dec06c.indd


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

The APA Dictionary of Psychology, edited 
by Gary R. VandenBos (1024 pages, July 
2006), defines some 25,000 psychological 
concepts, processes, therapies, and tests, 
and offers brief summaries of signifi cant 
organizations and individuals in the fi eld. 
This is the first dictionary ever published 
by the American Psychological Association, 
and it represents an ambitious attempt to 
cover the many core topics in psychology 
as well as such related fields as education, 
artificial intelligence, biology, linguistics, 
and management. The book is a good 
place to go when you encounter terms like 
bistable perceptual events, feature­positive 
discrimination, or terror management the­
ory. With handy alphabetic thumb tabs and 
Merriam­Webster–like red speckles on the 
fore­edge. $49.95. American Psychological 
Association. ISBN 978­1­59147­380­2. 

German and Netherlandish Paintings, 
1450­1600, by Burton L. Dunbar (347 pag­
es, March 2006), is the second in a series 
of catalogs documenting European and 
American paintings in the Nelson­Atkins 
Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. 
The front matter includes essays on infra­
red reflectography and other methods of 
technical investigation used on these paint­
ings and dendrochronological analysis of 
the Northern Renaissance panel paintings 
at the museum. Technical notes, descrip­
tion, commentary, and artist biographies 
are provided for each of the 25 paintings, 
along with numerous illustrations show­
ing artistic details. Some famous paintings 
are included, among them Louis Cranach 
the Elder’s The Three Graces and Hans 
Memling’s Madonna and Child Enthroned. 
$75.00. University of Washington. ISBN 
978­0­942614­34­3. 

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

The Katrina Experience, curated by Nancy 
Buirski (four DVDs, September 2006), con­
sists of three feature­length documentary 
films and four shorts that were shown at 
the 2006 Full Frame Documentary Film Fes­
tival in Durham, North Carolina. A special 
package put to­
gether specifi cally 
for academic, pub­
lic, and school li­
braries, these fi lms 
reach beyond the 
news to explore 
Katrina’s deep im­
pact on the people 
of the Gulf Coast. 
New Orleans Mu­
sic in Exile (112 
minutes, Robert 
Mugge) follows musicians Irma Thomas, Dr. 
John, Cyril Neville, and others to temporary 
gigs outside New Orleans and lets them tell 
of Katrina’s devastating effect on regional 
music. In Desert Bayou (76 minutes, Alex 
LeMay), 600 African Americans evacuated to 
Salt Lake City adjust to new surroundings as 
their all­white neighbors confront their own 
fears. Tim’s Island (85 minutes, Laszlo Fulop 
and Wickes Helmboldt) shows what hap­
pened to 16 young hipsters, eight cats, and 
seven dogs who decided to sit out the storm 
in a two­story loft and watched it become a 
“Mad Max post­apocalyptic fortress.” An Eye 
in the Storm (20 minutes, Neil Alexander) is 
an excellent video diary of Katrina and its 
aftermath. Still Standing (7 minutes, Paola 
Mendoza) documents a visit with the fi lm­
maker’s Colombian immigrant grandmother 
in Waveland, Mississippi, whose home was 
flattened and who must deal with the trag­
edy alone and speaking no English. After 
Katrina: Rebuilding St. Bernard Parish (22 
minutes, Adam Finberg) reveals the lack 
of rebuilding in this working­class parish 
southeast of New Orleans, devastated not 
only by the storm but by bureaucracy. New 

C&RL News December 2006  738 

mailto:geberhart@ala.org


Orleans Furlough (10 minutes, Amir Bar­
Lev) describes the emotional trauma of a 
Louisiana National Guardsman who returns 
home from Iraq ready to help but plunges 
into a dysfunctional miasma of instability. A 
top­notch documentary collection. $199.00 
(plus $8.75 s/h). Independent Film Devel­
opment Group, www.indiepix.net. 

Silent Traces: Discovering Early Holly­
wood through the Films of Charlie Chap­
lin, by John Bengtson (300 pages, August 
2006), is a fascinating exercise in histori­
cal image sleuthing that identifies the Los 
Angeles–area filming locations for many 
of Chaplin’s fi lms, from Making a Living 
(1914) to The Great Dictator (1940). The 
author has spent years examining vintage 
city photos for both this and Silent Echoes 
(Santa Monica, 1999), a comparable book 
for the films of Buster Keaton. Much of the 
landscape has changed since the Silent Era, 
but Bengtson spices his examination with 
revelations about the tunnels that passed 
through several L.A. hills that no longer ex­
ist, the sidewalk plaque commemorating 
the site of Mutual Film Corporation’s Lone 
Star Studio on the wrong side of the street, 
the location of the classic scene of the Lit­
tle Tramp shuffling off to a new adventure 
along Niles Canyon Road in Fremont, and 
the accidental discovery that Chaplin used 
the Trinity Auditorium Building—now the 
Embassy Hotel (and soon to be the Gan­
sevoort West), just three blocks from the 
Los Angeles Public Library—for outdoor 
scenes in The Bank (1915). Accompanied 
by many “then and now” photos and movie 
stills. $24.95. Santa Monica Press. ISBN 978­
1­59580­014­5. 

The Supervillain Book: The Evil Side of 
Comics and Hollywood, edited by Gina 
Misiroglu and Michael Eury (439 pages, Au­
gust 2006), is a compendium of “evil mas­
terminds, sinister megalomaniacs, world­
class menaces, and marauding mutants” 
that have populated comic books, movies, 
and TV shows since 1938. A companion 

to The Superhero Book (2004), this volume 
covers major and minor bad guys as well as 
themes (aquatic, underworld, reinvented, 
and Saturday morning supervillains). Per­
haps someday you will need to research 
the origin of Sauron II or instances where 
villains have taken over the identity of 
Santa Claus—if so, this is your reference. 
$29.95. Visible Ink. ISBN 0­7808­0977­7. 

Writers, Plumbers, and Anarchists: The 
WPA Writers’ Project in Massachusetts, by 
Christine Bold (272 pages, June 2006), doc­
uments the work of the writers who con­
tributed to the Massachusetts Writers’ Proj­
ect from 1935 to 1943 to compile a wealth 
of information about the state. Bold takes a 
look at how the guidebooks these writers 
produced treated the Sacco­Vanzetti case 
of 1927, the Great Hurricane of 1938, and 
especially the racial diversity of the state. 
$80.00. University of Massachusetts. ISBN 
1­55849­538­X. 

December 2006  739 C&RL News 

http:www.indiepix.net