Readers' Advisory Online Demonstartion by Sarah Statz Cords

Sarah Statz Cords asked me to pass along that she is presenting on Friday, June 13, a web-based demonstration of Readers' Advisory Online, which includes content from her The Real Story: A Guide to Nonfiction Reading Interests and books in the Genereflecting series from Libraries Unlimited. If you would like to learn about the online source, register quickly by emailing Laura Calerone at laura.calderone@lu.com.

Here is the official notice:

Sarah Statz Cords, from Madison Public Library, Wisconsin, author of The Real Story, and associate editor for the Reader’s Advisor Online, will be offering a web-based demonstration Friday, June 13, 2008 at 1PM EDT / 10 AM PDT (noon central time). Attendees will view the training via the web and will call a conference number to enable full participation in the training. Spaces are limited ­ please register ASAP! You may reserve a seat by emailing laura.calderone@lu.com. Confirmation of registration and access instructions will be sent by email

http://www.readersadvisoronline.com/blog/index.php/2008/06/06/webinar-demo-for-readers-advisor-online-tues-may-20/

The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street by Charles Nicholl

William Shakespeare is the subject of many biographies that take threads of evidence and try to weave his whole life. In The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street, historian Charles Nicholl takes a different approach. He focuses on a short period of Shakespeare's life, 1603-1605, the time during which he resided in an upstairs room in the home of the tyremakers Christopher and Marie Mountjoy. Without making many firm statements about the Bard himself, Nicholl fully describes the circumstances of his life.

The Mountjoys were French Huguenots living in exile in London, a very cosmopolitan city to which many European refugees had fled. Many of these people were living fairly prosperous lives as artisans, a sore point with many English-born craftspeople who felt that the immigrants were stealing their jobs. Nicholl thinks it is very interesting that Shakespeare whose Catholic affiliations are highlighted in many recent biographies lived with Huguenots, Protestants who were chased from Catholic France. The author's suggestion is that religion did not really matter that much to the playwright.

Nicholl tells much about the making of tyres, fancy ladies head decorations. These works, including hats and wigs, were created for wealthy ladies, ladies of ill repute, and theatricals. The author speculates that Shakespeare may have been introduced to the Mountjoys as a customer of headpieces for some of the plays that his company produced. In residence above the workshop, he would have come in contact with ladies of all sorts who visited to get their tyres.

While he lived on Silver Street, Shakespeare was middle aged and at work on the plays Othello, Measure for Measure, King Lear, and All's Well That Ends Well. Nicholl quotes heavily from them to show how the playwright incorporated his surroundings and the events in his own life. The historian especially draws on documents concerning a lawsuit involving Christopher Mountjoy and his son-in-law Stephen Bellott. Shakespeare gave a deposition for the case and was later required to testify what he knew about an unpaid dowry. Nicholl draws parallels between the facts of the case and King Lear disinheriting his daughter in the tragic play.

I listened to the book superbly read by Simon Vance, who kept all the minute details of daily life interesting. While working in the garden, cooking, and driving the car - my daily activities - I got the scoop on what Shakespeare did with his days 400 years ago. It is a bit of gossip that you might enjoy hearing.

Nicholl, Charles. The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street. Viking 2008. ISBN 9780670018505

8 compact discs. Tantor Audio, 2008. 9781400106288

The Library Ivy

I nominate my library as most worthy of being in Hobbiton or an English village.

Picasa Web Albums

Bonnie received via email a link to a Picasa Web Album from our niece Stephanie with photos from birthday party. The photos in the slide show were big and sharp, and I was impressed. This morning I decided to see if I could set up an album myself and discovered that I already had one web album. By being a member of Blogger and already having loaded Picasa onto my PC, I had a default album collecting all the illustrations that have added to this blog this January 3, 2007.

Because I mostly review books, my Picasa Web Album is mostly a wall of books. It looks pretty cool. We could easily set up something like this for our library website. You could, too.

203 pages of The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil

I come to The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil with a bias to like it. Kurzweil is a fascinating man, and I applaud his efforts to invent machines to help people with visual handicaps to read. The primary reason that I am reading the book, however, is that I now know Toshi Hoo, who is co-director, co-producer, and editor of the forthcoming documentary with the same title. (Since I last looked at the Internet Movie Database, there are many more details. At one point, it only listed Toshi and Kurzweil as involved.)

As you can tell from my title, I have not actually finished The Singularity is Near, a large book of 652 pages of which 496 are text. Kurzweil explains his subject well and can at points be very entertaining, and I especially like the imagined conversations involving figures from the past, present, and future that end the chapters. Some sections include many graphs and can be skimmed through pretty quickly. Other sections require slow thoughtful reading. The author includes much detail, but his arguments are accessible. I have just not made enough time to finish.

I wish the book was commercially available in audio. I would enjoy listening while I pull weeds and trim the shrubs. With as much gardening as I have before me, I could finish in another week.

The subject should interest anyone who wonders about our future. Kurzweil predicts that artificial intelligence will become more and more powerful in the next several decades. This is not of itself a surprising prediction, but the author proposes that the key is reverse engineering the human brain. The brain has much more duplication and is self-organizing, while current computers are very linear in their decision-making. Brains are more flexible and can to some extent repair themselves. They also use much less energy and produce less heat than power hungry computers. Kurzweil wants future computers to be as cold as rocks when preforming their calculations.

There is so much more in the first 200 pages than I indicate in this summary. The aim of the book as a whole is to describe the singularity - the point at which human and technical intelligence become one. Kurzweil believes this will be good because humans will have shaped the technology. The technology will enhance humans.

Of course, there is much to discuss and weigh ethically. Many people will fear these developments. Others may wish to have their brains uploaded to more lasting equipment than the human body.

I look forward to the documentary. I suspect it will bring more readers to the book. It will also serve those people who are interested in the subject but are unwilling to start such a big book. I hope to schedule the DVD for our film discussion group.

Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Viking, 2005. ISBN 0670033847

Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation by Cokie Roberts

Cokie Roberts told us about Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation back at the American Library Association in New Orleans in 2006. At that point her new book was only an idea, but she had her stories and publishing date, which she met. As a reader who enjoys history, I am glad to have now gotten my hands on the library's audio copy, which Roberts reads herself.

Ladies of Liberty continues the story of Founding Mothers: Women Who Raised the Nation, which tells about leading women during the American Revolution through the writing of the Constitution and to the presidential administration of George Washington. Ladies of Liberty takes us through the presidencies of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe to the inaugural ball for John Quincy Adams. While there is an emphasis on the women in the White House, the book weaves in stories of other U. S. women, including Rebecca Gratz who founded many of the educational and charitable organizations in Philadelphia and Elizabeth Ann Seton, who founded benevolent societies, schools, and the first American order of Catholic nuns.

Louisa Adams may have been my favorite woman in the book. She had to have great strength of character to join the Adams family as wife of John Quincy Adams. He was always a loving but difficult man who might go away to distant lands for years (and Louisa sometimes followed). In his absence, she had to deal with her strong-willed mother-in-law Abigail Adams. Abigail at first disliked Louisa for having been born in London of a British mother and American father, making her not completely American. In time, Louisa won her over by showing her devotion to husband and country. One of the best stories in the book is about Louisa's forty-day journey across Europe (St. Petersburg to Paris) during the Napoleonic Wars. With cunning and a bit of deceit, she was able to avoid being taken prisoner by rival factions. Louisa also stood up for Elizabeth Monroe who offended Washington society by not attending every social function.

I also liked Sacajawea who saved the lives of the men of the Lewis and Clark expedition countless times. She had more knowledge of the land and sense than her traveling companions, and her advice kept them on the right path. She knew where to find food and braved rapids to save drowning men. Just her presence with the men told the tribes of the West that the explorers were not a war party and kept them from being attacked.

Ladies of Liberty is a very entertaining look at history. Roberts loves telling about the times when women prove essential to international affairs, as in the time Thomas Jefferson turned to his granddaughter to translate an important Spanish diplomatic letter. Libraries should have plenty of copies now and keep some for many years.

Roberts, Cokie. Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation. William Morrow, 2008. ISBN 9780060782344

8 discs. Harper Audio, 2008. ISBN 9780061227257

Advice for the Readers' Advisor

Ann Rule or Anne Rice,
Neither author is very nice.
Gentle readers will complain
If you give them either name.
Give Jan Karon to this bunch.
Read John Gardner with your lunch.
Which John Gardner, can you tell?
There's James Bond or Grendel.

When matching reader to a book,
You must take a careful look.
Readers are picky, you will see
When you do readers' advisory.

Citizen Reader: A Blog About More Than Nonfiction

The blogger formerly known as Nonanon has remade herself into Citizen Reader. In her welcome to the new site, she explains that the new title reflects that her interests are a bit broader now. Though she will still review nonfiction books most of the time, she will include fiction or other media when inspired. I expect she will continue to be provocative and pan the books that deserve panning, while lifting up titles that we should consider for our collections and personal reading. Bookmark her site.

Serving Teen Through Readers' Advisory by Heather Booth

I am excited to report that the Thomas Ford Memorial Library has hired Heather Booth as our Teen Librarian. In preparation to work with her to revamp our services for teens, I read her idea-filled book Serving Teens Through Readers' Advisory.

I often skim rather than read library science texts, but Heather writes to entertain as well as inform and persuade, so I read it all. In this book about connecting teens with books and other library materials, she skillfully adapts adult readers' advisory ideas from Joyce Saricks, Barry Trott, Neal Wyatt, and others. Amidst her points about the unique needs of adolescent readers, she tells short stories about hand-selling and indirectly marketing books. I readily identified with her sample cases of offering books to reluctant readers, parents with vague ideas about class assignments, and teens who want more books like the ones that they already read.

Heather's book can also be used as a selection aid. Throughout her text, she includes many title suggestions, and in the appendices she identifies popular authors in teen genres and sure bets according to reading abilities. I am sure we can improve our collection with some of her suggestions.

A lot of libraries and librarians can benefit from reading Serving Teens Through Readers' Advisory. Consider it for your collection.

Booth, Heather. Serving Teens Through Readers' Advisory. ALA Editions, 2007. ISBN 9780838909300

Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley

One of the factors that keeps people out of book discussion groups is choosing big books that require many hours to read. Some people will read portions and skim, but many will not, so attendance is low when the books are gigantic. There is no need to worry with the choice of Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley. The 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama is only 58 pages. It reads very quickly, yet my book group found plenty to discuss for an hour and a half.

Doubt has only four characters: two nuns, a priest, and the mother of a student at a Catholic school. The year is 1964, and Sister Aloysius is unhappy with the times. A shortage of nuns has required the school to hire some lay teachers. The students are unruly and unmotivated. Ballpoint pens are replacing fountain pens. She thinks the song "Frosty the Snowman" is offensive to the church. Most importantly, Sister does not like the charismatic priest whom she suspects of abusing students.

Shanley has written a play that works on many levels, making it very discussable. It is of current interest because of the recent revelations of abuse by clergy in many denominations. It can also be scene as a political parable. Short as it is, it made members of the discussion remember many other works that they had read and plays that they had seen. With one character believing something for which there is no evidence, reading Doubt confirms a theme in True Enough by Farhad Manjoo, which I recently read. The intrigue within a community of nuns reminds me of The Abbess of Crewe by Murial Spark.

Book groups looking for a worthy and marketable book should consider this gripping play.

Shanley, John Patrick. Doubt: A Parable. Theatre Communications Group, 2005. ISBN 1559362766

Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by

Wangari Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her founding of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya. Two years later, her book Unbowed: a Memoir was published to critical acclaim. Now her story is told again in a picture book for children called Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola.

The telling of a story of environmental abuse may seem a bit serious for younger children, but Nivola has simplified the story for ease of elementary understanding. The important point made is that when a person sees a problem, she can do something to solve it. Maathai could have easily accepted that a person could do little about deforestation, but she instead believed that she could with others do very much. As a result 30,000,000 trees have been planted. Caring, cooperation, and the importance of the individual are good lessons for young readers. Older readers should be reminded of this as well.

Planting the Trees of Kenya is the kind of book that parents and teachers may want to read aloud, so they can explain some of the unfamiliar words and describe the problems to their listeners. Then the children should be allowed to look at all the pictures which subtly include much about the culture in Kenya. Libraries with environmental or world cultures collections for children will want to consider this attractive book.

Nivola, Claire A. Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. ISBN 9780374399184

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri's latest collection of short stories Unaccustomed Earth comes at a great time for my library. We are featuring short stories in our summer reading program for adults, and it is great to have something new and brilliant to tout. Lahiri has excelled with this group of tales about the difficult relationships of Bengali immigrants to America who wish to preserve their culture and their children who long to assimilate.

I listened to the collection read by Sarita Choudhury and Ajay Naidu. In the both the first and the final stories, the two readers alternate as Lahiri has two voices telling these poignant stories. The first is the title story, which features an academically gifted daughter who has married late and is a new mother rather isolated in a new community. Her widowed father comes to visit and starts a garden for her. She wonders whether this is a sign that he expects her to offer him permanent place in her home, as a daughter would back in India. She is uncertain what cultural rules still apply.

Lahiri tries out a variety of scenarios in the collection In "Only Goodness," a brother and sister drift apart as they react very differently to their Bengali parents expectations. Both choose non-Bengali mates with opposite results. In "A Choice of Accommodations," a Bengali man reluctantly returns with his wife to the private school that he attended. The draw is the wedding of the schoolmaster's daughter, an attractive woman that he always worshiped from afar.

The collection ends with three interconnected stories about two Bengali children and their lives over thirty years. Hema's family gives Kaushik's family rooms while they look for their own house in the Boston area. While the families drift apart over cultural differences, Hema and Kauchik loosely bond in the first story. The story is written as a letter from Hema to Kauchik, who she remembers and wishes she could see again. In the second story, Kauchik wishes he could tell Hema about what has happened to him in his life. In the final melancholy story they do meet again. The book cover has meaning after you read this story.

Public libraries should definitely have this outstanding collection and use it to introduce readers to their short story collections.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth. Knopf, 2008. ISBN 9780307265739

8 compact discs. Books on Tape, 2008. ISBN 9781415943564

Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin by Allen Zadoff

I was attracted by the cookie cutter on the cover. I like cookies a lot. So does Allen Zadoff, the author of Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin. In fact, cookies are one of his trigger foods and a contributing factor to his food addiction.

Allen Zadoff is a compulsive overeater, and Hungry is a witty memoir more than a self-help book. He repeats throughout the book that the methods that he used to return to a more normal weight after having expanded to 360 pounds may not work for others. His aim is to encourage others with eating disorders that they can gain control of their lives through behavior modification.

Diets are out of the picture for Zadoff, as none ever worked. Daily planning and abstaining from trigger foods is in. (A trigger food is something that a person can not stop eating once he/she starts, like potato chips or cookies.) It has worked for him for twelve years because he starts every day with a plan of what to eat - three good meals and no snacks. If he fails one day, he starts over the next day with three good meals. He insists that penalizing oneself for past failure just leads to more failure and that it is important to start fresh each day.

Though Zadoff aims his book at people with serious eating disorders, Hungry is entertaining and thought-provoking quick read for almost any reader. I am sure many readers will identify and empathize with his story, as many of us imagine what would happen if we just gave in to all our desires. It may help some understand the problems that their friends have.

Not many libraries in my area bought this helpful book. I urge them to reconsider, for it might help someone a lot.

Zadoff, Allen. Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin. Da Capo Life Long, 2007. ISBN 9780738211053

True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society by Farhad Manjoo

Americans and other earthlings are divided by more than opinions these days. We do not even sense the same reality. There are few facts to which everyone agrees, no matter how much evidence can be produced and disseminated. Diverse portions of our population believes that NASA faked the moon landings, that Saddam Hussein planned the 9/11 attacks, and that anyone who wants a good paying job can get one easily. Modern communication technology is supposed to supply news and information to bring us to common understanding, but it has failed. According to Salon staff writer Farhad Manjoo in his new book True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, there is too much information and much of it is manipulated for partisan purposes.

Four or five decades ago, we got our news from a handful of mainline sources, as many people watched network news every evening. With cable television and the Internet widely available, people now choice other sources that have more "point of view" and less objectivity. Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Larry King, Bill O'Reilly, and other media stars have more influence on public opinion than most politicians. Most people only check news sources that will tell them what they already believe. When mainline and liberal channels carried refutations of the Swift Boat Veterans claim that John Kerry acted cowardly in the Vietnam War, conservatives who believed the story did not even notice.

Manjoo rebukes many local television stations for the use of video news releases or VNRs. Many political, professional, and industrial interest groups send slick videos to the stations, which may air them on their local news programs without any verification of the content. The stations are more interested in advertising revenues than the veracity of the news and are happy to reduce the cost of news gathering. Tobacco companies, the oil industry, and pharmaceutical firms often get their viewpoints reported as facts.

The manipulators do not always get their way. I found the most encouraging story was how tobacco companies ultimately failed to stop much of the regulation of the use of their products. Big tobacco counted on its customers to stand up for them, not realizing that addicts do not really love their pushers. Wanting help to break their habits, many smokers actually favor regulation . Tobacco killing over 400,000 people per year is a "fact" that just can not be glossed over anymore.

True Enough is a lively and engaging look at "truthiness" which should be in more public libraries (institutions devoted to the presentation and dissemination of all viewpoints).

Manjoo, Farhad. True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. John Wiley & Sons, 2008. ISBN 9780470050101

The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith

I think the thing that I like best about books in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith is the universal compassion that runs through the stories. There are special moments and thoughtful exchanges, such as this conversation on page 125 of the latest title The Miracle at Speedy Motors.


Mma Ramotswe introduced herself. You do not know me, Mma. I am Precious Ramotswe."

The woman listened attentively, with the manner that older people have with names. She belonged to a Botswana where names meant something, connected people with places, cousins, events; even with cattle.

"Ramotswe? There was an Obed Ramotswe in Mochudi, I think. He . . ."

"Was my father. He is late now. My father."

The woman lowered her eyes in sympathy. "I am sorry. He was a good man."

Mma Ramotswe felt proud, as she always did when someone remembered her father. Invariably they used the expression good man; and he was. He was the best of men.


Readers everywhere will understand the emotions of the characters in this story set in remote Botswana. The local flavor of the story may draw readers in to the story. The universal themes keep them.

The Miracle at Speedy Motors is the ninth title in the series. Public libraries need to have them all.

McCall Smith, Alexander. The Miracle at Speedy Motors. Pantheon Books, 2008. ISBN 9780375424489.

Wild at Heart: Man and Beast in Southern Africa: Photographs by Chris Johns

Bonnie brings home great books.

I wonder if Wild at Heart: Man and Beast in Southern Africa will be a rare book some day. Not many libraries bought this over-sized booked when it was published by the National Geographic Society in 2002. Inexpensive used copies can be found on the Internet now, but new copies are still $65. It is awkward to shelve, and the landscape layout with the binding at the top makes it heavy to hold. Still, for someone who loves African wildlife and longs to visit the preserves of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and South Africa, it is a wonderful book.

Unbind the book and many of the photos could be mounted and framed, especially the landscapes and wildlife scenes. Not all the photos, however, are pleasant. Photographer Chris Johns includes candid shots of poaching, predators killing prey, poverty, and squalor. Essayist Peter Godwin frankly discusses the problems of mismanaged parks, shrinking habitats, displaced people, and political misdeeds along with his accounts of wildlife conservation.

My favorite section is the remarkable story of a female cheetah who successfully raises a litter of five cubs to adulthood on Mambo Island in the Okavango Delta. It is followed by a section about the plight of wild dogs, which are not really dogs but a separate line of canines. Some of the wild dog hunting photos are rather bloody. You have to be a wildlife enthusiast (as I am) to like this book. If so, it is worth the wait to ILL.

Wild at Heart: Man and Beast in Southern Africa. National Geographic Insight, 2002. ISBN 0792269055

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

It seems like I have always known about Helen Keller. I probably heard about her as an elementary school student many years ago. I may have seen The Miracle Worker (1962) with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke on television. What I had not done until last week was read The Story of My Life.

Of the many surprises the book had for me, first was how visually descriptive it seems. When Keller relates incidents, I can almost see them. I think this is because she puts everything into context, includes motion, length, depth, and position. I would know these qualities of a scene if I saw them. Keller knew them from sense of touch and the narration supplied by her companions, especially her teacher Anne Sullivan.

The second surprise was her eloquence and rich vocabulary. It is amazing to think that she began her education with only the memory of the word wawa for water remaining from her infancy. She relates that she was a vibrant child with advanced language before she went deaf and blind at the age of nineteen months. She claims to have lost all of the early learning, but I wonder if it really was the foundation of her revival.

The third big surprise for me was that Keller wrote her autobiography as a college student. She was only twenty-three when it was published. Already she had traveled extensively in the U.S. and Canada and met Alexandre Graham Bell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Mark Twain. She had read their works as well as much history and classical literature. She read Latin, French, and German. The only subjects that she seemed to find difficult were geometry and calculus.

The Story of My Life was originally published in 1903. Keller lived until 1968, writing other books and articles. She was surprisingly active as a reformer, espousing the causes of women's rights, birth control, fair labor practices, socialism, and pacifism. A Gallup Poll taken in 1999 listed her fifth among most admired people of the Twentieth Century, behind Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr, John F. Kennedy, and Albert Einstein. I would move her up.

Obviously, The Story of My Life is a book that every public library should have. The restored edition from Modern Library, published on the centennial of the original edition, has a selection of Keller letters and other supplements.

Keller, Helen. The Story of My Life. Modern Library. ISBN 0679642870

Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut

Recently, Nonanon praised Armageddon in Retrospect, a new volume of previously unpublished pieces by the late Kurt Vonnegut. Now that I have read it, I agree. The short stories, his letter to his family from post-World War II Europe, and the speech Vonnegut gave in Indianapolis just before he died are all filled with wit, candor, and compassion. Together they make a bold statement about the futility of war and the ethics of victory (if there really is such a thing in war).

I wonder why the stories sat unpublished. Was Vonnegut not satisfied with them or did he just move on to other projects so quickly that they were left behind? Several are set in Dresden during and after the Allies leveling of the city at war's end, when many children, women, seniors, and other noncombatants were killed needlessly, arbitrarily. Collateral damage. Maybe the author felt that he had said enough with Slaughterhouse Five. Whatever the reason, now is a good time for them to emerge, as they speak well to the generation questioning the sense of the war in Iraq.

My favorite story is "The Unicorn Trap" set in the time of William the Conqueror's consolidation of control in England. I like the conscientious serf who does not want to become a tax collector, denying his wife upward mobility. I also especially like "The Commandant's Desk," one of several stories around the issue of soldiers looting the homes and shops of the towns that they liberated. The cabinet maker is another vehicle for Vonnegut's voice.

Though the book can be put in the 80os, I think it will be more easily found by readers in the fiction collection. All public libraries should add this treasure of Vonnegut.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Armageddon in Retrospect. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2008. ISBN 9780399155086

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

At a time when some writers have tried to pass off fiction as memoirs, Sherman Alexie has taken a different tact. He has written The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a novel based on his experiences as an Indian attending an all-white school. In an interview with Rick Margolis of School Library Journal (August 2007, p. 29), he explains that he had written 450 pages of a family memoir and part of it just did not fit the rest thematically. He said readers would hardly believe it anyway, so he made it into a novel for teens to fill a promise that he had made to write such a book. The resulting book has been widely praised in reviews and won a National Book Award.

So there may be a more serious memoir still coming. I suspect that too might be powerful reading. I enjoyed The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian thoroughly, but one thought nags at me. With the exception of his family support, his depiction of the reservation is almost totally negative. Everyone has given up on life and turned to alcohol. This broad generalization is probably more acceptable in a teen novel because it is part of the hero's feelings more than objective truth. It will be interesting to see how he portrays the reservation in a memoir.

I also wonder how the Indian community views this book. I think about The Oldest Rookie by Jim Morris, part of which takes place in my hometown. It is fortunate for Morris that he no longer works there (he commuted in daily so he never actually lived there), as the locals mostly did not like the book. Truth hurts. Also, Morris may not have been totally fair.

I hope Alexie keeps writing for readers of all ages. The success of this book should encourage it.

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Little, Brown and Company, 2007. ISBN 9780316013680

The Nonfiction Narrative: Exploring Nonfiction in a Readers' Advisory Context

Neal Wyatt of Chesterfield County Public Library in Virginia, author of The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction, spoke to about 40 librarians from around the western and southern Chicago suburbs about The Nonfiction Narrative: Exploring Nonfiction in a Readers' Advisory Context this morning at the Metropolitan Library System headquarters in Burr Ridge. In the spirit of her presentation, here is a brief on the workshop.

Narrative: Low, for this was an instructional workshop. Wyatt did incorporate some story telling. I especially liked her quick summaries of the books that she highlighted.

Nonfiction Categories: Task Instruction, How-To

Nonfiction Types: Explanations

Subjects: Library Science, Readers' Advisory, Nonfiction Books

Pace: Fast, Quick, Lively

Tone: Upbeat, Affirming, Instructive, Humorous

Intent: Learning/Experiencing

Special Features: The attendees formed four groups (1) to write up RA briefs for popular nonfiction books and (2) to prepare to recommend other books to a client based on the book enjoyed and its appeal factors. Wyatt also provide helpful handouts with tips for working with nonfiction.

What You Should Know: Narrative is just another word for story. Narrative nonfiction includes books that are basically true (some memoirs less so) that score high on story factors, as apposed to straight factual style. Like fiction, narrative nonfiction appeals to readers for characterization, story line, setting, good pacing, and appealing tone. Unlike fiction readers, nonfiction readers want books about subjects from which they learn or experience. Any librarian can with just a little thought and practice adapt to recommending nonfiction as well as fiction, to work toward a whole collection approach to readers' advisory.

Target audience: This workshop (which I assume will play in other venues) will appeal to librarians wishing to improve their ability to get good nonfiction books into the hands of appreciative readers. They will also like getting a few new titles to put on their own reading lists.

What I'm Taking Away: I will play around with her nonfiction types, which are sub-genres that can move around beneath various nonfiction categories. Wyatt said that as a profession we are still sorting out how to organize our readers' advisory tools. This is of particular interest to me as I try to write a book on biography, which ends up as both a category and a type in the Wyatt's scheme. There is no one right way to do this. Various schemes will probably always be needed for differing client needs.

Last Thought: Wyatt says that pace and tone are the two most important appeal factors in recommending books that clients enjoy. I think that she is right, and they may be the most challenging to identify. The librarian and client may not have a common vocabulary from which to work. We're going to have to do good interviews, welcome feedback, and try again and again.