University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

Cofrin Library Kindles have much more to offer!

The Kindles that are available for checkout at the Cofrin Library now have 122 titles available to choose from, for your reading pleasure.  Titles range from classics like Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley to new bestsellers like Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls and Life by Keith Richards.  There are 3 Kindles that can be checked out, for two weeks, from the Circulation Desk on the 3^rd floor of the library.  All Kindles have all 122 titles loaded on them.  Library staff have worked to provide a wide range of titles, covering many genres, that will appeal to students, staff and faculty.  If there are titles that you would like to see added to the Kindles, please send an e-mail to Leah Liebergen at liebergl@uwgb.edu for consideration.  We welcome suggestions to build the best and broadest Kindle e-book collection possible.

Check out just a few of our latest new books, see the rest on the 3rd floor of the Cofrin Library:

Surveying the settlements of America’s wars since WWI, Rose analyzes reasons for the manner and substance of their conclusions. The way a war ended, he holds, can be tied to the quality of pre-armistice or -surrender planning for the postwar situation, a problem to which he applies concepts in international relations (realism, bureaucratic politics, domestic politics). Those terms don’t portend a wonk’s book, however. Rose, the editor of Foreign Affairs, writes with clarity for general readers puzzled by mistakes national-security experts seem to make over and over again. According to Rose, American generals, diplomats, and presidents, obsessed with the military endgame, often don’t clarify their political intentions until the shooting stops. Varied in its effects, such neglect ranges from surmountable, as in the aftermath to WWII, to intractable, such as in Vietnam or Iraq. Rose also identifies another factor complicating the termination of war: cherry-picking lessons from a previous war that have dubious applicability to the present one. Public spirited and accessible, Rose’s presentation should impress anyone hoping for better management of war and peace by Washington. –Gilbert Taylor

The United States was founded on the principle of equal opportunity for all, and this ethos continues to inform the nation’s collective identity. In reality, however, absolute equality is elusive. The gap between rich and poor has widened in recent decades, and the United States has the highest level of economic inequality of any developed country. Social class and other differences in status reverberate throughout American life, and prejudice based on another’s perceived status persists among individuals and groups. In Envy Up, Scorn Down, noted social psychologist Susan Fiske examines the psychological underpinnings of interpersonal and intergroup comparisons, exploring why we compare ourselves to those both above and below us and analyzing the social consequences of such comparisons in day-to-day life. (description from publisher)

The Cofrin Library celebrates Banned Books Week September 24th through October 1st. Check the links below to discover if you’ve read a banned book recently.

“Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, the annual event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.” –American Library Association

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–20001

The Modern Library’s Best 100 Novels of the Twentieth Century

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”–Benjamin Franklin

Check out our selection of new books- located on the “New Book” bookshelf on the 3rd floor of the Cofrin Library.

Super species : the creatures that will dominate the planet / Garry Hamilton. 

A gripping examination of invasive species’ impact.

Super species are the phenomenally successful invasive life-forms that are dominating ecosystems. These animals, plants and microbes have spread far from their native habitats, most often as a result of human activities.

The key to super species’ success is their ability to adapt quickly. Super species may be unusually aggressive, difficult to kill, unfazed by the presence and activity of humans, capable of astonishingly rapid rates of growth and reproduction, exceptionally tolerant of pollution or, in many cases, all of the above!

Author Garry Hamilton profiles the 20 super species that are having the greatest impact in our world today, including:

• Feral pigs– relentless boars that are trampling across Europe, North America and Australia
• Bullfrogs — predatory amphibians that are endangering native frog populations
• Jellyfish — spineless wonders that are dominating the world’s oceans
• C. difficile — potentially deadly microbes that flourish in human intestines
• Brown tree snakes — unusually vicious reptiles that have overrun Guam and are now infiltrating America
• Argentine ants — aggressive insects capable of forming super-colonies spanning thousands of miles
• Humboldt squid — gigantic beasts that hunt in packs of several hundreds

– description from publisher

Absolute monarchs : a history of the papacy / John Julius Norwich.  

A SWEEPING CHRONICLE OF ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT—AND CONTROVERSIAL—INSTITUTIONS IN HISTORY

With the papacy embattled in recent years, it is essential to have the perspective of one of the world’s most accomplished historians. In Absolute Monarchs, John Julius Norwich captures nearly two thousand years of inspiration and devotion, intrigue and scandal. The men (and maybe one woman) who have held this position of infallible power over millions have ranged from heroes to rogues, admirably wise to utterly decadent. Norwich, who knew two popes and had private audiences with two others, recounts in riveting detail the histories of the most significant popes and what they meant politically, culturally, and socially to Rome and to the world.

Norwich presents such brave popes as Innocent I, who in the fifth century successfully negotiated with Alaric the Goth, an invader civil authorities could not defeat, and Leo I, who two decades later tamed (and perhaps paid off) Attila the Hun. Here, too, are the scandalous figures: Pope Joan, the mythic woman said (without any substantiation) to have been elected in 855, and the infamous “pornocracy,” the five libertines who were descendants or lovers of Marozia, debauched daughter of one of Rome’s most powerful families.

Absolute Monarchs brilliantly portrays reformers such as Pope Paul III, “the greatest pontiff of the sixteenth century,” who reinterpreted the Church’s teaching and discipline, and John XXIII, who in five short years starting in 1958 “opened up the church to the twentieth century,” instituting reforms that led to Vatican II. Norwich brings the story to the present day with Benedict XVI, who is coping with a global priest sex scandal.

Epic and compelling, Absolute Monarchs is the astonishing story of some of history’s most revered and reviled figures, men who still cast light and shadows on the Vatican and the world today.

–description from publisher

What is mental illness? / Richard J. McNally.

According to a major health survey, nearly half of all Americans have been mentally ill at some point in their lives—more than a quarter in the last year. Can this be true? What exactly does it mean, anyway? What’s a disorder, and what’s just a struggle with real life?

This lucid and incisive book cuts through both professional jargon and polemical hot air, to describe the intense political and intellectual struggles over what counts as a “real” disorder, and what goes into the “DSM,” the psychiatric bible. Is schizophrenia a disorder? Absolutely. Is homosexuality? It was—till gay rights activists drove it out of the DSM a generation ago. What about new and controversial diagnoses? Is “social anxiety disorder” a way of saying that it’s sick to be shy, or “female sexual arousal disorder” that it’s sick to be tired?

An advisor to the DSM, but also a fierce critic of exaggerated overuse, McNally defends the careful approach of describing disorders by patterns of symptoms that can be seen, and illustrates how often the system medicalizes everyday emotional life.

Neuroscience, genetics, and evolutionary psychology may illuminate the biological bases of mental illness, but at this point, McNally argues, no science can draw a bright line between disorder and distress. In a pragmatic and humane conclusion, he offers questions for patients and professionals alike to help understand, and cope with, the sorrows and psychopathologies of everyday life.

–description from publisher

Imagining sustainable food systems : theory and practice / edited by Alison Blay-Palmer.

• What defines a sustainable food system? How can it be more inclusive? How do local and global scales interact and how does power flow within food systems? How to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to realizing sustainable food systems? And how to activate change?

  These questions are considered by EU and North American academics and practitioners in this book. Using a wide range of case studies, it provides a critical overview, showing how and where theory and practice can converge to produce more sustainable food systems.

• Contents: Part 1 Interrogating Sustainable Food Systems: Imagining sustainable food systems, Alison Blay-Palmer; Conceptualizing and creating sustainable food systems: how interdisciplinarity can help, Clare Hinrichs; Sustainability: a tool for food system reform?, Mustafa Koc. Part 2 Inclusion and Exclusion in Sustainable Food Systems: Greening the realm: sustainable food chains and the public plate, Kevin Morgan; Thinking about labour in alternative food systems, Yael Levitte; The urban food desert: spatial inequality or opportunity for change?, Ellen Desjardins. Part 3 The Case for Sustainable Food Systems: Food systems planning and sustainable cities and regions: the role of the firm in sustainable food capitalism, Betsy Donald; The nexus between alternative food systems and entrepreneurism: three local stories, Hélène St. Jacques; Scaling up: bringing public institutions and food service corporations into the project for a local, sustainable food system in Ontario, Harriet Friedmann; Food policy encounters of a 3rd kind: how the Toronto Food Policy Council socializes for sustain-ability, Wayne Roberts; Food insecurity in the land of plenty: the Windermere valley paradox, Alison Bell; Imagining sustainable food systems: the path to regenerative food systems, Alison Blay-Palmer and Mustafa Koc; Index.

–description from publisher

Check out our newest selections, temporarily shelved on the 3rd floor new book shelves.

Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. – How the Working Poor Became Big Business

From the author of the New York Times Notable Book of the Year Drive By comes a unique and riveting exploration of one of America’s largest and fastest-growing industries—the business of poverty. Broke, USA is a Fast Food Nation for the “poverty industry” that will also appeal to readers of Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) and David Shipler (The Working Poor).

Broke, USA is Gary Rivlin’s riveting report from the economic fringes. From the annual meeting of the national check cashers association in Las Vegas to a tour of the foreclosure-riddled neighborhoods of Dayton, Ohio, here is a subprime Fast Food Nation featuring an unforgettable cast of characters and memorable scenes. Rivlin profiles players like a former small-town Tennessee debt collector whose business offering cash advances to the working poor has earned him a net worth in the hundreds of millions, and legendary Wall Street dealmaker Sandy Weill, who rode a subprime loan business into control of the nation’s largest bank. Rivlin parallels their stories with the tale of those committed souls fighting back against the major corporations, chain franchises, and newly hatched enterprises that fleece the country’s hardworking waitresses, warehouse workers, and mall clerks.  Timely, shocking, and powerful, Broke, USA offers a much-needed look at why our country is in a financial mess and gives a voice to the millions of ordinary Americans left devastated in the wake of the economic collapse.  (description from publisher)

1861 : the Civil War awakening / Adam Goodheart.

As the United States marks the 150th anniversary of our defining national drama, 1861 presents a gripping and original account of how the Civil War began.

1861 is an epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields. Early in that fateful year, a second American revolution unfolded, inspiring a new generation to reject their parents’ faith in compromise and appeasement, to do the unthinkable in the name of an ideal. It set Abraham Lincoln on the path to greatness and millions of slaves on the road to freedom.

The book introduces us to a heretofore little-known cast of Civil War heroes—among them an acrobatic militia colonel, an explorer’s wife, an idealistic band of German immigrants, a regiment of New York City firemen, a community of Virginia slaves, and a young college professor who would one day become president. Adam Goodheart takes us from the corridors of the White House to the slums of Manhattan, from the mouth of the Chesapeake to the deserts of Nevada, from Boston Common to Alcatraz Island, vividly evoking the Union at this moment of ultimate crisis and decision. (description from the publisher)

The fiery trial : Abraham Lincoln and American slavery / Eric Foner.

In this landmark work of deep scholarship and insight, Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner begins with Lincoln’s youth in Indiana and Illinois and follows the trajectory of his career across an increasingly tense and shifting political terrain from Illinois to Washington, D.C. Although “naturally anti-slavery” for as long as he can remember, Lincoln scrupulously holds to the position that the Constitution protects the institution in the original slave states. But the political landscape is transformed in 1854 when the Kansas-Nebraska Act makes the expansion of slavery a national issue. A man of considered words and deliberate actions, Lincoln navigates the dynamic politics deftly, taking measured steps, often along a path forged by abolitionists and radicals in his party. Lincoln rises to leadership in the new Republican Party by calibrating his politics to the broadest possible antislavery coalition. As president of a divided nation and commander in chief at war, displaying a similar compound of pragmatism and principle, Lincoln finally embraces what he calls the Civil War’s “fundamental and astounding” result: the immediate, uncompensated abolition of slavery and recognition of blacks as American citizens. Foner’s Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation’s greatest president and the issue that mattered most. (description from publisher)

The philosophical actor : a practical meditation for practicing theatre artists / Donna Soto-Morettini

There have been many books published on acting, actor training, and practical theories for preparing for a role, but none of these books have ever looked philosophically at the language and the concepts that we use when we talk about acting. The Philosophical Actoris the first attempt to grapple with the fundamental questions of truth, art, and human nature unexamined in past treatments, from the first great essay by Diderot to the exhaustive system described by Stanislavski. With wide appeal to actors, directors, acting students, acting teachers and trainers, Donna Soto-Morettini draws from twenty-five years of experience as an acting teacher and director to introduce innovative ways of thinking about acting. (description from publisher)

The lost boyz : a dark side of graffiti / Justin Rollins ; foreword Noel ‘Razor’ Smith.

For those who equate graffiti tagging with the cosy quirkiness of Banksy or the colourful artistry of wasteground murals – this book will be a real eye-opener. ‘The Lost Boyz documents Justin’s road to change and redemption. This is the story of almost feral youth, spraying their mark on the urban chaos of pre-millenium London. A story of what it’s like to grow up as a confused and mentally unstable child of mixed race in a predominantly white area. A story of mental torture, racism and extreme violence. The Lost Boyz takes the reader through the dirty back streets and dark alleys of south London where vicious gangs of graffiti taggers fought an all-out turf war that left many victims and casualties in its wake. The Lost Boyz squandered their youth in a nihilistic rush towards oblivion. And some did not survive the journey. Justin Rollins was one of the lucky ones…He spent years in prison before managing to wrest back some control over his life. Now in his mid 20s Justin is a changed man, hardly recognisable (both physically and mentally) to the youth I first met. He now has a young daughter of his own and is reconciled with the family he once felt so distant from. He no longer drinks or takes drugs, and nor does he see himself as separate from the rest of society. In writing this book, which was a long and painful journey for him, Justin hopes to lay his ghosts of the past to rest. And if it serves as a warning to even one kid who may be starting out on the same road, then it is a job well done’: Noel ‘Razor’ Smith, crime writer (from the Foreword) .

All titles can be found in our popular reading collection on the 4th floor of the Cofrin Library.  Community members welcome!

The Amazing adventures  of kavalier & clay – Michael Chabon

-Great story of life-long friendship

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THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG – MURIEL BARBERY

-A BIT DARK but worth it for the excellent writing

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THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME – MARK HADDON

-AN AMAZING STORY TOLD THROUGH THE LIFE OF AN AUTISTIC BOY

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HAVE YOU FOUND HER: A MEMOIR –

JANICE ERLBAUM

- WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU OPEN YOURSELF UP TO SAVE ANOTHER PERSON?

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LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN: A NOVEL –

COLUM MCCANN

2009 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

2011 INTERNATIONAL IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD

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THURSDAY NEXT IN THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS: A NOVEL –

JASPER FFORDE

-A MYSTERY?  A FANTASY?  MAYBE BOTH!

Just a selected few of our most recent delivery of new books, stop by the 3rd floor of the Cofrin Library today to check one out!

They go by many names: helicopter parents, hovercrafts, PFHs (Parents from Hell). The news media is filled with stories of well-intentioned parents going to ridiculous extremes to remove all obstacles from their child’s path to greatness . . . or at least to an ivy league school. From cradle to college, they remain intimately enmeshed in their children’s lives, stifling their development and creating infantilized, spoiled, immature adults unprepared to make the decisions necessary for the real world. Or so the story goes.

Drawing on a wealth of eye-opening interviews with parents across the country, Margaret K. Nelson cuts through the stereotypes and hyperbole to examine the realities of what she terms “parenting out of control.” Situating this phenomenon within a broad sociological context, she finds several striking explanations for why today’s prosperous and well-educated parents are unable to set realistic boundaries when it comes to raising their children. Analyzing the goals and aspirations parents have for their children as well as the strategies they use to reach them, Nelson discovers fundamental differences among American parenting styles that expose class fault lines, both within the elite and between the elite and the middle and working classes.

Nelson goes on to explore the new ways technology shapes modern parenting. From baby monitors to cell phones (often referred to as the world’s longest umbilical cord), to social networking sites, and even GPS devices, parents have more tools at their disposal than ever before to communicate with, supervise, and even spy on their children. These play important and often surprising roles in the phenomenon of parenting out of control. Yet the technologies parents choose, and those they refuse to use, often seem counterintuitive. Nelson shows that these choices make sense when viewed in the light of class expectations.

Today’s parents are faced with unprecedented opportunities and dangers for their children, and are evolving novel strategies to adapt to these changes. Nelson’s lucid and insightful work provides an authoritative examination of what happens when these new strategies go too far. (from product description)

Over the past quarter century, American liberals and conservatives alike have invoked memories of the 1960s to define their respective ideological positions and to influence voters. Liberals recall the positive associations of what might be called the ‘good Sixties’ the ‘Camelot’ years of JFK, the early civil rights movement, and the dreams of the Great Society while conservatives conjure images of the ‘bad Sixties’ a time of urban riots, antiwar protests, and countercultural revolt.

‘In Framing the Sixties’, Bernard von Bothmer examines this battle over the collective memory of the decade primarily through the lens of presidential politics. He shows how four presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush each sought to advance his political agenda by consciously shaping public understanding of the meaning of ‘the Sixties.’ He compares not only the way that each depicted the decade as a whole, but also their commentary on a set of specific topics: the presidency of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson s ‘Great Society’ initiatives, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War.

In addition to analyzing the pronouncements of the presidents themselves, von Bothmer draws on interviews he conducted with more than one hundred and twenty cabinet members, speechwriters, advisers, strategists, historians, journalists, and activists from across the political spectrum from Julian Bond, Daniel Ellsberg, Todd Gitlin, and Arthur Schlesinger to James Baker, Robert Bork, Phyllis Schlafly, and Paul Weyrich.

It is no secret that the upheavals of the 1960s opened fissures within American society that have continued to affect the nation s politics and to intensify its so-called culture wars. What this book documents is the extent to which political leaders, left and right, consciously exploited those divisions by ‘framing’ the memory of that turbulent decade to serve their own partisan interests. (from product description)

While many books in recent years have addressed the notable ways that popular internet culture and cyber trends such as blogging have democratized the community of information seekers and providers, little research to date has addressed the darker element that has emerged from that same democratic sphere. That is, the huge resurgence and successful transformation of hate groups across cyberspace, and in particular, those that promote white supremacist ideas and causes. A Space for Hate speaks to the media and information topic of hate speech in cyberspace, but more specifically, how its inscribers have adapted their movement into the social networking and information-providing contexts of the modern online community. (from product description)

Modern philosophy has long dismissed the traditional moral notion that some actions are inherently good or evil, claiming rather that actions lack clear boundaries and have no set nature, whether good, evil, or anything else. We might expect to find resources to rebut these consequentialist assertions in the perennial philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Unfortunately, the analysis of the moral species within Aquinas confounds even the most resolute. Thomists are far from unanimity on the very questions at issue, such as the role of intention in moral judgment and the importance of the exterior or “physical” act. One influential reading of Aquinas assigns intention a central role; another extols a return to teleology and to the physical nature of the action.

In Good and Evil Actions, Steven J. Jensen navigates a path through the debate, retrieving what is of value from each interpretation. Intention receives its proper due, while leaving room for physical causality and teleology. Jensen provides a novel explanation of self-defense and develops a much needed account of the dignity of the human person. With exceptional clarity, he identifies the essential issues, resolves conflicting views, and reveals the truth as conveyed by Aquinas.

In his foreword, Ralph McInerny praises the book as “a remarkable compendium of the status quaestionis of a large number of prickly issues associated with Thomas Aquinas’s theory of human action, a fair look at proposed solutions, and finally Jensen’s own best thought on the matter.” (from product description)

While much of the current literature on the economic consequences of an aging population focuses on the negative aspects, this enlightening book argues that seniors can bring significant benefits – such as vitality and competitiveness – to an urban economy. The authors illustrate the ways an aging population can have a positive impact on urban centers, including the move by large numbers of seniors from the suburbs to the city, where their disproportionate consumption of education and the arts helps rejuvenate city centers. Given this, the authors conclude that a large and active senior population has the potential to assist a city in the achievement of its strategic economic objectives. The book includes analyses of the effects of population aging on best practices in 40 cities in the US and EU, with surprising results, as well as interviews with city officials and leaders. Academics, researchers and public officials in the areas of urban development, public policy and aging will find much in this original approach to interest and provoke debate. (from product description)

Through the language glass: why the world looks different in other languages / Guy Deutscher
P140 .D475 2010

Linguistics has long shied away from claiming any link between a language and the culture of its speakers: too much simplistic (even bigoted) chatter about the romance of Italian and the goose-stepping orderliness of German has made serious thinkers wary of the entire subject. But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language—and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for “blue”?

Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water—a “she”—becomes a “he” once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial. Audacious, delightful, and field-changing, Through the Language Glass is a classic of intellectual discovery. (from publisher)

Contemporary Japan: History, Politics and Social Change since the 1980s
DS891 .K538 2011

This book presents a comprehensive examination of the causes of the Japanese economic bubble in the late 1980s and the socio-political consequences of the recent financial collapse.

• Represents the only book to examine in depth the turmoil of Japan since Emperor Hirohito died in 1989, the Cold War ended, and the economy collapsed
• Provides an assessment of Japan’s dramatic political revolution of 2009
• Analyzes how risk has increased in Japan, undermining the sense of security and causing greater disparities in society
• Assesses Japan’s record on the environment, the consequences of neo-liberal reforms, immigration policies, the aging society, the US alliance, the Imperial family, and the ‘yakuza’ criminal gangs (from publisher)

Choreographing Asian America / Yutian Wong.
GV1588.6 .W66 2010

“Choreographing Asian America takes us on an engrossing journey through Asian American dance and politics. Wong makes clear that dance has been woefully neglected in the growing scholarship in Asian American cultural criticism. Moving from the history of the ‘Oriental dancing girl’ to an extended analysis of Vietnamese American performance collective Club O’Noodles to the overbearing popularity of Miss Saigon, she lays out the challenges of writing about dance and performance in corporeal and kinetic terms. At times personal, philosophical, irreverent, and somber, Wong engages the most basic questions of Asian American bodies, movements, representation, desire, and dance.” (Josephine Lee, author of Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage )

Emmy + Gijs + Aldo / Jan Boelen.
NK1454.Z9 B352 2010X

Gijs Bakker and Emmy van Leersum caused a stir in the 1960s with their aluminium collar and headwear designs; Bakker co-founded Droog Design and the pair’s son, Aldo, is also a successful designer. Accompanying an exhibition in Enkhuizen, Netherlands, and utilising much unpublished material, this book sheds important light on the trio’s designs and personal connections. Jan Boelen examines the relationship between designer and object, a previously overlooked aspect of the three’s work, and demonstrates how different design processes contribute to the three designer’s distinct personalities, as well as their similarities.(from publisher)