My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir by Meir Shalev

When I was a boy, my paternal grandmother did not use the vacuum cleaner. Instead, my grandfather did the vacuuming. Meir Shalev's maternal grandmother in the Israeli village of Nahalal did not use a vacuum either. She got on her knees daily (or assigned the task to a daughter or grandchild) and scrubbed the tile floor until the water mopped up clear. She did this despite owning a vacuum. In fact, she had a top of the line GE canister vacuum, but it sat locked in an unused bathroom. Shalev tells the reconstructed story in his entertaining book My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir.

Other than not using the vacuum, Grandma Tonia was not much like my grandmother. Shalev's grandmother was obsessed with the cleanliness of her house to the point that she hardly let anyone in. Most cooking and eating were kept on the back porch. Small cloths were kept on doorknobs so there would be no dirty fingerprints. The nice furniture was stored in rooms that she kept locked. The modern bathroom was also kept locked, and family and visitors were directed to the shed out back. The bathroom served as a storeroom for nice things, and the vacuum that was sent by the uncle who abandoned socialism to become an American capitalist sat there wrapped to stay free of dust. The family, of course, longed to get into these rooms.

As you might guess, Grandma Tonia was a fierce woman of strong and often uncommon opinions who ruled the family. Shalev contends that she was the originator of the phrase "You talkin' to me?" Other familiar words included "Want me to take a chunk out of you?" and "She is no longer, and it was a terrible death." My grandmother never said anything like this.

I imagine My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner could be turned into a movie set against the early decades of Israeli independence with the nation building struggles in the backing up the domestic comedy. Until such a film is made, enjoy the book.

Shalev, Meir. My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir. Schocken Books, 2011. 212p. ISBN 9780805242874.

Instant City by Steve Inskeep

What do I know about Pakistan? It separated from India when the subcontinent gained independence from the British Empire in 1947. It has fought with India over border issues since then and lost its eastern section when Bangladesh broke away in 1971. It is a Muslim country that has a mountainous border with Afghanistan over which the Taliban often travels. The Pakistani army has dissolved the elected government several times. A former prime minister was executed, and his daughter was assassinated when she ran for the top office a third time. Pakistan has been an unsteady American ally. Osama Bin Laden hid there for many years.

What did I know about Karachi before I read Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi by NPR reporter Steve Inskeep? Not much. I knew the name, but I could not place it on an unlabeled map. I did not know that it had been the country's capital before Islamabad was built. Seeing the burning buses on the cover of the book I guessed that it was a dangerous place.

How did the former British colonial port become a battleground? Despite the reassurances from founding statesman Muhammad Ali Jinnah that Pakistan would be a secular society with opportunity for all, the Hindi majority fled Karachi and was replaced by various Muslims groups from India and rural Pakistan. City planning and services could never keep up with the flow of refugees, mostly illiterate rural people with no modern labor skills. Most public lands intended for parks and development were overrun with illegal encampments. Ethnic groups formed parties to press their own needs; they often resorted to violence to get their way. Wave after wave of people settled in Karachi. According to Inskeep, Karachi mushroomed from about 400,000 people at the time of independence in 1947 to over 13 million by 2010.

Inskeep lets us know all of this in his accounts of the events of 2009 and 2010, when a series of bombings rocked the city. I appreciate how he links incidents and histories to landmarks and neighborhood of the city, making the story immediate and understandable. Instant City makes the news from Pakistan a bit clearer. It joins a growing collection of great books from NPR staff that may be found in many public libraries.

Inskeep, Steve. Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi. Penguin Press, 2011. 284p. ISBN 9781594203152.

Black Friday at ricklibrarian: Real Lives Revealed Deal

I am not sure if this really is related to Black Friday but I noticed that my book Real Lives Revealed is now on sale for half the list price at ABC-Clio/Libraries Unlimited. Here is the link to see that what was $65 is now $32.50. I can only speculate as to the meaning of this for future sales. Whatever, if you were wanting a copy but were unhappy with the price, you can now get it at a better price.

I see that ABC-Clio's move has not affected Amazon or Barnes and Noble, which still want full price. They had offered discounts when the book was new. Used book sellers want as much as $92 for it.

The reason that I had looked my book up is that I had noticed some new Libraries Unlimited titles being offered as ebooks. I was hoping that my book would now be an ebook as well, but it has not happened.

Enjoy Black Friday in the manner of your own choosing!

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

I have been following Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson on Facebook for the past year. Using some of the same sets and locations, he is currently filming The Hobbit in New Zealand and occasionally posts photos and videos showing how the project is progressing. The videos are particularly fun as Jackson is witty and charming as a guide to cinematic Middle Earth. I also like being introduced to the actors and seeing how the makeup and costumes are created. I don't think it will lessen the magic of the film to have seen these little documentaries. I have already read the book several times.

A couple of weeks ago, I actually ran out of library books, so I decided it was time to revisit The Hobbit, which we have on a prominent shelf in the living room. The story held few surprises, of course, for I knew it too well, but I did notice some things about the writing. The first is that it really is much easier to read than the Lord of the Rings books. There is much less description and fewer references to the history of Middle Earth. Second, some of the scenes that I remembered as long were not. After finding the ring in the caves under the Misty Mountains, Bilbo gets away from Gollum in only a few pages. The hike along the elf trail through Mirkwood may be unending for the dwarves and Bilbo, but the reader is led through pretty quickly. Even Smaug's attack on the lake town of Esgaroth and battle of the five armies are briefly told - especially when compared to similar events in the trilogy.

I also noticed how Tolkien introduced a very modern ethical dilemma after Smaug was slain by Bard. What would have been a fair distribution of the treasure that had long been kept in the Lonely Mountain by the dragon? The dwarves could claim the mountain but the dragon had stolen from many, including people and elves. Could previous owners of the pieces have been identified? Could the losses of the victimized be tabulated? It seems that only Bilbo and Bard could clearly see that there was plenty of gold for everyone. What really mattered more was the repairing of buildings and gathering of food before winter. But sharing seemed so difficult to do when everyone wanted their part. Only the rise of the common enemy from the North brought the disputing sides together. This sounds a lot like contemporary problems.

Aimed at younger reader, The Hobbit is truly a great book for any age. I enjoyed my return to Middle Earth immensely and now await the late 2012 release of The Hobbit, Part One. I know it will be spectacular.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit. George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1937.

So Big by Edna Ferber

One of the advantages of belonging to a book group is being introduced to books that you would not otherwise consider reading. So Big by Edna Ferber was off my radar. I once spent a couple of years trying to read selections from great American authors, but Ferber had not made my list. If I had to choose a Ferber title, I might have instead taken Giant, which is set in West Texas where I grew up. But Ferber's 1924 novel So Big was the democratically chosen title for our November discussion, and read it I did.

I quickly found I had a geographic interest in So Big, which I knewwas set in Chicago but did not know it would also include chapters set in High Prairie, Illinois. High Prairie is fictional Dutch immigrant farming community based on South Holland, a suburb south of Chicago. When I came to the Chicago area, I worked and lived near South Holland, a well-tended village with many Dutch Reformed Churches. It was interesting to read about its farming days when the community supplied the Chicago market with vegetables, especially cabbages and onions. One of the protagonists of So Big makes her mark by growing asparagus and raising pigs.

I say one protagonist because the first two thirds of the book focus on Selina Peake who when orphaned at eighteen takes a teaching position in High Prairie. She only teaches one year before marrying a handsome but poor farmer. While working hard along his side, she discovers he is unwilling to take risks that might improve the farm and their finances. Trying to get him to drain the marshy fields, she shows him government farming pamphlets, but he will not change. His death gives her the responsibility and opportunity to do better. And she does. Readers come to admire her for her studious perseverance and the maturing of her regard for the community that had once made fun of her. Her story is the best part of the book.

The final third is about her son Dirke, who had been called So Big as a toddler. His mother's success allows him to go to college to become architect, a profession for which he really has no talent or commitment. He instead in given a position in banking which he rides to wealth. His life, however, proves shallow. Ferber does not predict the 1929 crash of the economy, but the reader can fit her story into history quite well.

Being easy to read and feeling very authentic, So Big is a good choice for a book club that will read classics.

Ferber, Edna. So Big. Grosset & Dunlap, 1924.

Google Ngram Viewer

I have been playing with the Google Ngram Viewer, which measures the use of words and phrases in books through time. It is a byproduct of the Google Digitization Project. It is easy to use and free to anyone.

Question One: What is the most written about sport in America?

I entered baseball, football, basketball, and hockey into the search box and chose American English. I wanted to eliminate publications from the British Commonwealth where football is the game Americans call soccer. My assumption was that I would see baseball overtaken by football in the 1960s. What I found is here: The Results.

It is not what I thought at all. Football was the more popular topic through most of the 20th Century. Baseball passed it in the late 1980s but football caught back up.

Question Two: Who's more written about between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones? How far behind would the Beach Boys be?

I suspected the Beatles would win. I was not sure how the writing would vary over time. I searched between 1960 and 2008 (last year for which Google has searchable content). Here is the result: Click Here

It appears that the fame of the two British bands peaked around 2002 or 2003 when the Beatles were five times more written about the Rolling Stones and ten times more than the Beach Boys.

Question Three: Which Beatle has gotten the most attention in books?

Here is the result: Beatle Measure

George Harrison gets an early lead, which probably means there was another person with the name. This shows a shortcoming of the Ngram idea. Still, I was surprised how much more attention John Lennon has gotten.

You can do this, too. To learn how Ngram can be used for real research watch this TED lecture.

Jason Deroche at Friday at the Ford

We don't have to look far and wide to find talented performers for our Friday at the Ford concert series. For our latest concert we welcomed Jason Deroche, a classical guitarist from La Grange who not only enjoys playing standard guitar pieces but also likes to tackle works not intended for six strings. For example, he started his performance with selections from Vivaldi's L'estro Armonico, which were originally written for violins and cello. Jason took transcriptions of these written for keyboards by J. S. Bach and rendered them beautifully on guitar. Next, he played his own versions of a couple of Johannes Brahms's Intermezzos usually performed on piano. I had already been quite impressed when he then revealed his lively guitar covers of Wedding Day at Troldhaugen and March of the Trolls by Edvard Grieg.

For the second half of his concert, Jason turned from Europe to South America, highlighting the works of Agustin Barrios, each evoking a new mood. I especially like Muzurka Passionata. Showing that he also enjoys popular music, he closed with his take of the Beatles In My Life. For an encore, he played a familiar Spanish guitar classic Leyenda by Isaac Albeniz, which everyone in the audience seemed to recognize.

54 people attended the concert, and Jason sold all of the copies of a CD that he recorded with the harpist Mark Brewer called Bach to Brazil. I got the last one and have been listening as I commute. He hopes to record another CD featuring his growing collection of transcriptions for guitar. I want one when he does.

You can learn more about Jason, his music, his teaching, and his projects at his website.

Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed The United States Constitution by Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese

Just who were the men who signed the United States Constitution? While a few are very famous, as a group they seem to get less attention than the group who signed the Declaration of Independence eleven years earlier. They have not been remembered with a musical like 1776. Because the document that they created is considered nearly sacred over two hundred years later, one would expect the 39 to be more celebrated. Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese address this oversight in their recent collective biography Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed The United States Constitution.

Signing their rights away? The whole idea of coming up with delineated powers for a government was not popular at the time. The focus of the Declaration and the Revolution had been liberty. Many Americans were leery of having any authority over them. They wanted weak states and virtually no nation, but that had lead to economic and political chaos. The Constitution was going to be a hard sell. These men were taking great political risks when they proposed compromises on personal liberty.

In their small volume, Kiernan and D'Agnese profile each of the 39 men, working their way south from New Hampshire to Georgia. They give each a title, such as "The Signer Who Was Ruined by Drink" or "The Signer Who Went to Debtors' Prison." This is where the misfortune mentioned in the title comes in. Signing the Constitution was not a career boost for anyone. A large number of the signers lost their fortunes speculating on western lands, and two died in duels. Like current representatives, most did not understand running an economy. Yet they somehow hammered out an enduring foundation for our government.

Signing Their Rights Away will be a helpful title to have for our next wave of history students. It is an attractive and entertaining book that should be in most public and school libraries.

Kiernan, Denise and Joseph D'Agnese. Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed The United States Constitution. Quirk Books, 2011.254p. ISBN 9781594745201.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Author Laura Hillenbrand's second book Unbroken, about former Olympian and World War II prisoner of war Louis Zamperini, was highly anticipated. Her previous book Seabiscuit was a wonderful book that spent years on hardcover and paperback bestseller lists. Could she possibly match her success? It was not even fair to expect it, but somehow she has succeeded. Unbroken is a blockbuster that promises to be in circulation among readers for years to come. Hillenbrand tells a great story that pretty much circles the earth and spans the twentieth century. Readers are taken to Nazi Germany before the war and to Japan during and after. They also visit poor 1920s immigrant neighborhoods, 1930s Stamford University, and post-war-boom suburban America where some veterans struggle to overcome addictions brought on by horrible war experiences. Throughout, they follow the life of the irrepressible Zamperini, a man who was famous and then mostly forgotten.

Libraries hardly have to promote this book. My library has numerous hardbound copies (no paperbacks have been published yet), as well as large print, audiobook on compact disc, audiobook download, and downloadable ebook. I especially liked the audiobook well read by accomplished actor Edward Herrmann. My week listening to Unbroken was a week well spent.

Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken. Random House, 2010. 11 compact discs. ISBN 9780739319697

The Handy Presidents Answer Book by David L. Hudson, Jr.

I still consider myself a reference librarian. Because I work away from the reference desk attending to other duties half of the time, I appreciate finding a reference book that will help me answer questions clearly and quickly. So, The Handy Presidents Answer Book, Second Edition by David L. Hudson, Jr. is just my kind of book. It is even written in question and answer format. With its beginning chapters focusing on the powers and election of the president and subsequent chapters profiling each of the men who have served as president, I can find many answers as quickly by scanning as by using the index.

Hudson keeps every chapter to twelve pages or fewer. George Washington and John Quincy Adams get the longest spreads. I would have thought Franklin D. Roosevelt might have gotten the longest. Whatever, each chapter answers basic questions about the family, the education, and the early career of a president, and then identifies highlights of each his presidential administration. Most questions and answers are brief. Readers wanting detailed stories will have to seek presidential biographies.

While entertainment is not the primary intent of The Handy Presidents Answer Book, it can be fun to browse. Anyone who has taken a class in American history will recognize the names, but I'll wager that many have forgotten what they ever knew about Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Chester A. Arthur, and William Howard Taft. Taylor was a veteran of four wars, whose nickname was "Rough and Ready." He died of gastroenteritis while in office, making Fillmore, a lawyer from Buffalo president. Fillmore sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan to force the closed society to open its markets to the United States. Arthur was the former beneficiary of a political appoint to a plum job who later as president signed the Pendleton Act which required civil servants to be hired according to merit. Taft was a trust buster who battled Standard Oil Company and American Tobacco Company. He became chief justice of the Supreme Court eight years after being president.

Because many libraries are reducing their reference collections, The Handy Presidents Answer Book will increasingly be found in the circulating stacks. It should be popular with students.

Hudson, David L., Jr. The Handy Presidents Answer Book, Second Edition. Visible Ink, 2012. ISBN 9781578593170.

The Big Year, Directed by David Frankel

I am not contemplating making 2012 be my "Big Year." Even if I was, I would not tell you. The odds of winning the race to see or hear the most bird species in a year are better if no one knows you are running. "Running" is the correct word. Competitive birders run for planes, run through money, and run toward the sound of a bird. That you will learn in the movie The Big Year, directed by David Frankel, loosely based on the 2004 book The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik.

In the original book, Obmascik recounts January 1, 1998 to December 31, 1998, a year in which three men independently set out to break roofing contractor Sandy Komito's one year bird spotting record for the North American continent. One of the men was Komito himself. The others were successful businessman Al Levantin and insufficiently funded software engineer Greg Miller. Obmascik's book is a serious story with humorous overtones. Readers come away from the book learning how only a person willing to give up everything normal could do a Big Year. The movie stays pretty true to the book in spirit, though it plays for more laughter. You expect this with comic actors Owen Wilson (as Kenny Bostick), Steve Martin (as Stu Preissler), and Jack Black (as Brad Harris).

As a very laid-back birder, I found much to like in the movie. The scenery is great, and many real birds get walk-on (fly-on) roles in the entertaining story. The producers even worked with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to make the birding as authentic as possible, and all 745 birds spotted by the top birder are quickly shown during the credits. Of course, you don't have to like birds to like the movie. It's a romp across America with three funny men, one of whom pays a terrible price to win. Not yet available in DVD, but it will be popular when it is.

Drawing from Memory by Allen Say

How cool it would have been to have had an apartment at age twelve. No parents around. All the space just for me.

How cool it would have been to apprentice to one of Japan's top cartoon illustrators. Just go ask him, draw a horse to show my skill, and be accepted. No charge.

How cool it would have been to wander post-World War II Tokyo with newly-made friends, seeing the city and society rebuild. No parental curfew.

In his colorfully illustrated memoir Drawing from Memory, Allen Say makes most of our childhoods seem really dull. Few of us are given such freedom and responsibility at such an early age. He seems to have lived a charmed life at a time when his homeland was challenged to reconstruct. He saw his opportunity to learn from a master and even became the model for a character in a daily newspaper comic. It is a wonderful story, aimed at middle school readers, but it is appropriate for all ages - a kid's book adults will enjoy.

Say, Allen. Drawing from Memory. Scholastic Press, 2011. ISBN 9780545176866.

The Way of the Panda: The Curious History of China's Political Animal by Henry Nicholls

In the twenty-first century, the giant panda serves as an international symbol for wildlife conservation. The attractive black and white bear of China is beloved by fans worldwide who flock to zoos where they buy panda T-shirts and plush toys. They also donate to panda conservation efforts. A world without pandas is hard to imagine, yet, according to Henry Nicholls in The Way of the Panda: The Curious History of China's Political Animal, it was only in 1869 that the Western world learned of the shy bear's existence. Incredibly, before the 1860s, most Chinese people had not heard of the panda either. Nicholls says there are no clear reference to pandas in any historical Chinese texts and no images of pandas in thousands of years of Chinese art. So panda-monium is still relatively new phenomena.

In The Way of the Panda, Nicholls recounts about 140 years of human-panda relations. Politics figures heavily in the story. The panda was discovered in a period when China was overrun by European powers wanting to exploit the old nation's wealth. Fortune seekers trekked to the western frontier of the country for pandas, but the bears were very difficult to find. It was 1921 before a British adventurer was able to shoot one and 1936 before a live cub was brought to America. World War II and the Chinese Communist Revolution stopped the hunters just at point when they had gotten their bearings. After the war, the panda become a highly protected political symbol of the Chinese people, and live pandas became diplomatic poker chips in international relations.

I particularly enjoyed reading Nicholl's account of the advancing science of panda management in China and in zoos around the world. I remember parts of the story from the news and watching nature documentaries. Then the last chapters focus on the prospects for maintenance of wild panda populations and the difficulties of reintroducing captive born individuals to the wild.

The Way of the Panda is a quick read for nature loving people with a little familiarity with conservation concepts. Nicholl's throws in a few puns, too. A good selection for most library collections.

Nicholls, Henry. The Way of the Panda: The Curious History of China's Political Animal. Pegasus Books, 2011. ISBN 9781605981888.

Every Thing On It by Shel Silverstein

Talked my head off

Worked my tail off

Cried my eyes out

Walked my feet off

Sang my heart out

So you see,

There's really not much left of me.

(from Losing Pieces by Shel Silverstein)

When Shel Silverstein died at age 68 in 1999, he left many unpublished poems and drawings. A committee of his family has spent years reading and discussing them with the idea of publishing another book for children. Every Thing On It, also the title of a poem with illustration about a surprising way to fix a hot dog, is now available and ready to join Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and Falling Up on home and library bookshelves.

In a story on National Public Radio, family members explained that Silverstein would not mind their effort. He took great care in the selection and sequencing of poems in his books, leaving out many polished worked just because they did not have a place in his themed collections. Many would have eventually been used. As a result, Every Thing On It is less focused, but the title itself seems to allow for that.

As with any collection of verse, there are poems I like and ones that I don't. "Man-Eating Plant" on page 53, "Unhappy Here" on page 56, "Jimmy-Jack-John" on page 88, "Rainbow Thrower" on page 135, and "Mer-Maid" on page 171 are among my favorites. They range from happy to sad, showing Silverstein in many moods. There is something for just about everyone in this collection, especially for kids who like snappy, irreverent verse. Of course, we are all still kids.

When I am gone what will you do?

Who will write and draw for you?

Someone smarter - someone new?

Someone better - maybe YOU!
(from When I Am Gone by Shel Silverstein)

Silverstein, Shel. Every Thing On It. Harper, 2011. ISBN 9780061998164.