The Middlesboro campus library staff has started doing an occasional “staff picks” book display. With a new semester about to begin, it was my turn to 
put together a display. I must admit that choosing 8-9 books to highlight as among my “favorites” was difficult, as I have many “favorites.” The following, in any case, is what I arrived at. I try to explain with each capsule review what about each book I liked.
1. The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War, by Andrew J. Bacevich
The author of this book is a West Point graduate and retired Air Force Colonel and currently is Director of Center for International Relations at Boston
University. He is, by his own admission and by any objective reckoning, politically conservative. Yet in this book he offers a scathing critique of the use of American military power over the past 30 or so years. As a former professional soldier, he displays great understanding of the military as an institution and of the path our political leaders have taken that institution in recent years.
Bacevich makes many valid – and some disturbing – points in this book, more than can be described here. But in my reading perhaps his most compelling and interesting analysis has to do with the intertwining of American militarism and American Evangelicalism.
Bacevich’s son, an Army First Lieutenant, was killed in Iraq a year or two after this book was published. That Bacevich has been a persistent, vocal critic of that war must have made this loss all-the-more painful for him.
2. The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville 
Murders, by Anthony Flacco
Did you see the movie “The Changeling,” starring Angelina Jolie? Did you like it? If so, you might like this book. It is about the so-called “Chicken Coup” murders, the same murders upon which the movie is based.
But it is also a story of redemption, of someone moving on to live a full and normal life despite unimaginably horrific experiences. It is the story of Sanford Clark, who as a child was compelled, upon threat of death, to assist his sadistic uncle Gordon Northcott in the murder of at least 20 boys.
This book is mind-numbingly depressing in places. Just knowing that I live in a world capable of producing people like Northcott leaves me feeling despondent. But the book’s over-arching message of goodness goes far in dispelling that despondency.
3. Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to 
Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, by Robert Lanza and Bob Berman
I love this book for two reasons.
First, Biocentrism turns the universe as we know it on its head by arguing (persuasively) that consciousness (i.e., life) creates material reality instead of the other way around. In this paradigm, life is not an accidental byproduct of cosmology. It is the very reason for the universe’s existence. Second, the book’s nuanced yet accessible discussion of cosmology (especially quantum theory) inevitably leads the reader into the theological realm, and in ways uniquely challenging to thoughtful readers.
4. Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite
with His Mother
Let’s pretend for a moment that, instead of being an economic power house, the United States is an impoverished Third World country and that Central America is the powerhouse. Imagine countless thousands of poor North Americans making the dangerous journey south to find work. Among them, incredibly, are children, some as young as six, and some of them traveling alone. Imagine you are the guardian, or the mother, of a 10-year old boy who disappears, and you later learn that he has set out– alone — to find his biological mother, who has migrated to Central America to find work. You know how dangerous the journey is, full of thugs, bandits, and corrupt cops.
How would you feel?
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
Christopher knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but not to humans. He cannot stand being touched and he detests the color yellow.
Welcome to the world of an autistic. If you would like to try your hand at understanding that world, I recommend this book to you. The book is in places bemusing, outright funny, disturbing, and outright disgusting. It will expand your mental horizons and teach empathy for a category of people often maligned for their “differentness.”
6. Nursing Against the Odds: How Health Care Cost Cutting, Media 
Stereotypes, and Medical Hubris Undermine Nurses and Patient Care, by Suzanne Gordon
Over the past five years or so I have acquired a deep appreciation for nurses. I have found it is they, more than physicians, who will talk to you in meaningful depth about what is going awry in your body. Without them, I would feel like just another number in today’s managed care environment. This appreciation holds especially true of nurse practitioners and registered nurses.
Although this book it is not a page turner in the usual sense, it so well articulates what it is like to be a nurse – the challenges (routine and exceptional), dealing with the medical hierarchy, jobsite politics, and difficult patients — that I would highly recommend it to anyone enrolled in our nursing program or who is considering becoming a nurse. Theirs’ is not an easy job. Dozens of studies have recorded the disaffection within the nursing work force. This book’s author describes how many new nurses end up seeking to leave their profession because of job stress caused by rising patient loads under our current managed care system. Reading this book might help you enter this profession with open eyes and lessen your chances of leaving nursing prematurely.
7. A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra 
Leone, by Lansana Gbnerie
Sierra Leone is a South Carolina-sized country in West Africa and one of the poorest countries in the world. Public health conditions there are deplorable. Children die daily from treatable diseases due to a lack of even the most basic medical care. Education is neither free nor compulsory.
A sad, bittersweet, feeling comes over me when I think of Sierra Leone, for it was “home” during my two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1980s. But what is really saddening is what happened there starting in the 1990s. That is when a Civil War of extraordinary brutality erupted.
This book offers an excellent examination of the origins, events, and eventual outcomes of this tragic conflict. The chapter entitled “Operation No Living Thing,” depicting the fall of the capital city of Freetown to the RUF, sent chills down my spine as my mind envisioned what that day must have been like in this city once so familiar to me.
8. Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks From the Heart: 
The Story of Elvia Alvarado, translated and edited by Medea Benjamin
Honduras is one of seven small Latin American countries sandwiched between Mexico to the north and Colombia to the south. It has the distinction of being one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, along with Bolivia, Guyana, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Despite that, I love Honduras. I have been there three times since 2007 and plan to return in 2010.
Whether in the United States or elsewhere, the poor and disenfranchised tend to be near-invisible, and by North American standards the vast majority – at least 75 percent – of Hondurans would be considered poor. They are, in the words of one Honduran acquaintance, the “great invisible” in Honduras. And that is what makes this book so unique and valuable. It is about the world as seen through the eyes of the Honduran poor. It is about their struggle for social justice and dignity in one of the most economically polarized countries in Latin America.
9. Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town, by Nick Redding
The title suggests two things about this book: That it is about methamphetamine and that its setting is a small town in America. That small-town could have easily been Middlesboro, though it is Oelwein, Iowa (population 6,772). What meth does to Oelwein is now a familiar story, repeated in many American small towns.
Like Middlesboro, the population of Oelwein fell steadily through the latter decades of the 20th century. And, like Middlesboro, Oelwein’s middle-class has grown smaller with each passing decade.
Methland’s primary significance is its placing the meth epidemic in context with the economic decline that has afflicted much of rural America in recent decades.
The book has two weaknesses. First, it is without endnotes, a bibliography, or an index. This detracts from the book’s merit, especially when the author makes statistical claims without citing a source. Second, there are some factual errors, such as when the author attributes a book title to the wrong author. A fact checker would have been very helpful.
Have you ever read a book that you just couldn’t wait to tell people about — only to discover that no one else had read it yet? We wanted to start a book club, so that anyone who had read our “book of the month” could attend our meeting and talk about it. This month, our selection is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows. 
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Twilight by William GayIf you won’t take my word for it, Stephen King listed it as one of his favorite books of 2007. It concerns two teenage siblings who become convinced that there is something not quite right with the local undertaker. They determine to dig up their father’s grave to find out if their suspicions are correct. Not surprisingly, the undertaker in question takes a dim view of their meddling, and things quickly go from bad to worse. Creepy! 
Stiff by Mary RoachMary Roach has written several non-fiction books, all looking at an unusual topic. In Stiff, she takes a look at what happens to dead bodies. It would seem to be an especially morbid topic, but she deals with the subject with surprising sympathy and humor. Did you know that “crash test dummies” are sometimes the bodies of the recently departed? That and many other fascinating facts are covered in this intriguing book.
Ms. Haggerty is currently reading is The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King. PS 3561 .I4813 B44 1996
es the Afterlife by Mary Roach 
llad of Frankie Silver by Sharon McCrumb
Playing with Fire by Peter Robinson
