Shelfish: The Blog of Answers

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards (popularly called the Edgars) are presented every spring by the Mystery Writers of America to honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, and film. Today we're going to provide links links to the library catalog of each winner so you can easily place holds. Lists of all the nominees are avaialble on the Edgar Awards website, theedgars.com.

• The protagonist is a nice young woman whose life is suddenly invaded.
• She’s self-made and independent, with primarily good family relationships.
• She has an interesting job.
• She is not looking for trouble–she is doing exactly what she should be doing and something cuts across her bow.
• She solves her problem by her own courage and intelligence.
• The story has no on-scene violence.
• The story has no strong four-letter words or explicit sex scenes.

This weekend, the NFL returns to Chicago for its annual player draft. Brush up with some inside information on the inner-workings of the draft by stopping by the Answers Desk to check out our latest display of books and dvds, including The GM: The Inside Story of a Dream Job and the Nightmares that Go with It  by Tom Callahan and The Agent: My 40-year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game by Leigh Steinberg.

As of now, the "Monsters of the Midway" own the eleventh pick of the first round and nine picks overall. Brad Biggs, the Tribune's Bears beat writer, has the Bears selecting Georgia Outside Linebacker Leonard Floyd (his latest mock draft of the first round is available here), while NFL.com predicts the Bears to select Florida Cornerback Vernon Hargreaves (full first round mock draft available here). Who do you want the Bears to select with the eleventh pick?

The 2016 Pulitzer Prizes were announced today. Established in 1917 by provisions in the will of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer,  prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. For our purposes, we'll skip the journalism awards and focus on the Letters and Drama categories.

Fiction
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
A layered immigrant tale told in the wry, confessional voice of a "man of two minds" -- and two countries, Vietnam and the United States.

Drama
Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Stream now at Hoopla)
A landmark American musical about the gifted and self-destructive founding father whose story becomes both contemporary and irresistible.

History
Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T.J. Stiles
A rich and surprising new telling of the journey of the iconic American soldier whose death turns out not to have been the main point of his life.

Biography or Autobiography
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
A finely crafted memoir of a youthful obsession that has propelled the author through a distinguished writing career.

Nonfiction
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick
A deeply reported book of remarkable clarity showing how the flawed rationale for the Iraq War led to the explosive growth of the Islamic State.

Today, the Library of Congress announced its newest inductees into the National Recording Registry, a collection of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" recordings chosen to be preserved in their best existing versions at the Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpeper, Virginia. The Registry includes everything from wax cylinders, radio programs, and recorded speeches, to comedy and music albums from all imaginable genres.

This year, the 25 selection for the registry are just as fascinating as ever. The list includes two different versions of Mack the Knife, a dictaphone recording of Wilt Chamberlain breaking the NBA record by scoring 100 points in a single basketball game, Secretary of State George C. Marshall's "Marshall Plan Speech" detailing plans to resurrect Europe after the end of World War II, and two episodes of Destination Freedom, a 1940's radio program dedicated to presenting the accomplishments of black Americans.

A diverse collection of songs and albums were added to the Registry this year, too. The eclectic list includes, Alex North's soundtrack to A Streetcar Named Desire, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, George Carlin's Class Clown, The Supreme's single Where Did Our Love Go?, Merle Haggard's single Mama Tried, Santana's Abraxas, Billy Joel's Piano Man, Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, and perhaps most surprising of all, Master of Puppets by Metallica.

You can visit the Registry's website to listen to a montage of this year's inductees, or click the titles linked above to place a hold on the CDs available from the library.

Easter is on Sunday, March 27th this year and Eisenhower will be closed for the holiday.

To get into the Easter spirit, the next time you visit the library, stop in the lobby for a moment to take a look at the collection of traditional Polish Easter decorations in our display case. If you can't make it to the library before Easter, a set of photos of the display has been posted on our Facebook Page. The display came to us courtesy of Danuta Dobrzycki and the Dobrzycki family, Harwood Heights residents since 1976.

Daredevil Season Two hits Neflix tomorrow! This season, Daredvil, AKA Matt Murdock, will be pitted against Frank Castle, the Punisher, a veteran who, after his family was murdered, decided to wear a skull on his chest and kill every bad guy he could find. If you're excited about the new episodes, we thought you might like more of Daredevil and The Punisher, so here's a few comics in which the two cross paths. Click on the titles to place a hold.

Daredevil Vol. 1 #183 & 184
Matt and Frank first met in 1982 in a two issue story written by Frank Miller. In it, the two team up to track down a drug dealer responsible for the death of a young girl. These two issues are collected in a volume that also includes the introduction of Electra, Daredevil's on-again, off-again girlfriend, another character that will appear in Season Two.

Welcome Back, Frank by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
In this story arc, The Punisher forces Daredevil to make a decision that could destroy both of their lives. It has been suggested that this volume is being used as a major influence on the next season of Daredevil, so I won't give too much away.

The Devil in Cell Black D by Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, and David Aja
Ed Brubaker took over writing on Daredevil right after the previous writer locked Matt Murdock behind bars just as a wave of violence is about to overtake the prison. Of course, Frank Castle doesn't want to miss out on the action and violence.

After being nominated for (and winning) more Grammies than any other artist last year for his album To Pimp a Butterfly, rapper Kendrick Lamar surprised the music world this week by releasing, with no promotion, a followup collection of demo recordings and song sketches. The new release, Untitled Unmastered, feels like an extension of last year's hit album. All eight songs were seemingly written and recorded at the same time as To Pimp a Butterfly, so think of it as a B-sides collection that follows the same set of themes, religion, racial stereotyping, hometown pride, and the current U.S. political environment.

Untitled Unmastered  isn't as cohesive at To Pimp a Butterfly; it's not for everyone, but it's a revealing recording, especially for Kendrick fans looking for a more complete understanding of an idiosyncratic artist with little to prove but a lot to say.

Stream or download Untitled Unmastered now.

One of the biggest breakout cultural successes in recent memory is also one of the most unlikely. Lin-Manuel Miranda's smash hit Hamilton mixes rap and hip hop with theatre geek enthusiasm to tell the true story of America's first treasury secretary in a musical so popular that it is currently sold out until at least September. As if winning a Grammy and receiving the McArthur "Genius Grant" wasn't enough, Hamilton was just awarded the Kennedy Prize for Drama, whose jury said "Technically so proficient, historically so sound, artistically so groundbreaking, Hamilton is both inspired by and celebrates the evolving history of the United States, of hip-hop, and of the musical theater."

Click here to place a hold on the Hamilton CD or instantly stream/download it on your phone, tablet, or computer at hoopladigital.com.

Many of us remember celebrating Abraham Lincoln's birth on February 12th and then, shortly after, George Washington's on February 22nd. How and why did those two holidays disappear and President's Day take their place? It's a convoluted story that started in the late 1960s when Illinois Senator Robert McClory proposed moving a bunch of federal holidays around to give American workers more three-day weekends. His plan was met with a lot of resistance from those states with specific attachments to the holidays. For instance, Virginia, where Washington was born would have preferred to continue celebrating its favorite holiday. Eventually, with support from the labor unions, McClory convinced lawmakers to pass the Uniform Monday Holiday Act which moved Washington's Birthday to the third Monday of February. Over time, thanks in part to retail marketers who capitalised on the three-day weekend by advertising "President's Day" sales, the public stopped thinking of the holiday as Washington's Birthday even though that is still the official, federal designation.

History.com has a great article on the transition from two holidays to one.