Learned Owl Book Shop

The Learned Owl Book Shop, November 15, 2014

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Kate's Corner




It's hard to believe the snow is here and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. We are busy elves at The Learned Owl stocking up on wonderful new titles to ensure you can find the perfect gift for everyone on your list.

This year I'm especially thankful to all the people that go out of their way to shop local and ensure the interesting and unique shops around us continue to thrive. We are so fortunate to live in an area that recognizes the importance of conscious shopping. Whether you are buying books, clothes, food, wine, or toys, when you buy locally over 50% of your purchase goes right back into the community. I believe that is something we can all be thankful for.

Wishing you a relaxing Thanksgiving filled with food, family, and fun!

Happy reading,

- Kate
Coming up at
The Learned Owl

Sat., Nov. 15, Noon-2 PM (at The Owl)
Local author Allan May with The Sly-Fanner Murders.

Sat., Nov. 15, 1-3 PM
(at The Owl)
Akron author Brian Gibson with Extra Innings Book 1: The Diamond Thieves.

Sun., Nov. 16, 2 PM
(at The Owl)
Madeline storytime. Sorry, this event is FULL.

Tues., Nov. 18, 7 PM
(at Hudson High School)
Writer Brad Stone (The Everything Store) presents the keynote speech for Hudson's Global Entrepreneurship Week. For a complete list of the week's events, visit hudsonlibrary.org or explorehudson.com.

Thurs., Nov. 20, 7 PM (location TBA)
Join our Book Club in a Bar as we discuss You Cannoli Die Once with guest author Shelley Costa.

Sat., Nov. 22, 1-3 PM
(at The Owl)
Mary Ellen Bramwell with The Apple of My Eye

Sun., Nov. 23, 2 PM
(at The Owl)
Our History Book Club will be discussing President Warren G. Harding, with guest author S. Joseph Krause (Harding, His Presidency and Love Life Reappraised).

Fri., Nov. 28, 1-3 PM
(at The Owl)
Meet Nancy Christie, author of Traveling Left of Center and Other Stories. (Rescheduled from Nov. 8.)

Fri., Nov. 28, 2-6 PM
Come to Hudson for the Holidays, presented by the members of The Merchants of Hudson and Hudson League for Service.
At The Learned Owl: Sleep in and shop late! From 1-8 PM on Nov. 28, stop in for refreshments and special deals on featured titles. Enter to win your very own Leg Lamp - details at top right.

Sat., Nov. 29, 1-3 PM
(at The Owl)
Author Garnett Kilberg Cohen with Swarm to Glory, her third collection of short stories.
Quick Links
Shop Small

Come out to support your neighborhood on November 29 - Small Business Saturday�! Let us and our fellow Hudson merchants take some of the stress out of your holiday shopping.

At The Learned Owl on Nov. 29, enjoy refreshments and special deals on featured titles - AND enter to win your very own Christmas Story Leg Lamp! ("It's a major award.") Raffle will run Nov. 28 through Dec. 13. Tickets are $1 each or 7 for $5, and The Learned Owl will match your contribution dollar for dollar, with proceeds going to the Hudson Food Pantry. 

Thanks for being a big supporter of small business!
Biography & autobiography
 
The Art of Asking The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
by Amanda Palmer
[Grand Central Publishing, $27.00]
Rock star, crowdfunding pioneer, and TED speaker Amanda Palmer knows all about asking. Performing as a living statue in a wedding dress, she wordlessly asked thousands of passersby for their dollars. When she became a singer, songwriter, and musician, she was not afraid to ask her audience to support her as she surfed the crowd (and slept on their couches while touring). And when she left her record label to strike out on her own, she asked her fans to support her in making an album, leading to the world's most successful music Kickstarter.
Even while Amanda is both celebrated and attacked for her fearlessness in asking for help, she finds that there are important things she cannot ask for - as a musician, as a friend, and as a wife. She learns that she isn't alone in this, that so many people are afraid to ask for help, and it paralyzes their lives and relationships. In this book, she explores these barriers in her own life and in the lives of those around her, and discovers the emotional, philosophical, and practical aspects of The Art of Asking.
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Don't Give Up, Don't Give In Don't Give Up, Don't Give in: Lessons from an Extraordinary Life
by Louis Zamperini & David Rensin
[Dey Street Books, $22.99; available Nov. 18]
Zamperini's story has touched millions through Laura Hillenbrand's biography Unbroken. Now, in his own words, Louis Zamperini reveals, with warmth and great charm, the essential values and lessons that sustained him throughout his remarkable journey. Completed just two days before his death at age 97, Don't Give Up, Don't Give In shares a lifetime of wisdom, insight, and humor from one of America's most inspiring lives. [read more]
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You Can't Make This Up You Can't Make This Up: Miracles, Memories, and the Perfect Marriage of Sports and Television by Al Michaels
[Wm. Morrow & Co., $28.99; available Nov. 18]
One of America's most respected sportscasters - and the play-by-play voice of NBC's Sunday Night Football - gives us a behind-the-curtain look at some of the most thrilling games and fascinating figures in modern sports. Michaels's stories cover unforgettable chapters over the past half century, from the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics' "Miracle on Ice" to the earthquake that rocked the 1989 World Series to the drama of what many consider the most exciting Super Bowl ever: Super Bowl XLIII between the Steelers and the Cardinals. Complementing access with insight, Michaels adds to the stories you thought you knew: Michael Jordan's eyesight; Howard Cosell's prickly, bombastic personality; even Peyton and Eli Manning's sibling rivalry.
From start to finish, Al Michaels gives us an up-close portrait of an industry that is - today more than ever - a vital part of our national culture.
by Austen Ivereigh
[Henry Holt & Co., $30.00; available Nov. 25]
An expansive and deeply contextual work, The Great Reformer is about the intersection of faith and politics: the tension between the pope's innovative vision for the Church and the obstacles he faces in an institution still strongly defined by its conservative past. Based on extensive interviews in Argentina and years of study of the Catholic Church, Ivereigh tells not only the story of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the remarkable man whose background and total commitment to the discernment of God's will transformed him into Pope Francis, but also the story of why the Catholic Church chose him as their leader.
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[Dutton Adult, $26.95; available Nov. 18]
Brooke Shields never had what anyone would consider an ordinary life. She was raised by her Newark-tough single mom, Teri, a woman who loved the world of show business and was often a media sensation all by herself. Brooke's iconic modeling career began by chance when she was only eleven months old, and Teri's skills as both Brooke's mother and manager were formidable. But in private she was troubled and drinking heavily.
As Brooke became an adult, the pair made choices and sacrifices that would affect their relationship forever. And when Brooke's own daughters were born, she found that her experience as a mother was shaped in every way by the woman who raised her. But despite the many ups and downs, Brooke was by Teri's side when she died in 2012, a loving daughter until the end.
Only Brooke knows the truth of the remarkable, difficult, complicated woman who was her mother. Now, in an honest, open memoir about her life growing up, Brooke reveals stories and feelings that are relatable to anyone who has been a mother or daughter.
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Sound Man Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits with the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces...
by Glyn Johns
[Blue Rider Press, $27.95]
Born just outside London in 1942, Glyn Johns was sixteen years old at the dawn of rock and roll. His big break as a producer came on the Steve Miller Band's debut album, Children of the Future, and he went on to engineer or produce iconic albums for the best in the business: Abbey Road with the Beatles, Led Zeppelin's and the Eagles' debuts, Who's Next by the Who, and many others. Even more impressive, Johns was perhaps the only person on a given day in the studio who was entirely sober, and so he is one of the most reliable and clear-eyed insiders to tell these stories today.
Sound Man provides a firsthand glimpse into the art of making music and reveals how the industry - like musicians themselves - has changed since those freewheeling first years of rock and roll.
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What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night Dinosaurs
 
What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night by Refe Tuma and Susan Tuma
[Little Brown & Company, $20.00]
Since Toy Story (and maybe since the very first toys!), children and their parents have wondered what it would be like if toys came to life. Refe and Susan Tuma take this wonder several steps further. 
Every November, writer and social media master Refe Tuma and his wife, Susan, work into the night to bring their four children scenes from the secret lives of their toys - specifically the nighttime antics of their plastic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs wreck bathrooms, destroy vases, rock out, encounter terrifying hot irons, even do the dishes with hilarious, magical results. Each scene is photographed in meticulous detail, letting viewers joyfully suspend disbelief and think to themselves, "Just LOOK what the dinosaurs did last night!"
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Politics & history
 
by Mark Leibovich
[Blue Rider Press, $26.95]
Mark Leibovich (This Town) returns with a masterly collection of portraits of Washington's elite, and wannabe elite. Hailed by The Washington Post as a "master of the political profile," Leibovich has spent his career writing memorable, buzz-worthy, and often jaw-dropping features about politicians and other notables. Currently chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, Leibovich punctures the inflated personas of the powerful, and in Citizens of the Green Room, he reveals the lives, stories, and peculiarities behind the public masks.
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America in RetreatAmerica in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder
by Bret Stephens
[Sentinel, $27.95; available Nov. 18]
America in Retreat identifies a profound crisis on the global horizon. As Americans seek to withdraw from the world to tend to domestic problems, America's adversaries spy opportunity.
Deploying his characteristic stylistic flair and intellectual prowess, Stephens argues for American reengagement abroad. In a terrifying chapter imagining the world of 2019, Stephens shows what could lie in store if Americans continue on their current course. Yet we are not doomed to this future. Stephens makes a passionate rejoinder to those who argue that America is in decline, a process that is often beyond the reach of political cures. Instead, we are in retreat - the result of faulty, but reversible, policy choices. By embracing its historic responsibility as the world's policeman, America can safeguard not only greater peace in the world but also greater prosperity at home.
At once lively and sobering, America in Retreat offers trenchant analysis of the gravest threat to global order, from a rising star of political commentary.
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The Churchill Factor The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History by Boris Johnson
[Riverhead Books, $27.95]
From London's inimitable mayor, Boris Johnson, comes the story of how Churchill's eccentric genius shaped not only his world but our own.
On the fiftieth anniversary of Churchill's death, Johnson celebrates the singular brilliance of one of the most important leaders of the twentieth century. Taking on the myths and misconceptions along with the outsized reality, he portrays with characteristic wit and passion a man of contagious bravery, breathtaking eloquence, matchless strategizing, and deep humanity. Most of all, Churchill was a rebuttal to the idea that history is the story of vast and impersonal forces; he is proof that one person - intrepid, ingenious, determined - can make all the difference.
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Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension Math
 
Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension: A Mathematician's Journey Through Narcissistic Numbers, Optimal Dating Algorithms, at Least Two Kinds of Infinity and More by Matt Parker
[Farrar Straus Giroux, $28.00; available Dec. 2]

Math is boring, says mathematician and comedian Matt Parker. Part of the problem may be the way the subject is taught, but it's also true that we all, to a greater or lesser extent, find math difficult and counterintuitive. This counterintuitiveness is actually part of the point, argues Parker. The extraordinary thing about math is that it allows us to access logic and ideas beyond what our brains can instinctively do; through its logical tools we are able to reach beyond our innate abilities and grasp more and more abstract concepts.

In this absorbing and exhilarating book, Parker sets out to convince his readers to revisit the very math that put them off the subject as fourteen-year-olds. Starting with the foundations of math familiar from school (numbers, geometry, and algebra), he reveals how it is possible to climb all the way up to topology and to four-dimensional shapes, and from there to infinity... and slightly beyond.
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Thanks for supporting The Learned Owl Book Shop. Happy reading!