U is for Undertow

Grafton, Sue. U is for Undertow. 2009. (Mystery Graft.S)

Sue Grafton first introduced us to private eye Kinsey Millhone in her 1982 mystery novel A is for Alibi, creating a bestselling and popular series. Now on the 21^st letter of the alphabet, U is for Undertow continues to be relevant, intriguing, and moving. Shifting time between 1988 and 1972, the story focuses on family conflicts, recovered memories, and an unsolved kidnapping. Michael Sutton hires Kinsey to investigate his claim that he remembers seeing two men burying something after the disappearance of four-year-old Mary Claire Fitzhugh. Each chapter, told from differing points of view, provides another clue to the puzzle linking the past to the present. Believable characters and dialogue and a compelling story combine to make Grafton’s latest another page-turner, even if it is more of a “why” than a “who"dunit. (Laura H., Reader's Services)

Make Way for Tomorrow

Make Way for Tomorrow. 2009. (Released 1937) (DVD 791.4372)

After losing their home, Bart and Lucy Cooper (Vincent Moore and Beulah Bondi) must depend upon their five adult children for help. None of the children is able to take both parents, so the old couple must separate. Disagreements and resentments surface in the families and the couple must move, again separately. They have a brief reunion in New York where they spent their honeymoon and where they now relive the early weeks of their marriage. Orson Welles said of this moving Leo McCarey film, “It would make a stone cry.” Special features include illuminating comments by Peter Bogdanovich and Gary Giddins.   (Mary B., Reader's Services)

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

 Fadiman, Anne. The spirit catches you and you fall down : a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures. 1997. (306.461 Fadim.A).

An excellent book club book, this is essentially a book about culture clashes; the medicine fuelled culture of the United States and the more spiritual approach of the Hmong people. The book tells the story of the Lees, a Hmong family who entered the United States in 1980 after escaping the Laos war. Their daughter Lisa is diagnosed with epilepsy as an infant, and thus begins the culture clash between Western and Eastern medicine and the Lees and Lisa's doctors.   

Read more: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

March is Women's History Month

"Well-behaved women seldom make history."

We've seen that clever quip on mugs, t-shirts, and posters, and it's been used by news commentators, politicos, and pundits. But who said it first? Mae West wouldn't be a bad guess. Gloria Steinem is another candidate. But here's the truth: Harvard professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich used it in an obscure article on the little-studied funeral practices in Puritan America. Somehow it went viral and Ulrich starting seeing herself quoted on the aforementioned mugs and t-shirts. She saw this as a wonderful jumping-off point for a book dealing with how women have shaped history, citing examples from the lives of Rosa Parks, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and many other notable women in American and world history.

Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History is part of a large collection of books and other resources available at the Evanston Public Library on the topic of Women's Studies 
In celebration of Women's History Month, we invite you to virtually browse our resources as well as visit our display on the second floor Reader's Services department. We also invite you to join us for informative and entertaining library programs during the month of March on three fascinating women Frances Willard, Josephine Baker, and Mother Jones. (Barbara L., Reader's Services)