I Wish I'd Been There: Twenty Historians Bring to Life Dramatic Events That Changed America

If you had a time machine and could travel back to an event that changed the course of American history, what event would you choose? This is the question editor Byron Hollinshead asked twenty well-known historians in I Wish I'd Been There: Twenty Historians Bring to Life Dramatic Events That Changed America. Each replied with an essay about the time and place that he or she finds most interesting, often an incident related to a book that he or she has written. Of course, the times chosen vary greatly. The first is a visit to the ancient native American community of Cahokia on a festival day and the last is a meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Alabama Governor George Wallace to discuss police violence at civil rights demonstrations in Alabama.

I think that I would like to witness the Wright Brothers flights at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903 to be present when easy distant travel became probable. Of course, there is always bad with good, as aerial warfare also became more possible on that day. I would also like to be in Washington, D.C. on the day in 1800 that Congress accepted Thomas Jefferson's books to establish the Library of Congress. Did Congress realize the importance of its act? None of the historians chose these events.

Mary Beth Norton chose to view the Salem witch trials as her wish come true. As a historian she has a list of questions that she believes that she could answer by being there. Carolyn Gilman wishes that she could witness Meriwether Lewis realizing that his Corps of Volunteers would need Shoshone Indian help to reach the Columbia River. Clayborne Carson chose the civil rights march in Washington in 1963, an event that he actually did attend as a college student. He'd like to go back and see what he missed.

Some of the historians are authors that many librarians and readers will recognize, such as Joseph J. Ellis, Robert V. Remini, Thomas Fleming, and Geoffrey C. Ward. Because it collects such noted writers, I Wish I'd Been There: Twenty Historians Bring to Life Dramatic Events That Changed America can serve as a good introduction to reading history. It can be offered as a sampler for readers in search of new interests. It will also appeal to magazine or short story readers, who would rather have an essay than a book. The book is available in many public libraries, as is a followup, I Wish I'd Been There, Book Two: European History.

Hollingshead, Byron, ed. I Wish I'd Been There: Twenty Historians Bring to Life Dramatic Events That Changed America. Doubleday, 2006. ISBN 9780385516198

Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor

A benefit of handling books and talking to readers is finding new books to read. My daughter Laura has been working as a substitute circulation clerk at our library this summer and, as you might expect, she has been checking lots of children's books. Every now and then one catches her eye and she brings it home. Last week she brought home Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor and shared it with the rest of us. I don't think I have laughed so hard since the first time I read Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw.

It is so appropriate that Laura brought the book home to us, for there was a lot of Fancy Nancy in Laura when she was little. As a parent I could really relate to the 32 page story of a girl who likes to dress up and decorate and go out for ice cream. I don't want to spoil the surprises so I won't say any more. The book rings true and readers of all ages may enjoy it.

There is a whole series of Fancy Nancy books and we are working our way through them all now. Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy is a lot of fun to read. By the way, "posh" is fancy for fancy.


O'Connor, Jane. Fancy Nancy. Houghton Mifflin, 2006. ISBN 0060542098.

When the Book Is All Finished

When the book is all finished
When the writing is done
I will close up the laptop
And just have some fun
I will go to a garden
And smell the roses all day
Then I'll go to the city
And there I will stray
I'll see all of the paintings
In a gallery display
Then I'll go to a snack shop
Where I'll fill up a tray
With ice cream and cake
And a cookie or two
When the book is all finished
That's just what I'll do.

When the book is all finished
When the writing's complete
I'll back up all the files
And then put up my feet
I'll sleep late in the morning
Read the paper in bed
Wear pajamas to breakfast
And when I'm properly fed
I will listen to music
And I'll not multi-task
When the book is all finished
Is that too much to ask?

Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange's Photographs and Reports from the Field by Anne Whiston Spirn

Some of the most remembered images from the Great Depression and the migration of farmers and other workers during the Dust Bowl years were from the camera of photographer Dorothea Lange. In black and white she caught the worried expression on the migrant mother's face, the paternal look of the sharecropper watching his daughter pull worms off tobacco leaves, and proud smile of an oldest son who had saved money to buy a bicycle for the family. Her photographs practically defined the hard times of the 1930s.

According to photographer Anne Whiston Spirn, Lange does not get the credit she deserves as an artist and pioneer of photography. Many histories of American photography do not even mention her. Spirn tells how a large exhibit of Lange's work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1966, three months after her death, seemed to celebrate and end the consideration of her work. Many of her photographs and field reports for the Farm Security Administration have remained locked away unseen until now, as Spirn has arranged their publication.

Spirn thinks Lange suffered critical neglect because she took photographs with a purpose, not intended for galleries. She spent much time alongside the downtrodden, learning their stories and observing their struggles. For every set of photographs that she submitted to her agency, she wrote reports detailing the lives of her photographic subjects. Views expecting artifice in art are surprised by the simplicity and clarity and do not think to label the images "art."

In Daring to Look, Spirn looks at Lange's assignments during the 1939 year, which may have been her greatest, as she toured California, North Carolina, and the Pacific Northwest with little rest. With Lange's reports, the book gives readers an intimate look at American life just before the Second World War changed everything. Many libraries should consider this great book.

Spirn, Anne Whiston. Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange's Photographs and Reports from the Field. University of Chicago Press, 2008. ISBN 9780226769844

The Big Read from Compact Disc to iPod

A couple of weeks ago a plain brown rectangular box landed on my desk when I was not looking. When I noticed it, I wondered what it could be, as it was too narrow for books. Upon opening it, I found fourteen compact discs from the National Endowment for the Arts, one for each book in its The Big Read book discussion program. A questionnaire asking what uses our library would make of the came with the CDs, suggesting that we try to find innovative ways to incorporate them into our collections and programs.

My idea is to load them onto patron iPods. I'm not sure if there will be a big demand, but we might as well add them onto our iPod book collection. I checked with the NEA by email and the organization has no objections. I was told we have full broadcast rights. I guess that we could turn them into podcasts, too.

Being curious, I listened to three programs, each lasting about one half hour. I particularly enjoyed An Introduction to To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which includes readings by Anne Twomey and comments by author Elizabeth Spencer, justice Sandra Day O'Connor, actor Robert Duvall (who played Boo Radley in the movie), playwright Horton Foote (who adapted the novel for the film), and others. Dana Gioia of the NEA narrated. In the background at points is music from the film. O'Connor tells how small town life in rural Arizona was just like that in rural Alabama. Spencer, Duvall, and Foote had lots of interesting things to say about the characters and setting. After listening, I wanted to read the book again immediately.

The CDs about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck were also interesting. The later even has bonus tracks, including a segment from an interview of Steinbeck by Eleanor Roosevelt.

I do not know if all public libraries got these. I may have replied to an offer. I do not remember, a sign of my age I suppose. Whatever, I'm glad we have them.

101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out by Josh Pahigian

Baseball landmarks are almost everywhere, if you will only look. At least, that is how it seems after reading 101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out by Josh Pahigian. Look past the major cities. Many communities had beloved minor league or semi-pro teams at some point in the past. Major leaguers hale from all sorts of places large and small. Memorabilia can land just about anywhere. I see lots of interesting places to visit, such as the House of David Museum in Benton Harbor, Michigan to learn about the bearded, long-haired barnstorming team.

Pahigian had a lot of sites to consider given the broad reach of baseball through the country. (He stuck to just U.S. sites in this volume. Perhaps he can issue a sequel with special baseball places in Latin America, Canada, and Japan.) He starts with the most obvious site, which is the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Then he chooses two more neutral sites, the Field of Dreams Movie Site and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. With his fourth choice, not able to avoid the inevitable, he chooses a team-related site, and wouldn't you know it, it is Monument Park in Yankee Stadium. I know I'd pick Wrigley Field or Fenway Park over Yankee Stadium any day, but it is his book. Next year, you won't even be able to go to the current Yankee Stadium as the team moves to a new location. The Monuments are supposed to go to the new stadium, but it will not be hallowed ground, like the ballparks in Boston and Chicago.

The author includes some odd places, especially toward the back of the book. I doubt that the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona will let you see Ted Williams frozen remains. Are we supposed to drive by and honk? Balco Labs in Burlington, California also sounds like a place few will want to visit, unless there are free steroid samples. Cook County Criminal Courts Building where the Black Sox scandal unfolded I can understand wanting to see.

The Elysian Fields are listed at 96 in the book. It seems like a major spot in the history of the game, and I would put in way up in the list. Pahigan explains that he thinks the site is overrated because early baseball games were played in many other places that have now disappeared. I would turn that argument around to say that because a very small portion of the Elysian Fields is still marked for visitors it could represent all the sites that are lost. Perhaps the author does not want to disappoint readers with the spot because there is so little to actually see.

Perhaps a sports book reading club would like to discuss this work. There could be many lively and probably pointless debates.

The author includes a lot of fascinating details about some of the sites, and I enjoyed reading player names that I had forgotten. I wish that he had put in a U.S. map marking the locations or put a geographical index to aid someone looking for places regionally. (A nod to Bonnie who first noticed that these reference aids were missing.) Still, it is a book many readers will enjoy and is a good acquisition for libraries.

Pahigian, Josh. 101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out. Lyons Press, 2008. ISBN 9781599212517

The Legend of Colton H. Bryant by Alexandra Fuller

Alexandra Fuller's new book The Legend of Colton H. Bryant may seem an unusual story to comfortably secure readers from the cities and suburbs of our country. The young men and women of Evanston, Wyoming lack the educational advantage, career ambitions, and financial foresight of their urban counterparts who attend highly-ranked high schools in preparation for college and careers. While the setting may be different, youths from ghettos may find the story line more understandable. Coming from a rural community dominated by the oil industry, I recognize the basic truth of the story right away.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Colton H. Bryant (1980-2006) dreamed of being a cowboy but settled for rough necking in the Upper Green River Valley of Wyoming. Having been an accident prone boy who was well-known in the emergency room of the local hospital, the reckless young man who lived on Mountain Dew and hamburgers claimed he would not live to see his twenty-fifth birthday. He exceeded his prediction by eight months and died in an easily avoidable oilfield drilling accident. He was the fourth rig hand working for Ultra Petroleum to die in eighteen months. According to Fuller, the aggressively profit-minded company was fined a nominal amount for not having safety rails and did little for Bryant's family.

In this intimate biography of the ill-fated Bryant, Fuller portrays a working class character that would do anything for his friends and family, including the dangerous work that he and many other men with few options do. The author explains in her afterward to the book that she changed one name and rearranged the time sequence slightly for dramatic effect. She also took some liberties with conversations, which of course could not be so well remembered. The result is a compelling quick reading narrative.

Many readers will remember Fuller for her African memoirs Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and Scribbling the Cat. She does not appear as a character in this story of her new homeland. Her old fans and teen readers will enjoy this novel-like biography, which should be in most public libraries.

Fuller, Alexandra. The Legend of Colton H. Bryant. Penguin Press, 2008. 202p. ISBN 9781594201837.

NPR Driveway Moments: Baseball and Questions About Audiobooks

When an audiobook is not first a printed book is it a book? Is it really even an audiobook? Do you prefer "audio book" or "audiobooks"? Does it matter if you enjoy the audio?

I enjoyed very much NPR Driveway Moments: Baseball, a two CD set of baseball-related stories from All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, Day to Day, Tell Me More, and News & Notes. There are many familiar voices, including Bob Edwards, Alex Cohen, and Melissa Block, interviewing old stars, authors of books, fans, and other people somehow related to the game. There are also commentaries from Bill Littlefield, Frank Deford, and Neal Conan. It is purely entertaining and unbroken by depressing news or pledge drives.

My favorites include Bob Edwards interviewing Mamie "Peanuts" Johnson, a woman who pitched in the Negro Leagues in the 1950s. She tells how she was excluded from the white women's leagues that sprung up around World War II but played competitively with men. Most of them were gentlemen, according to Johnson, but there were a few she had to "put in their place." Her favorite moment may have been striking out Satchel Paige.

One of the most touching stories is "Braves Cheered On by Truly Brave Hospice Fans" which tells about a coach visiting the patients and nuns at a hospice close to Turner Field and bringing them to games. One of the funniest is "Aren't We Tired of Watching the Pitch Count?" by commentator Frank Deford, but I can not tell you why it is funny without giving away the joke.

I nodded in agreement with writer Paul Schersten who critiqued all the new corporate names for ballparks. I laughed with author Derek Zumsteg telling about ballplayers falling for the hidden ball trick.

The only problem with NPR Driveway Moments: Baseball is that there are only two CDs and slightly less that two hours of content. I could have listened for weeks. So, now I'm listening to NPR Driveway Moments: All About Animals, which has some great stories about talking birds.

Back to my initial questions. My fourth edition of The American Heritage Dictionary recommends "audio book" to writers. Most of the definitions on the web also separate the words but I did find some for the word "audiobook". Worldcat separates the words but our SWAN catalog in the Metropolitan Library System uses the one word version. All the definitions say that audio books are taped readings of books. It seems they have not caught up with the transition to compact discs and digital files. I believe that they also have not caught up to broader ideas of books and audiobooks as commonly used in libraries and bookstores.

NPR Driveway Moments: Baseball. HighBridge, 2008. ISBN 9781598875874

As You Like It: A Film by Kenneth Branagh

I'll admit right off the bat that I am a Kenneth Branagh fan. I've liked almost everything that he's directed, even the four-hour Hamlet, which made more sense to me than many other productions of the tragedy. My favorite has to be Much Ado About Nothing, which has Emma Thompson, whom I like even better than Branagh. Too bad they don't like each other anymore, for they made a great team.

I did not know about Branagh's As You Like It until Bonnie brought it home. It appears that it was on cable rather than in the cinema in the U.S. I must have had my head in the sand because a fair number of libraries have it. It is comforting knowing that collectively librarians keep up when we sometimes slip up as individuals.

About half way through the movie I imagined seeing it over and over again for the scenes in the woods are so beautiful and the romance is so sweet. Also, the film has such a great cast, including Brian Blessed who plays both the good duke and the evil duke, and Kevin Kline, who I like even more than I like Branagh and Thompson.

The play requires the viewer to suspend critical thinking to accept the beautiful Rosalind disguised as a boy and not to question why some people never meet in the woods when everyone else does. Some of the plot is quickly dismissed with a line or two. Still, it is Shakespeare and full of great lines. It belongs in more library collections.

Why Not .lib as a Top-level Domain Name?

I saw this article from c/Net News about a group called ICANN choosing web domain names in my email from AL Direct this week. It tells about ICANN voting to allow specialty top-level domains (TLD) , also called top-level domain names (TLDN), such .ebay or .intel for clients willing to pay for the right. It made me think about library TLDs. They are inconsistent, as there is a mixture of .com, .net, and .org right now. Wouldn't it be great to have a generic library TLD that the public would know, like .lib?

Wouldn't it be great if a library user could find the local library web site by just entering the community or college name and ".lib" in the "go to" box on a web browser?

www.downersgrove.lib = Downers Grove Public Library
www.mortoncollege.lib = Morton College Library
www.westernspringsil.lib = Thomas Ford Memorial Library in Western Springs

The consistency would help in those communities where the library is named for a benefactor, local hero, or geographical feature.

There might have to be some use of state codes for cities like Springfield, Illinois and Springfield, Missouri. Perhaps web pages giving links to all the library choices could direct people who put in just www.springfield.lib.

Libraries probably would not want to get rid of their current web addresses, which are already known, but the new address could direct new users to their sites.

Usually it is easy to find a library through a search engine, but not always. Plus, it would say that libraries are a big part of the web if they had their own TLD.

Book Alert for the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street

Early in 2007 I wished that there was a complete history of Sesame Street. One of the readers who commented noted that the 40th anniversary of the debut on PBS was soon coming. That was foresight! Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers has now announced in a two-page spread in its fall catalog a new book Sesame Street, A Celebration: 40 Years of Life on the Street by Louise Gikow, who wrote some scripts for the show. Scheduled for November, the book is to have 256 pages with over a thousand illustrations. That sounds like a few hundred pages short of what is necessary to cover such a big topic but I am still excited. I know what I want to read at Thanksgiving.

Gikow, Louise. Sesame Street, A Celebration: 40 Years of Life on the Street. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, November 2008, ISBN 9781579126384

Biography: A User's Guide by Carl Rollyson

I usually wait until I finish a book to review it, but I already know I want to recommend Biography: A User's Guide by Carl Rollyson. I wish that I had had it to consult a year ago when I started my biography book project. Being a biographer himself, the author has thought a lot about the genre, and he is not shy about telling what he thinks. He has a wicked wit and probably a list of enemies.

Rollyson addresses a lot of issues that interest me. As I started writing, I considered a readers' advisory chapter on "definitive biographies." I had seen the term frequently, but I could not pin it down, nor could I fairly identify a list of books that fit the bill. In his book with topics arranged alphabetically, Rollyson explains why I had such trouble. He reviles the term, which he says is just a marketing ploy, almost always self-proclaimed. His view is that every biography has a point of view and none puts the debate of a character to rest.

As the title suggests, the book is a sort of reference guide, but it is also a bit of a memoir. Rollyson provides some background on his own experiences. I enjoyed the entries "Fair Use" about his and colleagues' legal struggles to use quotations from unpublished sources and "Authorized Biographies" which discusses the upsetting of family members when writing authorized or unauthorized biographies.

Not many libraries seem to have added this book yet. They should consider it, for both readers and writers will find it interesting.

Rollyson, Carl. Biography: A User's Guide. Ivan R. Dee, 2008. ISBN 9781566637800.

Andy Warhol: Prince of Pop by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

Looking through the YALSA Best Books for Young Adults lists in search of biographies, I came upon a book with a pretty scary cover, Andy Warhol: Prince of Pop by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. Though I readily recognize Warhol's distinctive paintings, I really did not know much about his life other than it was shocking in the eyes of many moralists and probably not a life to recommend repeating. Reading this mostly nonjudgmental book confirmed my general impression and filled in the story of the 1960s icon.

When you read about the lives of artists, you discover that many lead unconventional lives, often outside the strictures of their societies. To make their art, they devoted themselves to their work and obsessed about the details. Often shunning society at large, they associated with other artists when they were not isolating themselves. Andy Warhol's life seems to have been a variation of this model notable for being extremely social within the counter culture of the times. Warhol's Factory, where he painted and shot films was almost always open to his associates, employees, and fans until one of them shot him. Then it became a fortress.

Why is the book on the 2005 YALSA list? "Books with proven or potential appeal to teens" is the criteria for inclusion. According to the web page for 2005, the book was a unanimous choice of the fifteen member committee. I suspect that they all recognized the teen appeal of rebellion and celebrity. Adults enjoy reading about these themes, too. I enjoyed the quick read and now want to see the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

Andy Warhol: Prince of Pop goes well in either teen or adult collections. The authors included a chronology, glossary, bibliography, and film list, giving the book some reference value.

Greenberg, Jan and Jordan, Sandra. Andy Warhol: Prince of Pop. Delacorte Press, 2005. ISBN 038573056x

Herbert Hoover, Boy Engineer by Mildred H. Comfort

As frequent readers of this blog know, I have been thinking about biography a lot for over a year now. As I am preparing to write a chapter on Coming of Age Biography for my book, it has occurred to me that my first experience with biography that I remember was with a book in the Childhood of Famous Americans series. It was a summer day in 1964, and my mom had taken my sister and me to the Reagan County Public Library in Big Lake, Texas. There I found John Audubon, Boy Naturalist by Miriam Evangeline Mason (Bobbs-Merrill, 1962). I started reading while still in the library. I continued on the ride in the station wagon back out to the ranch and took the book to my bedroom. I was captivated by the story of Audubon's coming to America and traveling around its woods and prairies drawing and painting its birds. I did not put the book down until I had finished. It may have been the only time in my life that I read a regular-size book cover to cover in one session.

I know that I read a bunch of books from the Childhood of Famous Americans series in my fourth to sixth grade years. I remember titles on George Washington, Sacagawea, Robert Fulton, and Eli Whitney. As I reached college age, I heard a professor putting them down as sanitized and idealized. He said this as part of his "do not trust what your high school football coach told you about history" speech. Since then I have seen them in libraries, but I had not thought to read one again until now.

Wanting to refresh my knowledge and reassess these books, I found Herbert Hoover, Boy Engineer by Mildred H. Comfort in the 1965 book jacket still in my library. There are three copies in the SWAN Catalog of the Metropolitan Library System, and 244 more entries for books in the series, which is still being published and republished in more modern jackets. I prefer the 1960s jackets, which have two-color printing over the older covers with silhouettes or the newer versions with red, white, and blue framing.

I chose the book about Hoover because Bonnie and I recently visited the Hoover historical site in West Branch, Iowa. Reading the book, I thought about what I had read at the visitor center and museum and had seen in the historical buildings. Like when I was ten, I found that I was enjoying the story and was reminded of Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The book is about Hoover's childhood but it is also about any childhood in rural America in the later part of the nineteenth century, as there is wealth of cultural information. The books in the American Girl series follow right along with this same formula that Wilder created.

The professor was right about the sanitizing of the story but it did not veer away from what I learned in West Branch. As a young Quaker, Hoover probably was a very well-behaved youth, which is what most of this book is about. He graduates from Stanford University as an engineer on page 168. The rest of his life gets 24 pages.

The story is somewhat fictionalized, as it is told as a series of incidents with setting descriptions and conversation. I thought Comfort did a good job of describing the places of Hoover's youth. I saw again the small family home, the blacksmith shop, and the Quaker meeting house, as well as the hills and the stream. I think a few lines of dialog are suspect, especially line of page 53 in which his father says, "I hope, Bert, that thee'll live to see fifty stars in that flag." Why would anyone in the 1880s pick out fifty? There were only thirty-eight on the flag in the Fourth of July scene in the book.

It is hard to judge a series by a single book, but the Hoover book does encourage me to try a few more. It is fun to be ten again.

Comfort, Mildred H. Herbert Hoover, Boy Engineer. Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965. There is no ISBN.

Book Line in the University of Iowa Main Library

Book line in the Main Library
Originally uploaded by dzou.

One of the encouraging stories out of Iowa this week is the great volunteer effort to save the library collection at the University of Iowa. All the story is not told as yet, but there are photos appearing across the web. Using Flicker I found this photo from dzou showing the line of students and employees moving books out of the Main Library's basement to upper floors.

Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, and many other communities will be telling their library stories soon. Among those will be some tragedies and calls for help from the wider library world.

Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II by Jennet Conant

Here is a great biography for entertaining summer reading.

The story of Alfred Lee Loomis (1887-1975) sounds like 1940's Hollywood movie plot, something for the kid's matinée on a Saturday afternoon. Handsome millionaire stock broker Loomis kept a secret laboratory in his fabulous mansion where he met with great scientists to invent devices to save the world from the Nazis. When he wasn't at a night club or on his yacht with attractive women, he was meeting with Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Enrico Fermi. According to author Jennet Conant in Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II, this adventure story is true. Loomis really led a double life of financial business by day and developing radar and the atomic bombs by night.

Currently every copy of this exciting book in the SWAN catalog of the Metropolitan Library System is on the shelf. It is time for action! Put it on display and offer it to readers.

Conant, Jennet. Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II. Simon & Schuster, 2002.

Havanas in Camelot: Personal Essays by William Styron

Before he died in 2006, William Styron selected fourteen of his essays for a volume reflecting his lighter side. Of course, Havanas in Camelot is still very frank and confessional, for he was a man of strong opinions willing to take on anyone in a debate. Still, he succeeded in avoiding the topic of depression to celebrate the mostly good times of his life.

The title essay ran in Vanity Fair in 1996. In it Styron tells about his brief acquaintance with President John F. Kennedy. Through White House friends Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Richard Goodwin, he was invited to a state dinner and later to the more intimate gathering afterwards. The President was very interested in Styron's upcoming book about rebel slave leader Nat Turner. The author admired how the President could enjoy Cuban cigars at a time when he himself had made them illegal.

The second essay in the volume is "A Case of the Great Pox." You might wonder how he might lightly regard an episode in his life when he was mistakenly told that he had syphilis, but he portrayed himself as a raw nineteen year old recruit confined in a military hospital by a judgmental Navy doctor who wanted to see him suffer for his sins. He was quite happy to learn that he only had a dental disease. To his dying days he harbored a wish to again expose the bad doctor for his terrible bedside manner, as he had in the New Yorker in 1995.

My favorite essays are a series of tributes that Styron wrote about friends and acquaintances that had died, including Truman Capote, James Baldwin, and Terry Southern. There is also a revealing previously unpublished piece about joy and utility of walking a dog.

Readers who enjoyed Styron's previous books or who want a look into the literary world of the 1950s and 1960s will enjoy this quick read.

Styron, William. Havanas in Camelot: Personal Essays. Random House, 2008. ISBN 9781400067190

Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing by Elmore Leonard and illustrated by Joe Ciardiello

Elmore Leonard must have laughed all the way to the bank. His advice to would-be authors, Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, is an attractive publication but the text would make a short powerpoint presentation. He must have gotten the idea from David Letterman that he can make ten quirky statements and entertain his fans. It is entertaining, but it could be reproduced on a couple of postcards. You can read the book in five minutes or less.

To be fair, Leonard may have aimed this book more at the gift market. I can imagine it as an encouraging item to give to an aspiring author, who would keep it next to his/her desk as a reminder not to start novels with weather or use adverbs to modify the word "said."

The book does quickly convey Leonard's philosophy and the drawings are clever, but the book hardly seems worth taxpayer dollars. If you have a request at your library, you may borrow ours.

Leonard, Elmore. Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing. William Morrow, 2007. ISBN 9780061451461

The Wisdom of Donkeys: Finding Tranquility in a Chaotic World by Andy Merrifield

The Wisdom of Donkeys: Finding Tranquility in a Chaotic World by Andy Merrifield is a book to read slowly. I took ten days to read this account of the author's walking trip through the Auvergne region of central France with a rented donkey named Gribouille. I fell asleep several times while reading his descriptions of the tranquil bridle paths and rural villages far from the hectic cities of his somehow unsatisfying career as a teacher and writer. Merrifield urges readers to daydream. Unlike many authors, he probably smiles when readers drop his book as they nod off.

Gribouille, a chocolate brown donkey with a placid personality is more than a beast of burden. He is a friend and adviser who makes the pilgrimage possible. His calm restrains Merrifield who might pick up the pace and miss much of what there is to see if he were alone. If the donkey declines to cross a bridge or go down a path, the author reconsiders the way. If the way can not be changed, the man waits for the donkey to agree, which he always does.

On the way, Merrifield recounts many donkey stories from history and literature, showing that the equines are intelligent and companionable animals. He rues their misrepresentations in Aesop's fables and stereotypical comedies. He contends that communities that still harbor donkeys are more pleasant places. A man or woman with a donkey is better off than someone with an SUV.

The Wisdom of Donkeys is a quietly persuasive book that deserves more attention at this time when our whole way of life is questioned. More libraries should consider it.

Merrifield, Andy. The Wisdom of Donkeys: Finding Tranquility in a Chaotic World. Walker & Company, 2008. ISBN 9780802715937

Isn't it cool that the publisher is "Walker"?

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.

The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers & Their Stories of Courage by Mark Klempner

Imagine that you live in the Netherlands in 1940. The German Army has invaded your country and taken over your government. At first, the spokesmen for the new regime promise that you will be able to continue with your life as it has been for your ancestry is the same as theirs. In fact, life will be better because they will clean up the bad influences in your society. Do you feel reassured? Do you ignore that Hitler had promised to honor Dutch neutrality just days before the invasion? Do you ignore the firebombing of Rotterdam? Do you ignore the past seven years of news from Germany? Why do some people have a J on their newly issued citizenship cards?

According to Mark Klempner in The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers & Their Stories of Courage, a small number of Dutch citizens knew exactly what they should do in 1940. There was no way that they would sit still and comply with restrictions. They would resist and undermine the Nazi authorities by hiding Jewish children in their homes or helping transport them to Dutch farms to be kept or shuttled out of the country. They may or may not have considered the dangers. Not to act would have been immoral.

In his book, Klempner presents the stories of ten Dutch resisters whom he interviewed in 1996. They risked their freedom and lives daily by carrying children on bicycles, on trains, or through alleys. Some stole identification or ration cards from municipal offices. Others took food and money to the foster parents who kept the children. Some kept children either in attics or pretended that they were their own. All found the resistance thrilling and fulfilling. Most report that in a strange way that the war years were the best in their lives.

The Heart Has Reason is about more than just World War II. Klempner questioned his subjects about their lives after the war. Many have worked for other causes. In their responses, they portray the world as a dangerous place filled with evil that has to be faced and defeated. They are all pragmatists, who point out the shallowness of the post-war "never again" pledge from world governments. There have many "holocausts" since.

Most readers will find the rescuers' stories inspiring and Klempner's analysis thought provoking. They may feel a bet remiss for not doing more themselves. The Heart Has Reasons would make an interesting book discussion club choice.

Klempner, Mark. The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers & Their Stories of Courage. Pilgrim Press, 2006. ISBN 0829816992

The Man Whom Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus by Jashua Kendall

There are no synonyms, according to Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869), author of Roget's Thesaurus, for no two words have the exact same meaning. There are many words with near meanings from which to choose to clarify messages, and the eccentric polymath and classifier tried to organize them. He created his thesaurus first for himself, as he found he needed a stronger vocabulary. When he published it late in his life, many reviewers cheered it, but some opposed him for providing a crutch to lesser minds.

According to journalist Joshua Kendall in The Man Whom Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus, Roget was a physician and scientist who made compulsively made lists from childhood in response to the discord and chaos of his life. He did not realize that his focus on the lists would help him to stay free of the madness that infected his grandmother, mother, sister, and uncle. His thesaurus was a byproduct of his effective personal therapy. It also eventually made him rich.

Roget rubbed shoulders with almost everyone in science, medicine, literature, and government of his time. At one point, he was considered the most eligible bachelor in London, but he seemed blind to the designs of young women around him. His lectures were well-attended, he was president of nearly every learned society in London at some point in his life, and he was praised for perfecting the logarithmic slide rule. His family, however, fell apart around him, and he also suffered mental breakdowns.

General readers will enjoy this biography full of vocabulary facts and family drama. Most public libraries should consider adding it to their collections.

Kendall, Joshua. The Man Whom Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2008. ISBN 9780399154621.

Jack Plank Tells Tales by Natalie Babbitt

Gardening season has finally begun here in Illinois. For me that means that audiobook season has also begun, as I often listen to a good book while weeding and dead-heading outdoors. On Saturday while trimming rose bushes and trying to keep getting terribly scratched, I listened to a jolly pirate's tale, called Jack Plank Tells Tales by Natalie Babbitt.

Jack Plank was rather a washout as a pirate for he did not really like the noise and danger of attacking other ships. He preferred watching the seagulls, feeling the sea breeze, and peeling a few potatoes for soup. His shipmates on the Avarice kept him on for years because he was pleasant to have around, but in hard times when booty was scarce, they put him ashore at a port called Saltwash, now in Jamaica. The innkeeper Mrs. DelFresno told him that he could stay for one gold sovereign per day, provided he behaved himself and got a job within a week.

Every day Jack joined the residents of the inn for dinner to say that he did not find a job that day. For reasons he explained in stories, he could not be a farmer, baker, fisherman, or take any of the other recommend jobs. His stories involving sad trolls, beautiful mermaids, gullible ghosts, and other fantastic creatures kept his dinner companions entertained.

Jack Plank Tells Tales read by John H. Mayer is fun listening for young and old.

Babbitt, Natalie. Jack Plank Tells Tales. Listening Library, 2008. 2 compact discs. ISBN 9780739364086

E. E. Cummings by Catherine Reef

I noticed E. E. Cummings: A Poet's Life by Catherine Reef in the Best Books for Young Adults 2008 list from YALSA in the March 1, 2008 issue of Booklist.

Poet E. E. Cummings (1894-1962) is remembered by contemporary readers more for his novel use of capitalization and punctuation than his verses. Scattered across pages and broken up into fragments, his words are hard to follow, their meanings difficult to grasp. In this compact, illustrated account of the revolutionary poet, author Catherine Reef explains that Cummings viewed his poems as bridges between language and visual art. Early in his career, he was more successful as a painter than poet. He viewed his life as an artistic mission that should not be compromised or limited by medium. The result was a life full of good friendships with other poets (Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams) and difficult romantic and family relationships.

While aimed at teenage readers, Reef does not filter adult themes like prostitution and infidelity from Cummings life. Adults may also enjoy this sympathetic portrait of a gentle but complicated man. The author includes many samples of Cummings poetry and photographs of his associates and the places that he lived and visited.

I notice that only sixteen of the public libraries in the SWAN catalog of the Metropolitan Library System have this well-done biography, and there is no agreement where it goes. More should have it somewhere in their collections.

Reef, Catherine. E. E. Cummings. Clarion Books, 2006. 149p. ISBN 9780618568499.