ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

New Publications

George M. Eberhart

George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries; e-mail: geberhart@ala.org

The Complete Road Atlas of Canada, by Reader’s Digest of Canada (463 pages, February 2003), provides a much-needed, detailed guide to

Canadian roads, cities, parks, physical features, and points of interest. Each of the 127 maps offers a gatefold section that describes selected destinations in the area. Most roads are clearly identified down to the narrowest local routes. All of Nunavut and much of the northern portions of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec are excluded on the basis that there are few roads; however, a town map of Iqaluit on Baffin Island is provided, along with maps of 42 other Canadian cities from Vancouver to St. John’s. A 64-page “traveler’s companion” lists festivals, tourist information, parks, radio stations, and weather charts, and a shorter section offers advice on driving problems and emergencies. The 80-page index of place names was supposed to list all mapped populated places, but a computer error left out many towns in British Columbia, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories; one hopes this will be corrected in a future edition. Nonetheless, this remains the best onevolume Canadian atlas available. $44.95. Reader’s Digest Association (Canada), 1100 René-Lévesque Blvd. West, Montreal, Quebec H3B 5H5. ISBN 0-88850-747-X.

Cubans in the Confederacy,edited by Phillip Thomas Tucker (254 pages, September 2002), highlights the careers of three Cuban nationals who served the Confederate States of America: José Agustín Quintero (1829-1885), a poet and translator of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who served the Confederacy well in Mexico as a diplomat; Ambrosio josé Gonzalez (1818-1893), who served as a colonel of artillery under Beauregard and other Confederate generals; and Loreta Janeta Velazquez (1842-?), who fought four battles dressed as a man, then turned to spying and posed as a Lieut. Buford to serve as a double agent in Col. LaFayette Baker’s Federal detective corps. $39.95. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0976-2.

The Dinosaur Filmography,by Mark F. Berry (483 pages, December 2002), contains a massive amount of information on every movie that features prehistoric, reptilian, nonhumanoid creatures. Berry, who is knowledgeable both about dinosaurs and film history, ventures far beyond the basics, providing detailed notes on production and special effects, as well as much insightful and humorous commentary on the accuracy and believability of the dinos depicted. Both well-known films (Jurassic Park, King Kong) and obscurities ( Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women) are included. Appendices list films with isolated dinosaur scenes, movies that were never completed, and the Japanese quasi-dinosaur films from Toho Studios. $65.00. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1028-0.

Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw,by

Mark Svenvold (312 pages, October 2002), tells the bizarre story of onetime bank robber Elmer McCurdy who died in a shoot-out in 1911, but whose cadaver was preserved in arsenic and sent on a 65-year career as a mummified curiosity in a funeral home, several carnivals and theater lobbies, and a Long Beach amusement park. In this offbeat, postmortem biography, Svenvold explores the seamy side of American entertainment history and the realities of the Old West that drove men like McCurdy, who served for three years in the infantry at Fort Leavenworth, to a life of indigence and crime. $25.00. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-08348-X.

Red, White, and Blue Letter Days,by Matthew Dennis (338 pages, May 2002), traces the origins and malleable meanings of the major holidays that commemorate the American past—the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Columbus Day, Labor Day, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday. Unlike other holiday histories, this one closely addresses the racial, sexual, regional, and sectional differences in perspective that marked and sometimes marred public celebrations. American public holidays meant much more to citizens in previous centuries who had no multimedia barrages of entertainment and commercials to distract them. It’s fascinating to read Dennis’s account of the controversy surrounding the early celebration of Washington’s Birthday, which was regarded by some as an antirepublican cult of personality. $35.00. Cornell University. ISBN 0-8014-3647-8.

Reference Reviews Europe Annual 2001(309 pages, volume 7, May 2002) provides English-language reviews of European-language reference books on a wide number of topics. Based in part on reviews of German publications that appear in Klaus Schreiber’s Informationsmittel, the series also features reviews (written by North American librarians) of imprints from the rest of Europe and special thematic reports, in this volume travel guides to Germany and Italy. An essential resource for Western European studies collections. $40.00. Casalini Libri, Via Benedetto da Maiano 3, 50014 Fiesole, Italy. ISBN 88-85297-69-2.

The Ritual Abuse Controversy: An Annotated Bibliography,by Mary de Young (248 pages, August 2002), reviews published sources on cases allegedly involving the ritualized sadistic abuse of children by satanists, pedophile rings, pornographers, government agents, Freemasons, and occultists. Virtually unknown in clinical literature prior to the appearance of Michelle Smith’s memoir Michelle Remembers in 1980, accounts and court cases crescendoed between 1983 and 1992 when more than 100 day-care centers and preschools in the United States were investigated for ritual abuse. De Young organizes the literature into definitions; U.S. day-care ritual abuse cases; U.S. family and neighborhood cases; Canadian, European, and Australasian cases; alleged symptoms of ritual abuse; controversies over recovered memory and multiple personality; the impact on the helping professions and American law; reports and narratives; and social-science perspectives. $49-95. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1259-3.

The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience,edited by Michael Shermer (903 pages, 2 vols., November 2002), reviews a wide range of anomalous scientific claims, from acupuncture to witchcraft. Many of the entries are case studies or investigations formerly published in Skeptic magazine, and all are signed by the volumes’ numerous contributors. The scope makes in-depth treatment of any one topic impractical, but the primary value of this set is to question the methodology and assumptions of many paranormal or alternative theorists. Volume two contains for-and-against debates on evolutionary psychology, memetics, correlations of race and I.Q., correlations of race and sports, and deconstructivism in science that offer some different perspectives. $185.00. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-653-9.

Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show,by Bernard M. Timberg (364 pages, December 2002), looks at the first 50 years of talk shows, beginning with the early days of Edward R. Murrow and Arthur Godfrey, continuing through the classic Johnny Carson Tonight show and its reinvention by David Letteman, and ending with the current mix of trash talk (Jerry Springer), nice talk (Rosie O’Donnell), and blended talk (Bill Maher and Garry Shandling). Timberg brings a certain amount of respectability to this host-centered, topical, and spontaneous yet structured genre, which has been ignored by scholars in favor of television news and drama. Robert Erler’s 100-page “Guide to Television Talk” complements the history with an A to Z listing of programs and personalities. $70.00. University of Texas. ISBN 0-292-78175-X.

VO: Tales and Techniques of a Voice-Over Actor,by Harlan Hogan (249 pages, October 2002), is an amusing and practical guide to becoming a successful voice-over talent. Technojargon is defined so that the aspiring VO actor will know what “stealomatic,” “patch in,” and “doughnuts” mean. Hogan, who made memorable such advertising slogans as “When you care enough to send the very best” and “Kills bugs fast, kills bugs dead,” enriches his tips with numerous personal anecdotes gleaned from his more than 25 years in the business, casually mentioning that his dogs and cats are mortified when his voice comes on the radio or TV. In fact, the book can easily be read as a personal memoir, since Hogan’s tales are separated from his “techniques” sections, which appear on screened pages. $19-95. Allworth Press, 10 E. 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010. ISBN 1-58115-249-3. ■