Paula's Pick this week is The 5th Wave. She's read all three and watched the movie, highly recommended, especially for the YA crowd.

Vancouver library patron Michael G. Makemsom has published a book on coffee. Michael has been working on the manuscript for many years but finally was convinced to publish it himself on CreateSpace after taking my class on Getting Published. Take a look, it's available on Amazon. I'll be doing a review on it later.

We recently had a library patron who asked to be directed to the pornography section. Sadly, there is no such section, and even the Booknook is rather straight-laced, but there are exceptions. In the Self Help section we have a copy of The Erotic Impulse, a compendium of articles on the topic. We promise not to notice when you buy this book, we'll just give you a little wink!

Today at the Booknook we have a hardcover copy of Donald J. Trump's Think Big and Kick Ass In Business and Life. Tump has always believed in working hard to get what you want, what with him working from 5AM to after midnight every day. Mike Huckabee, supporter and friend said once he had a hard time keeping Trump's hours, and I bet he's not alone!
​His point is, you can sit on your ass and whine about not being rich, or you can get off your butt and KICK ASS and get filthy rich. Some people would rather just sit around and complain, but for those who would like to fly in private jets (maybe their own jet), travel to exotic locations, eat like a king, and perhaps, one day, become president the United States, this book is for you!

We've covered The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia by Tim Tzouliadis in previous posts, and although this is a very grim book by a British born Greek writing about American baseball in Moscow, it does have a funny moment or two.
In one case, the US Ambassador to Russia was hosting a big dinner party and the ambassador suggested to his wife, after observing the pathetic quality of the gaunt and emaciated cow, the only one they could find in Moscow, that they display the horns to assure guests that they weren't dining on horse meat!

Here is a fun book at the Booknook! Justin Halpern wrote down everything his dad, a nuclear scientist in Southern California ever said, and boy, are there some doozies!
On Toilet Training: "You are four years old. You have to sh*t in the toilet. This is not one of those things where we'll go back and forth, and find some middle ground. This ends with you sh*tting in the toilet."
On the Death of Our First Dog: "He was a good dog. Your brother is pretty broken up about it, so go easy on him. He had a nice last moment with Brownie before the vet tossed him in the garbage."
On Picking the Right College: "Don't pick someplace just because you think it will be easy to get laid there.... No, no, that's a very good reason to pick a lot of things, but not this."
On Getting a Job as a Cook at Hooters: "You my good man, are not as f*cking stupid as I first thought."

This week Paula found a real gem! An autographed copy of a Wolfgang Puck cookbook! It's made out to Jennifer, so if you happen to share that name, you have quite an opportunity here!

Paula has been a good sport about picking good reads at the Booknook and had a book all picked out for this feature while she waited for me to stop by the Booknook. However, she was telling someone about that pick and that person bought it! Oh no! That happened to me a few years ago, I posted a Booknook Blog post on Robert Ramirez' book on the FFT and while showing it to my coworker, he decided to buy the book! Oh no! 
So instead this week's Paula's Pick is a book she is currently reading, Snow Falling On Cedars. In 1999 this book was released as a movie starring Ethan Hawk as Ismael Chambers. From IMDB:"​A U.S. Japanese fisherman may have killed his neighbor Carl at sea. In the 1950s, race figures into the trial. So does reporter Ishmael."

Today's Paula's Pick is The Secret Between Us, a story with a lesson. From Amazon: "​Deborah Monroe and her daughter, Grace, are driving home from a party when their car hits a man running in the dark. Grace was at the wheel, but Deborah sends her home before the police arrive, determined to shoulder the blame for the accident. Her decision then turns into a deception that takes on a life of its own and threatens the special bond between mother and daughter."

I was reading another great book on genetics, Genetic Twists Of Fate when, horror of horrors, I found that someone had been making notes in this library book! So in addition to the rule about not stealing library books, please note that it is not OK to write in library books! Please!

The Eternity Brigade is another great read, similar to The Forever War, but with one big exception: The accuracy of its predictions. The Forever War predicted things that actually came true, like the legalization of marijuana, or the government encouraging homosexuality to control population growth. The Eternity Brigade doesn't use wormholes to take us into the future, instead, soldiers are frozen at the end of a war and then thawed out at the start of the next war, keeping the cadre battle hardened without having to maintain a standing army during peacetime. Later the process skips freezing and uses something similar to Star Trek's transporter to digitize the soldiers and keep them in memory until needed, and of course later the Army gets the bright idea to mass produce them to make entire regiments out of one guy, but don't let me spoil it for you!
In The Eternity Brigade, written in 1980, not long after The Forever War, the future is much less fun, much bleaker than The Forever War. Hawker is frozen for 12 years, fights a war in China, survives, then is repatriated back to the States, where he finds conditions pretty horrible. Gasoline is almost non-existent, energy is extremely expensive, and even though he and his buddies are filthy rich after their twelve years of monthly pay has been compounded with interest as they slept, they have to take a bus to New York, whereas before they were frozen they flew cheaply and easily to Las Vegas on just the signing bonus. In this future world, citizens have to have a photo ID card to travel, and permission to enter the cities to keep out illegal aliens, troublemakers and terrorists. As gripping as Stephen Goldin's tale is, it's hard to read something that turned out to be so wrong. But, remember, at the time everyone thought that we would run out of oil, and things would get worse and worse over time.Perhaps authors in search of character motivations in futuristic novels should read this book, The Bottomless Well. 

This book tells us that there will never be a shortage of energy, ever again. How many of us wasted our lives worrying that the future was going to be bleaker than the past, when in fact, it's gotten better! Malthus predicted that the whole world would starve to death before the 1900s, instead, in the 21st century, the biggest problem the poor have is obesity! I guess Obamacare is going to have to cover Jenny Craig diets! Oh wait, that turned out to be another red herring too. And since we haven't run out of fuel (we never ran out of whale oil and ambergris either, we just found better alternatives) they have to come up with other lies, like Greenhouse Gas emissions to get us to stop burning "fossil fuels." The Bottomless Well, written in 2005 predicted a glut of energy even before Fracking became a household word. Now the price of oil is dropping again, proving that we will never run out of energy, and making those Prius owners look pretty stupid. It's really hard to read The Eternity Brigade now, given that it was so wrong about the future. It just seems so pointless, obviously we are not going to learn anything from this author because he was so wrong. So instead of reading science fiction, or watching the "fake news" predict the next global catastrophe that will never come about, maybe you should try reading a book like The Bottomless Well, which, sorry to say, you'll have to find elsewhere because the library doesn't have a copy.

Checking the library site I found some interesting trends. I know I have poked fun at this book more than once, but it deserves it. One copy, zero holds. Kind of like a book about a flat earth immediately after it's confirmed that the earth is round.

Trump's book, The Art Of The Deal, 5 copies, 13 holds.

Barack Obama, 3 copies, zero holds.

David Horowitz' 28th book, Big Agenda, 7 copies, 26 holds.

Clearly it's a new day in America, and time for some more books!

Often when two authors work on a book, one is a famous person and the other is the real writing talent. Origins by Richard Leakey (son of Louis Leakey) and Roger Lewin always seemed to be tilted towards Roger's writing, which IMHO subverted Richard's beliefs, so much so that they had to release a new book, Origins Reconsidered, but in this version, Roger is listed as a "contributor," not an author. Other collaborations are more balanced, Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray in The Bell Curve, Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele in Race are good examples. But the one collaboration that really touched me recently is Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa in the book, Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters. Kanazawa is widely hated for his views. Interestingly it's OK to hate non-white people as long as they hold the wrong views, but does he deserve it? In the Preface, Kanazawa tells the story of how WBPHMD came about. Alan asked Satoshi to help him work on another book and gave him full co-authorship in exchange for writing just a couple of chapters. "It was a very generous offer," he says, so he agreed. During the collaboration Satoshi converted Alan to Evolutionary Psychology and they talked about it all the time after the new book came out.. Then they decided to work together on a book for generalists and non-scientists explaining the basics of EP or EvoPsych as it's known. They dove into writing the new book and suddenly Alan fell ill with Hodgkin's disease. Despite an optimistic prognosis Alan became so ill that he couldn't do much work, but completed a couple of chapters while Satoshi worked on his own chapters. Alan died just two years later, at age 44, too young for such a bright mind. Satoshi decided to continue work on WBPHMD as a way of preserving Alan's contribution to the field, but because his dear friend wasn't around to proof, argue and contribute, Satoshi tells us this touching admission:
"Thus Alan never got a chance to see the final manuscript or approve the subsequent revisions that I made to his chapters. I am keeping Alan as the first author of this book because that was the arrangement we agreed upon when we began our collaboration, and because the book was originally his idea. However, the reader should know that I am solely responsible for the entire contents of the final manuscript, which Alan did not have a chance to see or approve. Alan should be credited as the genius behind this book, while any remaining shortcomings should be attributed to me." 
Quite a guy, quite a guy.

After discovering Susan Pinker (see Are Sex Differences Real?), the sister of Steven Pinker, author of many great books, I had to root out some more Susan Pinker books, and I found one in the library! The Village Effect was originally going to be called Face To Face, and the cover graphic pretty much echos that title, implying that the cover was complete before the final title was chosen.
In this book, Susan tells us that Facebook, SnapChat, Twitter, etc are nowhere near sufficient to replace real face to face contact. And face to face contact can make you healthier, happier and smarter, as she proves all over the book.
I could not agree more. I travelled all over the world to bring technology to people in distant lands. Sure, I can email you a document, a video, a lecture, even Skype you, but until we are face to face, you will never understand what I am saying. 
It's rather timely, as I recently was subjected to a "time out" from Facebook thanks to a wacked out stranger who jumped down my throat like a homeless guy with an axe to grind jumping into a private conversation at a bus stop. I realized that while I was saying nothing more indefensible than something you might find in a book by Dr. Richard Lynn, Dr. Jean Philippe Rushton or Dr. Steven Pinker himself, people don't understand that FaceBook is not a replacement for face to face interaction. It's too easy to unwittingly step on someone's toes because you don't really see them as individuals, and if you couch your posts so much that you don't offend someone, you'll never say anything of value to anyone. For that reason, I dropped the FOVCL Facebook page as well as my own personal Facebook page. I will keep up the Booknook Blog, since it's not forced down your throat. You can read it or not, your choice, like borrowing a book. If you don't like it, you can close it up, take out your bookmark and turn it back in, no harm done.

Browsing books can be a very personal experience. I always valued the checkout people at Powell's Books who kept their mouth shut about my book choices, and of course, at the library, since you can checkout all by yourself, so nobody can judge you based on your choices. In this hilarious scene from the movie Norman, Is That You? Ben Chambers played by Redd Foxx tries to discreetly inquire about books on homosexuality after discovering that his son is gay. At first he tries denial, "Son, you can't be homosexual, you must be on drugs! Thank God my son is on drugs!" But after Norman storms out, Ben decides to learn everything he can about homosexuality by reading about it. Unfortunately, the salespeople at the bookstore are less than sympathetic to his plight.

While browsing the library's fourth floor I stumbled across this book, The Sexual Paradox by the sister of renowned evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, etc. I was impressed by the fact that nowhere on the dust jacket does she  mention her kinship to Steven, preferring to stand alone rather than seek to ingratiate herself with Steven's huge following. Her book is an excellent look into the reasons why "equality" just doesn't seem to be panning out the way that feminists might have wanted. Instead of women flocking to the highly paid careers of science and engineering, despite the likes of Intel, Microchip and others desperate to show they can hire women to fill the roles that men traditionally have filled, women still make up less than 20% of these lucrative positions, and the excuses offered such as discrimination or lack of degrees just don't hold up. Susan's book is an excellent look at this conundrum that defies solution, and because she is both a woman and a mother, she speaks from a position of authority on this topic. A great read, look for it. 

I saw this book on the shelf at the Booknook and had to admit, I love the title! Doctor Susan Love writes a book on breasts? But this book lets me make a point I want to make to all our loyal patrons. We will not judge you by the books you buy at the Booknook. Let me tell you a story.
Once while I was entertaining a South Korean customer, we made a trip to Powell's books just to give Mr. Kim a look at the biggest bookstore in the area. But when I bought a copy of Richard Michod's newest book (at the time) Eros and Evolution, my guest made a comment:"Are you having sexual problems?" I thought how rude! But, no I told him, this is a book on the evolution of sex, which was a watershed event in the evolution of life on Earth. The provacative cover might have given this neophyte English speaker the wrong impression, but I don't want people guessing what's wrong with me when I buy a book with a painting of a naked Eve on the cover. 
We Booknookers promise we won't even take notice of what you buy. If you want to bring it up, that's fine, and if not, that's OK too. Think about people who are going through divorce, death of a child, abuse, alchoholism or in this case, breast cancer. How could they ever find a book to help them get through this difficult chapter in their life if they think they are going to be judged by their purchase? What you buy is up to you, we stock everything and we expect every book will find someone who will love it.

When I saw this book on the shelves at the Booknook I nearly died laughing. Why? Don't you remember that great scene in Airplane! where the stewardess played by Julie Hagarty offers some reading material to an old woman played by Ann Nelson and she asks "Do you have anything light?" The stewardess replies "How's about this leaflet on Jewish Sports Legends?" 
Even the show House M.D. joked about this in the season 5 episode, The Social Contract.
Dr. House:"First of all, Wilson played tennis on his college team, and you...are a Jew." He tells Taub he's not athletic. Taub points out Sandy Koufax was Jewish, and House pooh-poohs him, saying that Jews always go on about Sandy Koufax, and the Holocaust. "It gets old."
Well, this book proves that Sandy Koufax is not the only Jew in sports, and actually has many quite exhaustive biographies on many Jewish sports legends. A very nice book in good shape, and thicker that the leaflet offered to Ann Nelson on the plane.

Our own Zita Podany appeared on KATU's AM Northwest to talk about her new book, Vanport. A fascinating book and a very good job Zita, congratulations!

Here is a really interesting book by Geert Wilders that the library has up on the 4th floor (call number 305.697 Wilders). If you don't know who Geert Wilders is, you haven't been paying attention. Geert Wilders is marked for death in the same way that Salman Rushdie is marked for death, he dares to speak up about Islam and its war on Western civilization. Mr. Wilders is hated worldwide, he was even deported from the U.K. after arriving to give a talk at a private gathering in England, home of liberty and freedom (and the first nation to outlaw slavery). Everyone has the right to speak about anything he/she wants to, no one should be under threat of death for anything he says, or at least that's how we in the West approach speech. But just try that in any nation where Islam rules, or even just places where there are more than a few Muslims and you are likely to get your head chopped off on a public street like Theo van Gogh, great-great-grandnephew of Vincent van Gogh who was murdered for a film he produced on Islamic treatment of women.
The book opens with a foreword by Mark Steyn, author and occasional "undocumented anchor-baby" fill-in host for the Rush Limbaugh show who has been through his own version of hell with the Canadian courts for writing less than complimentary articles about Islam in Canada. Free speech? What's that?