Time Great Discoveries: Explorations That Changed History

Remember Time Life books? Our libraries used to be full of them, including series on many big topics, such as World War II, the age of explorers, the history of the Western States, national parks, photography, and the development of flight. These books from the 1960s and 1970s always had lots of colorful illustrations to support the text written by teams of authors. We also had a series on world cities and another about museums from Newsweek. These were used heavily by students and pleasure readers in their day. Many eventually fell apart, even after rebinding. Their circulation fell off quickly in the age of the Internet.

We just got a new book from Time that spurred my memories of the old books. Time Great Discoveries: Explorations That Changed History is like those books of old about a big topic - exploration and discovery of ancient civilizations and the natural world. It covers almost every favorite topic that you might see in an issue of National Geographic: Egyptian antiquities, Machu Picchu, vikings, Arctic and Antarctic exploration, the search for the source of the Nile, dinosaurs, and the launch of NASA probes into the solar system. Each topic gets two to six pages and is supported with sharp, colorful photos.

The word "history" in the subtitle might give readers the impression that the book relies on old data. Nothing could be further from the truth, for the editors have gotten many current explorations into the text. The title page includes a photo of a new primate Darwinius Masillae which was unveiled at the American Museum of Natural History on May 19, 2009. The authors also tell us about the Mars rover Spirit getting its wheel stuck in the Martian soil in May 2009. We also learn that Egyptologist Zahi Hawass is currently looking for the remains of Cleopatra near Alexandria.

With a picture of Machu Picchu on the cover, Time Great Discoveries is an eye-catching book that should appeal to readers who like science and history books and magazines. I hope it is a harbinger of more big, colorful books.

Time Great Discoveries: Explorations That Changed History. Time Inc., 2009. ISBN 9781603200837

Prairie Home Companion Quizzes

When I was using the Prairie Home Companion website to see if I was spelling character names correctly, I discovered that there are a variety of trivia quizzes to test listeners knowledge of all things Lake Wobegon. I did fairly well (80 %) in general information about Minnesota and about the show sponsors (Powdermilk Biscuits, Bertha's Kitty Boutique, etc.) but I did really badly (40 %) in quizes about the band, Guy Noir, and Lives of the Cowboys.

How do you do?

The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday by Neil MacFarquhar

According to foreign correspondent Neil MacFarquhar, Americans do not understand the Arab countries of the Middle East. We are baffled by government and rebel leaders who can at one moment offer you tea or send you a birthday greeting and in the next moment blow you up. In The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday, MacFarquhar recounts his career chasing stories for the Associated Press and New York Times in a dangerous region.

As you can guess from the title, MacFarquhar has a sense of humor, as do many of the subjects he interviews in Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other countries where religious moderates and extremists are struggling for control of power. He attempts to insert humanizing details into his accounts of war and crisis. In his chapters on "fatwas" and "jihads" particularly he tries to defuse the terms so Westerners can understand them. He does not, however, neglect to show how violent and corrupt some individuals, groups and governments can be.

MacFarquhar was introduced to the region early in life. His family lived in an American oil company compound on the Mediterranean coast in Libya in the 1960s. His account of growing up isolated in a foreign country rings a bell for me. When I was a boy growing up in Texas in the 1960s, I knew another boy whose family moved to Libya for a couple of years and then back to my home town. It was hot and dry in Libya, they stayed at the oil camp, and they never met the Arabs. In a sense, they never left Texas. MacFarquhar's family stayed long enough to witness the coup that brought Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi to power. His account of that time is my favorite part of this book.

MacFarquhar notices everything about the Muslim world. He also notices the visitors and points out that most Western and Asian countries send to Arab countries diplomats that speak Arabic while the United States tends to send politicians who rely on interpreters. And we wonder why we have so many problems.

The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday is serious reading tempered with humor to be read only a chapter at a time. Give yourself several weeks to finish.

MacFarquhar, Neil. The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday. Public Affairs, 2009. ISBN 9781586486358

How Shall I Tell the Dog? and Other Final Musings by Miles Kington

Dear Gill,

I just finished reading How Shall I Tell the Dog? and Other Final Musings by the late Miles Kington, which is written as a series of letters to you. Thank you for letting us read them. I know you might reply that they were meant for publication from the beginning, so your role was no big deal. Still, you lent your ear and encouraged Miles during the Facing the Mountain, Crossing the Plateau, and The Descent phases of his illness. I am grateful.

How Shall I Tell the Dog? has to be the happiest book about cancer that I have ever read. From reading this collection of letters, all about writing a "final days" book, you would never know that he struggled. I imagine that other people with cancer will benefit from reading Miles musings about dying - no make that musings about living with dying. The rest of us can just read it to laugh. We do not even have to notice what a good example he has been for us. I hope we all try to be like Miles and face our deaths with such calm.

Did Miles himself choose the book's title after offering so many suggestions? I'll bet his dog Berry does miss him. I think it is the right title.

Miles does stray from the topic of living with cancer much of the time, which is probably why it is so entertaining. He was still enjoying life so much as he wrote. I enjoyed how far afield he went as he told us stories. The story about his father-in-law Nick Carter longing to become an assassin before he died was unusual to say the least. It did make me think. If we gave dangerous assignments only to those about to die anyway, could we also decide that only people about to die anyway fight our wars? No one under eighty could touch a gun or the remote control to any type of bomb without a signed affidavit from a physician. Would Miles like such an idea?

We did not know Miles well in America. Looking through our library catalogs, I see many British titles, but only three American books to which he contributed: Great Railway Journeys of the World, Great Journeys, and The Giants of Jazz. He seems to have known and liked Michael Palin and Terry Jones. We like them in America. I suspect we would have like Miles as well. If I ever get to England, I'll have to look for his books at used book stores. Maybe I'd find collections of his columns from Punch, The Times, or The Independent.

Well, I'll let you get back to selling book ideas for your clients.

Wishing you many bestsellers,
Rick


Kington, Miles. How Shall I Tell the Dog? and Other Final Musings. Newmarket Press, 2009. ISBN 9781557048417

Grace of the Sun by Richie Havens

I was reminded of Richie Havens by recently published books about the Woodstock music festival of 1969. Havens was the opening act, thrown on stage for over three hours to keep the crowd happy while the producers worked to get the stage completed and the sound system built. I once saw Havens on Navy Pier in Chicago, performing for WBEZ Radio's weekly folk music show. Now seemed a good time to hear Havens again. Being the librarian that I am, I searched our shared catalog to see what CDs I could borrow.

First, I received an interlibrary loan of a greatest hits CD. Since Havens never really succeeded on Top 40 radio, it was not a collection filled with performances that I knew well, and the quality of the recordings was varied. Many of the tracks were covers of songs made famous by other folksingers. I was left thinking that he was much better live than recorded.

My thinking has now changed, as I have been listening for a couple of weeks to Grace of the Sun, an album released in 2004. The sound is clear, the guitars ring, and Havens' voice is deep and mesmerizing. Havens wrote most of the songs himself, though he does still reinterpret Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" and Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" in ways that makes them totally new. I am glad I did not stop with the old greatest hits album. I have something to add to my Christmas list.

Havens, Richie. Grace of the Sun. Stormy Forest Productions, 2004.

Kindles and Other eBook Readers

Last week I spoke to 48 members of the Indian Prairie Computer Club at the Hinsdale Community Center about ebook readers, the Thomas Ford Kindle program, and the implications for libraries. While most of the audience had heard of Kindles, only a few had actually seen one, and few knew that there were other readers on the market. That other competitors are hinting that they will soon offer readers was news. I spent many of my fifty minutes before the group answering questions about what ebooks are, how the Kindle works, who might use a Kindle, its pricing, and how Amazon sells many bestsellers at a loss.

I explained that my library's Kindle program is a demonstration and not a long-range service. I said that we are not collection building with the Kindle at this point, as ebooks and readers will evolve much in the coming years. As Nicholas Baker says in his New Yorker article of August 3, 2009, "EBook readers are in their infancy." He and other publishing commentators say that Amazon will eventually be hurt by its proprietary format. Once the customer honeymoon with the Kindle fades, the demand will be for readers that can load open ebooks that may be acquired from a variety of free and commercial websites. A color reader is also needed.

Sony is stepping up its effort to compete, but so far its marketing has lagged far behind Amazon's marketing. Barnes & Noble says that it will soon be offering a reader and open ebooks for sale. Google and Apple have hinted that they may step into the ring with readers and books. Google actually has the books already. Apple has iPod iTouches already which can read books using various apps (including Kindle for iPhone and iTouch) that are free or inexpensive.

The Kindle is a pretty well-designed product as it is, but people with visual problems may find the gray on gray hard to read. The electronic ink without backlighting may be environmental, but it may also hold Amazon back. I doubt Amazon will stick to a limited purpose Kindle, as the company sells music, movies, audiobooks, and other media. If Amazon made an iTouch-like product, it could sell all these formats to device owners.

Here are some articles with news about Kindles:

Deahl, Rachael. "The E-Book Price Conundrum," Publishers Weekly, May 11, 2009, p. 4.

Rich, Motoko. "Preparing to Sell E-Books, Google Takes on Amazon." New York Times, June 1, 2009. p. 1.

Milliot, Jim. "Cracks in Amazon's E-book Empire." Publishers Weekly, July 27, 2009. p. 3.

Baker, Nicholas. "A New Page: Can the Kindle Really Improve on the Book?" New Yorker, August 3, 2009.

Arends, Brett. "Kindle in Danger of Becoming Betamax." www.sharebuilder.com August 10, 2009.

"Sony Plans a Kindle Rival with Wireless Downloads." Associated Press, August 25, 2009.

"Sony Wireless E-Book Reader Proves Kindle Was on Target." www.pcworld.com. august 25, 2009.

The Painter's Chair: George Washington and the Making of American Art by Hugh Howard

What did Charles Willson Peale, his son Rembrandt Peale, John Trumball, Edward Savage, and Gilbert Stuart have in common, besides being portrait painters in revolutionary America and the early years of the republic? Much it turns out. They were inspired by John Smibert's picture room above his art supply shop in Boston, which was our country's first art museum. Everyone of them learned to stretch and prepare canvases, tend to brushes, and mix paints. All experienced lean times, and some landed in debtor's prison. They all sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and studied with American master Benjamin West in London. Most interestingly, according to Hugh Howard in The Painter's Chair: George Washington and the Making of American Art, they all painted portraits and history scenes including the man who was our country's top general and first president.

George Washington did not enjoy sitting still for portraits, but he was a patient man with a desire to please friends and family. Having portraits of Washington especially meant a lot to his wife Martha. His colleagues commissioned many of the painting for showing in their homes or in the halls of government, often giving a copy to Mrs. Washington. The painters also kept copies from which they made more copies and engraved prints to sell. Having a painting of the new country's leading citizen with your signature was a guaranteed ticket to fame, though wealth was not assured. Gilbert Stuart was especially poor at saving money and delivering his commissioned art.

While reading Howard's insightful profiles, I started dreaming of an East Coast tour, visiting Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The artists who painted Washington established the first school of American art, which can still be seen in old houses, museums, and government buildings, mostly in the states that were the original British colonies. Using quotes from their diaries, letters, and other documents, Howard intimately recounts the days when Washington sat or stood still for them, grateful for any banter to break the tedium. Many returned to the White House or Mount Vernon to paint their subject, the best known man in America, again and again, and being gracious, Washington agreed. Color inserts show most of the paintings discussed in this entertaining, quick reading group biography. I would like to see the originals.

Howard, Hugh. The Painter's Chair: George Washington and the Making of American Art. Bloomsbury Press, 2009. ISBN 9781596912441

A Life in Comedy by Garrison Keillor

Lake Wobegon is only mentioned in A Life in Comedy by Garrison Keillor, an audiobook which is mostly drawn from sources other than A Prairie Home Companion. No Bunsens, Inqvists, or Krebsbachs. These stories and comments from the man from Minnesota instead come from a solo performance at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 2003. For his night at Yale, he drew from his commencement addresses, magazine articles, and books, especially The Book of Guys. As he jokes at the beginning of "The Midlife Crisis of Dionysus," he is trying to show some range, prove that he knows about life outside the Midwest. So he talks about living in Denmark, the misfortunes of Greek gods, and visiting the Grand Canyon. Ironically, he often ends up back in Minnesota in his stories.

As you can guess from the title, the reason to listen to Keillor is mostly to laugh. He elicits some laughs with silly details, such as old geezers playing golf at Plaid Pants Village, but most come from the funny twists in stories about everyday lives of almost common people. Every character has some oddities that are both endearing and difficult to maintain. I especially like the final story "Joe" about a religious sculptor who does not want a eulogy at his funeral. Keillor gives him one anyway with the story, telling how the shy man took his family to a miserable circus and later fed an elephant peanuts from their car.

I also really like his three run-on sentences called "Jack Jack Kerouac," which acknowledges a guy's desire to be free of the trappings of a house full of stuff.

I suspect most of these pieces were read, but Keillor makes you think that he is just talking with you. If you have a two and a half hour drive ahead of you, A Life in Comedy would be a good companion.

Keillor, Garrison. A Life in Comedy. HighBridge Audio, 2003. ISBN 1565116968

The Suspicious Case of the Email Attachments That Would Not Attach

We had our own little mystery at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library. Many investigators tried their hands at sleuthing before it was solved.

On a Friday a few weeks ago, several of our computer users reported that they could not attach email attachments. Word and WordPerfect documents would not attach to Yahoo mail or to Gmail. Photos could not be attached to Hotmail or uploaded to Flickr. Small PDFs attached but larger ones would not. Staff members who listened to our clients also reported attachment problems. Because major Internet services had recently been interrupted for various reasons, we suspected that the problem was out on the web and decided to just watch the situation. We posted a sign about the problem beside the computer sign-up sheet to alert our clients.

By the next Tuesday, however, the in-building reports escalated, though no pattern had emerged. Some staff reported that they could not attach any files in any email service, while others said they were having no problems. We called nearby libraries to see if they were also having problems, but they were not. We then suspected that we had an internal problem and called the consultants who manage our firewall. The tech guys checked the firewall and also called the Illinois Century Network, our Internet provider. No problems were found. Several techs suggested that our computers might have a widespread virus or other incompatibilities. This was the first time we heard "I've never seen a problem like this." It would not be the last.

With help from Versatile Computer Services, we began checking many of our computers for malware. A few days into our search, nothing had been discovered. The computers seemed clean. The situation, however, had changed. For two days, we could not attach any file to any email service from any computer in the building, except for Sandy's computer, which had no problems. We then discovered Sandy was using Thunderbird, composing her mail off the web and then sending. We tried Microsoft Outlook, which also worked. We had a workaround for staff, but the public computers were still in trouble.

As the search for malware continued, the pattern changed again. JPG, GIF, PDF, TXT, and many other files would now attach, but nothing from Microsoft Office would attach. We brought in wireless laptops. They attached emails easily at other wireless locations but not inside our library. The firewall again became the suspect. It was monitored, updated, and tested, but no problem was found. Then the pattern shifted again, and file attachment failure became nearly universal. "I've never seen a problem like this. It doesn't make sense," we heard from a tech professional for the third or fourth time.

A Versatile consultant then noticed that the dysfunction began before the feed came into the building, so the Internet provider became the suspect again. A tech from the Illinois Century Network assured us that our feed was not filtered or corrupted in any way. Our IP addresses were even changed temporarily to see if that would have an effect, but the problems persisted.

Just when there seemed to be no answer, the Illinois Century Network tech noticed that we had "a dirty T-1 line." When I asked what that was, I learned that it meant there was "noise or interference" (lay terms, no doubt) on the T-1 signal. AT&T was asked to clean the line. The company did, and all our problems went away.

As I look back on the period, I am astounded how tolerant and sympathetic our clients and staff were. We kept them informed about our efforts and arranged for some to visit nearby libraries. Several who asked how the troubleshooting was going offered their own theories. I listened, and later they listened with appreciation as I told them our service was restored. We all like a good mystery solved.

Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman Who Defied Hitler by Frank McDonough

Just a nudge, a little thoughtless push, and a stack of leaflets floated down from a balcony over a university lecture hall entryway. In an unguarded moment, twenty-one year old Sophie Scholl sealed her fate. She and her brother Hans would be captured for distributing their leaflets calling for the German people to protest against Hitler and the Nazis. Within days, she, her brother, and another member of the White Rose fellowship would be tried and executed as a message to all who contemplated resistance to Nazi rule.

Few Americans know of Sophie Scholl, but according to Frank McDonough in Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman Who Defied Hitler, Scholl was chosen in a recent poll as the most admired German woman of the twentieth century. Schools and streets throughout the country are named for the young woman who was at the heart of the small group of students with courage to speak up against absolute rule of the Nazis and protest the killing of Jews, communists, and handicapped people. In Germany, there have been many biographies of Scholl, but McDonough contends that most repeat undocumented stories that depict Scholl and her brother as saintly, which he says they were not. While the sister and brother were idealistic children of a philosophical father and devoutly religious mother, they had to overcome fears and set aside their pleasures to take up clandestine actions against the Nazis. They even disagreed whether a campaign of graffiti helped their cause.

Scholl and the members of the White Rose were not without mixed feelings. Several members had been in the German Army before attending the University in Munich. Sophie's boyfriend was on the Russian Front. How to support the troops while protesting the war was a delicate issue that arose each time they edited another leaflet.

McDonough is a history reader at Liverpool John Moores University specializing in Anglo-German relations. In Sophie Scholl, he sets out to discover the real woman, who was energetic, idealistic, a bit naive, always a bit of a tomboy. In doing so, he points out that she should be a hero to women's rights groups as much as for her protests of war, for she endured many hardships to get accepted at the university in Munich. Nazi policy makers were working to remove all women from higher education and might have succeeded if the war and extermination of non-Aryans had not taken precedence.

Sophie Scholl is a quick reading biography that gives readers a street level view of Germany during World War II. It is a British publication but it is available in the U.S. and Canada.

McDonough, Frank. Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman Who Defied Hitler. History Press, 2009. ISBN 9780752446752.

Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places by Bill Streever

How cold can it get? When is cold dangerous? How do plants and animals survive extreme conditions? What do glaciers and rock formations tell us about our past and future? Biologist Bill Streever of the North Slope Science Initiative spends much of his time with these and other cold climate questions in his new book Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places.

In Cold, Streever reports a year's worth of his observations, mostly made from Alaska. He starts his weather diary in July in Prudhoe Bay at the height of Arctic summer, seeing how long he can stand in thirty-five degree water in just his swimsuit before hypothermia forces him back onto shore. While he chills, he remembers many ill-fated Arctic expeditions and deadly winter storms that struck the lower forty-eight states, telling how people and animals fared when the cold set in. He comes back to why people live and die throughout the book, and in the process, he describes the places he visits, many very cold but starkly beautiful.

I was surprised to learn that Alaskans pour ice roads in the winter, using water drained from ice-covered lakes. As long as it is very cold, the roads survive truck traffic, but they disintegrate quickly come spring.

In the chapter "March," Streever tells us "Cotton kills" because it hold in seven times more water than wool. Other fabrics, mostly synthetics, are even better at capturing pockets of air and repelling moisture to keep people warm in extreme conditions. He also describes hypothermia warning signs as the "umbles." You are trouble when you mumble, fumble, grumble, stumble, and tumble.

Cold is an entertaining mixture of microhistory of weather, natural history of Arctic places, and survival guide with lighthearted doses of memoir thrown in. It s a quick read that many popular science fans will enjoy.

Streever, Bill. Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places. Little, Brown & Company, 2009. ISBN 9780316042918

Blog with Integrity

Following the lead of other bloggers whom I respect, I have signed the Blog with Integrity pledge, promising to behave ethically and respectfully. What this implies is that I will strive to review books, media, or other products fairly, taking no payments or gifts for anything I say. If I know and like an author, which will happen when reviewing library science titles, I will reveal this. I will keep all conversations polite and constructive. I will identify sources when quoting. I will credit to others for their ideas.

One of the tenets of the pledge is that I be willing to criticize as well as praise. With that I agree, but you may notice most of my reviews are positive. I mostly read books that I feel sure to like.

Anyone wants to know more can click on this link.

Brookfield Zoo and the Chicago Zoological Society by Douglas Deuchler and Carla W. Owens

The Brookfield Zoo is one of my favorite places. When my daughter was little and we lived in Brookfield, Illinois, we were there at least once a week year round. It's like my backyard, and I have come to know a lot about the place since my first visit in 1982. So I was eager to see Brookfield Zoo and the Chicago Zoological Society by Douglas Deuchler and Carla W. Owens.

Like all Image of America series books from Arcadia Publishing, Brookfield Zoo and the Chicago Zoological Society is a 128-page paperback filled with annotated black-and-white photographs. These photographs drawn from the zoo archives and other sources are sequenced chronologically to tell about the building of the zoo, its maturation, and its rise as a leader in world conservation. Particular emphasis is given to its buildings, notable animals, special events, and zoo-goers experiences.

I both enjoyed seeing the familiar and unfamiliar in the photos. I remember the old dolphinarium, Olga the Walrus, the narrow-gauge railroad, the old Giraffe House where the okapis lived, the old Motor Safari vehicles with their animal-skin paint jobs, and Mold-A-Rama figurines. Most of these are gone and some have been replaced with something better, but the memories are still fond.

I also learned many things about the zoos past:

• In the 1930s, you could rent a wheeled chair (a chair on a sort of dolly) for 50 cents an hour and an attendant to push it for an additional 25 cents.
• The zoo encouraged feeding bears marshmallows until the late 1950s.
• The Aquatic Bird House originally had a bright Art Deco interior.
• The mote around Baboon Island was drained in 1948 after a ten-year old boy climbed over the guard rail and fell in.
• It took eleven zoo employees to carry a giant anaconda, the world's heaviest snake.
• Roosevelt Fountain was not constructed until 1954, decades after it was planned.

As with all Image of America books, I am left with unanswered questions, such as where were the pandas kept. 128 pages is not enough for 75 years of zoo history. I am glad that we also have Let the Lions Roar: The Evolution of the Brookfield Zoo by Andrea Ross, which goes into more detail. Brookfield Zoo and the Chicago Zoological Society by Douglas Deuchler and Carla W. Owens is a good supplement and update to the longer book. Both make me want to go back to the zoo tomorrow.

Deuchler, Douglas and Owens, Carla W. Brookfield Zoo and the Chicago Zoological Society. Arcadia Publishing, 2009. ISBN 9780738560922