Readers' Advisory

Farewell Gabriel García Marquez

Author / Nobel Prize Winner

1927-2014

 

 

One of the most influential novelists of the twentieth century, Gabriel García Márquez was a key figure in the Latin American literary renaissance of the 1960s and 1970s. His novel One Hundred Years of Solitude was read throughout the world, selling millions of copies and introducing enthusiastic readers across the globe to the genre of "magical realism."  A prolific journalist as well as a novelist and short story writer, García Márquez has reported from several world capitals and remained active through the 1990s as publisher of the Colombian news magazine Cambio. He continued working into the early 2000s, although some reports speculated that the aging author had given up writing (Newsmakers, February 1, 2005).

Click here for books by and about Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Readers' Advisory

Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics
by Terry Golway (2014)

Rooted in Jeffersonian democracy and transformed by the massive Irish immigration of the mid-nineteenth century, Tammany Hall, New York City's Democratic organization, became synonymous with machine politics. Golway joins the revisionists in emphasizing Tammany's constructive contributions and its consequent impact on modern politics. An expert in Irish-American history, Golway unsurprisingly sees the origins of this form of political organization in Irish anti-institutional activism. In overcoming and battling nativism in America, reaching out, albeit not selflessly, to new immigrant groups and, after the Triangle Shirtwaist tragedy of 1911, supporting progressive social programs both at the local level and legislatively, Tammany thrived well into the 1900s. After the strong leadership by "Silent Charlie" Murphy came the ascendancy of governor and presidential candidate Al Smith. The organization became, through Senator Robert F. Wagner, a major factor in the New Deal and, later, American liberalism. Not ignoring instances of corruption large and small, from Boss Tweed to Jimmy Walker (Tammany coined the concept of "honest graft"), Golway makes his case for Tammany's impact eloquently. In doing so, he has provided an essential addition to the historical literature of New York and urban America. (Booklist).

Readers' Advisory

By Its Cover
Donna Leon (2014)

Investigating the thefts of rare book pages from a prestigious Venetian library, Commissario Guido Brunetti is stymied by numerous possible suspects and the murder of a seemingly harmless theologian.