Kilimanjaro: A Photographic Journey to the Roof of Africa by Michael Moushabeck

Twice we have been to Tanzania. Both times we drove for hours around Mount Kilimanjaro without seeing more than the lower slopes because clouds hid the summit. I still desire seeing it rising up from the African plain. Kilimanjaro: A Photographic Journey to the Roof of Africa by Michael Moushabeck with photographs by Hiltrud Schulz increases my longing.

Actually climbing to the summit would make sure I saw it. Moushabeck tells how they made their way to the top, a feat that is not beyond imagining. No special gear is needed on several of the trails up. You just walk and walk and walk. The difficulty is the cold and altitude sickness. It took Moushabeck and his wife Schulz six days of hiking with a guide, companions, and porters to position themselves for the final ascent. Then starting just before midnight they made their dash to the top (actually going slowly to adjust to altitude), arriving at sunrise. Then they descended by a route that got them off the mountain in two days.

The views from the top of Africa are not the only reason to go. Schulz's vivid pictures show many unusual plants that I would like see. She also photographed black colobus monkeys, the main animal that we missed on our two trips. Just looking at this photo-filled book makes me want to book a flight to Kilimanjaro International Airport outside Arusha. Adventure beckons.

Moushabeck, Michael. Kilimanjaro: A Photographic Journey to the Roof of Africa. Interlink Books, 2009. ISBN 9781566567817.

Marketing as Conversation: How to Interact with Your Community Through Your Website

What I liked best about this meeting at the Public Library Association Conference in Portland was seeing Gina Millsap with whom I worked at Daniel Boone Regional Library in Columbia, Missouri years ago. The program was good, too!

The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library is a leader among libraries in innovative adoption of social networking tools to advance its mission. TSCPL has ten people working for "the digital branch," which includes its website and social websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. The Lester Public Library in Two Rivers, Wisconsin is a small library in town on Lake Michigan north of Milwaukee. All of the library's social networking and web development falls on the library director. The difference in size between the two libraries is vast, but both are creating digital identities and connecting with their communities.

Jeff Dawson is the Director of the Lester Public Library in Two Rivers. (He said there are two other libraries by the same name in other parts of the state.) He said that he had never even had a computer of his own before he became the director about three years ago. Knowing he needed to do something easy to get his library into social networking, he got a camera and an account on the photography website Flickr. He began posting pictures with some library information and then broadened his efforts posting pictures about sites and events in his community. Soon people began to say that he covered the community better than the local newspapers. He then started a blog to serve as the library website; he write posts there but usually posts photos from Flickr that feed automatically onto the blog. He has now also set up Facebook and Twitter accounts; again most of the content comes via Flickr. Dawson said that he takes fifteen minutes each day as he arrives at work to load a new picture on Flickr, which then goes to the other three websites. The result has been that the visibility of the library is up as is its use, and Dawson has become a recognized person in a community that strongly values being native-born.

David Lee King is a well-known figure in the online library community. As Digital Services Manager at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, he leads a team that builds an elaborate website, manages the library use of social networking tools, and even produces podcasts and YouTube videos for user education and promotion of the library. Even with a large staff, King repeats that reusing content and feeding it to different websites is important. One of his department's jobs is constant watching for and responding to comments from the community harvested from the library's blogs and all of its social networking sites. King showed examples that resulted in the purchasing of library materials, answering of informational queries, solving service problems, and improving library services.

Gina Millsap, the director of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, spoke about how important her library's digital efforts have been. She said that her library has mastered the art of conversation, increasing community involvement and the demand for library services. Though not a primary mission, getting community involvement has led to political strength when the library has been threatened with reduced funding. When asked how a library gets reluctant staff to participate in providing digital services, Millsap said that she wouldn't let staff refuse to use the telephone; digital services are now basic and everybody's duty. "Serving our patrons wherever they might be is not optional."

The slides for the presentation may be found at http://www.slideshare.net/davidleeking.

Sweet Mandarin by Helen Tse

I think that Americans often forget that ours is not the only country that has drawn immigrants from all over the world. That's my explanation for being so surprised that Sweet Mandarin by Helen Tse is set in China and Great Britain - not in the U.S. As soon as I heard the audiobook reader with the British accent, I knew my misreading of the promo tag "Journey from East to West." Great Britain is West to Asians. It also has some of the same problems with discrimination as the U.S. That's a topic that certainly comes up in Sweet Mandarin in the second half of the book.

Sweet Mandarin is Tse's family memoir, telling the long story of how she and her two sisters opened a Chinese restaurant in Manchester in 2005. The long story starts with her great grandfather who developed his own recipe for soy sauce which he produced in his Chinese village but marketed to the restaurants in Hong Kong, a rapidly growing city in the early twentieth century. The success of a peasant upset established soy sauce makers who had the upstart murdered. Because Chinese law of the time did not allow women to inherit property, his business and home were given to relatives, and his wife and children were left penniless. His daughter Lily, Tse's grandmother, became a domestic in the British enclave in Hong Kong. Her ambition combined with her love of cooking and good fortune of working for a rare British family actually concerned for their employees eventually gets her to England.

Because people of the greater British Empire were legally welcomed in England, Lily was able to stay and open her own Chinese restaurant once her job with her English family ended. Her 1950s shop was a bit of a novelty at the time and was mostly supported by the locals who enjoyed a tasty and inexpensive meal. She had some trouble with hooligans wrecking her shop, but she always just cleaned up and started again. She taught the business to her children, who in turn taught Tse's generation.

Tse tells her story with humor and warmth, sometimes expressing her regret for ever being the typical teen ashamed of her parents for not being everyday Brits. In a period of economic hardships, Sweet Mandarin is a very encouraging read. It should be in more libraries.

Tse, Helen. Sweet Mandarin. BBC Audiobooks America, 2008. ISBN 9780792757634.

Sarah Vowell at PLA

Going into yesterday's final presentation at the Public Library Association Conference, I thought author Sarah Vowell was an inspired choice for closing speaker. I have enjoyed listening to the audiobooks The Partly Cloudy Patriot and The Wordy Shipmates, which are masterfully read by Vowell herself, and I anticipated a stirring presentation. What transpired was a bit more complicated. Neither Vowell nor the audience ever really seemed at ease. The librarians in attendance mostly wanted to be entertained, and Vowell was more serious than anticipated.

One of the services for which we as librarians pride ourselves is getting the right book into the hands of the right reader. Throughout the conference there has been an effort to broaden this message to media and electronic services. We try to get the right DVD or website or database to our clients. Perhaps we should go (and do go) even further in getting the right speaker or performer for our communities that attend programs. Sometimes our choices are not embraced, but the library clients return for us to try again. Advisory service is always a negotiation.

Another idea that I sometimes hear at meetings is the wish to get clients to read or view something outside of their "comfort zone." This is librarianship as advocacy, an idea that is not always accepted. How far do we go with advisory services? Do we have the mission of expanding minds? I think that we do, if done respectfully and allowing the reception may be slow in being appreciated or may never be appreciated.

Here is where I return to thinking about Vowell as a keynote speaker - maybe both inspired choice and an awkward first date. Vowell had a more serious message than a tired group of librarians expected. They learned a lot more history than they anticipated. They may have laughed less than they wanted. They were also exposed to the idea (which I like to think librarians know anyway) of looking at both sides of issues.

When you examine Vowell's writing, it is somewhat confessional. Right off the bat she began telling of her research into the history of Hawaii, the topic of her next book. She began the work anticipating her sympathies to be for the Hawaiian queen deposed by the sinister actions the intruding whites, but the more she read the more she realized that the queen herself stood for ideals Vowell disavows. The study of history is messy business, and it challenges our values. This theme of being torn in her sympathies ran through and underneath her program and came to top again in the questions at the end. The last question was how she felt about the way textbooks are chosen in Texas. Her answer was not a condemnation of the right wing advocates who have such a hold over the textbook selection process. She agreed with them that religion should be a topic in textbooks, but she disagreed how it should be there. She felt both right and left wing pressure groups mess up education in most states. The irony is that it is these people trying to fence in history who make Vowell's unorthodox writing so appealing and refreshing.

Vowell spent much of the program reading from her books, which I enjoyed. She seemed a little confused or perhaps even annoyed at some of the laughs. She also seemed rather small in a huge cavern of a hall. I think I would rather hear her again in a warmer setting. I hope it wasn't our only date.

Thrilling Tales and Selected Shorts: An Adult Story Time for Your Library

Are you ever too old for storytime at the library? David Wright of Seattle Public Library thinks not. When his library moved into its new building in 2004, he found that he had a small theater at his disposal, so he started a storytime series for grown-ups. He told the Public Library Association Conference about reading stories to the older set at his program Thrilling Tales and Selected Shorts: An Adult Story Time for Your Library.

David foresaw that a storytime for adults would go well in his location, a busy city library. Having a noon-time program twice a month would provide an entertaining activity for local workers and tourists, practically a captive audience. He also figured that the popularity of audiobooks could carry over to live events if well presented. He further believed in the importance of story, saying that telling our stories is one of the actions that defines us as human. He knew he had nothing to lose, and he is still publicly reading aloud six years later.

Knowing that not all libraries can draw noon-time audiences, David had other ideas that libraries can try at other times, including the following:

• Short story discussion groups
• Reading aloud while knitting programs
• Short stories and movie adaptations
• Stories that go along with one book/one city programs
• Stories that help celebrate historical anniversaries
• Stories for outreach to seniors, patients, etc.

David discussed his experiences and provided a variety of "take away" advice.

Always use a microphone. You will be heard better, preserve your voice, and be able to range from whispers to raised voices.

Read at least two stories. The first should be really short, 5 to 10 minutes. It gets the audience used to listening before starting the main story.

Promote as entertainment rather than literature or culture. Then choose very entertaining stories, modeling the program on the methods of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Twilight Zone. Start with sure bets, such thrilling stories by Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, or Patricia Highsmith.

Use different voices for characters. Turn slightly for changing character.

Practice, practice, practice. Practice aloud to learn what are the hardest words and phrases. Mark up a script to help with voices and emphasis.

Keep water handy. Plan pauses.

Have a clock handy. Don't rush.

Plan ahead so that the program can be well marketed and the reader has plenty of time to practice.

I Have These Statistics - Now What: Getting Started on the Path of Collection Analysis by Kathryn King

If I understand her correctly, Kathryn King, the Adult Materials Selector of the Ft. Worth Public Library, deals with collections instead of books in her library. By that, I mean she analyzes collections first and sets goals for purchasing and weeding before contemplating individual books. Those goals are pretty specific, too. Instead of getting rid of a certain number of books in a Dewey area or genre area when weeding, she wants to get a certain number of a certain age range out so that (1) she is left with certain ratios of age to collection and (2) to balance annual relative use (RU = percentage of circulation divided by percentage of collection). Weeding may not be sufficient, so she will then have to add a certain number of new materials to get the age ratios right and balance the relative use of highly used collections. To extend the horticultural metaphor past "weeding," King is a "landscaper" instead of a "gardener."

At the Public Library Association Conference in Portland, King told about her customer-oriented work in the Thursday afternoon session I Have These Statistics - Now What: Getting Started on the Path of Collection Analysis. She began by defining several measures of the collection, all based on statistics drawn from the database of the circulation system. The great detail about very narrow segments was impressive. It all worked toward measuring relative use.

Here is how King sees relative use:

RU = 1 (The collection is meeting the demand.)

RU > 1 (The collection needs expansion.)

RU < 1 (The collection needs weeding.)

King reported that the Texas State Library recommends that 25 percent of a library collection needs to be materials published in the last five years. She thinks that is not good enough overall and particularly bad in specific critical areas, such as health, finance, travel, and decorating, where at least 70 percent should be from the past five years. With these Dewey subject areas, it is the content that is most in need of being current. Even in less critical areas, most of the items should be from the last ten or maybe twenty years. With these areas, the driving concern is style more than content. Libraries want to have books that look contemporary. In other words, nice jackets and color photos instead of old library bindings and 1950s illustrations.

One King statement really challenges the way many of us buy books. She said that to meet demand in high use Dewey areas, buying multiple copies of the best books serves better than buying single copies of many titles. When there are single copies, some readers will take them all, leaving none for the next reader. Multiple copies leaves items for second and third readers. Customers are better satisfied and circulation rises.

Another statement for us to mull over is that it is unfair to apply less stringent weeding criteria to less critical areas. If a selector says that every book in one area had to circulate within the year and in another area let books that sat for two or three years stay, that selector will actually be withdrawing better circulating books and reducing the overall collection relative use.

Ft. Worth puts copyright dates on all spine labels. Readers like knowing the dates and weeding is easier.

King said that weeding needs to be done even in years of reduced funding for purchasing new materials. The relative use needs to be kept in balance. Not weeding now makes more work later. In her opinion, it is better to have no books than bad books.

Collecting these statistics should be relatively easy if library selectors have a good integrated library system. King emphasized that collection analysis should be done to better serve the public and to have hard data when arguing for continuing financial support.

Portland Art Museum

I have many notes from the Public Library Association Conference to write up, but I want to stop for a moment to post about art.

For someone familiar with the Art Institute of Chicago or the National Gallery, the Portland Art Museum is a small place. But it is worth seeing if you are visiting Portland, Oregon. I saw it nearly ten years ago and have been longing to get back. I returned Thursday evening after attending library programs all day to find it was what I remembered and more.

The most obvious change is the addition of a wing filled with modern and contemporary art. Though not on the Nationally Gallery scale, it is not really a small museum any more. The other change was that the older building had been refreshed with repairs and slight remodeling. It seems a brighter place - maybe better lighting helped.

I started my tour as I often do with ancient art and moved into early Christian art and from there into European art. PAM has good quality works, though nothing in these rooms that I remember seeing in art books. I really liked two paintings by French painter Gustave Courbet and "Nature's Fan" by another Frenchman, William-Adolphe Bouguereau. The latter painting is so realistic that I had to examine it closely to make sure it wasn't a photograph.

The American art collection starts with an excellent painting of George Washington by Rembrandt Peale and two portraits of late eighteenth century Americans by Gilburt Stuart, who is well known for his Washington portraits seen in other museums. The most famous painting in the American collection might be "Mt. Hood" by Albert Bierstadt. The painter exaggerated the size of the mountain as seen from the north bank of the Columbia River; he also turned the mountain about ninety degrees, showing the face seen in Portland. Also in the room is an expressionist Mt. Hood painted by Childe Hassam, which I recommend seeing.

There are three rooms in the Asian collection that I remember well, presenting arts of Korea, Japan, and China. The large painted screens are lovely. It would be nice if there were soft cushions on the floor so visitors could settle in these rooms.

I wonder what Sister Wendy would say about "Nha Trang, Vietnam 2004," a huge color photograph by Andreas Gursky. It must be twelve feet high and eight feet wide. Maybe a little smaller than that, but still very big. From an elevated position, Gursky shows us hundreds of young Vietnamese women wearing orange shirts caning chairs in a crowded factory. The conditions do not look terrible but I wonder how much the women are paid. I wonder if PLA's opening keynote speaker Nick Kristof, coauthor of Half the Sky, knows about these women.

In the new wing, my favorite painting is "Found," a contemporary piece showing nine large bands of color that twist so that they looks to me like books stacked. I think the painting would make a great library logo.

I spent an hour and fifteen minutes in the Portland Art Museum. If I had not had another commitment, I could have stayed longer, but I saw everything without rushing. I hope to return in the future to see even more art.

You Say You Want a Revolution

When the Adams County (Colorado) Public Library spun off from the county in 2005, it owned seven crumbling building, had sadly out-of-date collections, had little funding, and foresaw the prospect of closure or partial closure. In 2006, speculating that the library would close if it did not get a tax increase, the library's third referendum attempt passed. The board of trustees hired a new director with the assignment to reinvent the library. As new director, Pam Sandlian Smith said that she knew that the library had one chance to become a vital part of the community. "We had to get it right," she said.

PLA's Thursday morning presentation You Say You Want a Revolution told the inspiring story of a down but not quite dead library reviving. New funds helped but were not the most important element, Smith insisted. New leadership, teamwork, rebranding, and radical institutional change were needed and realized. The library was renamed The Rangeview Library District. New logos were designed. Most importantly the library became a user-centric, experience emphasizing service. In designing a new main library, spaces for people were designed before spaces for materials. Dewey numbers on spine labels were replaced with natural language subject labels, which the library marketed as "Wordthink." Fines were eliminated. Big desks were eliminated. Library programming emphasized interactive programs. The story seems right out of a made-for-television movie, but it really happened, if the five people on stage and the visual evidence is to be believed.

I'm not sure the program really communicated how much work the library revitalization must have been. The presenters told about all of the committees formed with staff, trustees, and community volunteers, which must have involved countless hours. Changing all of the spine labels and related data entry must have taken many months of work. Everyone on the staff had to learn new jobs with new titles, such as "wranglers" and "guides." The presenters went quickly past the topic of work to get to "the fun stuff." They even threw out T-shirts just like between innings at a minor league baseball team.

The marketing firm Richocet Ideas influenced much of the redesign, helping the library design a campaign to appeal to client aspirations, selling experiences. The firm even helped create new imaginative language, such as "flufferovin" (the job of tidying displays to make them more attractive) and "Yellow Geckos" (staff who do something that I did not quite catch) and "Anythink" (the message that anything can be done better at the library). The work seems to have become more fun. The happy staff seems to have infected the clients who now come to the library more frequently.

The underlying message is that disrupting the library's long-lived conventions may enliven a library bold enough to embrace change aimed at pleasing clients. The hardest part may be believing that it can be done. With their backs against the walls, the Rangeview staff embraced the change. Over two dozen of them came to PLA to help spread the word, which is itself impressive.

Talking with Friends

Wednesday was a good day for conversations at the PLA Conference. I enjoyed the day of meeting new friends and reconnecting with old. I am not going to quote from any of them, for I did not advise anyone that I might blog their words, but I would like to show how far the conversations ranged. Many questions were asked, of which these are just a few:

• How did you become a librarian?
• How many of your staff work on your website?
• How long does it take to write a book?
• Can you get the free wifi to work?
• Will the corporations that own electronic content continue to license any of it for libraries to distribute?
• Who came from your library?
• What do you want to eat?
• What do we do if the state fails to fund library systems in Illinois?
• Which publishers are giving away advanced reading copies of upcoming books?
• What are the prospects for subscription services when so much of the web is free?
• How many nights in a row can you go to Powell's Book Store?
• Is there software for indexing?
• Are we paying too much for our ILS?
• Will you be my Facebook friend?
• What programs will you attend tomorrow?

The first question may be my favorite. The last is what I need to deal with now.

Readers' Advisory 2.0: The Next Dimension

"Readers advisory is not ready reference." Barry Trott, Portland, Oregon, 2010

I don't know if Barry Trott of the Williamsburg (Va.) Regional Library has said this before, and I don't know if he borrowed it from someone else. He said it almost as an aside part way through his half of Tuesday's presentation Readers' Advisory 2.0: The Next Dimension. Still, it sticks with me. I think it explains the whole need for the service. Readers' advisory is work - worthwhile work - and librarians are only going to be successful if they practice and prepare. He and Jane Jorgenson of the Madison (Wis.) Public Library, both managers of online library RA services, addressed how librarians can adapt the tools of Web 2.0 to provide "proactive and reactive" readers' services. "Proactive and reactive" are Jorgenson's terms for taking readers' services to readers (via reviews, lists, displays) as well as dealing with readers' individual requests for books and media.

The Williamsburg and Madison models have similarities. Both have staff from many departments writing reviews that are posted on WordPress-based blogs. They each gather these articles in advance to assure there is a steady stream of content on their sites. Both have personalized readers' services based on surveying a reader for her interests and producing an individual annotated titles list. The two libraries are also connecting these efforts to their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Barry likes the letter "F" while Jane like "C" to describe the elements of successful library RA blogs.

Barry's list:

• Focus - a review blog should not have extraneous posts
• Frequency - regular so readers will know there will be new content
• Fortitude - strength to keep to the focus and frequency
• Flavor - good writing with personality
• Flexibility - staff cover for each other, ability to review new formats, etc.

Jane's list:

• Content - thoughtful reviews for books and media
• Contributors - numerous reviewers allowed their own voice
• Commitment - reviews published on a recognized schedule
• Comments - listen to and share what readers have to say

Barry explained the Williamsburg Looking for a Good Book reading suggestion service. Individual readers may fill out a four-page questionnaire to identify readings tastes, and staff at his library then generate personalized annotated lists identifying ten suggested titles. The library averages about 100 of these each year, having done about 700 total so far. Various staff members prepare them, taking about one-week on average to complete the process. The library asks the clients for permission to retain the original questionnaires. The clients are urged to provide feedback, and there is a shortened form for a second requested list. The users of the service have been about 85 percent women, averaging about 36 years of age with a range of 8 to 88.

Barry knows this is a lot of work for both the client answering a long form and the library. He believes the process has brought his staff closer and taught them a lot about RA. He warns other libraries to do only as much as they can sustain. He recommends having librarians who write well without biases.

Barry spoke about what makes a good review for a library RA blog, such as Blogging for a Good Book. The reviewer should never gush, spoil the ending, or sound corporate (like a functionary of the library). Reviewers should tell what is appealing about the book, movie, or music while being personal, letting his or her individuality shine through. Jane lets her reviewers write negative reviews but only for bestselling, very popular items. Their primary mission is to promote and not expose faults with items, but a few negative reviews gives them some added credibility.

Jane told how Madison services have developed. First, they subscribed to BookLetters; not content to just let the vendor send out its monthly genre lists, Madison reworks each list and creates many more of its own. Second, the library started the MADReads blog, which is turning four years old in April. Third, Madison started a Book-alikes database to keep track of their annotations and use them in individual lists. Fourth, the library has taken the content to Facebook and Twitter. Fifth, the library is looking to produce podcasts and vodcasts (video podcasts that could be distributed through a YouTube channel).

Sadly, Jessamyn West was unable to present her portion of the program due to an unfortunate strike of lightning disabling the plane that was to fly her out of Vermont on Monday. Barry and Jane tried to address some of the issues that would have been Jessamyn's. Her presentation outline with links can be seen at www.librarian.net/talks/pla10/.

As the program ended, Jane spoke about "The Big Silence" that libraries may encounter after starting their RA blogs. She and Barry have stats and incidental evidence that once well promoted, the reviews are read. Comments are slow coming mostly because the review readers have not read the books or seen the movies yet and have nothing to say. RA blogs may never get many comments. Future research could be done to see if titles reviewed show signs of increased circulation.

Mount St. Helens Looks on Portland

Mount St. Helens
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

The skies cleared in Portland today. After attending a morning preconference (report coming), I enjoyed Indian cuisine and then a hike in Forest Park with webmaster/librarian/friend Aaron Schmidt, who is lucky enough to live right in Portland. (You make your own luck.) From the trail we got this view of Mount St. Helens. When I got back to the hotel, I discovered that I can now see both Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood from my room. Aaron, being a typical librarian, has been the top of both. Incredible.

At the Oregon Zoo

Lions Aroused
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

Hi. I am in Portland, Oregon for the Public Library Association Conference. I begin with a pre-conference tomorrow, but today I played by going to the Oregon Zoo. After four hours on a plane, it was good to stretch my legs and get fresh air. There is plenty of fresh air at the zoo high in the hills in Washington Park west of downtown Portland. I was surprised to discover that I had to take an elevator up 250 feet from the Met transit stop to get to the zoo.

The zoo excels at birds, especially water fowl. It also has a northwestern exhibit with elk, wolves, bears, etc. The bears were off today and everyone else was sleeping, but you have to expect that at zoos sometimes. These lionesses were awake. I wonder if the little kids to my left looked like prey.

The zoo restaurant has several nice alternatives to hot dogs and other fast food. I had delicious teriyaki beef with a fresh vegetable slaw over brown rice. When I asked about deserts, the cashier recommended the elephant ears from a snack station in the park. When I found the station, there was a very long line. I'll just assume the elephant ears delicious, too.

Click the lioness picture to find more zoo pictures.

ricklibrarian Personal Cliche Report

I did not bingo in the game of Cliche Bingo.

In her post at the Book Examiner on March 11, Michelle Kerns identified twenty words or phrases that she believes book reviewers use too often, tiring book review readers with their lazy language. In a subsequent post on March 15, she modified the list slightly to make Bingo cards. Seeing the fun, I decided to play the game. I searched five years of this blog using the Blogger search box to see how often I had used these words and phrases. Taking the first Bingo card, I failed to score five in a row up, down, across, or on the diagonal. I did, however, have to place a few beans on the board. (I remember playing Bingo with dried pintos as a kid.)

Here is my report.

First line across:

• compelling - A whole pile of beans right at the start. I have used "compelling" eleven times just since January 1, 2009. One use was to say a book was "not compelling." Of course, I have read a lot of good books that I felt driven to read in that time. What word would you have used?
• tour de force - I have never used this French phrase. I pretty much stick to English.
• nuanced - I have never used this term in five years of blogging, but as I look at it I think it could be occasionally handy.
• pitch-perfect - Never used.
• gritty - I have used the word once in five years.

Second line across:

• beautifully written - Zero.
• thought-provoking - I used this phrase in my very first post in 2005 and in ten posts since. I am surprised I have not use it more, for many books make me think, but that is the purpose of a book. Maybe it is only news when a book does not make me think. Remind me not to say "thought provoking" again.
• x meets x - Zero again. The idea here is "boy meets girl" or "predator meets prey" or such. I do not know how to search this, but I am sure that I have never used this construction.
• readable - Pile the beans. Fifteen uses in five years. Not a very inspiring adjective.
  
• powerful - While I have used this term frequently, I defend most of those uses, which are applied to the description of plots or characters. "Powerful storms" and "powerful politicians" seem acceptable to me. Only five times in five years have I used "powerful" to describe the book or movie that I reviewed.

Third line across:

• lyrical - One use in five years.
• at once - Zero.
• cliche-free - Is this the free space in the card? I did search. I have never used the term.
• timely - Six times in five years.
• sweeping - One use.

Fourth line across:

• in the tradition of - One use in five years.
• haunting - Three uses, all of which were in music reviews.
• stunning - Eight times.
• unputdownable - Zero. I guess some reviewers are trying to avoid "compelling."
• unflinching - Never used but maybe I could.

Fifth line across:

• rollicking - Never used the word.
• riveting - Six times in five years. All six are in the last two years. Am I letting my writing slide? I see that I used "stunning" and "riveting" in one of last year's reviews. Shocking.
• epic - Most of the uses of "epic" were actually in the titles of books. The authors, not me, used the word. I did manage to use the word seven times on my own, twice in describing Tolkien books.
• that said - Once.
• fully realized - Never.

As you can see, the beans never made it across the board. If you want, you can plot the beans up and down and diagonally to see no five in a row. I did not score all four corners either. Of course, I am glad not winning this game. I do see a little space here for improvement - "readable" and "thought provoking" in particular. I am going to keep a Bingo card handy as a reminder and tool for better review writing.

Now Read This III by Nancy Pearl and Sarah Statz Cords

With many libraries spending less on new books due to budget cuts in 2010, it is time for many of us to rely on the books that we already have to satisfy the public urge to read. With fewer items on new book shelves, librarians and readers are going to have to retrieve more books from the stacks, the last place that many readers are ever seen. So, the timing of Now Read This III by our friends Nancy Pearl and Sarah Statz Cords is perfect. Their book which identifies mainstream fiction published between 2002 and 2009 (with a few exceptions), titles that many of us have in abundance, is a key to getting those books off the shelves and into readers' hands.

"Key" is a good word to use at this point because Pearl and Cords present four "doorways" to the finding of books to please readers. These are Setting, Story, Character, and Language. Each of the four chapters of this guidebook to fiction identifies novels or short story collections that have one of these primary appeal factors. With a total of over 500 titles described, the four chapters arranged alphabetically by author are lengthy. Just reading through the chapters will not be the primary way for finding books to read (though that is a good way to learn a lot about fiction). Instead, most users will find a book they already know through the author/title index and turn to its entry. There Pearl and Cords provide a quick book summary, a list of descriptors, and abundant suggestions for further reading. Looking at the "Now Try:" portion of each entry, readers will find other novels by the same author, fiction by other authors, and even nonfiction suggestions. After some entries are special "Now Consider Nonfiction ..." boxes with even further suggestions.

Because I most like novels or collections of short stories that take me to other times and places, Chapter 1: Setting is the portion of the book that most interests me. What separates these books from being categorized as "historical fiction" and sent instead to a genre guide in the Genereflecting Advisory Series is that these titles have proved to be popular with the general reading public. Many of the books are award winners and have been selections for book clubs. Cords says that these titles may, of course, be categorized differently by different guidebook authors; readers' advisory is process to find good reading, not a final categorization of books.

The many descriptors for the titles are arranged in the subject index. While some are traditional LC or Sears type heading, others are terms commonly used by librarians, such as "Gentle Reads" or "Quick Reads." Librarians with a slew of literature students with ethnic studies assignments may use terms like "Chinese Authors," "Mexico," or "Multicultural" to identify titles for these students. Book winning titles can be found in the subject index as well through web links identified in an appendix for awards and prizes.

Many librarians may be reluctant to buy a reference book right now with their dwindling funds, but Now Read This III can be seen as tool to make better use of established collections. Spring for it.

Pearl, Nancy and Sarah Statz Cords. Now Read This III. Libraries Unlimited, 2010. ISBN 9781591585701

The Readers' Advisory Issue of Public Libraries

I was excited to receive the January/February 2010 issue of Public Libraries several weeks ago for obvious reasons. My book Real Lives Revealed is positively reviewed on page 54 (of 56), right after a review of The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction, 2nd Edition by Joyce Saricks. I am grateful that Ronald Burdick of Cleveland Public Library mentioned my history of the genre of biography with timeline and my appendixes on award-winning biographies, top biographers, and biographies in series. Thank you.

The whole issue of Public Libraries devoted to readers' advisory is full of useful information and ideas. Turn to the very back. Starting on page 55, Vicki Nesting's describes online products to help librarians with readers' advisory. Vicki points out a number of subscription services and free resources to help innovative librarians select and promote books for their clients. Karen Kleckner and Rebecca Vnuk also identify many online resources in their piece on pages 15-18 of the Perspectives Section.

If you are new to booktalking or want to rethink what your library is doing, turn to page 42 for "Booktalk Boot Camp" by Chapple Langemack. She gives a detailed account of how to do it with many examples and suggestions. You'll want to try it yourself after reading her piece.

With a lot of our libraries suffering book budget woes, the absolutely core authors lists for mystery, fantasy, humor, horror, and womens fiction on pages 36-37 are timely. The intent for the lists is help for on the spot readers' advisory librarians who are not strong on all genres, but libraries with gaps in their collections may use them for getting some sure-to-please titles with their scarce dollars.

I personally enjoy reading classic fiction, so I was interested in Brad Hooper's article "Selling the Classics" on pages 26-33. One of his main points is to market them as good reading, not as lofty literature. I was please to see I had read eight of the ten books Brad describes. I should try Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson and The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel.

The whole issue is worth at least skimming. Thumbs up to the editors for this special issue.

Trillium at Friday at the Ford

Thomas Ford packed over 70 music lovers into our meeting room last Friday night, as the four-piece band Trillium performed for our Friday at the Ford concert series. As usual, the concert was presented by the Western Springs Library Friends, who also provided refreshments. It got a little warm in the room but it was a happy warm with many tapping feet.

Because it was almost St. Patrick's Day, the band featured a number of tunes of Irish origin, but they also played bluegrass, American folk, and jazz. Every piece sent us in an enjoyable new direction. The audience seemed to appreciate the virtuosity. The band seemed to really like the attentive audience. The applause was hearty and there was a fairly brisk sale of CDs after the concert.

Mim Eichmann (hammered dulcimer and vocals) said that the band enjoys playing at libraries and would like to get more jobs in the Chicago area. Biographies, sample music, and contact info can be found at their website.

Pictures in the Middle: The Use of Photos and Other Illustrations in Biographies

Throughout my career as a librarian, one activity that I have enjoyed is looking at picture in the middle of biographies and memoirs. They evoke in me a feeling similar to finding old pictures in a drawer in my mother's house. I can become transfixed. This can easily happen at the library when I find new books sitting on a cart right out of technical processing, when I am working on reference questions, or when I am weeding collections. I find myself gazing at the photos of the subjects in their youth, then doing whatever made them famous, and finally in old age. There is often more to see than just famous people - there are old clothes, old cars, and interesting locations. I am hooked by these glossy pages.

At a recent book discussion, one of the club members said that her favorite thing about biographies were the pictures in the middle. I understood, but I was suddenly conscious of all the biographies that I have examined in the past three years that did not have picture-in-the-middle sections. I wondered why I had not thought about the change - if there really has been a change.

So I decided to do a little investigating. I have been looking at many biographies published in 2009 anyway, so I created a spreadsheet to keep track of how these books deal with pictures. I used only third person biographies for the study, no memoirs. I discovered two common ways to use pictures in biographies: 1) group pictures into inserted sections, often on glossy paper, or 2) distribute the pictures throughout the text with no glossy paper. There are two other less common ways to use pictures: 3) insert a single picture on glossy paper with a blank back in a few strategic spots in a book (common a hundred years ago), or 4) fill the books with photos and minimal text. The fourth method really makes a different type of book, a photobiography.

Looking at 66 biographies from 2009, I found:

• 40 books (61 %) with inserted picture sections
• 20 books (30 %) with pictures spread throughout the text
• 2 books (3 %) with single inserted pages
• 2 books were photobiographies (3 %)
• 4 books had no illustrations (6 %)

This adds to more than 100 % because Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock by Henry Adams had both a color insert section and black-and-white photos distributed through the text, while Rehnquist by Herman J. Obermayer had both distributed photos as well a few single page/single photo inserts on glossy paper.

Seeing that more than half of the biographies still had picture sections in the middle, I wondered if I had really been right in thinking there were more in the past. I decided to go back twenty years and look at biographies from 1989.

At the Downers Grove Public Library in Illinois, I was able to find 46 biographies published in 1989:

• 36 book (79 %) had picture sections
• 6 books (13 %) had pictures spread through the text
• 1 book (2 %) had no photos
• 4 books were photobiographies (8 %)

Again, the total is greater than 100 % because Mozart: The Golden Years by H.C. Robbins Landon had both color illustrations in an inserted section as well as black and white illustrations throughout the text.

My sample size may not be large enough to be definitive, but it appears to me that there has been a shift in the way biographies include photos. The method that has gained popularity is incorporating pictures into the text, but separate picture sections are still found in more than half of today's biographies. It will be interesting to see if the trend continues with more emphasis on reducing printing costs. Glossy sections must cost more, and digital publishing makes it easier to insert photos into the text.

For now we should enjoy looking at six to twelve glossy photo-rich pages in the middle of the book while we can.

For those wanting to check my math, here are the books:

2009 Biographies

With Insert Sections

1. Aces High: The Heroic Saga of the Two Top-Scoring Aces of World War II
2. Ayn Rand and the World She Made
3. Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown
4. Barack and Michelle
5. Bowie
6. Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath
7. Cheever: A Life
8. Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
9. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
10. Eureka Man
11. Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schreiver and the Ultimate Weapon
12. First Tycoon
13. Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor
14. Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King
15. Heroes & Villains: Inside the Minds of the Greatest Warriors in History
16. How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood
17. Last Man Standing: The Ascent of James Dimon and JPMorgan Chase
18. Last of His Kind
19. LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay
20. Molly Ivins: A Rebel's Life
21. Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain
22. Neverland: J.M. Barrie, the Du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan
23. Paul McCartney: A Life
24. Pink Lady: The Many Lives of Helen Gahagan Douglas
25. Poe: A Life Cut Short
26. Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life
27. Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe
28. Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne
29. Strange Eventful History: Ellen Terry, Henry Irving…
30. Strangest Man
31. Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith
32. Trotsky: A Biography
33. Unmasked: Final Years of Michael Jackson
34. Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa
35. Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Franes Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience
36. Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth
37. Lady Queen: The Notorious Reign of Joanna I
38. Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster
39. Secret Life of Louis XIV
40. Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock

With Photos Spread Through Text

1. Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys
2. Bolter
3. Civil War Wives
4. Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time
5. Egg on Mao: The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced and Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship
6. Evelyn Brent: The Life and Films of Hollywood's Lady Crook
7. Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants
8. Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age
9. Jacques Cousteau
10. Joseph II
11. Love Pirate and the Bandit's Son
12. Most Evil: Avenger, Zodiac, and the Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hill Hodel
13. Mrs. Lincoln: A Life
14. Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong
15. Rehnquist
16. Sisters of the Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels
17. Scandals
18. U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth
19. Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington
20. Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America

Single Page Inserts

1. Beyond the Miracle Worker
2. Rehnquist

Photobiographies

1. Amelia Earhart: The Thrill of It
2. Great and Only Barnum

No Photos

1. Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife
2. Louisa May Alcott
3. The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals
4. Thoreau You Don't Know

1989 Biographies

With Insert Sections

1. Bad Intentions: The Mike Tyson Story
2. Bennie Goodman and the Swing Era
3. The Benny Hill Story
4. The Bridesmaids: Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, and Six Intimate Friends
5. Cary Grant: The Lonely Heart
6. Catherine the Great: Life and Legend
7. Dale Carnegie: The Man Who Influenced Millions
8. Dracula: Prince of Many Faces: His Life and Times
9. Dylan: A Biography
10. Fred Allen: His Life and Wit
11. George Bush: An Intimate Portrait
12. Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life
13. Grand Obsession: Madame Curie and Her World
14. He's a Rebel (about Phil Spector)
15. Hitler: The Path to Power
16. The Hustons
17. If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth
18. Iron Lady: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher
19. Knight of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson (not glossy paper)
20. The Landry Legend
21. Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography
22. Life and Death of Andy Warhol
23. Linus Pauling: A Man and His Science
24. Mary Pickford: America's Sweetheart
25. Misha: The Mikhail Baryshnikov Story
26. Mozart: The Golden Years
27. No Name on the Bullet: A Biography of Audie Murphy
28. The Princess and the Duchess
29. The Quest for El Cid
30. Royalty Revealed (about the Windsors)
31. The Secrets of Houdini
32. Sheens: Martin, Charlie, and Emilio Estevez
33. The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart
34. Stanny: The Gilded Life of Stanford White
35. Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier
36. W.C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes

With Photos Spread Through Text

1. The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright
2. Harold, the People's Mayor
3. Jane Addams
4. Louise Brooks
5. Luther: Man Between God and the Devil
6. Mozart: The Golden Years

Photobiographies

1. Andrew Lloyd Webber
2. Bruce Lee Story
3. Rasputan: Rascal Master
4. The Vanderbilts

No Photos

1. The Borgias

Heloise & Abelard: A New Biography by James Burge

"Indeed your words are few but I have made them many by rereading them." Abelard to Heloise

In medieval Paris for about two years around 1115 to 1116, the philosopher Peter Abelard and his student Heloise became impassioned lovers. Abelard even sweet-talked his way into residency in Heloise's uncle's compound to more easily continue the secret affair. (Uncle Fulbert was her guardian.) Even in such close proximity, the couple wrote each other daily letters (in Latin which the letter carrier could not read) praising their love. Amazingly, some of these letters which were lost for nearly 900 years were identified in the 1990s. Using these and the better known letters the couple wrote long after their affair, James Burge has written Heloise & Abelard: A New Biography.

Readers get a sense of both these remarkable people in this intimate dual biography. Abelard was a brilliant academic who believed fervently in logic. He was able to win almost any debate. What he lacked was any tact and an ability to curb his own arrogance. He needlessly made many jealous enemies, lost many teaching positions, and was often charged as a hertic. When Heloise's uncle discovered the betrayal of his hospitality and that Heloise was pregnant, the old man was livid. Abelard married Heloise, took her to Brittany out of the uncle's reach, and returned to teach in Paris. When his guard was down, Abelard was attacked in his bed and castrated by the uncle's men.

Heloise was one of Abelard's best student, grasping complex philosophical ideas and a master of languages. Her origins are not certain. She may have been the illegitimate daughter of a nun. After Abelard's castratation and his becoming a monk, she became a nun, eventually becoming the much honored abbess of an order.

In this book, I think Heloise outshines Abelard. He was really too devoted to himself and always needed someone to defend him. She fended for herself quite well. I most like that she refused to ever bow to Abelard's request that she feel remorseful for their joint "sin." She enjoyed the "sin" and would always love Abelard.

Readers of Heloise & Abelard: A New Biography also learn quite a bit about twelfth century church controversies and French history. Eleanore of Aquitaine even show up at the end of the story. I recommend the book to history and biography readers.

Burge, James. Heloise & Abelard: A New Biography. HarperSanFrancisco, 2003. ISBN 0060736631.

Reference Books to Go: The Liberation of Our Reference Books

We are breaking with our past at Thomas Ford. One thing that you could always count on was that the reference books were here on the shelves. As good as that was in the past, the problem now is that the reference books are here on the shelves, but no one is here using them. They are just sitting. So we are liberating them. We're going to let them out to anyone with a card, just like other books, magazines, CDs, and DVDs.

The one precedent here is the liberating of the magazines a couple of decades ago. We used to keep the magazines close for all the students doing reports and term papers. We now have online databases with full texts, and those days are long gone. Finally, it is time to free the reference books as well.

Our Adult Services librarians have spent several weeks preparing to let reference books circulate. With Sandy Frank's assistance (she's the head of the circulation department), we have inventoried the collection, weeded out-of-date and worn-out materials, and changed the circulation system status for each record. The work is done and we are starting a quiet launch while we prepare marketing.

Here are reasons for this new service:

1. Use of reference books in the library has fallen off significantly in the past several years. Librarians with access to online resources are using the print reference items less frequently. Fewer clients are spotted using reference books. We reshelve reference books less often. The reference shelves rarely need straightening.
2. Clients occasionally ask to borrow the reference books so they can use them at home or work.
3. Much of the information in the reference books is available to us though our databases. Reference librarians will still have resources to answer questions.
4. With less money to buy nonfiction books this year, it provides more items to loan students and other clients interested in nonfiction topics.
5. Other libraries have begun to loan their reference books. Meetings at the 2009 ALA Conference in Chicago and posts on the Booklist blog Points of Reference have discussed the new trend.

The primary objection I have heard is "What if a book from a set doesn't return, isn't the set ruined?" This is a possibility, maybe even a probability in time. Still having books sit idle seems a greater sorrow in a public library focused on current utility and not archival conservation. I think the greater good will be served by this service. I look froward to seeing some smiles when I let someone take a volume of Contemporary Literary Criticism or The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

We do not expect a rush of people coming for the reference books right away, but we hope for steady use. Maybe this liberation will even revive the section and make reference books worth buying again.

A Century and Some Change: My Life Before the President Called My Name by Ann Nixon Cooper

Ann Nixon Cooper died at age 107 in Atlanta in December 2009, just before her book A Century and Some Change: My Life Before the President Called My Name was published. The positive view of her death is that she finished the book in time before she departed, and that she had had enough of the fame that being mentioned for voting for presidential candidate Barack Obama had brought her. She had already lived a full life. She did not die too soon. Hers was a life to celebrate for its goodness.

In some ways, Cooper's life was fairly ordinary and not really bookworthy unless we are all bookworthy as representatives of our time. What singled her out was vitality at an advanced age and living an affluent life (though never conspicuous) in the black community of Atlanta through the days of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement. She served as a witness to the great talents and work ethic of blacks when white culture was denying that blacks were equal. Filled with photos as well as Cooper's memories, contemporary readers see and hear in A Century and Some Change how the families of black professionals could have nice houses, send their children to good schools, know powerful people, and yet still be expected to step to the side of a sidewalk to let whites pass or sit in the back of the bus.

A Century and Some Change celebrates the good more than regrets the bad. It is a thoughtful book that may be quickly read. I recommend it for older readers wanting to remember the past and younger readers needing to know about segregation and forgiveness.

Cooper, Ann Nixon. A Century and Some Change: My Life Before the President Called My Name. Atria Books, 2010. ISBN 9781439158876.

Agatha Christie at Home by Hilary Macaskill

Agatha Christie's daughter Rosland Hicks gave Greenway, her mother's Devon country home, to Great Britain's National Trust in 2000. Within a few quick years, the grounds and gardens with their beautiful views of the River Dart were open to the public, and in 2009, after a few longer years of restoration and decorating with original furniture, the house itself was opened for Christie fans to see. According to author Hilary Macaskill in her book Agatha Christie at Home, Greenway is now a prime stop in the increasingly popular tour of Agatha Christie sites in England.

In her new book, Macaskill takes readers on a broader tour to places Christie lived, including London, seaports, and villages across England, telling a little bit about the mystery writer's life and pointing out locations used in Christie's popular stories. An attractive mixture of archived and current photographs supplements the brief text. Some show Christie picnicking, repainting a mantelpiece, and entertaining guests in her various homes. Others show lush landscapes and well-tended gardens. Readers see throughout that Christie liked good comfortable accommodations, beyond the means of people without bestselling book income, without ever being ostentatious.

Overall, Agatha Christie at Home is a light treatment of the writer's life, not enough to satisfy a student needing in-depth information, but enough to persuade fans to add locations to their English travel plans. With Christie's books continuing to be read and new productions appearing on public television, it should interest readers in many libraries.

Macaskill, Hilary. Agatha Christie at Home. Frances Lincoln Limited, 2009. ISBN 9780711230293.

For My Father

After watching a film, members of our film discussion group at my library usually first say what they like about a movie, whether that be the acting, music, or cinematography. We then move on to issues that the film develops. After seeing For My Father, an Israeli/German film about a reluctant suicide bomber, however, we needed a period to just try to figure out what we just saw. Many of us had questions. Why was Tarek on this suicide mission when he seemed to disapprove of the idea? What hold did the terrorists have over his family? Why did the fix-it man give him a new electrical switch if he suspected Tarek's mission? How did Tarek get into Tel Aviv so easily if their was such a high security alert? What attraction was there between Tarek and the shopkeeper Keren? Why didn't the vest with the explosives seem bulkier under Tarek's jacket? Why did none of Keren's friends show up for the party on the beach? If there was such a high security alert were there no police on the beach?

The discussion did eventually turn to issues. We were generally sympathetic to the plight of both Israeli and Palestinian common people caught in the middle of senseless violence. We thought that was the general intent of For My Father. However, I wonder whether having an atypical bomber was as enlightening as having a typical bomber who believed in his/her cause would have been. Then we might really have had something to discuss. Instead, the director took a rather Hollywood approach - lots of good guys and bad guys, insert a romance between two attractive young people, and create a deadline for the action.

For My Father was nominated for seven awards from the Israeli Academy, but it did not win any of them. It also won several film festival awards. With the hype, I expected more.

For My Father. RB Media, 2009. ISBN 9781440784316.

The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood by Helene Cooper

As hard as it may now seem to imagine, the modern state of Liberia was considered a great African success story as late as the 1970s. Anyone who looked closely enough at that time would have seen the great inequities and built up anger among the poor, but most of the world never looked past the facade of the wealthy upper class. At the top of the social structure were descendants of free blacks from America, who moved to the western coast of Africa in the nineteenth century. Helene Cooper's family belonged to that class. She tells about her family and the revolution that changed their lives in her memoir The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood.

Fascinated by the details, I listened to Cooper read her own book. To my surprise, her younger years seemed very American, as she and her classmates lived in suburbs filled with new ranch and split-level houses. Many had video recorders with which to watch American television programs sent to them by relatives in the United States. They even ate American snack foods. Somewhat to Cooper's dismay, her family bought an isolated mansion on a beach far from all her friends. Every child got her own bedroom, but there were no friends to visit them. (Here's where the story strays from those of American children.) So her family adopted a poor girl to be Helene's similar-age sister. It was a very upper class Liberian thing to do. The girl was named Eunice, and she became a member of the family - except she did not get to go on vacations to Spain or attend the best school with Helene.

Cooper's privileged life ended when Samuel Kanyon Doe led a bloody coup, killing President Tolbert. Rebel soldiers spread across the country killing, raping, and stealing. (I'm not going to spoil the plot, but Cooper has a very dramatic story to insert right here.) After a nail-biting month, she and her family (without Eunice) escaped to America, starting Cooper's long-distance-but-never-out-of-mind relationship to her self-destructing country. She eventually graduated from college and became a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.

The story of Liberia is very sad and can be very disturbing reading. Cooper does not avoid telling about despicable acts, but she also does not dwell on them. While telling some of the country's history, she is mostly interested in the fate of individuals. Readers will notice that Cooper has a slow political awakening, but she never really breaks with the class of her birth. Her unstated feelings are probably still conflicted, aware that her ancestors exploited the poorer classes, but she is still unforgiving toward the violent, unruly people who tore her country apart. The House at Sugar Beach is good reading.

Cooper, Helene. The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood. Recorded Books, 2008. ISBN 9781436164412