Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

Should you be traveling and wish to encourage conversation with your fellow travelers, carry and read from Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer. I was reading it as I flew from West Texas back to Chicago a few weeks ago. Several people just nodded toward the book and said "Great book." The longest encounter I had was with a man who appeared to be one of the Southwest Airlines pilots. Seeing me reading near a gate in Midland International Airport, he asked me how I was liking the book and recommended that I also read Under the Banner of Heaven. As he walked away, I observed his being blond, tan, and athletic, just the kind of guy who could be a climber.

By this time, fifteen years after publication, I imagine a lot of people have already read Into Thin Air. I know librarians have been recommending it for years. I know that I have handed it to scores of readers. Yet I had not read it. The whole idea of enduring hardship and altitude sickness to put one's life at risk just to test one's determination seemed rather self-indulgent and irresponsible. It still does. But the book is exciting. Krakauer is a good storyteller.

Though you know the outcome at the beginning, he is able to introduce characters and reveal critical moments at a pace that never lets the reader lose interest. With his vivid descriptions, I feel I know what it is like at the top of Everest, and I am certain that I am not going there. I think I'll stay under 8000 feet,  thank you, except for a few airplane flights.

I was reading Into Thin Air to see if it fit in an article that I am writing about memoirs to keep for decades in library collections. I decided it is not enough about Krakauer to be a memoir, but it is definitely a book to keep.

Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster. Villard, 1997. 297p. ISBN 0679457526.

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by George Johnson

In his prologue to The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, George Johnson says that he is not identifying the ten most important discoveries of science. Rather, he is interested in creativity and simplicity. Still, the book features some very important theories formed from observations of very economic tests. It includes work by Galileo, Newton, and Lavoisier.

An interesting observation is that the best scientists often discover something other than what they seek. According to Johnson, this is what makes their work effective - their willingness to be open to new ideas. The malleable and relenting mind can accomplish more than the mind that is set. Disproving the existence of phlogiston, caloric, and luminiferous aether may have been just as important as the discovery of photons and electrons.

Johnson longs for a simpler time when an educated thinker could set up his or her own experiments without the support of universities and research institutes. These short stories present their heroes as independent thinkers, people who make personal sacrifices to find scientific truth. The implication is that there are not many of these scientists around.

There is a good library story about Ivan Pavlov found on page 128:

"Under the reign of Czar Alexander II, a penumbra of enlightenment was crossing the Russian steppes. Books and journals that would have been banned under his father, Nicholas I, were arriving at the library, where a crowd gathered at the doors waiting for them to open, pushing and shoving to get in. To beat the rush Pavlov would sometimes arrange for a worker to leave a window open."

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments is a quick read for fans of science history.

Johnson, George. The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. ISBN 9781400041015

Perfect Once Removed: When Baseball Was the World to Me by Phillip Hoose

Perfect Once Removed by Phillip Hoose is a book with many positive appeal factors. It is a childhood memoir, a genre that many readers enjoy. Its focus is his obsession with baseball, a sport with strong reader loyalty. The setting is interesting: Hoose remembers being an eight year old moving into Speedway, Indiana, where crowds come to attend the annual Indianapolis 500. The story line is also intriguing. He has moved for the fourth time in three years and joins the local third grade in the middle of the school year. He is having trouble making friends. When he learns that his cousin once removed is New York Yankee pitcher Don Larsen, he uses the connection to impress schoolmates and adults. Late in the story Larsen pitches the perfect game.

Hoose was a boy with a lot of imagination. Once he receives a card from his famous cousin, he begins to imagine scenes where the Yankee players are in the dugout or locker room talking about how he is doing in Little League. He creates a fantasy Mickey Mantle who is always asking Larsen about his little cousin's progress. Later, Hoose meets the Yankees in a hotel on a rainy Chicago day. How his image of Mantle changes only slightly is worth pondering.

Hoose is a very accomplished writer. You may have enjoyed his book The Race to Save the Lord God Bird. I did.

Thanks to Lori at the Downers Grove Public Library for recommending Perfect Once Removed. I enjoyed it a lot. Lori is adding the book to one of her new booklists.

You can label Hoose's book a "quick read" that is a "sure bet."

Hoose, Phillip. Perfect Once Removed: When Baseball Was All the World to Me. New York: Walker and Company, 2006. ISBN 0802715370

The Division Street Princess: A Memoir by Elaine Soloway

In The Division Street Princess by Elaine Soloway, there is a strong sense of time and place. The time is 1942 to 1951, when the United States is at war, wins, and starts changing in many ways. The place is 2505 W. Division Street in Chicago, just west of the intersection with Western Avenue, four blocks east of Humboldt Park, where Soloway's parents (with help from other family members) buy the downstairs grocery and name it Irv's Finer Foods. The Jewish immigrant couple is pursuing the "American Dream."

Irv's Finer Foods becomes the center of the universe for Soloway, who at age four is a helper in the store. From her own child-sized counter, she witnesses wartime scarcity, customer credit problems, extended family interactions, her father's candy bar addiction, and her mother's struggle to balance the books. During the time, the ethnic and racial make-up of the community begins to change, as friends and family move to the suburbs. Eventually, an A & P Supermarket opens across the street, challenging the family to find a way to continue.

The world that Soloway describes is charming but it is also dangerous. Bookies work out of back rooms. Strange men tempt little girls outside community centers. The newspapers are filled with kidnapping stories. The Division Street Princess can be used as evidence that life was not so much better "way back when."

More Chicago region public libraries should add this wonderful book. Libraries outside the area should also consider it. It should be added to World War II home front booklists.

Soloway, Elaine. The Division Street Princess: A Memoir. Minneapolis: Syren Book Company, 2006. ISBN 0929636635

A Man without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut

As some people get older, they care less what other people think and say what ever is on their minds. Of course, Kurt Vonnegut has never held his tongue. In A Man without a Country, he is as forthright as ever.

If you think the United Nations Commission on Global Warming is critical of the human impact on the earth, then read A Man without a Country and see that Vonnegut has little hope for us. On page 44 he writes, "We have squandered our planet's resources, including air and water, as though there is no tomorrow, so now there isn't going to be."

Vonnegut criticizes the current administration, the news media, corporations, and religion. He praises socialism, agnosticism, humanism, the Sermon on the Mount, and slower living. He says that humans are addicted to fossil fuel and compares the current wars with drug wars; the generals and politicians are fighting around the world to supply transportation junkies. There are no words of comfort or hope.

From what I have said so far, you might think this is a dreary book. It is not! Vonnegut still cares about the reader. He has written a fun book about the end of humanity.

Vonnegut has said that he will not write again, making A Man without a Country a parting shot. Fans will want to read it, if they have not already. Others will probably condemn this very discussable work.

Vonnegut, Kurt. A Man without a Country. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005. ISBN 158322713x

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

"Now that I'm dead I know everything," is Penelope's first line in Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, a retelling of the tales of Homer from the viewpoint of Odysseus' wife. Not only does Penelope know everything, she is telling. She dishes out dirt on the Greek gods, the heroes who fought at Troy, and Helen, her cousin. She really dislikes Helen, who continues to be a royal pain in the afterlife. She still has high regard for Odysseus, but she lists his faults and misdeeds. He left her in a bind for twenty years, and she is not forgiving and forgetting.

Penelope's purpose in The Penelopiad is to counter the Homeric tradition that portrays her as innocent, obedient, and dutiful. She would like everyone to know that she recognized her husband right away when he returned; his legs were a dead give away. She had to be smart and resourceful to keep the suitors at bay so long and protect her son.

Penelope also wants the world to know how shabbily the twelve maids were treated. In a modern court of law, they would be found innocent of crimes against Oydsseus, who with his son Telemachus hung them after forcing them to clean the blood of the suitors from the palace. Penelope tells their story and includes them as the Chorus in this book.

Many readers will enjoy this alternate account of the Greek myths.

Atwood, Margaret. The Penelopiad. New York: Canongate, 2005. ISBN 1841957178