January Not Fiction Book Discussions

We begin our discussions for 2011 with The Fourth Part of the World: The Race for the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map that Gave America Its Name by Toby Lester. In 2003, the Library of Congress bought the only surviving copy of the Waldseemüller world map of 1507, the map that gave America its name, for the unprecedented sum of $10 million. This thrilling historical adventure story provides a microhistory of the making of the map itself and a macrohistory of the Age of Discovery and the evolution of our own contemporary world view.

Maps reflect the world view of the people who create them, and they also serve to shape the world view of those who later use them. Lester says the Waldseemüller map is "the backdrop for something new: a modern epic of Western discovery and manifest destiny in which European explorers, like Odysseus and Alexander and Aeneas before them, wander the known world, roam the high seas, and arrive at unknown shores." However, he says, the map also represents an ancient tradition in which "geography is philosophy--and in which the appearance on a map of the fourth part of the world is a humbling reminder of all that still remains unknown. What the map ultimately charts, in other words, is nothing less than the contours of the human experience itself: the never-ending attempt to imagine a place for ourselves in the world." What can we understand about ourselves as Westerners, as Americans, from learning about this revolutionary map? Can we see its influence in our history? How do we view our world and our place in it today? Is this view changing?

If you are reading the hardcover edition of the book, you can find a select chronology of people, events, and maps in The Fourth Part of the World at the author's website, http://www.tobylester.com/. (The paperback edition includes these references.) You can also view an interactive version of the Waldseemüller map, listen to Lester discuss his book and the images in it, and find a link to a podcast of Lester talking about how America got its name on Public Radio International's This American Life.

According to Chris Anderson, editor in chief of WIRED, "Toby Lester has written a page-turning story of the creation of what amounts to a sixteenth-century Google Earth, a revolutionary way to see the world. It inspired generations of explorers then and will inspire readers now." We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, January 4 at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, January 20 at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; or here on the blog.

Not Fiction Book Discussions List for 2011

We are already looking forward to next year's Not Fiction Book Discussions! We will begin with The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map that Gave America It's Name by Toby Lester, which will set the theme for the 2011 discussions: our understanding of our world, the uses we make of it, our wanderings across it, our settlements on it, our confrontations with the elements and the animals that inhabit it, and our confrontations with each other. You can find the other titles for 2011 on the right side of this page.

And don't forget December's discussions of My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor: Tuesday, December 7, at 7:00 p.m. at Main Library and Thursday, December 16, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library.

Happy reading and happy holidays!

December Not Fiction Book Discussions

We end our discussions for 2010 with My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor, who was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2008.

On December 10, 1996, Taylor, a 37-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist, experienced a massive stroke in the logical left hemisphere of her brain that, while she watched and understood what was happening, shut down over the course of four hours, leaving her unable to walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. However, she found herself immersed in the boundless, empathic, euphoric experience of her right brain. After eight years of recovery, Taylor regained her left-brain abilities, but she also learned that she could maintain access to her right-brain abilities.

In this passionate and personal memoir, Taylor explains clearly and scientifically, from the point of view of a neuroanatomist, what it felt like to experience the loss of her left-brain abilities and then recover them, as well as why an immersion in the world of the right brain feels as it does. She also provides a recovery guide for people who have experienced brain injury and their caregivers, including a chapter on What I Needed the Most and a list of Recommendations for Recovery. And for all readers, she offers ways we might "step to the right" to access the sense of well-being provided by right-brain awareness.

Taylor, in her particular kind of stroke and recovery, is truly what Malcolm Gladwell calls an outlier, a person who has succeeded beyond what others have achieved. Regarding her extraordinary experience, she says,

"I have learned so much from this experience with stroke that I actually feel fortunate to have taken this journey. Thanks to this trauma, I have had the chance to witness first-hand a few things about my brain that otherwise I would never have imagined to be true. For these simple insights, I will always be grateful--not just for myself but for the hope these possibilities may bring to how we, as a people, choose to view and nurture our brains and consequently
behave on this planet."

She also offers inspiration for all of us that we might achieve true well-being and happiness similar to hers, confirming Gladwell's thesis that success is a matter of practice and opportunity:

"I believe [Einstein] got it right when he said, 'I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.' I learned the hard way that my
ability to be in the world is completely dependent on the integrity of my neurocircuitry. Cell by beautiful cell, circuit by neurocircuit, the consciousness I experience with my brain is the collective awareness established by those marvelous little entities as they weave together the web I call my mind. Thanks to their neural plasticity, their ability to shift and change their connections with other cells, you and I walk the earth with the ability to be flexible in our thinking, adaptable to our environment, and capable of choosing who and how we want to be in the world. Fortunately, how we choose to be today is not predetermined by how we were yesterday."

You can see Taylor speak about her stroke and recovery in a video of her powerful speech (over 1 million views on YouTube!) at a 2008 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference:

We hope you will join our conversation: Tuesday, December 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, December 16, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; or here on the blog.

November Not Fiction Book Discussions

With November's book, The Florist's Daughter: A Memoir by Patricia Hampl, we move from a wide-angle cultural consideration of extraordinary success to an intimate portrait of Hampl's parents and an illumination of her assertion that "[n]othing is harder to grasp than a relentlessly modest life."

As Hampl's memoir opens, she is holding her dying mother's hand and at the same time writing her obituary. From this endpoint, Hampl circles back through her childhood in the "blameless middle" of America, St. Paul, Minnesota. She describes her "eternal daughterdom" to her Czech-American father, a florist for the St. Paul elite, and to her Irish-American mother, a library file clerk who loved to tell a tale, revealing her own conflict with the role of daughter and her development as a writer. Hampl asks, "These apparently ordinary people in our ordinary town, living faultlessly ordinary lives, and believing themselves to be ordinary, why do I persist in thinking--knowing--they weren't ordinary at all?" Her honest, tender picture offers an exquisite answer.

We hope you will join the conversation about this "memoir for memoirists to admire" (Kirkus): Tuesday, November 9, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, November 18, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; or here on the blog.

October Not Fiction Book Discussions

Our book for the October discussions, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, (also available as a downloadable book) provides an interesting comparison to last month's book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins. When we consider how powerful the combination of the right cultural moment, inherited cultural legacies, and the dedicated efforts of individuals was to create greater political and economic equality for American women in the 1960s, we naturally question whether this success might be possible for women elsewhere in the world.

In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell argues, "Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement. We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And, most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play--and by "we" I mean society--in determining who makes it and who doesn't." In Half the Sky, Kristof and WuDunn issue a passionate call to readers to acknowledge that "in this century, the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world" and to learn what they can do to help. They document the enormity of the problems facing women living in poverty and oppression in Africa and Asia, many of them the result of the beliefs their cultures hold about women, focusing on sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence such as honor killings and mass rape, and maternal mortality. They honestly explore the complexities of solving these problems. Yet they ask readers to keep in mind that "Women aren't the problem but the solution. The plight of girls is no more a tragedy than an opportunity." With stories of extraordinary people--both the women living in poverty and oppression and those who would like to help them--they illustrate the great potential in empowering women politically and economically.

The title of the book comes from a Chinese proverb: "Women hold up half the sky." Kristof and WuDunn, like Gladwell, believe that we must hold up women so that they can fully inhabit this role. They say, "let us be clear about this up front: We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women's power as economic catalysts." In a final chapter they outline what readers can do--right now--to improve the lives of women, and they offer an appendix of organizations through which we can become involved in supporting women. So while this is a difficult book to read, it is also meant to be a practical and an inspiring one. In our discussions, we will consider how hopeful we feel about the initiatives Kristof and WuDunn describe and share stories of the ways we have become--or would like to become--involved.

We hope you will join the conversation: Tuesday, October 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, October 21, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; or here on the blog.

September Not Fiction Book Discussions

We continue our consideration of the theme of outliers, those people whose achievements exceed those of their peers, with When Everything Changed:The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins.

Collins is herself an outlier--she was the first woman to hold the position of editorial page editor for the New York Times from 2001-2007. In the clear, humorous style with which she writes her current column for the Times' op-ed page, Collins describes the radical change in the lives of American women between 1960, when female doctors, lawyers, and engineers were rare and women needed their fathers' or husbands' permission to sign a lease or obtain credit, and Hillary Clinton's historic 2008 presidential campaign.

Using both statistics and oral history, Collins vividly depicts a rapidly changing world that young women today would not recognize. Malcolm Gladwell argues in Outliers: The Story of Success that outliers "are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine." In our discussions, we will talk about what these advantages and opportunities were for American women, and what was fortuitous about the particular cultural moment of the 1960s.

We hope you will join the conversation: Tuesday, September 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, September 23, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; or here on the blog.

And take a look at our book for October, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (also available as a downloadable audio book), an inspiring companion read to When Everything Changed. Kristof and WuDunn explore how we can help women in African and Asia rise out of poverty and oppression to make remarkable contributions to their communities.

August Not Fiction Book Discussions

From a scholarly analysis and overview of the American Civil War, we move to an unmitigated on-the-ground account of the Iraq War--The Good Soldiers by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist David Finkel.

Between January 2007 and June 2008, Finkel spent eight months with the United States Army soldiers of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Iraq as they took part in the campaign know as "the surge." What is the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? These are the questions Finkel's unflinching third-person narrative poses to its readers as it follows Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich and the men and women in his charge through the violence, tension, and loss of armed conflict and its aftermath. Finkel writes, "my intent was to document their corner of the war, without agenda. This book, then, is that corner, unshaded." Can it be argued that even if the conflict these soldiers were involved in was impossible to win, the soldiers who fought in it can be seen as successful?

Finkel's premise is that the lives of these good soldiers are intrinsically valuable, that their valor in facing and surviving this war is remarkable. He shows rather than tells readers what Drew Gilpin Faust calls, in This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, "the work of death," evoking the same questions and contradictions Faust argues were raised by the American Civil War: "the venerable problem of theodicy--of how and why God permits evil" (188); the "problem of the one and the many . . . How could the meaning of so many deaths be understood? And conversely, how could an individual's death continue to matter amid the loss of so many?" (262); and the resulting paradox of "[s]entimentality and irony [which] grew side by side in Americans' war-born consciousness" (264).

Many reviewers have written that The Good Soldiers will take its place as a classic story of war for all times. What do you think? We invite you to join the discussion: Tuesday, August 3, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, August 19, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; or here on the blog.

July Not Fiction Book Discussions

In This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust, we learn that more than 600,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War, and that an equivalent number of today's population would be six million. As we approach the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War, Faust, president of Harvard Universiy and Lincoln Professor of History, helps readers understand that this unprecedented loss of life was the defining characteristic of the war, for individuals and for the nation. Surveying both the practical--how to account for and bury the dead--and the philosophical--how to reconcile abrupt and violent death with with a tradition of dying a Good Death reunited with a loving God, Faust argues that "[d]eath created the modern American union--not just by ensuring national survival, but by shaping enduring national structures and commitments."

Within a month of its publication in January 2008, This Republic of Suffering sold 35,000 copies and reached 7th on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list and 30th on the Amazon.com bestseller list, according to an article in The Boston Globe--remarkable sales for an academic title about a grim historical subject. What could account for readers' interest? It could be that Faust recently had been appointed president of Harvard, the first woman to serve in that position. However, it also could be that the book provides a humanistic view of the American Civil War, not just an account of who won and why, but insight into the universal topic of what Faust calls "the work of death." In her Preface she writes, "It is work to die, to know how to approach and endure life's last moments. Of all living things, only humans consciously anticipate death: the consequent need to choose how to behave in its face--to worry about how to die--distinguishes us from other animals. The need to manage death is the particular lot of humanity." She offers insight into the irony that a war fought over the South's bid to secede from the United States created a stronger, more centralized union. We all, North and South, were united by the sacrifice of that war.

A theme for this year's discussions is Malcolm Gladwell's theory of success outlined in his book Outliers: The Story of Success. In what ways had our young nation practiced "the work of death"? And in what ways was it the right cultural moment for our union to succeed?

We hope you will join our discussion--Tuesday, July 6, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, July 22, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; or here on the blog--of this original work that Newsweek calls "one of those groundbreaking histories in which a crucial piece of the past previously overlooked or misunderstood, suddenly clicks into focus."

June Not Fiction Book Discussions

We invite you to join us for a discussion of Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species by Sean B. Carroll. Carroll, Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics and an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin, tells the stories of the most dramatic expeditions and important discoveries of the last two centuries of natural history, from the epic journeys of pioneering naturalists like Charles S. Darwin to the microscopic work of scientists in laboratories who investigate molecular genetics.

The publication of Carroll's book marks the anniversaries of several milestones in natural history and evolutionary science: Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, the 150th anniversary of the publication of his On the Origin of Species, the 150th anniversary of a paper presented by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace to the Linnean Society in London on the theory of natural selection, the 100th anniversary of Charles Walcott's discovery of the remarkable animals of the Burgess Shale, and the 50th anniversary of Mary and Louis Leakey's first ancient hominid find.

In introducing his book, Carroll says, "We will encounter many amazing creatures of the past and present, but the most remarkable creatures in these stories are the men and women. They are, without exception, remarkable people who have experienced and accomplished extraordinary things. . . . The people in these stories followed their dreams--to travel to far-away lands, to see wild and exotic places, to collect beautiful, rare, or strange animals, or to find the remains of extinct beasts or human ancestors. Very few started out with any notion of great achievement or fame. Several lacked formal education or training. Rather, they were driven by a passion to explore nature, and they were willing, sometimes eager, to take great risks to pursue their dreams. Many faced the perils of traveling long distances by sea. Some confronted the extreme climates of deserts, jungles, or the Arctic. Many left behind skeptical and anxious loved ones, and a few endured years of unimaginable loneliness. Their triumphs were much more than survival and the collecting of specimens from around the world. A few pioneers, provoked by a riot of diversity beyond their wildest imaginations, were transformed from collectors into scientists. They posed and pondered the most fundamental questions about Nature. Their answers sparked a revolution that changed, profoundly and forever, our perception of the living world and our place within it." In our discussions, we will consider the qualities and experiences that these remarkable people had or have in common. Was or is their success due, as Malcolm Gladwell suggests in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, to opportunity, to time spent practicing their discipline, and to being born in the right cultural place and time? Is there some other essential quality, such as curiosity or openness to seeing the world in a new way, that underlies their experience?

You can join the conversation Tuesday, June 1, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library, Thursday, June 17, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library, or here on the blog.

Read about some species' remarkable adaptive changes in Carroll's monthly feature Remarkable Creatures for the New York Times Science Times.

May Not Fiction Book Discussions

Journalist and recreational runner Christopher McDougall's epic adventure Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen began with a simple question: "Why does my foot hurt?" Finding the answer led him through the dangerous terrain of Mexico's Copper Canyon in search of the running secrets of the reclusive Tarahumara Indians, into the competitive and quirky world of ultrarunning, to consultations with sports medicine experts and high-tech science labs at Harvard, and ultimately to the race of his life. With humor, enthusiasm, and humility, McDougall argues that we are all born to run. In an interview with his publisher, McDougall says, "I think ultrarunning is America's hope for the future. Honestly. The ultrarunners have got a hold of some powerful wisdom. You can see it at the starting line of any ultra race. I showed up at the Leadville Trail 100 expecting to see a bunch of hollow-eyed Skeletors, and instead it was, 'Whoah! Get a load of the hotties!' Ultra runners tend to be amazingly healthy, youthful and - believe it or not - good looking. I couldn't figure out why, until one runner explained tht throughout history, the four basic ingredients for optimal health have been clean air, good food, fresh water, and low stress. And that, to a T, describes the daily life of an ultrarunner. They're out in the woods for hours at a time, breathing pine-scented breezes, eating small bursts of digestible food, downing water by the gallons, and feeling their stress melt away with the miles. But here's the real key to that kingdom: you have to relax and enjoy the run" (http://www.randomhouse.com/) A reviewer for Booklist calls Born to Run "slyly important." What could this story about a sports event for outliers of the running world have to say to the average reader?

To catch up with Christopher McDougall and Caballo Blanco, read their interviews on the Outside blog: http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2010/02/born-to-run-christopher-mcdougall-interview.html and http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2010/03/born-to-run-caballo-blanco-interview.html.

To learn more about a new nonprofit, Norawas de Raramuri, or Friends of the Tarahumara, that works to support local and international foot races that will celebrate and encourage the Raramuri running culture and benefit Raramuri communities, visit http://www.norawas.org/.

April Not Fiction Book Discussions

One of the most inspiring books we have read for our Not Fiction Book Discussions is Mountains Beyond Mountains by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder, the story of Dr. Paul Farmer and his quest to provide free, dignified health care for people in Haiti and beyond with his nonprofit organization Partners In Health. In his new book, Strength in What Remains, Kidder tells the story of a young man who worked for Farmer at Partners In Health, a hero for our times. Deogratias, a medical student from Burundi, survived civil war and genocide in Burundi and Rwanda and fled to America, where he found himself homeless, plagued by nightmares of the violence he had witnessed, and with no English. The story of how he met strangers who would help him find his way to medical school and of how, with great hope and forgiveness, he established a medical clinic in Burundi, "transcends the moment and becomes as powerful and compelling as those journeys of myth" (Jonathan Harr). Kidder writes, "When Deo first told me about his beginnings in New York, I had a simple thought: 'I would not have survived.'" What were the ingredients in Deo's almost mythical ability not just to survive but to transcend? Providence? Character? Experience? The coincidence of meeting the right people at the right time? And what can we learn from this great story of our times?

We invite you to join our discussions: Tuesday, April 6 at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, April 22 at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; or here on the blog.

To learn more about Partners in Health, Paul Farmer's nonprofit, visit http://www.pih.org/.

To learn more about Village Health Works, Deogratias' nonprofit, which has served more than 28,000 patients since opening its doors in December 2007, visit http://www.villagehealthworks.org/.

Time change for Main Library Not Fiction Book Discussions

Charleston County Public Library will cut its operating hours to compensate for budget shortfalls caused by the continuing economic downturn. The Library’s Board of Trustees unanimously decided to close the five Regional Libraries on Sundays and close the Main Library one hour earlier at 8 p.m., beginning April 1st. The Main Library currently stays open until 9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays. By closing one hour earlier, at 8 p.m. on those days, it makes the closing time at Main coincide with the current 8 p.m. closing already in effect at the five Regionals and three large branch libraries. Main is open from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and will remain open from 2-5 p.m. on Sundays. (For more information about the library's reduced hours, please click here.)

Consequently, the Not Fiction Book Discussion meetings at Main Library will be rescheduled for 6:30 p.m. beginning with the April 6 meeting.

March Not Fiction Book Discussions

Drawing on over three decades of acquaintance and intimate conversation with the Dalai Lama, Pico Iyer, in his book The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, creates a multifaceted portrait of the man, both his public life as a politician and global icon, and his private life as a philosopher and monk. Moving beyond simple biography to a history of Tibet, a consideration of the current global culture, and a memoir of his own relationship with the Dalai Lama, Iyer says, "one of the main things I have attempted in this book is to bring the Dalai Lama out of Tibet and Buddhism and into the larger community of ideas and thinkers, to show how much and how often his interests chime with those of other traditions and explorers." In our discussions, we will consider what elements have combined to make this Dalai Lama so relevant politically and culturally, the first in a long line of men who have filled this position to leave Tibet and take up a role on the world stage: Was it the coincidence of being appointed Dalai Lama just as the People's Republic of China invaded Tibet in 1950-51, forcing him to flee and set up a government in exile? Long hours of travel, conversation with world leaders, public appearances, and following current events? Or could it be his willingness to embrace "the open road," Iyer's metaphor for "the natural home of someone who is visibly pressing along a path, to talk to anyone he meets along the way and to see how foreigners, specialists, fellow travelers can instruct him"? And is this willingness to embrace and learn from the unknown a quality shared by other people who have experienced success?

We hope you will join our conversation, either Tuesday, March 2 at 7:00 p.m. at Main Library, Thursday, March 18 at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library, or here on the blog.

February Not Fiction Book Discussions

In Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life, Steve Martin, a true original and icon in the world of comedy, says of his years as a stand-up comedian, "I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a by-product. The course was more plodding than heroic: I did not strive valiantly against doubters but took incremental steps studded with a few intuitive leaps. I was not naturally talented--I didn't sing, dance, or act--though working around that minor detail made me inventive. I was not self-destructive, though I almost destroyed myself. In the end, I turned away from stand-up with a tired swivel of my head and never looked back, until now. A few years ago, I began researching and recalling the details of this crucial part of my professional life--which inevitably touches upon my personal life--and was reminded why I did stand-up and why I walked away." The quiet humor, surprising honesty, and economy of this passage are characteristic of what Martin calls his "biography" of himself during those early years. We learn that the "wild and crazy guy" was a carefully constructed persona, the result of both intellectual inquiry into the nature of comedy and skills honed through hours of study and practice. However, Martin also managed to be in the right places at the right times in his early career. We learn that Martin is actually a complicated guy. So what are the secrets of his success? Innate talent, in spite of what he claims? Simple hard work? The good fortune to be born into a culture that was developing a taste for the kind of comedy he offered? A few lucky breaks?

We hope you will join our conversation--Tuesday, February 2 at 7 p.m. at Main Library, Thursday, February 18 at 11 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library, or here on the blog--about what Jerry Seinfeld says is "One of the best books about comedy and being a comedian ever written" (GQ).

To learn more about Steve Martin's books, films, and Grammy nomination for his album of banjo tunes titled The Crow visit http://www.stevemartin.com/.