Staff Picks
Check the blog every week for updates on what our staff is reading and watching and recommendations for our new and all-time favorite books and movies. What is your favorite book or movie? Post your answer in the comments section below. To see all previous Staff Picks posts, simply type "Staff Picks" in the search box at the top left of this blog and click the "search blog" button

Hockey: a people's history by Michael McKinley - recommended by Mattison

McKinley's history of the "fast, rough, beautiful game" comprehensively chronicles hockey from its genesis as a winter substitute for lacrosse. A companion to a similarly titled CBC TV series, the lavishly illustrated book combines punchy boxed features celebrating individuals and hockey oddments and a detailed tracing of the game's development. Among the tidbits one learns: the New York Rangers' name derives from a pun (their first owner was Tex Rickard, making them "Tex's Rangers"), women introduced the goalie mask (at various times, they employed a baseball catcher's mask and a fencing cage) decades before Ken Dryden became an inspiration to Friday the 13th's Jason, and women's professional hockey dates back nearly as far as men's but disappeared after the 1940s. Of course, McKinley returns frequently to hockey's hallowed rivalry: the Toronto Maple Leafs versus the Montreal Canadiens. Only the Yankees versus the Red Sox yarn can compare to that of the Francophone-beloved Canadiens and mercurial Conn Smythe's scheming to make the Leafs their outranking Anglo analogue. Bouts of hand-wringing over the way American money threatens hockey's Canadian identity punctuate the continuum as McKinley gives all the franchises and all the stars, from Cyclone Taylor to Maurice "Rocket" Richard to Wayne Gretzky, their due. - Booklist

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan - recommended by Megan
In 1949, four Chinese women--drawn together by the shadow of their past--begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club--and forge a relationship that binds them for more than three decades. - library catalog.

MOVIE WATCH
Secret Window - recommended by Cheryl
Following a bitter separation from his wife, famed mystery writer Mort Rainey is unexpectedly confronted at his remote lake house by a dangerous stranger named John Shooter. Claiming Mort has plagiarized his short story, the psychotic Shooter demands justice. When Shooter's demands turn to threats, and then to murder, Mort turns to a private detective he knows. But when nothing stops the horror from spiraling out of control, Mort soon discovers he can't trust anyone or anything.