oct06c2.indd


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

The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales, 
by Felice Vinci (370 pages, January 2006), 
is the English translation of Italian engi-
neer Vinci’s 1995 book Omero nel Baltico, 
which offers a radical hypothesis that the 
events of the Iliad and the Odyssey actu-
ally took place hundreds of miles north of 
the Mediterranean. Vinci notes that schol-
ars have long argued over the vagueness 
of Homer’s geography, but he insists that 
a better topographic match exists in Scan-
dinavia. The sagas, he writes, were origi-
nally set in the Baltic region and brought 
to Greece in the 16th century B.C. (after 
the climate deteriorated up north) by the 
Mycenaeans, who took their place names 
with them. Troy? It was near Toija, Fin-
land. Ithaca was the Danish island of Lyø. 
Calypso’s isle was one of the Faroes. Look 
for Scylla and Charybdis in the craggy 
Arctic peaks and well-known maelstrom 
near Moskenes, Norway. Unfortunately 
for his thesis, Vinci seems all too eager 
to place the origins of other myths in the 
far north, from Arthur to Gilgamesh. For 
a more convincing argument that Ithaca 
was really on the Greek island of Ke-
falonia, see Robert Bittlestone’s Odysseus 
Unbound (Cambridge University, 2005), 
and for a traditional Homeric geography, 
read Timothy Severin’s The Ulysses Voyage 
(Dutton, 1987). $22.95. Inner Traditions. 
ISBN 1-59477-052-2. 

Haunted Hikes: Spine­Tingling Tales and 
Trails from North America’s National Parks, 
by Andrea Lankford (373 pages, June 2006), 
serves up a backpackful of spooky stories 
and freaky folklore accompanied by some 
solid suggestions for 100 or so scenic out-
ings in North American parkland. Useful 
descriptions, handy trail maps, and a fright-
factor rating from one (“makes seven-year-

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

olds giggle”) to 
four (“gave me 
nightmares”) are 
provided for each 
r e c o m m e n d e d  
trail. Lankford, a 
former park rang-
er, maintains the 
sensible attitude 
that legend and 
folklore, as well 
as eyewitness ac-
counts of unusual phenomena, are an es-
sential part of each park’s cultural history. 
$16.95. Santa Monica Press. ISBN 1-59580-
009-1. 

Internet Surf and Turf Revealed, by Bar-
bara M. Waxer and Marsha L. Baum (174 
pages, April 2006), provides a graphic-in-
tensive, user-friendly set of lessons on the 
essentials of copyright, infringement, fair 
use, search engines, and finding tools for 
images and media. It successfully navi-
gates through such issues as the right of 
publicity, derivative works, and licenses 
and permissions. The book is aimed at 
Web designers, artists, or anyone who 
wants to use Internet images. $27.95. 
Thomson/Course Technology. ISBN 1-
4188-6006-9. 

Lake Monster Mysteries, by Benjamin Rad-
ford and Joe Nickell (190 pages, April 2006), 
examines the evidence for several notable 
lake monsters, including the creatures 
in Loch Ness, Scotland; Lake Champlain, 
Vermont; Lake Memphremagog, Quebec; 
Lake Crescent, Newfoundland; and Lake 
Okanagan, British Columbia. The authors 
poke some holes in previous lake monster 
studies, but perhaps the most damaging 
part is their deconstruction of fi lms taken 
of the Champlain and Okanagan monsters. 
$24.95. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 
0-8131-2394-1. 

C&RL News October 2006  580 

mailto:geberhart@ala.org


My Life Is a Weapon: A Modern History 
of Suicide Bombing, by Christoph Reuter 
(200 pages, paperback, April 2006), of-
fers an overview of suicide bombing from 
the original 12th-century assassins and the 
Japanese kamikazes to al-Qaeda, Hezbol-
lah, Iran, Sri Lanka, and Kurdistan. Reuter, 
a writer for Der Stern, argues that bombers 
are motivated less by promises of an oth-
erworldly paradise and more by the desire 
to make a difference, no matter what the 
cost. $19.95. Princeton University. ISBN 0-
691-12615-1. 

Mysteries in History from Prehistory to the 
Present, by Paul D. Aron (446 pages, No-
vember 2005), is a nifty compilation of puz-
zles that just might jog jaded undergraduates 
into an appreciation for the complexities of 
the past. Aron summarizes the controversial 
aspects of 75 historical questions—such as 
when people first arrived in America, who 
King Arthur was, where Columbus landed, 
how Davy Crockett died, whether Hitler 
murdered his niece, why Rudolf Hess fl ew 
to Scotland, and what Reagan knew about 
Iran-Contra—and offers some annotated 
suggestions for further reading. $85.00. 
ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-85109-899-2. 

Neal­Schuman Library Technology Com­
panion: A Basic Guide for Library Staff , 
by John J. Burke (237 pages, 2nd ed., May 
2006), explains how technical systems and 
software are embedded in library processes. 
This overview will give new employees or 
employees new to certain technologies a 
good grasp of networks, applications, stor-
age devices, databases, search tools, blogs 
and wikis, assistive technology, virtual refer-
ence, distance learning, spam and spyware, 
troubleshooting, and infrastructure. $59.95. 
Neal-Schuman. ISBN 1-55570-550-2. 

On Account of Sex: An Annotated Bibli­
ography on the Status of Women in Li­
brarianship, 1998–2002, edited by Betsy 
Kruger and Catherine Larson (226 pages, 
April 2006), continues the previous four 

source listings of LIS literature on career 
development for women, salaries, dis-
crimination, image, gender issues, and 
library history. $50.00. Scarecrow. ISBN 
0-8108-6227-6. 

The Oxford Companion to the Garden, ed-
ited by Patrick Taylor (554 pages, May 2006), 
offers 1,750 de-
scriptions of gar-
dens throughout 
the world, biog-
raphies of land-
scape designers 
and planners, 
garden features 
and terms, and 
other horticul-
tural topics. The 
garden entries 
detail the history 
and special features of each location, from 
Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens in England 
to the Zürichhorn in Switzerland. Full-page 
color photographs scattered throughout the 
volume illustrate a lush range of landscape 
features. $65.00. Oxford University. ISBN 0-
19-866255-6. 

Political Pressure and the Archival Record, 
edited by Margaret Proctor, Michael Cook, 
and Caroline Williams (345 pages, January 
2006), contains a selection of papers from 
an international conference held in Liver-
pool in July 2003. Contributors explore the 
effects of politics on record retention and 
access in ideologically sensitive subject 
areas. Among the topics are tracing the 
fate of archives in China and Malaya dur-
ing World War II, access and control over 
the records of the 1932 Tuskegee syphilis 
study, the role of archives in protecting 
the record from public pressure, the USA 
PATRIOT Act and its impact on higher 
education administration, archives in ser-
vice to the state, and the vulnerability to 
official tampering of electronic records 
management. $42.00. Society of American 
Archivists. ISBN 1-931666-15-6. 

October 2006  581 C&RL News