art of longevity 612.68 A885

History
Ralph White Getting out of Saigon : how a 27-year-old American banker saved 113 Vietnamese civilians 959.7 W582
Meryl Frank Unearthed : a lost actress, a forbidden book, and a search for life in the shadow of the Holocaust 940.5318 F828
Tomaz Jardim Ilse Koch on trial : making the "Bitch of Buchenwald" 940.5318 K761

Languages & Linguistics
Adrian Johns The science of reading : information, media, and mind in modern America 418.4 J65

Law
Denis Clifford Make your own living trust 346.052 C63m

Literature & Writing
Judith Thurman A left-handed woman : essays 814.6 T539

Natural Sciences & Mathematics
Paco Calvo Planta sapiens : the new science of plant intelligence 571.2 C169
Elliot Rappaport Reading the glass : a captain's view of weather, water, and life on ships 551.5 R221
Chris Impey Worlds without end : exoplanets, habitability, and the future of humanity 523.2 I345

Performing Arts & Music
Todd McEwen Cary Grant's suit : nine movies that made me the wreck I am today 791.43 M142
Micah E. Salkind Do you remember house? : Chicago's queer of color undergrounds 781.648 S167
Michael Schulman Oscar wars : a history of Hollywood in gold, sweat, and tears 791.4 S386

Philosophy, Psychology & Religion
Bart D. Ehrman Armageddon : what the Bible really says about the end 236.9 E339
Susan Magsamen Your brain on art : how the arts transform us 111.85 M212
Toby Matthiesen The Caliph and the Imam : the making of Sunnism and Shiism 297.8 M443

Social Sciences & Current Events
Andrew Boyd I want a better catastrophe : navigating the climate crisis with grief, hope, and gallows humor : an existential manual for tragic optimists, can-do pessimists, and compassionate doomers 363.738 B789

Travel & Geography
David Roberts Into the great emptiness : peril and survival on the Greenland ice cap 919.8 R643

Universal (Children's)
Flora Ahn A spoonful of time U Ahn
Minh Lê Drawn together U Le
Leah Henderson The courage of the little hummingbird : a tale told around the world U Henderson
Matthew Burgess The red tin box U Burgess
Bonnie Tsui Sarah and the big wave : the true story of the first woman to surf Mavericks U 797.32 G368
Jane Park Hidden creature features U 590 P235
Jordi Bayarri Ada Lovelace and the start of computers U 510.92 L898

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by
Heather Miles

E-AUDIOBOOKS

Kay Dick They
Lauren Willig Band of sisters
Michael Kardos Before he finds her
Kristin Hannah The great alone
Liv Constantine The last time I saw you
Charly Evon Simpson Behind the Sheet
Pierce Brown Dark age
Gregg Oppenheimer I love Lucy : a funny thing happened on the way to the sitcom
Morris Pearl Tax the rich! : How lies, loopholes, and lobbyists make the rich even richer
Sarah Churchwell The wrath to come : Gone with the wind and the lies america tells
David Mamet American buffalo
William Shakespeare As you like it
James Baldwin James Baldwin reading from Another country.
James Baldwin James Baldwin reading from Giovanni's room.
John Hopkins Absent forever
Christopher Hayes A colony in a nation
Michael Frayn Copenhagen
Kate McAll Daniel Deronda
David Mamet Glengarry Glen Ross
Peter Ackerman I'd rather eat pants
Vauhini Vara The immortal King Rao : a novel
Norman F Cantor In the wake of the plague : The black death and the world it made
Isabel Quintero My papi has a motorcycle
Nina Nesseth Nightmare fuel : the science of horror films
Ellen Jovin Rebel with a clause : tales and tips from a roving grammarian
Jim Holt When Einstein walked with Gödel : excursions to the edge of thought
Flann O'Brien At swim-two-birds
Paula Vogel The Baltimore waltz
David Edmonds Bobby Fischer goes to war : how the Soviets lost the most extraordinary chess match of all time
PJ Fitzsimmons The case of the ghost of christmas morning
Daniel G Amen Change your brain every day : simple daily practices to strengthen your mind, memory, moods, focus, energy, habits, and relationships
John Lewis Gaddis The Cold War : a new history
Alastair Storm Browne Cosmic careers : Exploring the universe of opportunities in the space industries
Susan Colbourn Euromissiles : The nuclear weapons that nearly destroyed nato
Bibidishu Flying high : Engineering and aerospace
Simon Webb The forgotten slave trade : The white european slaves of islam
Steve Toltz A fraction of the whole
Richard Nelson The general from America
Steve Toltz Here goes nothing
Paula Vogel How I learned to drive
Nevil Shute In the wet
Charles River Editors Kosmos 954 and operation morning light : The history of efforts to contain radioactive debris spread across canada by a soviet satellite
Athol Fugard Master Harold and the boys
Nevil Shute On the beach
Athol Fugard Playland
1980- author Baoshu The redemption of time : a three-body problem novel
Athol Fugard The road to Mecca
Friedrich A von Hayek The road to serfdom
Ann Hagedorn Sleeper agent : The atomic spy in america who got away
Karl Schlögel The Soviet century : archaeology of a lost world
Charles River Editors The soviet nuclear weapons program : The history and legacy of the ussr's efforts to build the atomic bomb
Vladimir Sorokin Telluria
Nevil Shute Trustee from the toolroom
Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood

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by
Steven Dunlap

Do you like art? History? Cinema? This unclassifiable film takes you on a trip through Russian history by following historical figures from one gallery to another in the Hermitage Museum -- and all in one continuous 96 minute take! (the first feature film ever created in a single take). 

 

The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia is, after the Louvre in Paris, the 2nd largest museum in the world. Its collection has millions of items including an enormous number of masterpieces of Western European art from the Middle Ages to the present. 

 

Alexander Sokurov, the writer/director, has worked in films and television since 1979. Although he has directed over 20 documentaries to date, Russian Ark remains his great masterwork. 

 

Via Kanopy.

Do you like art? History? Cinema? This unclassifiable film takes you on a trip through Russian history by following historical figures from one gallery to another in the Hermitage Museum -- and all in one continuous 96 minute take! (the first feature film ever created in a single take). 

 

The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia is, after the Louvre in Paris, the 2nd largest museum in the world. Its collection has millions of items including an enormous number of masterpieces of Western European art from the Middle Ages to the present. 

 

Alexander Sokurov, the writer/director, has worked in films and television since 1979. Although he has directed over 20 documentaries to date, Russian Ark remains his great masterwork. 

 

Via Kanopy.

Continue reading...
by
Steven Dunlap

In olden times when we watched videos at home using these strange, now antiquated, machines called "VHS players," I decided to rent this mini-series to give me something to do on a long, rainy weekend. I planned to watch it over the course of 2-3 days. Instead, I binge-watched it continuously, one episode after another, straight through until well after midnight on the first night. I could not stop watching. 

 

Contrary to the title, this is not a war movie, at least not in the typical sense. You would also not think that this story would prove so engaging either. Kenneth Brannagh and Emma Thomson portray a rather ordinary British married couple, Guy and Harriet Pringle, living in Romania in 1939. Guy starts out as a lecturer in English Literature at a university in Bucharest. But when the war starts and the Germans advance, they have to flee – first to Athens, then to Cairo. Guy's gregarious nature leads him to make friends with a motley assortment of expats: White Russians, displaced royals, diplomats, writers, journalists, literary types, dissidents, grifters and spies. 

 

You never see any battle scenes – the Second World War serves as a background, the political upheaval in Romania and its subsequent alliance with Nazi Germany imposing extraordinary situations and circumstances on the Pringles and their friends. Lacking action sequences, shoot-outs, chase scenes or other loudness, Fortunes of War above all else embodies the best elements of character drama. The mini-series format gives us more time than a movie ever could to get to know the characters, flesh out their personalities and motivations, show where the fractures form in marriages, friendships, and in some cases, ever shifting loyalties. 


The script starts out with excellent source material in the books by Olivia Manning: The Balkan and Levant trilogies.

In olden times when we watched videos at home using these strange, now antiquated, machines called "VHS players," I decided to rent this mini-series to give me something to do on a long, rainy weekend. I planned to watch it over the course of 2-3 days. Instead, I binge-watched it continuously, one episode after another, straight through until well after midnight on the first night. I could not stop watching. 

 

Contrary to the title, this is not a war movie, at least not in the typical sense. You would also not think that this story would prove so engaging either. Kenneth Brannagh and Emma Thomson portray a rather ordinary British married couple, Guy and Harriet Pringle, living in Romania in 1939. Guy starts out as a lecturer in English Literature at a university in Bucharest. But when the war starts and the Germans advance, they have to flee – first to Athens, then to Cairo. Guy's gregarious nature leads him to make friends with a motley assortment of expats: White Russians, displaced royals, diplomats, writers, journalists, literary types, dissidents, grifters and spies...

Continue reading...
by
Heather Miles

E-AUDIOBOOKS
Kermit Roosevelt The Nation That Never Was : Reconstructing America's Story
Peter Shaffer Amadeus
Oscar Wilde Ever yours, Oscar : selected letters by Oscar Wilde
Hannie Rayson Extinction
A R Gurney Later life
Vern Thiessen Lenin's embalmers
Lillian Hellman The little foxes
Kate McAll Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Norman Corwin Together tonight : Hamilton, Jefferson, Burr
Anna Della Subin Accidental gods : on men unwittingly turned divine
Nana Nkweti Walking on cowrie shells : stories
Oliver Bullough Butler to the world : how Britain helps the world's worst people launder money, commit crimes, and get away with anything
Sandra Newman The men
Stanisław Lem The truth and other stories
Katherine W Schweit Stop the killing : how to end the mass shooting crisis
Bonnie Kistler The Cage
D L Coburn The gin game
Henrik Ibsen Hedda Gabler
David Schwimmer The jungle
Kevin Daniels Life on Paper
Laura Maria Censabella Paradise
Qui Nguyen Vietgone
Lillian Hellman Watch on the Rhine
Andrew Scull Desperate remedies : psychiatry's turbulent quest to cure mental illness
James Gavin George Michael : A Life
Julia Shaw Bi : the hidden culture, history, and science of bisexuality
Sophie Egan Devoured : from chicken wings to kale smoothies : how what we eat defines who we are
King James version audio Bible.
Anna Ziegler Boy
Keith Reddin But not for me
Katori Hall The mountaintop
Dan Gordon Murder in the first
Bruce Coville My teacher is an alien
Geoffrey Cowan Top secret : the battle for the Pentagon Papers (1991)
MD Kernisan When your aging parent needs help : A geriatrician's step-by-step guide to memory loss, resistance, safety worries, and more
Kristin Kobes Du Mez Jesus and John Wayne : how white evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured a nation
Ethan Lou Once a bitcoin miner : Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West
Bess Wohl Continuity
Brian Friel Fathers and sons
Neil Simon The goodbye girl
Abby Mann Judgment at Nuremberg
Sam Chanse What you are now
Joyce Carol Oates The woman who laughed.
Robert Leckie Helmet for my pillow : from Parris Island to the Pacific
E B Sledge With the Old Breed : at Peleliu and Okinawa
Claire Oshetsky Chouette
Charles Portis Escape velocity : A charles portis miscellany
Richard Smoley Forbidden faith : the secret history of gnosticism
Kristin Hannah The four winds
Charles Portis Gringos : a novel
Sequoia Nagamatsu How high we go in the dark
Simone de Beauvoir Inseparable : a never before-published novel
J T Ellison It's One of Us
Charles Portis Masters of atlantis
Nikki Erlick The measure : a novel
Frank Norris The octopus : a story of California
Julia Whelan Thank you for listening
Sarah C Maza Thinking about history
Terence Rattigan The Browning version
Rona Munro Donny's brain
Yasmina Reza God of carnage
Timberlake Wertenbaker Jefferson's garden
Matt Pelfrey John Ball's In the heat of the night
John Osborne Look back in anger
Brian Bedford The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Jerry Stahl Nein, nein, nein! One man's tale of depression, psychic torment, and a bus tour of the holocaust
Geoffrey Nauffts Next fall
Craig Lucas Prelude to a kiss
E M Forster A room with a view
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov The seagull
Bernard Shaw You never can tell
Kay Dick They
Lauren Willig Band of sisters : a novel
Michael Kardos Before he finds her : a novel
Kristin Hannah The great alone
Liv Constantine The last time I saw you : a novel
J T Ellison Lie to me : they appeared to be the perfect couple : a novel
Lydia Millet My happy life
Julia Whelan My Oxford year : a novel
Heather Gudenkauf Not a sound
Jennifer McMahon The one I left behind
Malcolm Brooks Painted horses : a novel
Cat Clarke The pants project
Dennis Lehane Since we fell
Uzodinma Iweala Speak no evil : a novel
Ami McKay The witches of New York : a novel
Charif Shanahan Trace evidence
Brett Scott Cloudmoney : cash, cards, crypto, and the war for our wallets
Francesca Stanfill The falcon's eyes : a novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine
Jamal Greene How rights went wrong : why our obsession with rights is tearing America apart
Carl J Bon Tempo Immigration : An american history
Christopher Moore Lamb : the Gospel according to Biff, Christ's childhood pal
Sayaka Murata Life ceremony : stories
Stephen Brusatte The rise and reign of the mammals : a new history, from the shadow of the dinosaurs to us
Andrew Lownie Traitor king : The scandalous exile of the duke & duchess of windsor

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by
Steven Dunlap

Do not look for a plot in this movie – you will not find one. Do not look for excitement either. You will not find any in this quietly beautiful, slow-paced, and thoughtful film. Disregard all summaries or descriptions, you find on the DVD container (or online). I have no idea what they're talking about or if the people who wrote these even saw the movie. 


Two survivors of the battlefields of the First World War meet in a small, quiet English town, then fall into a friendship. They interact with the townspeople as best they can, they struggle to fit into the new, alien (for them) environment and to re-enter a society in which no one but each other can understand their experience. One of them spends his days restoring a 500-year-old mural in the town's church. This mural restoration acts as a metaphor for the peeling back of layers to reveal what's hidden beneath – perhaps the rediscovery of their pre-war selves and the reintegration of these earlier personas into their present day lives?  No high drama, no heavy interpersonal conflicts, the title of the film says it all.  A Month in the Country is about precisely that – a month in a small English countryside community. It's about life, death, art, history, beauty, hope, recovery and change. 

Do not look for a plot in this movie – you will not find one. Do not look for excitement either. You will not find any in this quietly beautiful, slow-paced, and thoughtful film. Disregard all summaries or descriptions, you find on the DVD container (or online). I have no idea what they're talking about or if the people who wrote these even saw the movie. 


Two survivors of the battlefields of the First World War meet in a small, quiet English town, then fall into a friendship. They interact with the townspeople as best they can, they struggle to fit into the new, alien (for them) environment and to re-enter a society in which no one but each other can understand their experience. One of them spends his days restoring a 500-year-old mural in the town's church. This mural restoration acts as a metaphor for the peeling back of layers to reveal what's hidden beneath – perhaps the rediscovery of their pre-war selves and the reintegration of these earlier personas into their present day lives?  No high drama, no heavy interpersonal conflicts, the title of the film says it all. ...

Continue reading...