May 8, 2015: The 70th Anniversary of V-E Day, the end of World War II in Europe.

No single blog post could ever encompass the enormous tragedy of World War II. For that matter, many books only try to take on selected aspects of the war, its causes, and consequences. Here is a small sample of book titles available at the Sawyer Library:


Print:

Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich
By Walter Kempowski; translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside.

Five Days that Shocked the World:
Eyewitness Accounts from Europe at the End of World War II
By Nicholas Best

The Holocaust and the Revival of Psychological History
By Judith M. Hughes

E-Books:

The War in the Empty Air:
Victims, Perpetrators, and Postwar Germans"
By Dagmar Barnouw

Getting History Right:
East and West German Collective Memories of the Holocaust and War"
By Mark A. Wolfgram

The War Complex:
World War II in Our Time
By Marianna Torgovnick

Interesting reading (seriously) on freight, shipping, supply chains, and logistics.

Listed below is a sample of titles that relate to containers and freight shipping. All are available through the Sawyer Library.

The "Handbook of Ocean Container Transport Logistics" is a scholarly reference book, but the others (especially the three print titles) are interesting and relatively quick to read in their entirety.

All of the titles should awaken respect for those who work to transport the items that are at the center of the consumer economy.

Ninety Percent of Everything :
Inside Shipping, The Invisible Industry that Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate.
By Rose George
Sawyer 4th Floor
HE571 .G465 2013

The Box :
How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.
By Marc Levinson
Sawyer 4th Floor
TA1215 .L47 2006

The Container Principle :
How a Box Changes the Way we Think.
By Alexander Klose ;
translated by Charles Marcrum II
Sawyer New Books
TA1215 .K5813 2015

Box Boats:
How Container Ships Changed the World.
By Brian J. Cudahy
E-BOOK

Handbook of Ocean Container Transport Logistics:
Making Global Supply Chains Effective.
Edited by Chung-Yee Lee, Qiang Meng
E-BOOK

Development of Containerization:
Success Through Vision, Drive and Technology.
By Hans van Ham, Joan Rijsenbrij
E-BOOK

Have you heard about "Bitcoin"? Are you curious about virtual currencies? Are you looking for a paper topic relating to technology and society?

If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, then have a look at this new book:

"Wildcat Currency: How the Virtual Money Revolution is Transforming the Economy," written by Edward Castronova, published by Yale University Press, [2014].

The publisher has provided this synopsis:

"Private currencies have always existed, from notes printed by individual banks to the S&H Green Stamps that consumers once redeemed for household items. Today's economy has seen an explosion of new forms of monetary exchange not created by the federal government. Credit card companies offer points that can be traded in for a variety of goods and services, from airline miles to online store credit. Online game creators have devised new mediums of electronic exchange that turn virtual money into real money. Meanwhile, real money is increasingly going digital, where it competes with private currencies like Bitcoin. The virtual and the real economic worlds are intermingling more than ever before, raising the possibility that this new money might eventually replace the government-run system of dollars, euros, and yen. Edward Castronova is the leading researcher in this field, a founder of scholarly online game studies and an expert on the economies of virtual worlds. In this dynamic and essential work, he explores the current phenomenon of virtual currencies and what it will mean legally, politically, and economically in the future. In doing so, he provides a fascinating, often surprising discourse on the meaning of money itself-what it is, what we think it is, and how we relate to it on an emotional level"

Some New (& Relatively New) Books

The necessity of using a computer for school work is universal, however familiarity with the details of using that computer is not universal. Listed below are some recent additions to the Sawyer Library that might be of interest:

Computing for Ordinary Mortals by Robert St. Amant, Oxford University Press, 2013.

Master your Mac: Simple Ways to Tweak, Customize, and Secure OS X by Matt Cone, No Starch Press, c2013. (Access online from the online catalog, via eBrary.)

Exploring Windows 8 for Dummies by Galen Gruman John Wiley and Sons, 2012. (Access online from the online catalog, via eBrary.)

Summer Session is for the Birds!

This fascinating 2010 book delves into the evolution of radically different nesting and parenting strategies in bird species ranging from Hummingbirds, to Hornbills, to Great Horned Owls. Many of the birds mentioned are at least seasonally present in New England; keep your eyes peeled for a "hanging cup" Oriole's nest.

Heavily illustrated with photographs and schematics of different birds' nests, this slim 2011 volume emphasizes the artistry and problem-solving abilities of nesting birds.

Recent science news publications suggest that some types of Tyrannosaurs were fully feathered and brightly colored, similarly to modern birds. Consult this 2011 eBrary book to learn more about the relationship between dinosaurs and modern birds.








Bluejay or Bluebird? This 2012 Reference book helps you identify that beautiful feather you just found in the woods, or out in the parking lot. Enjoy your summer!

Recent Readings On....Eating, the Brain, Obesity, and the Sugar Fix

As the new controversy about Mayor Bloomberg's intent to ban super-sized soft drinks in NYC clearly indicates, American obesity--and what to do about it--is a sensitive issue. It is social. It is behavioral. And (as we now know), it is even a matter of neuroscience. Now, it is also entering the realm of a national policy dispute.

Sawyer Library often collects books that can speak to matters of public debate as well as scholarly interest. Here are a few recently acquired titles that discuss various aspects of this complex subject:

The American Way of Eating : Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields, and the Dinner Table / Tracie McMillan
is "an ambitious and accessible work of undercover journalism that fully investigates our food system to explain what keeps Americans from eating well--and what we can do about it."

For a New York Times feature on the book, see this link.


Diet, Brain, Behavior : Practical Implications / edited by Robin B. Kanarek and Harris R. Lieberman

From a summary: "This title edited by Kanarek (psychology, Tufts U.) and Lieberman (a research psychologist in the Military Nutrition Division of the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine) presents 14 chapters discussing practical and applied issues of nutritional neuroscience."

This is not a pop book, with chapters like "Diet as an analgesic modality" and "The reward deficiency hypothesis : implications for obesity and other eating disorders"

For a publisher page on the book, see this link.


Debating Obesity : Critical Perspectives / edited by Emma Rich, Lee F. Monaghan, Lucy Aphramor

This recent book "brings together critical perspectives on some of the recent claims associated with the obesity crisis. It develops both theoretical and conceptual arguments around the obesity debate, as well as taking a more practical focus in terms of implications for the health professions to outline an agenda for a 'critical weight studies.'

Here's a publisher page on the book.


Empty Pleasures : The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda / Carolyn de la Peña

From a review in Choice: "De la Pena (American studies, Univ. of California, Davis) offers a well-cited, thought-provoking, and fascinating analysis of the sociological, psychological, political, and financial underpinnings of the promotion and use of artificial sweeteners in the US. From the perspectives of the pharmaceutical and advertising industries, food technologists/ manufacturers, government agencies, the American homemaker, nutritionists, and weight-loss experts, the book examines the history of the use of saccharin, cyclamates, aspartame, and sucralose..."

For an author interview, see this link.

And on a related topic, here's a volume in the "Smithsonian Contribution to Knowledge" series:
Sweet Stuff : An American History of Sweeteners from Sugar to Sucralose / Deborah Jean Warner

Library Journal said of this title: "Sugar and other sweeteners are so intrinsic to American life that their history is worth exploring. Warner tracks some of the major threads (science and technology, business and labor, politics) in her exhaustively researched book. The abundance of references offers an excellent starting point for further exploration, and archival images enhance the text."

For a Smithsonian Fact Sheet on the book, click here.

As Mayor Bloomberg argues, all the sugars in our American diet (and history) have consequences. That brings us to:

XXL : Obesity and the Limits of Shame / Neil Seeman and Patrick Luciani
A summary of the book states: "Obese individuals are twice as likely to experience heart failure as non-obese people. More than eighty-five per cent of type 2 diabetes sufferers are overweight. And in the United States, obese and overweight individuals make up more than two-thirds of the adult population. Public health organizations and governments have traditionally tried to combat obesity through shame-inducing policies, which assure people that they can easily lose weight by eating right and exercising. This generic approach has failed, as it does little to address the personal, genetic, and cultural challenges faced by obese individuals."

Here's a publisher page on the book.

Back to the realm of our brain and what it means to our eating behaviors, we also recently added:
__
Neurogastronomy : How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why it Matters / Gordon M. Shepherd

From the book's self description: "Leading neuroscientist Gordon M. Shepherd embarks on a paradigm-shifting trip through the "human brain flavor system," laying the foundations for a new scientific field: neurogastronomy. Challenging the belief that the sense of smell diminished during human evolution, Shepherd argues that this sense, which constitutes the main component of flavor, is far more powerful and essential than previously believed. Shepherd begins Neurogastronomy with the mechanics of smell, particularly the way it stimulates the nose from the back of the mouth. As we eat, the brain conceptualizes smells as spatial patterns, and from these and the other senses it constructs the perception of flavor. Shepherd then considers the impact of the flavor system on contemporary social, behavioral, and medical issues."

For a discussion of the book at Science Fare blog, click this link.

Remember that you can always search for these and many more books in our online catalog (OPAC). And to browse a feed of other newly acquired books, see our LibGuide.