Library of The College of St. Scholastica: Home

If you are the oldest child who has just headed off for college be advised that to your younger siblings your room, and the contents in it, are now fair game. So it was back around 1972 when prowling through my brother’s room I discovered a cache of paperback Ballantine fantasy books – known to those in the know as sword & sorcery. There I met Conan the Cimmerian, the Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane, the Pictish chief Bran Mak Morn, Fafner and the Grey Mouser, the (ex) warrior monk Gottfried Von Kalmbach, the Norman de Montour, and Aragorn son of Arathorn. Those were glorious day of reading. And that made me hesitant to order The Books of Swords, a collection of new sword & sorcery stories, because sometimes as an old man when we return to that which we loved in our youth we are disappointed, if not a bit ashamed, that we could have been so young. But I have to say The Book of Swords does not disappoint. The stories in this compilation, written by both male and female authors (which wasn’t the case in the 1930s during the glory days of S&S), are smart and imaginative and just plain fun. “Important” literature can never feature a character like the handsome man Apollo Crow, a being banished from another world, whose body can dissolve into a murder of 134 crows (for it takes that many crows to make one man). It is a wonderful flight of fantasy, and less dark than Beelzebub from the novel God’s Demon whose corporeal body is a shifting, amorphous mass of stinking flies. And for those of you who wasted your youth on GOT, George R.R. Martin has a story included [and of course, give thanks that the HBO series was not directed by Peter Jackson]. A big thumbs up to The Book of Swords. You can read it when I’m done. Till then read some GOT before there was GOT, I, Claudius by Robert Graves.--Todd

It’s a terrifying look at how our government works. A congressman with the nickname Good Time Charlie managed to obtain a spot on the House Appropriations Committee and helped obtain millions of dollars to fund covert CIA operations in Afghanistan. --Jenny

Each summer I dream of a stretch of wet weather when really, what else can one do but lay on the couch and read? I save Cornwell’s books for these days. Netflix watchers might be familiar with the series The Last Kingdom, the story of a Saxon raised as a Dane in 9th century England, Uhtred, the son of Uhtred, who desires to regain his ancestral home of Bebbanburg but who is always forced to serve Alfred, the Saxon King of Wessex. These two book are the fifth and sixth in the series (The Saxon Chronicles). Alfred dies, relieving Uthred of his vow to serve him, but Alfred was also Uhtred’s protector from the Church, which hates Uhtred for his pagan beliefs and his mockery of the clergy. Declared an outlaw, Uhtred, and a few remaining loyal men of his war-band must go a viking to reclaim Bebbanburg and yadda yadda yadda Uhtred returns to save Wessex again from another Danish invasion. But would you want it any other way? As always, when reading a book that has been adapted to film, you realize what a deeper experience resides in a book. Uhtred is getting long in the tooth for a middle-aged man in the Middle Ages. Perhaps he will start to lose a step in book seven? I will find out next summer if the rains come.--Todd

Part dog story, part friend story, part love story, part finding-meaning-in-life story, Nunez’ insightful and extraordinary work will pull, pluck, and pounce upon your heartstrings, especially if your dear sweet aging canine is slumbering at your feet whilst you read.--Laura

For my birthday this spring, I received a charm bracelet with miniature books of the classics. I resolved this summer to read the life-sized versions starting with Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, which I had last read in seventh grade. I distinctly remember writing a book report for it on my grandparents' kitchen table while waiting for my great-grandma's funeral. Needless to say, I don't think I understood much of the book as my book report was only slightly shorter. This time around I was so happy I didn't have to write a book report and could just enjoy it, which I thoroughly did.

The second classic I read was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Those who know me know how much I like peacocks on account of Flannery O'Connor, and peacocks are always associated with this book on tote bags, socks, and such, so I was curious to make this connection. Since the action in this book is quite slow, my mind wandered to what the British Georgian society life of landed gentry was like to be struck by the realization that everyone in this book doesn't really have a job and just fills their lives with vapidness. This led me to ponder what "responsible living and meaningful work" means in our current society. Deep stuff for summer! Now I have to pick my next book on the bracelet...
--Heidi

One of the highlights of my summer was a tour of Brooklyn neighborhoods during a week-long visit to New York City. As we crossed Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal that morning, I had the opportunity to nod knowingly as our guide quoted a passage from Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, which I'd just read before traveling. (Lethem refers to the canal as “the only body of water in the world that was 90 percent guns.”) His novel, which is both comic and noirish, features a small-time hood with Tourette Syndrome who tracks down his boss's killer. Although a movie is rarely as satisfying as the book, I'm looking forward to a forthcoming adaptation with Edward Norton in the lead role.--Brad

Gaiman does an outstanding job pulling from the many sources of Norse mythology and combining them into a fascinating set of short tales. He is a talented storyteller who brings the Norse gods, and all who interact with them, to life.--Kevin

North Korea invaded South Korea in the summer of 1950. The first few months of the war almost saw defeat for South Korean until September when allied forces, led by the United States, staged an amphibious assault at Inchon behind the North Korean lines and turned the tide. Although warned not to do anything to provoke North Korea’s sponsor, China, the Allied Supreme Commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, from his palatial offices in Japan, saw no reason he could not march the army to the border of China and end the war before Christmas. The Marines were given their orders and sent north on a single, steep sided mountain road, across a high bridge and into the Korean mountains as winter set in. Credible reports began circulating that 200,000 Chinese soldiers were massing at the border but were ignored by MacArthur (one starts to get a whiff of his megalomania – he would later claim the battle was part of his plan and sending 6,000 Marines to fight 200,000 Chinese was simply a “reconnaissance in force”). On the night of November 27th China entered the war and at the Chosin Reservoir sprang a trap that cut off the road behind the Marines and destroyed the only bridge. Unable to retreat and unable to be resupplied, Marine General Oliver Smith knew their only chance was to build a runway on the one flat piece of ground available. But in order to buy time for the engineers the Marines would have to hold the hills around it, the desperate ground, where there is no retreat.

Author Hampton Sides writes great history, as evidenced by his earlier books Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West and In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeanette. I think we could apply the subtitle of In the Kingdom of Ice here. The Chosin Reservoir is a grand story of heroism and survival against the odds, and terrible in the suffering and death entailed. Throughout the story is the weather, with temperatures dropping to and staying at minus 20 Fahrenheit. Wounds froze shut and did not bleed. Mortar tubes contracted in the cold so much that the shells would no longer fit. During the daylight hours carrier based fighters could supply air cover but at night when they could no longer fly and the temperature started to drop the Chinese would attack in mass. One unit of Marines was cut off and the first Chinese-American officer in the Marine Corp, Lt. Chew-Een Lee, led a relief force, each man carrying an eighty pound pack, over mountain ridges at night in the bitter cold through waist deep snow to save them. How does someone will themselves to do that?

And there is black humor. The Marines' code name for mortar rounds was “tootsie rolls” but an inexperienced supply clerk did not know that and the men at the Chosin, expecting to find ammunition in an air drop, were instead supplied with chocolate candy. It became a lifesaver. If the Tootsie Roll was chewed enough to make it flexible it could be stuffed in bullet holes in gas tanks and it would freeze so quickly it became a solid patch. Lt. John Yancey, who had survived a month behind Japanese lines during the Battle of Guadalcanal, led the defense of Hill 1282. Cut off, and suffering 90% casualties, his command was about to be overrun. Yancey stood to lead a counter attack. He was shot in the face at close range with numerous rounds from a Thompson submachine gun which destroyed his jaw and popped his eye out the socket. Yancey drew his pistol, shot his attacker, pushed his eye back in the socket, and continued the attack. He would be awarded the Navy Cross and the Silver Star. During the Vietnam War he tried to reenlist in the Marines, but was rejected because he did not have enough remaining teeth. Yancey replied “I wasn’t going to bite the sons of bitches.”

The engineers completely the runway. Supplies entered and the wounded were evacuated. They repaired the bridge and two weeks after the battle began the last Marines marched out of the Korean mountains. Over nine hundred of their comrades did not. The war did not end by Christmas.--Todd

This was really short, but the lessons are thought-provoking and timely.--Jenny

I picked this for the cover and I wasn’t disappointed. Ward’s writing is haunting and powerful.--Jenny

I have always found the history of political and social movements fascinating and inspiring. Prior to reading this book, I had not heard of Stonewall, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major, Lou Sullivan or so many other people and events chronicled in this text. An added bonus is that this book is full of references to other books and media. My reading list is quite long now.--Jenny

Early in the summer, I purchased equipment which I have been using for a project to record birdsong on campus. As I was looking for written works on the topic in our catalog, I came across a dissertation on the song of the Tufted Titmouse which was written in 1981 by Sister Donna Schroeder, a long-time faculty member in the CSS Biology Department who has just retired in recent years. Sr. Donna has given the library permission to scan the dissertation for our archives (you can view the document by following the link to the title above). She has also allowed me to update a campus species list which she kept from 1978 to 1996 for her CSS course on bird identification. The updated list includes species which I have observed or which have been seen on campus-led walks by visiting ornithologists (namely, Laura Erickson and Kim Eckert). --Brad

Beautiful and sad. You’ll need some Sedaris after this one.--Jenny

After reading dark and depressing non-fiction books, I like to take a break with David Sedaris. I prefer the audiobooks because it’s a real treat to hear Sedaris read his stories.--Jenny