Rereading of The Girl from Foreign

When traveling to new places, I enjoy hours of looking out car or bus windows, noticing the traffic, trees, flowers, fields, mountains, wildlife, livestock, bridges, side roads, houses, and people. Perhaps it is then natural for me to enjoy travel books describing drives to remote destinations. I am please by accounts such as those in The Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, and a Sense of Home by Sadia Shepard, which I am rereading for a book club discussion. 

Rereading is not something I often do, as there are so many books left to read, but it is enlightening to see how a book can be so different a second time. My memory from the first reading is an emphasis on Shepard's own spiritual/emotional journey. That is still present but I see how much she tells us about the people and places that she encountered in my second reading. The mostly forgotten story of the Jew in India suggests that much of what happened in the 20th century did not have to happen as it did.

I puzzled over some of the photos, wishing Shepard had written captions. I also would have enjoyed some maps in the book. Still, rereading was journey worth taking again, as there is a rich mixture of past and present and places I could not gone had not Shepard taken me there.


Shepard, Sadia. The Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, and a Sense of Home. Penguin Press, 2008. ISBN 9781594201516.

The Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I remember reading a lot of poetry in 7th grade when Mrs. Coates required that each student put together a poetry scrapbook. I recall cutting out pictures from my parents magazines and gluing them to lined notebook paper on which I then hand-copied poems from library books. Most of the work was done the night before the project was due, and the photos were as random as the poems. For the slapdash effort, I did not get as high a grade as I usually earned. I am sure that with a word processing program and photos from the Internet I could do a much better job now. In minutes.

Around this time I was introduced to the long historical piece "The Courtship of Miles Standish" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which at least has a story, unlike some of the poems that we read. It dramatises the early days of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts when Standish, the commander of the colony's small militia, asked his friend John Alden to communicate the commander's love to orphaned beauty Priscilla Mullins, whose family members had died just before or after the landing of the Mayflower. Standish was sure that the bookish Alden could find better words to win the heart of the young lady. Many readers will remember that Priscilla turns the tables and said to the messenger, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"

I found an illustrated edition of Longfellow's poem in our collection. The verso says copyright 1903 below dates of 1858, 1886, 1883, and 1888, in that order. The paintings and drawings by Howard Chandler Christy have very hard to read dates by the signatures. One looks like 1923. Maybe it is 1903. It is a handsome book. Even the text has a subtle background design.

I was surprised to find no rhyming, but I am not surprised to find 19th century attitudes toward women and American Indians. I'll bet this is not taught in many schools today. It probably should be (in context) so students can understand how attitudes have changed. It could be paired with an unedited The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Another funny thing is that is more about John and Priscilla than about Standish. Check it out yourself and see what you think.

Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris by Christopher Kemp

I am inclined to read any book dealing with New Zealand and enjoy investigative reporting, so Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris by Christopher Kemp was a welcomed reading assignment for me. (Thanks, Brad.) I did not know, however, whether I could read a whole book about a strange substance that comes from the intestines of sperm whales. Luckily for me and others who may chose to read this unusual book, Kemp is a clever author who keeps us entertained with his obsession to find ambergris while instructing us in natural history and varied uses of the strange rock.

So what is ambergris? It is a substance that builds up in the intestines of one in every hundred sperm whale's intestines. The statistic is based on findings of whalers who cut open whales. It is thought that the substance obstructs and eventually kills some whales. In their demise and putrefaction (or being torn apart by scavengers), the ambergris is released and might float around the oceans for months or years before it washes up on be aches, such as those of New Zealand. There, if found, it can sell for many thousands of dollars.

Identifying ambergris is really difficult, as the curing time and environment can effect its appearance greatly. The key is its smell, which may be described as a mixture of cow dung, tobacco, mown grass, turned earth, vanilla, Brazil nuts, and violets. You may be surprised to learn that it is used by the makers of very expensive perfumes, who bid on ambergris finds at exclusive auctions. Readers learn much about the valuable substance as Kemp combs beaches and travels the world in search of experts, some of whom are particularly strange characters.

I hope this book does not just get lost back in the science shelves, as it is entertaining.

Kemp, Christopher. Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris. University of Chicago Press, 2012. 232p. ISBN 9780226430362.

Pravda: A Fleet Street Comedy by Howard Brenton and David Hare

Bonnie and I attended a slew of plays when we spent two weeks in and around London in late spring 1985. I was reminded of this when I found Pravda: A Fleet Street Comedy by Howard Brenton and David Hare at my library. At the National Theatre we saw Anthony Hopkins in the role of Lambert Le Roux, a very Rupert Murdoch-like newspaper tycoon. We knew of Hopkins from several programs that we had seen on Masterpiece Theater. He was big then but not as big as he would become soon after. We were very lucky to get tickets, as the play had just debuted. We were at the right place at the right time to get returned tickets and had great seats.

After 27 years, my memory of the actual play is fuzzy, so I borrowed and read the book. I was surprised to learn that we also saw a young Bill Nighy as La Roux's evil aide Eaton Sylvester. I verified this with the playbill, which we still have. In Pravda, La Roux and Sylvester dissect the very lax-standards British newspaper publishing industry for their own profit. The comedy is very dark in this play that foresaw much that seems to have become true in Britain and the U.S.

If you have not tried reading plays since high school, let me recommend them to you. They are usually dramatic (of course) and take just an hour or two to read (depending on your reading speed).

Brenton, Howard and David Hare. Pravda: A Fleet Street Comedy. Metheun Inc., 1985. 148p. No ISBN.

The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds by Julie Zickefoose

When I reviewed Letters from Eden: A Year at Home, in the Woods by Julie Zickefoose nearly three years ago, only one library in our local library consortium had bought the book, which was already three years old at the time. Only two of the libraries have bought her 2011 book, Backyard Birding. I am happy to report that in 2012 her latest book is getting more attention. Already 16 libraries in the SWAN consortium have her new work The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds.

Zickefoose, a columnist for Bird Watcher's Digest and contributor to National Public Radio's All Things Considered, has always been a good storyteller, but her entertaining collection of bird rescue stories in The Bluebird Effect is worthy of the increased attention it is getting. As the only local person willing to take injured birds into her Ohio home, she is often called upon to raise orphans or rehabilitate songbirds who have been attacked by cats or run in to picture windows. She has cooked gruel and diced mealworms for her patients while raising her own children. Most of the birds have either been released or died in her care. A few that could not be returned to the wild became members of her family.

Each chapter focuses on a different bird species and may recount several cases. Most focus on the behavior of the birds and how she was able to work with them. A few chapters near the end question human actions that harm birds, sometimes sending patients her way.

I want to emphasize that Zickefoose is also an artist whose drawings and water color portraits of birds illustrate all of her books. These beautiful books would be great to own.

Zickefoose, Julie. The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds. Houghton Mifflin, 2012. 355p. ISBN 9780547003092.

The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea by Callum Roberts

The oceans are so big that we have long believed that nothing we could do would ever effect them. Our pollution and garbage should just disappear into the vastness. And the fish are so numerous that we should be able to harvest them at will. If the fish in one area dwindle, there should always be somewhere else to cast our nets or lines.

In a similar vein, most of us living away from the coasts do not believe the oceans to be of much consequence to us.

According the marine environmentalist Callum Roberts in his new book The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea, our assumptions are all wrong. The oceans have been absorbing our excess carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and various air pollutants for centuries, serving as a planetary safety valve, but now water temperatures and acidity are rising. The combination is killing the coral reefs that protect many shores from ocean storms. Warm water is shifting air currents, changing the weather of many regions. Because the air is also warming, glaciers are melting and the oceans are rising. Global warming is already here and will be difficult to abate.

Also, the fish are not so unlimited as believed. Huge industrial fishing ships have systematically taken so many fish that populations of some species have crashed. While they take all the large breeding individuals, they often also destroy breeding grounds. As our world population increases, we are hampered by the constant reduction of fish caught.

While Roberts excels at describing what has brought about our ocean of troubles, he is not a pessimist. He argues that we have no choice but to make the best of the bad situation - and soon. He proposes stricter regulations of fishing, reduction of the use of fossil fuels, and restoration of natural environments as the key to the survival of life at sea and on land.

The Ocean of Life follows Roberts' acclaimed The Unnatural History of the Sea. It will appeal to readers of natural history and current events.

Roberts, Callum. The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea. Viking, 2012. ISBN 9780670023547.

Remarkable Creatures: A Novel by Tracy Chevalier

It is often said that a benefit of belonging to a book discussion group is being required to read books that would not otherwise come home with you. This is true. I would not have chosen to read Remarkable Creature by Tracy Chevalier if it had not been our book for May. Having seen Girl with a Pearl Earring, I had a positive impression of Chevalier, but fiction is not my usual reading fare. (Although I have listened to several novels in the last month as it is often hard to find nonfiction audiobooks that I want.)

It certainly helped that Remarkable Creatures is historical, as history is one of my main interests, and the substantial dose of science made the book more appealing for me. I liked reading how fossils would have been discovered, collected, preserved, and studies in the early part of the nineteenth century. I also enjoyed the early women's rights movement part of the story. Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot are characters with who I sympathize, and I was glad to learn at the end that they were real people.

Of course, not everyone see things as I do. One member of the discussion group wished all the science had been cut by the author, but I don't think Chevalier would have had an interest in the story without the fossils and the issues of religious men of science accepting the idea of evolution. It appears that all her stories revolve around the history of women in the arts and science. Her novels might even make good listening for this summer's gardening if my supply of history and biography runs dry again.

Chevalier, Tracy. Remarkable Creatures. Dutton, 2010. 310p. ISBN 9780525951452.

Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter by Frank Deford

Just like Queen Elizabeth II, it seems like sportswriter Frank Deford has always been here. As long as I can remember, he has been writing for Sports Illustrated, appearing on television, and commenting on sports for National Public Radio. He's also published 18 books (or more). In truth, the queen has Deford beat by ten years, as he did not start his job until 1962. Still, that is 50 years in sports reporting about which he writes in his new book Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter.

Sports Illustrated was a much different magazine when he started. As the least of weeklies from Time-Life, it focused more on individual athlete sports, such as boxing, track, golf, and tennis, than on team sports, such as football or basketball. A horse was more likely to make the cover than a basketball player. Having played a bit of high school basketball, he knew more than most of the reporters and got some early assignments that no one else wanted.

As television coverage of games spread, print sports became less about reporting games and more about examining the players. That was where Deford excelled. He interviewed many of the key athletes and executives who transformed their sports and society, including Muhammad Ali, Billy Jean King, Wilt Chamberlain, and Pete Rozelle. The person that he seems to have admired most, however, was tennis champion Arthur Ashe, about whom he writes several chapters.

Over Time serves as a memoir in that Deford tells about his work and travels. Highlights are his editorship of the ill-fated The National and his role in the famous Lite Beer commercials. Still, the book is more about his times than himself. Over Time is especially reader-friendly for people just like me, boomers who enjoy sports in a context of their times.

Deford, Frank. Over Time: My Life as a Sports Writer. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012.354p. ISBN 9780802120151.

Review for Read On Biography and Other Read On News

The first of the reviews for my book Read On ... Biography is out. Booklist likes it. I appreciate the word "essential." If you have not heard, I reviewed 450 biographies, most written since the year 2000. They are organized by appeal factors into topical lists. There are author-title and subject indices to help you find books that you know, which are grouped with books that you might try. Of course, I would like to see Read On .. Biography in libraries everywhere.

Here is other Read On news. In celebration of National Audiobook Month, Libraries Unlimited is offering a 20% discount on Joyce Saricks' Read On...Audiobooks for the month of June. Use promo code 12LU189B to receive the special offer. You may read more about the book and order from http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781591588047.

Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story by Dame Daphne Sheldrick

This is very much a biography and should not be assigned Dewey 639 where it will be lost.

For a number of years, Bonnie has been a fan and avid supporter of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and the Orphan's Nursery in Nairobi National Park. Every month she receives email reports from Dame Daphne Sheldrick about the rescue and rehabilitation of orphaned elephants. Until recently, there were notes and pictures of Zarura, the elephant that Bonnie sponsors, but he has chosen to leave the sanctuary and live wild. Bonnie passes the reports to me, so I also learn about dramatic rescues, wonderful keepers, mud baths, soccer games, and special friendships among dozens of orphan elephants. We are not the only fans.

Thanks to Elephant Diaries on Animal Planet, a couple of stories on CBS's 60 Minutes, and the 3-D IMAX film Born to Be Wild, many people now follow and contribute to the trust. Some of them even travel to Kenya to visit the nursery and witness the daily feedings and baths of the orphans. So we are the target audience for Dame Daphne Sheldrick's new autobiography Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story, in which she recounts a lifetime of caring for orphaned animals. Even as a girl on a farm in the Kenyan highlands, she befriended numerous small mammals and birds that had been orphaned or injured. Her stories about the creatures are always entertaining and sometimes sad, as many do fail to thrive or become the prey of other creatures.

Much of Love, Life, and Elephants is a romance, as the author tells about her life with her second husband David Sheldrick, the warden of Tsavo National Wildlife Park for over twenty years. It was David who introduced her to fostering large mammals, including elephants and rhinoceros. Together the Sheldricks worked to expand Kenya's parks, protect the animals from poaching and habitat loss, and develop ecological tourism at a time when Kenya was given its independence and was struggling with political corruption. Sheldrick is a congenial writer with a wealth of stories and passionate about her cause. Her book should be popular with many readers.

Sheldrick, Dame Daphne. Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780374104573.

Dressed for Death by Donna Leon

I'll be brief. I listened to another Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery just a few weeks after listening to A Noble Radiance. This time I got Dressed for Death in audio on compact discs. It was originally titled The Anonymous Venetian. I am working my way to the beginning of the series, having had book 7 and now book 3.

What I like best about Leon's mysteries is just hanging out with her main character. Guido is a likable family man, who seems to truly regret that his work demands so much time that he misses important events, in this case a family vacation in the mountains. Instead, he stays in a blistering heat of Venice to solve a murder, which turns into a case of murders. His family complains, but they still seem to really love him and understand how important his work is to him. There seems a warm acceptance when they are reunited.

How Guido handles suspects, witnesses, and survivors and relates to his boss and other police drives the story more than solving the mystery. The police seem to spend much time just gathering facts with no idea what they are seeking in the two books I have read. Then toward the end, the commissario understands and goes out on a limb to challenge the guilty party. The two books that I have read were similar in that there was no rush to get to the solution, giving me time to just watch the commissario work in a city that I would like to visit. Good reading.

Leon, Donna. Dressed for Death. BBC Audiobooks America, 1994. ISBN 9780792763666.

The Great Cake Mystery: Precious Ramotswe's Very First Case by Alexander McCall Smith

Chat shorthand for this blog: BBHGB. "Bonnie brings home good books." I say that often. The latest is The Great Cake Mystery: Precious Ramotswe's Very First Case by Alexander McCall Smith with illustrations by Iain McIntosh. McCall Smith has written a No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency book for young readers. I see that the Downers Grove Public Library copy identifies it as 3rd-4th grade reading. I liked it, too.

To be specific, it is a pre-No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency book as it tells the story of the first mystery that Precious Ramotswe solved as a school girl in Botswana. I hope more are to come. I learned more about the sleuth and her revered father Obed Ramotswe, who tells a wonderful story early in the book. Teachers will like The Great Cake Mystery, too, as it has discussion questions, a short glossary of geographical terms, and curriculum suggestions in the back.

It would be fun if someone would write young Miss Marple or young Poirot mysteries. There are young Sherlock books.

BBHGB.

McCall Smith, Alexander. The Great Cake Mystery: Precious Ramotswe's Very First Case. Anchor Books, 2012. 73p. ISBN 9780307949448.

Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir by Joyce Farmer

I have forgotten who recommended Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir by Joyce Farmer. I think that it was one of my friends on Goodreads or Facebook. If you remember who you are, accept my thanks. Once it reached the top of my stack of books to read, I read from it every chance that I had.

I suspect many people who would really appreciate Special Exits have not seen it. Boomers taking care of their elderly parents are not as a group very aware of graphic novels. That's too bad, because the book dramatizes a situation in which they may find themselves - trying to respectfully manage the lives of people who have lost the ability to care for themselves. The complications are many: bad health, poverty, delusions, loss of memory, reluctance to accept help, etc. The demands are many: sacrifice time, negotiate calmly, tolerate idiosyncrasies, lose battles gracefully, and learn to guide the elderly to make the decisions that you know that they have to make.

Special Exits is presented as a true story for which all the names have been changed. The daughter taking care of her father and stepmother over the course of four years makes some mistakes and only slowly learns what she can and cannot accomplish. We can all hope never to be so challenged as the daughter, but we should probably all be ready to step up to do what we have to do. Reading Special Exits beforehand may help.

Farmer, Joyce. Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir. Fantagraphics Books, 2010. 200p. ISBN 9781606993811.

Jim Henson's Designs and Doodles: A Muppet Sketchbook by Alison Inches

Our library has had several requests for books about Muppet founder Jim Henson lately. A new generation of teens is interested in puppetry, animation, and television and coming to our desk seeking instruction and inspiration. Through interlibrary loan I found Jim Henson's Designs and Doodles by Alison Inches to be a helpful title. With access to the Jim Henson archives, the author discovered many sketches showing the energetic muppet master's creative process. She arranged them into chapters recounting Henson's early career, his construction of muppets, his production of commercials in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and his efforts to get his own television show.

I enjoyed seeing early sketches showing the birth of characters who were only fully realized years later. Oscar the Grouch started as orange instead of green. Bert and Ernie came after a series of short-and-tall friends. Even Kermit was not a frog in the beginning.

Boomers can appreciate the book for different reasons than the teens. The author includes biographical and historical details that will remind them of their own early years. The publisher should should bring this fun book back to print.

Inches, Alison. Jim Henson's Designs and Doodles: A Muppet Sketchbook. Harry N. Abrams, 2001. 127p. ISBN 0810932407.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith

If I had Silly Fun Awards to grant, I'd probably give the first to Monty Python's Flying Circus and then bestow one on Gary Larson for his The Far Side comics. Then I'd give one to author Alexander McCall Smith for Portuguese Irregular Verbs series. I just listened again to Portuguese Irregular Verbs, the first book in the series in which readers follow the ridiculous life of philologist Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld. He is occasionally called Maria.

The learned professor is famous for his 1,200 page text titled, of course, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, of which nearly 200 copies have been sold in a decade. At one point in the story, he discovers that only two copies have sold in the previous year, and he worries so much about whether a colleague bought a copy, he schemes to get in the fellow's apartment to check his bookshelves. Book sales aside, he is famous enough in the world of philology to receive constant requests that he speak at conferences. At each, like all of the other philologists, he repeats the same lecture. He is greatly excited when a new member of the brotherhood presents a new topic.

My favorite story is about the professor falling in love with his dentist who so skillfully and quickly relieves his toothache. Can you guess what he gives her as a thank you? If you can, you may also foresee the result of his courtship. In another chapter he recalls a trip to rural Ireland as assistant to a professor studying old Irish vulgarities. The moral of this story is be careful where you leave your transcriptions. 

Portuguese Irregular Verbs is wonderful in print or audio, as read skillfully by Paul Hecht. It is followed by The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances.

McCall Smith, Alexander. Portuguese Irregular Verbs. Anchor Books, 2005. 128p. ISBN 1400077087.

4 compact discs. Recorded Books, 2004. ISBN 1402590504

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt is pleasurable listening. I really enjoyed hearing Ballerini's pronounciations of the many Roman and Italian names that were a part of the story of the discovery and copying of On the Nature of Things, a poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius. The Epicurean poet would approve, as the seeking of pleasure is a central theme to his first century B. C. poem that posed that all matter was made of tiny atoms.

One of those great Italian names was Poggio Bracciolini, a personal secretary to an overthrown pope. Poggio (Greenblatt always calls him by the first name) used the freedom he had after losing his job to visit out of the way monasteries to see what forgotten classical texts he could find. As soon as he found a ninth century copy of On the Nature of Things, he recognized it as an important missing text. Because he could not borrow the book, he hired a scribe to make a copy, which he sent to a friend who contracted the making of copies in a better hand.

Greenblatt contends that Poggio's discovery was a key event of the Renaissance, for the ideas contained in the poem were spread to dissenters who eventually broke the power of the Roman Catholic Church to restrict scientific investigation and discussion. The idea of atomic particles was considered by church officials to be a direct attack on the miracle of the eucharist. Poggio escaped being punished because he worked during a brief period of liberal thought but many others were burned at the stake later when the church tried to suppress the poem.

The story told by Greenblatt is epic in size, including Greek, Roman, Medieval, and Renaissance history. The conclusions even include William Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Darwin. The Swerve is a bestseller worth reading and keeping.

Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. Recorded Books, 2011. 8 compact discs. ISBN 9781461838227.

Steve Justman Plays Friday at the Ford

Steve Justman is a collector of songs, and like many collectors, he likes to show others what he's found. That's what you'd expect from a folksinger, a role Steve plays well. In his Friday at the Ford concert at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library, to the delight of the audience, he pulled 18 songs out of his big bag. Many were familiar without being from a predictable playlist of the past, each ripe for rediscovery. A few old songs from outside the mainstream of popular music were revelations. "High on a Mountain" by the Appalachian singer/songwriter Ola Bella Reed is the best example of something old that was totally new to most of the listeners.

Steve is also a historian of American song. For almost every song he provided a context, often noting singers and songwriters, but sometimes adding personal reflections. What became obvious is that he has crossed musical genres all his life. It seems natural that he was able to sing Dean Martin's "Memories Are Made of This" to his between two country classics. People sand along, as they did with Steve Goodman's "The City of New Orleans." My favorite of the night was "You Got Me Singing the Blues," sung more in the sty;e of Guy Mitchell than Marty Robbins.

I enjoyed talking about music with Steve while he packed his guitars and banjo away, being just hours away from a trip to Minnesota to play bass for June's Got the Cash, a June Carter and Johnny Cash tribute band. He's be back in the Chicago area soon, playing for senior centers, farmers' markets, and libraries. See his website for the schedule.

Karen Cries on the Bus a film by Gabriel Rojas Vera

We have all imagined, if only for a moment, the lives of strangers. Most of us guess a few stereotypical details and drop the matter quickly. Colombian film director Gabriel Rojas Vera, however, after seeing a woman quietly crying on a bus in Bogata, wrote and directed the film Karen Cries on the Bus, the story of a timid woman trying to break away from her marriage to find a more satisfying life. From the opening scene of Karen on a late night bus, viewers know something has gone wrong in her life.

Dressed nicely, if somewhat plainly, she seems out of place on the bus and in the poor neighborhood in which she drags her rolling suitcase. In the dark, she pleads for a room and overpays. In the morning, after she discovers the filth and insects, she begins her search for a job with which to support herself. The quest is, of course, difficult for a woman who has never worked outside the home, and her resolve is quickly tested by offers from her mother and husband to let her return to where they want her.

The director has said that he was quite astonished by the strong response to his film by women in his country. He thought he was telling an individual's story, but many women of Colombia and elsewhere identify with Karen's struggle against the demand that she return to the role her family had assigned her as a youth. Our film discussion group at the library was sympathetic and appreciated the artful storytelling. Karen Cries on the Bus is a good addition to foreign film collections.

Rojas Vera, Gabriel. Karen Cries on the Bus. Film Movement, 2011. ISBN 9781461843849.

Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams

Mark Adams had not slept in a tent since childhood - and rarely then - when he decided to hike through the Andes Mountains of Peru to follow the path of the archeologist Hiram Bingham III, whose National Geographic articles one hundred years ago sparked international interest in Machu Picchu. With Australian guide John Leivers and a small Peruvian support team, he visited a network of holy Inca ruins connected by the surprisingly intact Inca Trail over high mountains and into deep valleys. He reports on his discoveries about the Incas, Bingham, and modern Peru in his highly descriptive travel memoir Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time.

"Discover" is an often misused word, according to Adams, especially when used with explorers. Machu Picchu had never actually been lost. Local villagers had always known it was there in an emerald valley sometimes described as a jewel box. To his credit, Bingham and National Geographic made the world aware and in awe of the Inca city, probably saving it from destruction.

I am surprised to see relatively few libraries have added Turn Right at Machu Picchu (according to Worldcat which can sometimes be a slow indicator). I enjoyed Adams report which recounts Peruvian history from the times of the Conquistadors to the present. I had not known about the lawsuit over antiquities between the nation of Peru and Yale University Museums or about the landowners who claim Peru never paid them for the nationalization of their property. Even more I enjoyed his account of hiking to great Andean vistas. I hope Adams plans more adventures and books.

Adams, Mark. Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time. Dutton, 2011. 333p. ISBN 9780525952244.

Room for Improvement: Notes on a Dozen Lifelong Sports by John Casey

I could count if I knew what to count, but I don't. What are the twelve sports to which John Casey refers in his new book Room for Improvement: Notes on a Dozen Lifelong Sports? I don't see a list on the cover or in the preface. There are 24 chapters whose titles are not "Number 1: Swimming," "Number 2: Hiking," and so forth. Is survival training a sport? Do we differentiate between canoeing and sculling? He mentions throwing a shot-put once - do I count it? Do I count hunting and fishing? Maybe teasing readers?

Casey is a novelist, so maybe he is trained not to be so obvious as to include lists in his autobiographical essays. As readers we are supposed to discover his story of sport a little at a time, cheering as he turns his law school era fatness into hard and lean fitness and then staying actively athletic for fifty years. Most of that time is spent outdoors, and many of his activities are extreme. Would you run-walk 50 miles on your 50th birthday? Casey recounts his efforts with enthusiasm and vivid detail. The most gripping story is about his three weeks spent with Outward Bound off the coast of Maine. It is all what-does-not-kill-you-makes-you-stronger stuff.

I enjoyed Room for Improvement but not enough to reread to count the sports. If you can count them, let me know.

Casey, John. Room for Improvement: Notes on a Dozen Lifelong Sports. Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. 229p. ISBN 9780307700025.