Listening Is an Act of Love : A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project

I enjoy memoirs, so you would think that I would be following StoryCorps, the Library of Congress program that lets people create their own audio memoirs. I had heard of the program. Members of the Western Springs Historical Society adapted StoryCorps questions in a recent oral history project. Several speakers at the Public Library Association Conference in Portland praised StoryCorps. But until this past two weeks, I had not actually listened to or read any of the stories. What spurred me to check out Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project was hearing Dave Isay on an NPR book podcast describe his experiences managing StoryCorps. He told how he started StoryCorps and described the process by which individuals interview relatives or friends in portable booths set up in public places, such as a library or train station. Sessions are forty minutes, after which the subjects are given professionally produced, broadcast quality compact discs of the interviews. Another copy of each session goes to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Extracts made from some of these interviews air on National Public Radio on Fridays.

Listening Is an Act of Love includes edited transcripts of a selection of interviews of people telling about important situations and incidents in their lives. Friends, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, or even grandparents prompted them with relevant questions, helping them begin. Many of the stories are only three pages long. A few toward the end run around eight pages. Some of the stories are light, but many seriously tell about how people came to America, overcame addiction, lived in foster homes, got their jobs, gave up children for adoption, met their spouses, and such. The final section has personal stories from 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina survivors.

I found many of the stories touching and inspiring. Some people that I have never heard about have endured incredible hardships and tragedy. Others have shown much courage. Isay holds that we all have great stories to tell if we just get a little help to tell them. Listening Is an Act of Love is his proof. It is now joined by another collection Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps. If you enjoyed This I Believe and other wide ranging story projects, you should try these and the StoryCorps website.

Listening Is an Act of Love : A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project. Penguin Press, 2007. ISBN 9781594201400

Pullman State Historical Site and Hotel Florence

I was not intending to go to the Pullman State Historical Site Friday morning for the LACONI tour. When invitations were sent out, I knew we would be short staffed at the library, and I could not count on attending. When Friday came, it was not even on my mind. I was home, scheduled to work the weekend, but I had a book to write and gardening to do and a rain barrel sitting in the garage needing installation. It had been raining, however, so two of three tasks were off my list. Bonnie said I should come, and I at first resisted, but then I agreed. I am glad that I agreed.

Just before 10 a.m. a dozen plus librarians met at the front of the old Hotel Florence, built in 1881 by railroad car manufacturer George Pullman for visitors to Pullman, the village that he built for the employees of his factory twelve miles south of downtown Chicago. Our objective was a tour of the hotel, where we would see the historic site's library and archives, and then a walking tour of the neighborhood. Our leader for the tour was site curator Linda Bullen, a preservationist and a Pullman homeowner who knows much of what there is to know about the area. She and a couple of other site staff told us the histories of the factory, the town, and the hotel, as well as about the efforts to preserve the buildings and collect the town history. Along with presentations, we were allowed to wander the first floor to get a better feel for the place.

The hotel looks really good on the outside, but work on the inside is just beginning. The foundation has been shored, and the roof has new slate, so the building is mostly protected from the elements, except heat and cold. It still needs central air for the first floor and other climate work to make upper floors habitable. Tin ceilings are being removed. Linoleum has been stripped away to show tile that has worn down. Rooms are mostly empty. Still the space of the first floor suggests comfort of a bygone era, and I hope to someday see the results of restoration. On the second floor, we saw first class hotel rooms and furniture for several classes. Most of the rooms were surprising small and the furniture plain. Everything was well made but nothing was luxurious. The Hotel Florence was mostly a place of business.

The library and archives on the second floor are unlike most associated with historic sites. There is no budget, so work is accomplished by the curator and volunteers, and the collection has come from donations, including bequests from companies that had old Pullman records. Some items came from Pullman residents who had private document/artifact collections. The collection is spread across a few rooms that have been heated/cooled. What is really remarkable is that many of the items are being digitized and put on the archive website. The curator said that access at the historic site is by appointment only, but many of the researchers have found what they wanted was already on the website.

What is also remarkable is that the historic site, which is still on the officially closed list in a state with little money for its parks and monuments, runs programs and festivals throughout the year with (again) no budget. This is accomplished by seeking partners and sponsors and volunteers.

After seeing the hotel, the curator led us around the community, showing us where to imagine a lake, a sprawling factory, and an arcade building. I particularly wish I could have seen the arcade, which burned down in the (I think) 1920s, as it had Victorian era shops and a large theater. We did get to see from the outside the original stables, the Greenstone church, and the shell of what was Market Hall. While many of the major buildings have not fared well, the houses mostly remain intact. According to the site brochure, 98 percent of the residences survive. Most look well preserved. Laws now protect the facades, but the interiors may be modified. The one that we toured had been made very comfortable and modern.

Our tour lasted a full two and a half hours, but I would have gladly continued for a couple more. I see why people become Pullman fanatics, giving their time and money to work for the community's survival. Places that essentially look as they did in the 1880s are very rare. How the state and community organizations will ever get the funding to complete the job of restoring the hotel is a mystery, but so much has already been done to keep the community alive. People who enjoy visiting historical sites should consider stopping in Pullman.

The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell

I do not usually read anything described as "a global thriller," but I made an exception for The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell. I had already enjoyed reading his mystery Faceless Killers featuring the detective Kurt Wallander and watching the first series of Wallender mysteries on PBS. I also heard Mankell on an NPR Books podcast talking about the writing of The Man from Beijing, which incorporates both nineteenth century history of the American West and the current affairs of countries in Africa. Mankell insisted that his book is fiction, but he lives part of the year in Africa and appears to have some uncommon ideas about global affairs. I thought the new book was worth a try. I was sure it would be different than the typical spy-in-Cold-War-world or agent-against-terrorism type of thriller.

Mankell delivered. His new book begins as a look at a horrible crime in Sweden, which I do not want to reveal. What starts as a local matter turns into an international story, which readers can probably guess from the title. Action takes place in Sweden, China, the United States, London, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, mostly in the present other than the section telling about a Chinese man who was kidnapped to work on the transcontinental railroad in the American West. Most of the strong characters are women, who Mankell said in an interview always prove to be smarter, stronger, and more moral than men.

Mankell's strongest interest in publishing The Man from Beijing may be expressing his ideas about China and Africa, but do not worry. He still tells a great story.

Mankell, Henning. The Man from Beijing. Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. ISBN 9780307271860.

Mine, a documentary film by Geralyn Pezanoski

Hurricane Katrina continues to be the source of unusual stories, including Mine, a documentary film by Geralyn Pezanoski. According to the Film Movement website, within weeks of the storm in 2005, Pezanoski was in New Orleans with her camera crew filming efforts by volunteers to rescue pets left behind (not "abandoned") by the residents ordered to flee without animals. While most residents were still being kept out of the city, people with animal rescue organizations from around the country were in New Orleans prying open windows, crawling under houses, cutting through roofs, and doing whatever necessary to save hungry, frightened pets. With irony, one rescuer noted that anyone could write "animal rescue" on the side of their truck and easily pass into the city while local police and the National Guard were keeping pet owners - the people who could have helped the most - out. While as many as 150,000 animals died, the volunteers rescued thousands of dogs, cats, guinea pigs, etc., noting their addresses and tags to assist in reuniting them with owners later.

If there had not been so many pets, the animals would not have been sent to so many shelters across the country. Pets in the documentary went to Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, and (I think) Colorado. The film indicates that these shelters began by asking people in their areas to foster these pets until the owners could be found. What was not clear was when the idea of fostering was replaced with giving the pets to new owners.

Pezanoski follows the cases of five owners separated from their pets. Some people were displaced for months and, when they finally got back to New Orleans, they had no idea initially how to locate their pets. By the time they got leads, new families in other parts of the country were attached to the animals, giving them new names and incorporating them into their families. Some new these owners refused to give them back. To her credit, Pezanoski shows all sides of these cases when subjects cooperated. In my opinion, only the lawyer who bad-mouthed the people of New Orleans gets and deserves no sympathy. Still, I think most viewers will side with the New Orleans residents who lost so much and then learned that other people were withholding their pets.

We showed Mine in our film discussion series at Thomas Ford. Though our turnout was light, our discussion of the emotional film was heartfelt.

Mine. Film Movement, 2010. 80 minutes. ISBN 9781440793721

Theodor Seuss Geisel by Donald E. Pease

Would I read up in the trees
Theodor Seuss Geisel by Donald E. Pease?

Yes, I would read it in the trees.
I would read it while eating cheese.

I would read it on the stairs.
I would read it with friendly bears.

With a yak I would share this tale.
I would even read it to a whale.

With me you never have to plead.
A book like this I will gladly read.

Theodor Seuss Geisel by Donald E. Pease is a quick reading biography in the Lives and Legacies Series from Oxford University Press. I found it a good overview of the life and career of the author of Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. Pease becomes a bit over analytical for me in a few of the book descriptions but he recounts most of Geisel's life with just enough detail to add a little drama to the story. He includes that the good doctor felt bad about his racist cartoons used as propaganda during World War II. How Geisel could care for his wife Helen so faithfully during her first serious illness but then almost abandon her when she relapsed years later is not really explained. Readers wanting more will want Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel by Judith and Neil Morgan (Random House, 1995). For many fans, however, Pease's nicely illustrated book will satisfy their urge to know a little more about one of their favorite authors.

Pease, Donald E. Theodor Seuss Geisel. Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN 9780195323023

Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris, Jr.

As I mentioned several weeks ago, Mark Twain died in 1910, and for the centennial anniversary of his passing, new books are being published. I enjoyed Man in White, which focused on Twain's final years. Now I have read a book about his early adult years, Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris, Jr.

Covering the years 1861 to 1867, Morris starts his story when riverboat pilot Samuel Clemens was forced off of the Mississippi River by the struggle for control of river traffic at the outbreak of the Civil War. Within a few short months, Clemens escaped both being drafted as a pilot for the Union and his own volunteering for a Confederate troop that had mostly officers and few privates. A few days of military life was enough for Clemens, who jumped at the chance to accompany his brother to the Neveda Territory, where the latter had been appointed secretary to the territorial governor. Of course, being in the employ of a frontier government in Carson City had few comforts, as there were no government buildings, poor accommodations, and dust storms daily. Clemens spent the next three years trying to find the easiest way to get rich among the gold and silver mines of the territory, eventually landing a job as a newspaper reporter.

Readers quickly learn that truth was not a concern of most of the territorial newspapers, who ran many sensational, fictious stories to sell papers. Clemens could lie with the best of the brotherhood of journalist, but he sometimes went too far, fabricating stories about rivals and politicians. Eventually, he had to flee to California, where he got into much of the same trouble. How he survived his Western years among many rough characters without being assassinated is still a miracle to ponder. He was a young man without any plan for his life; he just stumbled onto his career. Writing and lecturing just let him be himself - an attention-grabbing showoff with a knack for saying outrageous things. He was an early stand-up comic, who took up the Mark Twain name during this period. Twain covers the same period in his humorous, unreliable memoir Roughing It.

Lighting Out for the Territory is not as emotional a read as Man in White, which examines the soul of Twain more deeply. The new book is a lighter read, sympathetic while still revealing how untroubled the humorist was with all his false accounts and unpaid debts. Twain was the happy sinner that we all now love. Readers who want to know how he got our attention will enjoy this new biography.

Morris, Roy, Jr. Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain. Simon and Schuster, 2010. ISBN 9781416598664.

Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped by Roger A. Ekirch

James Annesley (1715-1760) was the son of Arthur Annesley, Baron of Altham, and thus heir to Annesley family lands and titles in both Ireland and England. Unfortunately for James, his father was a drunkard and a wastrel, who let his second wife send James away to live as a pauper. When his father died, James was kidnapped by his uncle (next heir in line) and sold into indentured servitude in the American Colonies. When after more than ten years he returned to Great Britain, he sued to establish his identity and reclaim his inheritance. The story filled newspapers in both Ireland and England, and Annesley became a hero of the common people who saw his cause as an attempt to hold the landed classes accountable for their frequent misdeeds. If Annesley could win in court, perhaps they too could use law to win their rights. A. Roger Ekirch recounts the resulting series of sensational trials in Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped.

Ekirch refers to Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson right in the title and briefly explains early in the book how the true story differs. He also identifies how Sir Walter Scott and Tobias Smollett drew from Annesley's story for their novels. As a reader, I thought instantly of Bleak House by Charles Dickens, as Annesley's case also ends up spending a couple of decades in Chancery Court. As a reader of this review, you can probably now guess that Annesley did not easily win back his titles and fortune from his much hated uncle, who had the money to keep several courts well supplied with requests for continuances.

One of the most compelling parts of Birthright is the narrative about the rotten state of affairs in Ireland in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, when English landlords were using Irish lands and poor tenant Irish labor to keep them in big houses and powdered wigs. The Annesley family saga is a bit more challenging. The reader of Birthright can easily get a bit confused by all the names (ancestors and descendants) and all the litigation. Ekirch provides a family tree with the introduction to which I turned numerous times. After a bit of a slog in the middle of the book, it takes off when the trials begin. Overall, I found it a worthy book foretelling less known history and its revealing the origins of plots in British literature.

Ekirch, A. Roger. Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped. 2010. W.W. Norton. 258p. ISBN 9780393066159.

The Best American Travel Writing 2003

Just in the period of the year when I want many audiobooks to listen to while gardening, doing house repairs, and toiling at other chores, I am finding ones that interest me harder to find. I have fairly broad interests, but that is mostly within the realm of nonfiction. Though I like some classic novels and short stories, most fiction just seems to me like repetitive stuff people made up. Libraries, of course, buy more fiction audiobooks, which pleases most of their clients. Looking at the libraries that I frequent, I am finding that I have already listened to many of the biography and history audiobooks. (No self-improvement titles for me - don't need them.) So I am looking a little harder through the rest of nonfiction. Luckily for me, I found The Best American Travel Writing 2003.

With travel writing, it does not matter at all that the stories are already seven years old. It is the storytelling that matters, and in this collection, there are numerous stories worth hearing. The book starts with Geoff Dyer's "The Despair of Art Deco," a wickedly funny account of several days spent in the insect-infested hotels of Miami Beach where tourist snap pictures of themselves on sidewalks, standing where famous people died in front of Art Deco facades. Next is Lawrence Millman's adventurous account of trying to visit a newly discovered Arctic island (retreating ice pack due to global warming is uncovering unknown places); he tells us in "Lost in the Arctic" of being stranded on a nearly lifeless pile of rocks, imaging death by starvation, while his Inuit guides try to fix the engine of their boat. In "The Happiest Man in Cuba," Rebecca Barry tells about accompanying her fanatical train-spotting father to Cuba where all the old steam engines still run. Peter Canby recounts weeks of travel across the thick rain forests of the eastern regions of the Congo, assessing the health of wildlife and environment in "The Forest Primeval." Finally, in "My Dinner in Kabul," Andrew Solomon tells about spending his days reporting on the terrible destruction of war in Afghanistan and his evening enjoying the cuisine of the country's most accomplished chef. There are ten stories in all, most read by their authors.

The Best American Travel Writing Series continues in print, but it appears that the 2003 edition was the last one in audio. That's unfortunate. I am, however, ordering older editions to see where they take me.

Best American Travel Writing 2003. Houghton Mifflin Audio, 2003. ISBN 061839074X. 4 discs.

Hemingway in Africa: The Last Safari by Christopher Ondaatje

Are the British fascinated by American author Ernest Hemingway? In one of his popular travel adventures, Michael Palin followed the Hemingway trail through Chicago, Paris, East Africa, Key West, Cuba, and finally to Idaho. With similar intent, Sir Christopher Ondaatje studied Hemingway's two African safaris, reading the books, and visiting Hemingway sites in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The result is Hemingway in Africa: The Last Safari, his stylishly illustrated travel adventure/literary biography.

Am I fascinated by Hemingway? No, but I do like to look at almost any book about East Africa. I intended to just look at the pictures and check whether the book worked as a biography. Seeing that two trips that my family took to Kenya and Tanzania crossed the Hemingway trail (of which I was never aware), I ended up reading the book. I realized that we followed almost exactly the same road between Nairobi and Arusha. Like Hemingway, we stood on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, crossed the Serengeti plains, and saw elephants in Tsavo. We slept in tents and visited a Masai village. Common experience drew me in. We did not, however, shoot anything. Neither did Ondaatje.

In one trip, Ondaatje tried to recreate Hemingway's two extended stays in East Africa. Hemingway's first was in 1933 and resulted in his critically disappointing Green Hills of Africa. It also gave him the background he needed for the acclaimed short stories "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." He shot a lot of animals, drank a lot of beer and whisky, and, not very successfully, tried to find his better self. Twenty years later, he returned with less interest in killing and more with escaping from his increasing unsatisfactory life. His account of this safari was published long after his death as True at First Light. In both books Hemingway pontificates about writing and being a man. Neither is particularly honest. Ondaatje judges the first to be better than most critics at the time thought, but he argues that Hemingway would never have let True at First Light publish in such unfinished form.

Ondaatje mixed many of his own contemporary photos with historical shots of Hemingway and late colonial East Africa. These tell more about the land than his travel comments, as the text seems to be about eighty percent about Hemingway's life and writings. In the end, Ondaatje seems to learn more about and to sympathize with Hemingway, but he does not ever claim to understand or condone the troubled man. His book will satisfy those with biographical interest more than travel readers.

Ondaatje, Christopher. Hemingway in Africa: The Last Safari. Overlook Press, 2003. ISBN 1585675393.

Young @ Heart, a film by Stephen Walker

Thomas Ford showed the documentary Young @ Heart a year or two ago. It was not my turn to show the film and lead the discussion, but I heard that attendance for the program was good and that our moviegoers liked it. I have long intended to see Young @ Heart but had not until Bonnie taped from PBS. Even then, it sat on tape for weeks before we sat down to view it. It was well worth the wait.

The Young @ Heart Chorus is a seniors group in Northampton, Massachusetts, formed by Bob Climan in the early 1980s. The average age of the men and women in the chorus is around eighty years. You might think that the chorus would concentrate on singing old American songs, such as "My Old Kentucky Home" or "I Dream of Jeannie," but you would be mistaken. Instead the folks, whom you get to know in the documentary, tackle songs by James Brown, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and Radiohead. The act has been so successful that the chorus has toured Europe and played before the king of Norway.

Young @ Heart starts with a live crowd-pleasing performance by the chorus of the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go," followed with their humorous music video version of the Ramones's "I Want to Be Sedated." Then we see them at rehearsal with Bob Climan introducing new songs for a concert to be held in seven weeks. The seniors complain about some of the songs right off, but trusting their director, they continue to come to rehearsals to learn music they would not consider even listening to at home. Viewers wonder both whether the chorus will learn the lyrics in time and stay healthy enough to perform. One of my favorite scenes is the music video of the chorus singing the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" in a bowling alley; in a way, it is a song you might expect given the circumstances, but it is so well done that you have to love it. (This video also has the advantage of timing at 1:13 as opposed to the Bee Gees 3:55 original.)

Seeing that the DVD has deleted scenes, including the complete "Purple Haze," I placed a hold. By searching "Young @ Heart", you can find many of the videos and some interviews on YouTube.

Young @ Heart. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2008.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

Painting contractor Abdulrahman Zeitoun of New Orleans was nearly a model citizen. As an immigrant from Syria, he had worked hard to build up his own business with dozens of employees and many loyal customers across the city. He had children in school and was a good neighbor. His only fault was not obeying the mayor's order to vacate the city in advance of Hurricane Katrina. In Zeitoun author Dave Eggers recounts the good deeds, bad fortune, and graceful recovery of an honest man wrongfully accused of being something that he was not.

I was fortunate to read Zeitoun without knowing what was going to happen. Not wanting to spoil the story but to urge reading, I will say that the book is divided into several sections that correspond with parts of the story: before Katrina, during Katrina, soon after Katrina, another week after, the resolution of the story, and an epilogue. In telling this story, Eggers also tells about Zeitoun's childhood and years as a sailor. I also see the book in two emotional halves. The first is light, joyful, inspiring, and the second is dark, troubling, apt to make the reader very angry. At the end, Eggers explains what happened as partly justified and wholly regrettable.

After finishing the book, I wondered how I had missed this story. In my search of newspaper and magazine databases, I found no mention of Zeitoun and his misfortunes until the reviews of Eggers's book, reinforcing the point that we sometimes have no idea what happens in our country. Zeitoun would be a great discussion book.

Eggers, Dave. Zeitoun. McSweeney's Books, 2009. ISBN 9781934781630.

Biography: A Very Short Introduction by Hermione Lee

Biography may seem to be accepted today as just one of many genres that readers expect to find in libraries and bookstores, but it is not universally endorsed. In the academic world, biography has been denounced as a "dumbing down" of history. Scholars have been especially critical of the stories of individuals overshadowing the collective experience of the masses. Many famous people, particularly novelists Henry James and Albert Camus, have condemned biographers as "grave robbers" and exploiters who write about the defenseless dead. Critics of the genre say that biographies tells more about biographers than their subjects and that all biographies tell selected stories. From reading Biography: A Very Short Introduction by Hermione Lee, one may grasp that biography has had a tough time critically. With readers, however, biography has always been popular.

Every history of biography seems to start in a different time. Lee starts with the Epic of Gilgamesh from 2600 BCE and includes Egyptian, Greek, Roman, medieval, and Enlightenment life-story writings. She continues with an assessment of the nineteenth century as a period with less uniformity than previous genre historians have suggested; she agrees that most biographies of both the United States and Great Britain of the time do glorify their subjects for patriotic reasons, but she also reveals an undercurrent of dissenting biographers starting to write "warts and all" lives. Lee describes the twentieth century, in the wake of Freudian psychiatry, as the golden age of realistic biography.

What Lee tells us in her small book is not new. Numerous histories of biography have covered the same ground, but Lee does it well. She identifies many classic and contemporary titles that may be offered to readers, and she even recommends different ways to start writing biographies. Her quick reading, inexpensive book is a good addition to most libraries.

Lee, Hermione. Biography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780199533541.