Arts & Entertainment

Top 5 Books You Do Not Want to Miss at the Library This Week

A hostage negotiator, the fate of a tiger and Manhattan's Lower East Side between 1863 and 1935, as well as two other nonfiction reads.

Senior reference librarian, Rosemary Jerome, chooses five of her favorite nonfiction books that are on the shelves at right now.

Gary Noesner, Stalling for Time:  My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator (2010)

Formerly chief of the FBI's unit for hostage negotiation, Noesner interlinks principles for talking to cornered criminals with cases from his career. One of cases that caught national attention was the 1993 siege in Waco, Texas and he tells his side of the story. Noesner provides an intense, immersive narrative, which makes his real-life experiences read like episodes of a good police drama.

Cathryn J. Prince, A Professor, a President and a Meteor: The Birth of American Science (2010)

In the early 1800s, science still took a backseat to superstition among the working class. Most people put more stock in astrological almanacs than Yale professors. Journalist professor Prince explains how Yale chemistry instructor Benjamin Silliman was instrumental in changing these views.  When a meteorite fell over Weston, Massachusetts in 1807, Silliman left his post to study this phenomenon. His subsequent investigations in mineralogy and geology inspired a new generation of scientists and influences astronomers and geologists to this day.

Find out what's happening in Half Hollow Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

John Vaillant, Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival   (2010)

Set in Russia's Maritime Territory, Vaillant's story concerns a tiger of the endangered Amur subspecies that killed a poacher, Vladimir Markov in 1997.  Yuri Trush and his team are called to the scene to investigate the incident and to determine the tiger's fate. Nature writer Vaillant follows Trush's group as they track the tiger on foot through the dense forest in the bitter cold while documenting the effects of the tiger crisis on the isolated Siberian village.


Sam Wasson, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.:  Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's and the Dawn of the Modern Woman  (2010)


Wasson (author of A Splurch in the Kisser: The Film of Blake Edwards 2009) offers a behind the scenes gossipy account of the production of "Breakfast at Tiffany's."  It also charts the transformation of actress Audrey Hepburn into an icon of emerging sexual liberation.  He weaves the story of Truman Capote (author of the book that was the basis of the film), director Blake Edwards, composer Henry Mancini, costumer Edith Head and screenwriter George Axelrod into an entertaining page turner.

Find out what's happening in Half Hollow Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Jane Ziegelman, 97 Orchard:  An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement   (2010)


By focusing on the culinary lives of individuals from a variety of ethnic groups, Ziegelman pieces together a thorough sketch of Manhattan's Lower East Side between 1863 and 1935 when these immigrants were at the forefront of a rapidly changing urban life. Ziegelman shows us that in learning about food, we are actually learning about history. Ziegelman is the director of the forthcoming Culinary Center at New York City's Tenement Museum and co-author of Foie Gras: A Passion.


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