New title: IBM and the Holocaust

One of the newer titles in the John Trigg Ester Library is IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi German and America's Most Powerful Corporation, by Edwin Black. This book is about how IBM created pre-computer technology that enabled the Nazis to identify, locate, and catalog European Jews—and thus round them up and murder them.

IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, one by one, anticipating the Reich's needs. They did not merely sell the machines and walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees and became the sole source of the billions of punch cards Hitler needed.

From Richard Pachter's review of the book in the Miami Herald:

The result is an exhaustively researched, highly detailed look at IBM, its history and business dealings. …IBM technology, Black asserts, also enabled the German war machine's mighty manufacturing and distribution prowess. …The question is raised how Watson and other IBM employees managed to get away with this murderous collaboration, how they escaped the notice of the press and the government. The answer, naturally, is complicated. Though much of the firm's activities at home and abroad were reported in newspapers (television news reporting was virtually nonexistent, and radio hardly a credible news medium) there was little effort made to "connect the dots''-with one significant exception. In 1942, an investigation by a minor U.S. government bureaucrat did, indeed, make the necessary connections, but IBM, by then the world's biggest corporation, was also an integral part of the Allied war effort, and had been careful to create an unimpeachable image of patriotism. The investigation was abandoned.

Black's book is, in many ways, like Spielberg's movie, Schindler's List; …More than just another Holocaust tale, the author paints a remarkable portrait of how a powerful company created enormous opportunities, irrespective of moral concerns and consequences. It's a chilling lesson in politics and business that remains potent relevant, and highly revelatory.

Hardcover: 528 pages
Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (February 12, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN: 0609607995

New title: The Devil's Share, by Kris Farmen

The Devil's Share, written by Kris Farmen of Anchorage and published McRoy & Blackburn, Publishers, of Ester, is a coming-of-age story that takes place in the Wrangell-St. Elias wilderness. This novel, Farmen's first book, is one of many titles available in the John Trigg Ester Library by authors, publishers, or illustrators who hail from Ester.

Adult, paperback, ISBN 978-0-9820319-3-3

New title at the JTEL: the Solar Design Manual for Alaska

The fourth edition of the Solar Design Manual for Alaska: Building toward the ultimate, net-zero-energy, passive solar Alaska home is out. This book, written and edited largely by Rich Seifert, shows that you really can use solar energy in Alaska, and describes passive and active systems, thermal systems and photovoltaics, solar gain in dozens of communities across the state, and more. This title is in the John Trigg Ester Library in the construction section of Reference. The book is published by the Cooperative Extension Service, publication #EEM-01255, and is also available for PDF download at Alaska Sun.

New title: biography of Jimi Hendrix

Only a few music titles have been catalogued in the Ester library's collections so far, but the newest is a biography of Jimi Hendrix by Charles R. Cross, Room Full of Mirrors.

Ben Sisario of the New York Times reviews this book in an essay published in August 2005. The book was published in 2005 by Hyperion. More reviews are available on Amazon.

ISBN: 1401300286, hardcover, 400 pages

New titles: military history of Alaska

The Natural Resources Branch of the U.S. Army's Directorate of Public Works for the Alaska Garrison recently sent the JTEL ten books in a series on the history of Alaska as it relates to the Cold War, Fort Richardson, Fort Wainwright, the Army Corps of Engineers, and so on. These military history titles are: (by Kathy Price) Tracking the Unthinkable: The Donnelly Flats MIDAS Ground Station and the Early Development of Space Warning Systems, 1959-1967; The World War II Heritage of Ladd Field, Fairbanks, Alaska; Homesteads on Fort Wainwright, Alaska; and Northern Defenders: Cold War Context of Ladd Air Force Base, Fairbanks, Alaska, 1947-1961. By Karen Waddell, we have Cold War Historical Context 1951-1991 Fort Richardson, Alaska, United States Army Alaska; by Kristy Hollinger are The Haines-Fairbanks pipeline; Homesteads on Fort Richardson, Alaska; and The Early Electrification of Anchorage; and by Ronald J. Burr Neely, Jr., Early transportation routes, Fort Wainwright, Alaska and Early mining history: Fort Wainwright and Fort Greely, Alaska.

New title: Living with Wilderness, by Bill Sherwonit

Living with Wilderness, by Bill Sherwonit

The newest title in the Ester library is Bill Sherwonit's book, Living with Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey, published by the University of Alaska Press in 2008. Sherwonit has worked and lived in Alaska off and on since 1974, moving here permanently in 1982. From Andromeda Romano-Lax's review of the book: "…Sherwonit employs both a journalist’s skills and a non-specialist’s sense of humble wonder to deliver a portrait of the wild in its many guises. Though northern experiences take the main stage, his Connecticut childhood memories are particularly moving and instructive, reminding us all of the importance of early, unmediated experiences with nature. Throughout the book, Sherwonit taps the expertise of local natural history experts and mentors, weaving their observations and studies with his own, more personal discoveries."

Book information: 6 x 9 inches, 232 pages, paperback

ISBN #978-16022301-4-9

Library Section: Alaska nonfiction