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George M. Eberhart N e w  P u b l i c a t i o n s  

Africanist Librarianship in an Era of Change, 
edited by Victoria K. Evalds and David Henige 
(242 pages, April 2005), includes 16 essays on 
Africana libraries and literature, among them 
Al Kagan on teaching African studies bibliog-
raphy, Patricia Ukoli Ogedengbe on Africana 
outreach programs, David Westley on African 
lexicography, and Hans Zell on reference 
publishing in Africana. Also included are two 
tributes to the work of the late Northwestern 
University Africana bibliographer Dan Britz 
by David Easterbrook, and Nancy Lawler and 
Ivor Wilks. $35.00. Scarecrow. ISBN 0-8108-
5201-2. 

Armageddon Now: The End of the World A 
to Z, by Jim and Barbara Willis (450 pages, 
October 2005), serves as an encyclopedia of 
eschatological speculation on how the world 
might end, from the Second Coming and the 
Rapture to nuclear devastation, a wayward 
asteroid, or alien invasion. Religious view-
points aren’t limited to Christianity; the Wil-
lises include the beliefs of Hindus, Jews, New 
Age movements, Buddhists, and indigenous 
peoples. Other entries cover individuals 
(Nostradamus, Hal Lindsey), concepts (failed 
prophecy, eternal life), groups (Millerites, 
Heaven’s Gate), books (Left Behind, Lord of 
the Rings), techniques (numerology, Bible 
code), and mechanisms (polar shift, peak oil, 
Big Crunch). $52.00. Omnigraphics. ISBN 0-
7808-0923-8. 

Asbury Park’s Glory Days: The Story of an 
American Resort, by Helen Chantal-Pike 
(208 pages, May 2005), recalls the era from 
the 1890s to the 1960s when Asbury Park, 
New Jersey, was an extraordinarily popular 
seaside resort featuring fancy hotels and res-
taurants, a boardwalk, pony rides, amuse-
ments, paddle boats, theaters, and bands. 
The city went into a steep decline starting in 

George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries, 
e-mail: geberhart@ala.org 

the 1970s, and only in the past few years has 
the downtown begun a tentative cultural and 
economic revival. This well-illustrated history 
shows what a vacation mecca Asbury Park 
was in its heyday. $29.95. Rutgers University. 
ISBN 0-8135-3547-6. 

Choro: A Social History of a Brazilian Popular 
Music, by Tamara Elena Livingston-Isenhour 

and Thomas George 
Caracas Garcia (254 
pages + CD, Novem-
ber 2005), examines 
the origins and devel-
opment of an African-
based Brazilian folk 
genre that infl uenced 
Latin jazz as well as 
the music of Heitor 
Villa-Lobos. An in-
strumental form that 

developed in Rio de Janeiro around 1870, 
choro features melodic leaps, rapid modula-
tions, and soaring improvisation. Although 
displaced by samba, modern jazz, and rock 
in the mid-20th century, choro experienced 
a revival in the 1970s and a rebound in the 
1990s that shows little signs of fading. $55.00. 
Indiana University. ISBN 0-253-21752-0. 

Creating a Comprehensive Information Lit­
eracy Plan, by Joanna M. Burkhardt, Mary C. 
MacDonald, and Andrée J. Rathemacher (174 
pages + CD-ROM, November 2005), pro-
vides practical advice on planning, writing, 
implementing, and assessing an information 
literacy program for an academic library. The 
CD-ROM allows users to customize their own 
planning worksheets. $89.95. Neal-Schuman. 
ISBN 1-55570-533-2. 

Rolland Golden: The Journeys of a Southern 
Artist, by John R. Kemp (208 pages, October 
2005), features nearly 200 paintings by Loui-
siana artist Golden, who describes himself as 
an “abstract realist, a combination of the in-

186C&RL News March 2006

mailto:geberhart@ala.org


tellectualism of abstraction and the emotion-
alism of realism.” Many of his scenes feature 
Southern highways and landscapes, cows 
and road signs, Civil War battlefi elds, and 
French scenery and still life. Kemp provides 
an overview of the artist’s life, style, and jour-
neys that inspired his works. $60.00. Pelican. 
ISBN 1-58980-290-X. 

The Sea Rover’s Practice: Pirate Tactics and 
Techniques, 1630–1730, by Benerson Little 
(303 pages, August 2005), surveys the weapons, 

ships, and stratagems 
used in the golden age 
of sea piracy. Quoting 
frequently from con-
temporary sources, Lit-
tle describes what life 
was like for those who 
took to the high seas 
in search of plunder, 
especially the meth-
ods pirates used to 
attack other ships by 

surprise. Several appendices offer glossaries of 
nautical terms, 17th-century weights and mea-
sures, and an essay on pirate cuisine which 
reveals that barbecue originated with the buc-
caneers of Hispaniola. $27.50. Potomac Books. 
ISBN 1-57488-910-9. 

Spunk and Bite: A Writer’s Guide to Punch­
ier, More Engaging Language and Style, by 
Arthur Plotnik (263 pages, November 2005), 
offers a book full of remedies for literary list-
lessness, sprinkled with examples of ringing 

prose penned by wordsmiths from Poe to 
Proulx. Plotnik rips past the rigid rules of 
Strunk and White’s 1959 Elements of Style 
and calls on writers to invigorate stodgy 
phrasings and pallid diction with freshness, 
texture, force, and form. Each chapter con-
tains apt advice on what to avoid (action-
less action, wandering modifi ers, exhausted 
adverbs) and what to emulate (over-the-top 
tropes, killer megaphors, enallage, foreign-
isms, nuanced semicolons, edgy style). An 
energetic and entertaining read for cramped 
writers. $16.95. Random House. ISBN 0-375-
72115-0. 

Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Histor­
ical Perspective, by J. Samuel Walker (303 
pages, March 2004), reviews the events of 
March 28–April 1, 1979, in the light of 24 
years of analysis and hindsight. I missed 
this when it was first published, but caught 
the December 2005 trade paperback edi-
tion. Walker, a historian for the U.S. Nu-
clear Regulatory Commission, recreates the 
confusion and uncertainty experienced in 
those days before anyone knew that the 
event could have been prevented by wa-
ter-level gauges on the reactor vessel as a 
check on the faulty pressurizer relief valve 
that failed to close. In retrospect, the inci-
dent fell far short of the catastrophe that 
occurred seven years later at Chernobyl, 
yet it signaled an abrupt decline in the 
public perception of the safety of nuclear 
power plants. $16.95. University of Califor-
nia. ISBN 0-520-24683-7. 

March 2006  187 C&RL News