NF Display September 2013

September was going to be "Banned Books," but last week I realized that Banned Books Week starts on the 30th so it seemed better suited to October.  Additionally our Fall Film Series theme is "Famous Faces," so I decided to match themes for the first month and do a biography display.  A general 'biography' theme makes for a fantastically easy display to assemble and therefore not a huge hassle for a last minute switch.

And so, a display born of off-the-cuff recommendations and my own browse of the biography section.  A few well known names, a few less well known, celebrities, scientists, musicians, normal people with interesting lives.  I mostly avoided politicians (Victoria Woodhull as the main exception).  In the end I ended up with a range of unintended little categories - musicians, spies, cultural differences, cultural icons, hard times, scientists - that came out of my attempt to create a balanced display.
"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.  The man who never reads lives only one."
George R. R. Martin 
  • I am Nujood, age 10 and divorced / Nujood Ali, Delphine Minoui, and Linda Cloverdale (translator)
  • The girl's guide to homelessness / Brianna Karp
  • American rebel : the life of Clint Eastwood / Marc Eliot
  • The elephant to Hollywood / Michael Caine
  • Sleeping with the enemy : Coco Chanel's secret war / Hal Vaughan
  • Desert queen : the extraordinary life of Gertrude Bell: adventurer, adviser to kings, ally of Lawrence of Arabia / Janet Wallach
  • Spontaneous mind : selected interviews 1958-1996 / Allen Ginsberg and David Carter (ed)
  • A covert affair : Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS / Jennet Conant
  • Unbearable lightness : a story of loss and gain / Portia de Rossi
  • Django : the life and music of a Gypsy legend / Michael Dregni
  • J. Robert Oppenheimer : shatterer of worlds / Peter Goodchild
  • All American monster : the unofficial biography of Timothy McVeigh / Brandon M. Stickney
  • Lipstick Jihad : a memoir of growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran / Azedeh Moaveni
  • Perfect Spy : the incredible double life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine reporter and Vietnamese Communist agent / Larry Berman
  • Margaret Sanger : a life of passion / Jean H. Baker
  • The mystery of Agatha Christie / Gwen Robyns
  • Carl Sagan : a life / Keay Davidson
  • Notorious Victoria : the life of Victoria Woodhull, uncensored / Mary Gabriel
  • No woman, no cry : my life with Bob Marley / Rita Marley
  • Gonzo : the life of Hunter S. Thompson / Jann S. Wenner & Corey Seymour
  • The Pianist : the extraordinary true story of one man's survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945 / Wladyslaw Szpilman
  • When skateboards will be free : a memoir of a political childhood / Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
The above list is admittedly a bit disorganized.  That being said the assembly of this display was also not exactly organized.  I browsed titles, pulled books off the shelf, went back over certain areas, and was handed books by co-workers to included.  Regardless of organization I feel there are some very interesting stories in this collection, and its worth it to read a few of them at the very least.

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