Ferndale Public Library Round Up: Best in Books and More

Ferndale Public Library Round Up: Best in Books and More
(Jeff Milo, FPL Circulation Specialist, April 15, 2014)
Newness surrounds me, daily. Working at the library means I’m privy to the latest and the greatest in books, movies and music, fresh titles shelved for circulation for any card-holder keen enough to stop in and check-out.
You’re longing for something new to watch or read?
Not sure where to look?
Not even sure what you’re in the mood for, yet? Well, maybe we can help! Who better, really, than a library staffer for reading recommendations?
This article starts off a weekly series in on the OC-115: Each staff member will curate a list of four or five recommendations for the community to peruse –in the hopes that we can enrich your recreational reading or weekend DVD screening. We’ll have music too; I’ve got something for your car stereo (CD-wise), that’ll blow your mind for soundtracking any around-the-town errands or late-night adventures.

Here’s Jeff’s Picks:
Music
St. Vincent – St. Vincnet
(Call No# / Spine label): CD – ST. VINCNET
http://bit.ly/1erLTff
This is the album I can’t stop listening to: singer/songwriter Annie Clark is a mad scientist on the guitar – using her breathy and beautiful voice to ruffle out gorgeous pop melodies atop bizarre blends of murky space-rock and wickedly wandering solos recalling jazz. She makes regal sound rabid.
Or, if that’s checked-out, try:
The War On Drugs – Lost In The Dream
(Call No# / Spine label): CD – WAR ON DRUGS
http://bit.ly/1dSIaZN
Hazy, blazey Americana-rock exploring the evocative and psychedelic feats feasibly achieved on a series of splaying guitar solos when it’s dazzled by just the right effects-pedal.
Books
Non-fiction
Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the golden age of journalism
(Call No# / Spine label): 973.91 G
http://bit.ly/OdZJHI
Roosevelt and Taft get top billing, but we should really emphasize the journalists, here. Goodwin, who wrote the sprawling Lincoln biography serving as base-material for Spielberg’s recent Oscar-winner, details the turn of the century-era ignition of the Progressive Agenda along with what would prove to be a golden era in journalism, through his uniquely close collusions (and disputes) with four remarkable writers at McClure’s Magazine.
Fiction
Eldritch tales by H.P. Lovecraft – a miscellany of the macabre
(Call No# / Spine label) FIC LOVECRAFT
http://bit.ly/1gp1IzD
The master of the Weird Tale, Lovecraft’s influence is immeasurable across the century that followed most of his known works. Poe was more of a romantic compared to this Edwardian-era spinner of utterly eerie yarns; his was the realm of the ominous, the unknown and of our freakiest of fever-dream hallucinations wrought into frighteningly palpable realities. None of this is Horror, no… It’s just tantalizingly, astonishingly weird. And yet, believably weird…in the same sense that you still believe bits of a strange dream from which you’ve only freshly awoken.
Movies
The Grandmaster
Directed and written by Won Kar-Wai
(Call No# / Spine label) DVD –NEW—DRAMA
http://bit.ly/1fvUCxd
An acclaimed director takes on the story Chinese martial-arts master Ip Man (famed here in the United States, mostly, as being the man who taught Bruce Lee his specialty style known as Wing-Chun). The choreographed fight scenes here can rival anything you’ve seen in The Matrix but the true pleasure of this film (despite its cast) is the cinematography, the look of this film, with its start grays, blacks, maroons and mesmeric framing of shadows and lighting. Based on a true story.
If that’s checked-out, you can always try:
The Wolf Of Wall Street
Directed by Martin Scorcese
(Call No# / Spine label) DVD –NEW—COMEDY
Utter depravity. The lengths to which money and power corrupt…And, Leonardo DiCaprio rivaling Jim Carey (in his heyday) in terms of physical comedy. Yes, comedy. Though, it might be harder to laugh at this for some…