The Sistine Hall in the Vatican Library.

After three yeas of extensive remodeling, the Vatican Library will finally re-open its doors to researchers and scholars on September 20, 2010. According to the Rome Reports website, the majority of the remodel was focused on upgrading library security, and now all books will be tracked electronically using RFID tags. “Each book is identified by a computer code, a tag with an electronic chip. Then, according to the user, there may be places accessible or forbidden depending on the volume and the person who takes the book,” explains Msgr. Cesare Pasini, Director of the Vatican Library. Now the location of every book will be known at all times, and any unauthorized removal of a book from a restricted area, or even the library premises, can be prevented. RFid Gazette has identified the electronic tags used in the library as Texas Instruments’ Tag-it™ models. Additionally, cameras and security arches have also been installed in each room.
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By Gail Caldwell
Random House | 208pgs
Release Date: August 10, 2010

Summary:
Pulitzer Prize winning critic Gail Caldwell writes a deeply touching testament to her best friend in Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship. Caldwell and fellow writer Caroline Knapp (Drinking: A Love Story) shared an intensely close connection, and when Knapp was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in April of 2002, the pair shared Knapp’s struggle in the final days of her life. The women had come into this valuable friendship in mid-life. They met in Boston and quickly bonded over their mutual love of dogs, active lifestyles and past struggles with alcoholism. Neither were married, and turned to each other for advice, companionship and emotional support. Caldwell openly discusses Knapp’s decline in health and death two months after the diagnosis, as a way to deal with her grief and memorialize their friendship by sharing their story.
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Fledgling wine label takes a design cue from traditional library cards.

Twitter has entered the wine business with its Fledgling label and proceeds from the sales will benefit Room to Read, a non-profit organization committed to bringing education and literacy to children in need throughout the world. “The Fledgling Initiative embodies two things that are at the core of Twitter’s mission: providing access to information and highlighting the power of open communication to bring about positive change,” announced Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams on the initiative’s website. The label will soon offer limited vintages of 2009 Fledgling Chardonnay and 2009 Fledgling Pinot Noir, created by the winemakers at Crushpad, using grapes from California’s premier vineyards. The wine can be pre-ordered, and the bottles will sell for $20, with $5 going directly to Room to Read. Bottling will begin August 25th.
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Photo by Alan Light, 1975.

Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451 and numerous short stories, is widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s most important writers. As his 90th birthday approaches later this month, Bradbury reflects back on his life, work and the gift that allows him to conjure “the monsters and angels” of creativity, in an interview with CNN.com. Of his talent he says, “It’s a God-given thing, and I’m so grateful, so, so grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is, ‘At play in the fields of the Lord.’ ” Fellow writer and friend Sam Weller has recently published a collection of interviews, Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews (Stop Smiling Books, 336pgs), that focuses a whole chapter on the author’s faith. A self described, “delicatessen religionist”, Bradbury doesn’t adhere to one singular religion, but draws inspiration from both Western and Eastern faiths. The foundation of his belief in a higher-power has always been love. “…I love all people. I love the world. I love creating. …Everything in our life should be based on love.”
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By Carl Hiaasen
Knopf | 352 pages
Release Date: July 27, 2010

Summary:
The always entertaining and irreverent Carl Hiaasen offers up a great beach read in the form of his latest novel Star Island. The career of Cheryl Bunterman, known to the world as wayward pop-princes Cherry Pye, has hit a downward spiral owed mostly to her serious shortage of talent and voracious consumption of drugs, alcohol and men. Working furiously to stage the singer’s comeback tour is her oddball entourage, which includes a stage mother from hell, a lecherous music producer and (unknown to Cherry) “undercover stunt double”, Ann DeLusia, who makes public appearances whenever the real pop star is passed out and/or in rehab. When Ann is mistakenly kidnapped by sleazy paparazzo Bang Abbott, Cherry’s career edges ever closer to the brink of disaster, and the singer’s handlers rush furiously to find her double. The plot takes another bizarre twist when former Florida governor (now eco-guerrilla), Clinton “Skink” Tyree, who grew enamored with Ann after one brief meeting, also races to save her. Who will find Ann first? Will the press find out the double’s secret? Even worse, will Cherry herself?
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Before there was Don Draper and Mad Men, real-life ad man Jerry Della Femina was living it up on Madison Avenue. Della Femina’s 1970 memoir From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor (Simon & Schuster, 288pgs), one of the sources of inspiration for the hit television show, was reissued this month. The book, named after a tongue-in-cheek slogan rejected by Panasonic, exposes the true hijinks and excesses of advertising’s heyday. In an interview with NPR, Della Femina discusses his time as an ad executive. “Advertising was fun,” he explains. “I wrote that it was the most fun you could have with your clothes on — and we’ll never see it again.” Comparing the antics of the characters on Mad Men with his real life experiences, he claims the show has toned down the debauchery on Madison Avenue. “Obviously it was not politically correct, but everyone took part in it and we were just enjoying doing what we were doing,” he admits. “We thought the fun would never end.”
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Recently, a document containing a sample of President Abraham Lincoln’s handwriting was discovered among the papers in the James Frazier Reed Collection at the California State Library in Sacramento. The KCRA Channel 3 website reports that Reed, the Collection’s namesake, was one of the organizers of the tragic Donner Party, and the document travelled with the Party on their fateful trip west in 1846. The Lincoln document, which lists the names of several Illinois volunteers for the Black Hawk War in 1832, has been examined by several experts from the The Papers of Abraham Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. It was “determined that Abraham Lincoln had written the title for one of the July 10 muster rolls,” stated The Papers of Abraham Lincoln organization.
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By Rachel Shukert
Paperback
Harper Perennial | 336pgs
Release Date: July 27, 2010

Summary:
Performer and playwright Rachel Shukert recounts her experiences and misadventures during a coming of age tour of Europe in the witty Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour. With a freshly minted acting degree from NYU, Shukert wins a role as an extra in a play booked on a European tour. An error in customs leaves her passport unstamped, allowing her to travel freely throughout Vienna, Zurich and Amsterdam, experiencing booze, boys and culture shock in transit. Written in a style that Entertainment Weekly‘s Tina Jordan describes as “a cross between David Sedaris and Chuck Palahniuk”, Shukert’s irreverent observations offer an entertaining portrait of a young woman finding her way to adulthood.
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San Diego County, CA libraries have gone to the dogs. All in the name of literacy. Twice a month at the the La Mesa branch, a collie named Sunny, who is a certified therapy dog, visits the library with his handler, Gloria Laube, and listens to children read. An article posted on the American Libraries Magazine website reports that Sunny and Laube are participants in the Read to Your Breed program, which offers assistance and encouragement to kids who struggle with reading. The handler, who has created her own website (www.librarydogs.com) to promote therapy dog reading programs, is a true believer in the efficacy of these canine programs. “The use of trained therapy dogs in reading programs can result in children who feel comfortable reading out loud, read more often, attempt more difficult books, and actually look forward to reading,” states the website.
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© DC Comics

In the theme of Comic-Con and all things super hero related, the hugely popular convention isn’t the only event to make news in the comic book world this month. In early July, issue No. 600 of the Wonder Woman series hit the shelves with a brand new story line and a surprising new look, causing an uproar among fans. Under the helm of new writer J. Michael Straczynski and artist Jim Lee, Wonder Woman’s iconic red and gold bustier, star-spangled blue hot pants and red stiletto knee-high boots have been banished and replaced with a blue jacket (sleeves rolled up!), a tight red top and black leggings. Huh?! Straczynski explained his reasoning behind this new look in an e-mail to The New York Times. “She’s been locked into pretty much the exact same outfit since her debut in 1941. If you’re going to make a statement about bringing Wonder Woman into the 21st century, you need to be bold and you need to make it visual,” he wrote. Lee and Straczynski have certainly made some odd fashion choices for a 21st century female super hero.
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