We’ve heard the line "you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover" over and over again from teachers and parents alike, but in my opinion, the advice falls short of being a maxim. In fact, I’ve been noticing a correlation between great external graphic design and internal content. Henry Schlesinger’s new book The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution, published by Smithsonian Books, provides both.

This was a really fun and well-written book about the history of the electrical battery. You know, the things that are in your cell phones, TV remotes, cars, watches, iPods, computers, flashlights — I think you get the point. We know what they are and have a basic understanding of how they work, but how many of us know where they came from? As Schlesinger discovered while researching, the history of the battery is no less than the history of modern science itself.

The battery as we know it now likely began with observations made by philosophers and alchemists of old. Natural substances such as magnetic lodestones and static-charged amber were known to exist, but these properties were mysterious and widely misunderstood. It wasn’t until the 1700s that European chemists began to understand electricity as a naturally-occurring phenomenon, and then that it could be predictably generated with the right arrangement of metals and chemicals.

What you’ll find here is a lively (dare I say, "shocking?") chronological narrative involving dozens of chemists, scientists, engineers, inventors, and the inventions, circumstances, rivalries, and partnerships that both led to battery technology, and resulted from it. To help illustrate the evolution of the electrical battery, the pages are speckled with lovely old-style line drawings. There’s a fair amount of natural humor here (some of the early experiments with electricity made me snort), and Schlesinger paints a vivid context by deftly quoting famous novels which reference the emerging technology. There’s even a Metallica reference!

Dan Curry – Savage Branch

God is a mathematician.

This is one of Galileo’s favorite sayings, especially after he intuited a new geometric relationship. According to Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel Galileo’s Dream, Galileo felt rung like a bell at such times.

Robinson primarily offers a biography of Galileo Galilei, his genius in observing the natural world, and the political and religious troubles his observations caused. Robinson does Galileo the favor of including the man’s vices along with his virtues to offer a well-rounded point of view. Although it starts with Galileo’s scientific discoveries and inventions, the story quickly becomes complicated. Galileo carries the book from Venice to Florence to Rome. In the book’s science fiction twist, Galileo even makes it to Jupiter’s moons, which he was the first to see. The future Jovians reveal he is to be burned at the stake as a martyr to science. After this horrific vision, Galileo tries his hardest to prevent his gruesome death, but instead seems to work unwittingly toward furthering it.

Mixed with the historical fiction, there’s also a hard science fiction story dealing with time travel. Galileo makes several trips, voluntarily and not, into a strange future where humanity has colonized Jupiter’s moons. During these trips, Galileo receives an amazingly concise overview of mathematical and scientific progress. The idea of time being not quite entirely linear becomes central to the story. The prominent metaphor is that time is like channels in a river, and sometimes actions can change the river’s course. The author manages to meld the different threads of this story into a satisfying, if not always easy, read.

Galileo dreams of a world where science and religion are not in opposition. He refuses to denounce himself as a bad Catholic, but continues to insist "Eppur Si Muove" ("But still, it moves.") The book’s debates, both 400 years in the past and 400 years in the future, prove that humanity continually struggles to reconcile faith and science, the old with the new. Galileo repeatedly wonders how, if God is a mathematician, can that same God be opposed to scientific findings?

Kristen Blount – Administration Offices

Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a captivating and challenging combination of science textbook, social history, and biography. The book explores the extraordinary events surrounding the life and death of Henrietta Lacks, and the subsequent repercussions of those events. Rebecca Skloot discusses her book at Howard County Library’s East Columbia Branch on Saturday, February 20 at 1:00 pm. Register to attend the event.

In 1951 Henrietta Lacks was treated for an aggressive form of cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD. Before she passed away, samples of her tissues were harvested for research purposes, and cells from one of her cancerous tumors were sustained artificially in a laboratory. This line of cells (called HeLa from the first two letters of her first and last name) grew and divided, becoming the first self-sustaining line of cells grown in a laboratory. They were shared by the lab’s director, George Gey, with his colleagues throughout the U.S. and around the world. HeLa cells subsequently played a role in the development of the Polio vaccine, were sent into space, and were subjected to nuclear radiation in the name of science. That, however, is only half of the story, since the cells were harvested from Henrietta Lacks without her consent, and without her family’s knowledge.

What is celebrated by scientists as a remarkable new frontier is something else for the family of Henrietta Lacks. Lacks’ experience in hospital and the harvesting of her tissues were part of the social fabric of a segregated Maryland in the 1950s, where the public wards of Johns Hopkins hospital were one of the limited treatment options available to African American patients. Lacks’ descendants understandably have different opinions about their mother’s immortality than the scientists who celebrate her cells. 

Explaining her efforts to access the family’s opinions, author Rebecca Skloot includes herself in the narrative, first as a college student encountering Henrietta Lacks in a footnote, and later as a researcher, author, and supporter of the family. Skloot ably discusses both the personal impact of these events on the Lacks family, and the global significance of the HeLa cell line, telling equally revelatory scientific and family stories.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Howard County Library announces a new initiative, Pass the Book. During Teen Read Week 2009, the Library will distribute copies of  The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfeld to teen readers throughout the community.

The Secret Hour follows Jessica Day as she arrives in Bixby, Oklahoma, only to discover she’s at the center of a strange convergence of mystical energy. Sharing "the secret hour" between midnight and 12:01 with four of her classmates, Day finds herself on the front lines of a battle for the future of humanity; primeval "slithers" and "darklings" are using the secret hour to find their way back into our reality, intent on reclaiming the planet. The Midnighters must harness the unique properties of the secret hour to fight back using their own special abilities.

The Secret Hour is a great book to share, and with Pass the Book you’ll have the chance to introduce this title to readers in Howard County and beyond. Teens receiving a specially labeled copy of The Secret Hour are encouraged to read the book, track the book (by registering their copy at hclibrary.org/passthebook) and pass the book to another teen reader. Readers can return to the web site to see where their books have traveled. Throughout the year they will have the opportunity to participate in online discussions and challenges based on events in the novel. A display in each branch features read-a-like titles and the other books in the Midnighters series — Touching Darkness and Blue Noon. A number of Midnighter-themed events are also planned in connection with this initiative, including Midnighter Lore at Central Library, Slither Repellant at Elkridge Branch, and Triskaidekamania at Savage Branch.

Copies of The Secret Hour will be available on Monday, October 19. Join us online and in-person throughout the year for quizzes, reviews, and Midnighter-themed events as we pass this exceptional teen adventure around Howard County and beyond.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

My life has been irreversibly shaped by Bill Waterson’s Calvin & Hobbes. One of the comic’s most imaginative recurring elements was Calvin’s cardboard box, which, when set upside down was a Transmogrifier, and when set on its side was a Duplicator. Step inside the Duplicator, wait a couple minutes, and when you walk out, you are accompanied by an exact duplicate of yourself.

Primer, a low-budget film that milked every dollar director Shane Carruth had, brought me back to the wonder of Calvin’s Duplicator box, mingled with the horror of human selfishness. This is a time-travel movie that isn’t about time travel. It’s about human relationships and motivations, and it uses the vehicle of time travel to reveal aspects of human nature that we may have taken for granted.

Primer works for a number of reasons, the least of which is that it’s about normal guys who have normal jobs and normal families. This is not Back to the Future (which I love). It is about jealousy, greed, friendship, betrayal, love, and hate. It also works because it doesn’t try to make sense. The characters use technical jargon that, for the most part, went well over my head, but isn’t that what we would expect real engineers to say? Even with all the twists and turns, and all the questions of who, what, and when, I was able to follow it well enough to still get the final twist (I think!). Subsequent viewings have helped me understand the time line, but the time line isn’t nearly as interesting, or as important, as the brilliant character development. Highly recommended viewing!

Dan Curry – Savage Branch

I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but it took me a long time to get past the strange artwork on this one. Tinker by Wen Spencer was recommended to me in a variety of places, so I decided to take a chance on it. I’m so glad I did because this is one terrific story!

Imagine a world in which Pittsburgh resides on Elfhome except for one day a month. In this book, a space travel gate didn’t work quite the way it was designed, sending Pittsburgh to the elven wilderness. So, Steel City is now home to humans stranded from Earth, scientists, elves, and other strange creatures. One of the new, transformed city’s denizens is Tinker, girl genius and salvage yard operator. Tinker works complex mathematics in her head and builds hover bikes from scratch. On the other hand, this newly minted 18-year-old has never had a real date, has little working knowledge of local politics, and refuses to go to college on Earth.

Through a series of coincidences and adventures, Tinker becomes tangled up with the Elven high court… as in, she becomes part of it. Tinker has to figure out her new life at court while solving the twin problems of the space gate and the elves’ hereditary enemies, who are on the war path. The cast of supporting characters includes Tinker’s cousin Oilcan, her mentor Lain, the elvin Viceroy Windwolf, and the warrior Pony. Spencer does a great job of making secondary characters interesting, too.

Tinker is a light-hearted adventure and romance novel, with a sly sense of humor and fun characters. The book starts with a bang — a fight with magically constructed Foo dogs in Tinker’s salvage yard — and gallops through at breakneck pace. Spencer mixes magic and science in new, unexpected ways. Be careful when you start reading this book as it’s been known to eat an afternoon or two. The adventure continues in Wolf Who Rules, as Tinker and her new elven friends struggle to clean up the mess they made in the first book.

Ignore the cover art and check this one out today!

Kristen Blount – Administration

Robotic surgeons? Nanodevices? Regenerative medicine? How will these and other innovations impact your health?

Learn how rapid advances in science and technology will affect health care in the future. Local author, Dr. Stephen Schimpff, retired CEO of the University of Maryland Medical Center, is currently a professor of medicine and public policy at the University of Maryland. Dr. Schimpff has authored the book, The Future of Medicine: Megatrends in Health CareThat Will Improve Your Quality of Life. He will give a presentation at the Miller Branch on Tuesday, April 29 at 2:00 pm.

Dr. Shimpff explains complex applications of medical technology in a layperson’s terms. This presentation is for anyone interested in learning how megatrends in health care will affect health care delivery and quality of life, as well as life expectancy. For more information on this exciting topic visit Dr. Schimpff’s website, www.medicalmegatrends.com.

Dr. Schimpff delivers a dynamic presentation that draws an audience ranging from the general public, health care professionals, business and political leaders.

Books will be available for sale and signing.

Cynthia Cedeno- Miller Branch