Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy

I remember 1964 baseball cards. The cards for National League's 1963 leaders in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average all showed Sandy Koufax at the top. He had had a great season and was in his prime. He would dominate opposing batters for three more years and then retire. He was baseball's highest paid player at $150,000 per year, but he said that his health was more important than money and walked away. He was only 31 years old and had nothing left to prove on the field.

Retiring early was only one of the unusual acts of Koufax's short career, according to Jane Leavy in her tribute Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy. By declining to start Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it was Yom Kippur, he put his religious practice before his sports and solidified his reputation within the American Jewish community. He refused to make alcohol and tobacco ads, though he both drank and smoked. His dual strike for higher pay with Don Drysdale in spring training 1966 was the seed of the players' union movement, according to Leavy.

Perhaps the great game Koufax ever pitched was his September 9, 1965 perfect game against the Chicago Cubs. The fans at Dodger Stadium also witnessed a one-hitter pitched by the Cub Hendley. Leavy uses the game as a plot device, alternating innings of that game with chapters of Koufax's life. It is a common way to write a sports biography and in this case very effective. Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy is a biography that no baseball fan should miss. With the playoffs coming soon, this is a great time to pick it up.

Leavy, Jane. Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy. HarperCollins, 2002. 282p. ISBN 0060195339.

America's Other Audubon by Joy M. Kiser

When Joy M. Kiser began her new position as assistant librarian at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in 1995, volume one of Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio was on display in a case near the stairs. She had never heard of the Jones family of Circleville, Ohio. Through research she discovered that they were amateur ornithologists who in the nineteenth century recognized that there was not a good reference book about bird eggs and nests. Encourage by multi-talented daughter Genevieve, the entire family began to work on the collecting and illustrating of nests and eggs from their area. Genevieve soon fell ill and died, but the family increased efforts in her memory and produced an acclaimed work of which fewer than 100 copies were ever made. Kiser tells the story and reproduces the plates and commentary in America's Other Audubon.

Like James John Audubon decades earlier, the Jones family sought to sell their illustrations through subscriptions to collectors. Luckily for us, several of the major museums signed up, and Kiser was able to produce this beautiful book with the help of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. The work is a testament to the bounty of bird life of the time, when even the passenger pigeon thrived.

Readers of the beautiful and oversized America's Other Audubon may be inspired to take binoculars or maybe even watercolors to the woods. I am sure identifying birds by nests and eggs will still be far more difficult than by plumage or song, but maybe we will at least know now where to look.

Kiser, Joy M. America's Other Audubon. Princeton Architectural Press, 2012. 191p. ISBN 9781616890599.

Wish Lists for Reading

Yesterday, our consortium of libraries rolled out a new look for our shared library catalog, and it is a great improvement. Along with the sprucing up, SWAN added some new features. My favorite is My Wish Lists. Since I was reading book reviews when I learned of the upgrade coming online, I started a list that I call Histories and Biographies to Read. I filled it with books that will come out in the next couple of months. The list looks like this when printed:

What I like is that there is a handy link for each title to place a request. I could have gone ahead and requested the books yesterday, but several of them might suddenly arrived at the same time. I already have a stack of books and I am working on some projects, so I will save borrowing the books for later when the brand-new-books demand for them has faded. I might then request them and get them right away. I might even see copies on the shelf at my library and not have to use the request service. They should be just as good in six months or a year or even five as they are the day they are published.

I manage my audiobook downloads in a similar way. Media on Demand, which is my library's Overdrive download service, has a single wish list into which I add titles to download later. With six to ten titles in the wish list, there is a good chance one will be available when I desire another audiobook on my iPod. I can see from the wish list which titles are ready for checkout. Just a couple of clicks and it is mine (for two weeks).

How do you keep track of the books you want to read? I think more people are keeping lists and making requests now. I hardly ever see people browsing the stacks, and the reserve shelves behind the checkout desk are always full. I'd enjoy knowing what you are seeing.

The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere by Debra Marquart

"As I get older, I become infinitely interested in everything older than I am - old people, old letters, photographs, and papers, ship manifests, yellowed newspapers, crispy deeds, buried archives." Debra Marquart

One reason that we enjoy memoirs is that we identify with authors. In their experiences and thoughts, we see a bit of ourselves. I found this true with The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere by Debra Marquart. As I read of her spending an afternoon watching the nearby highway out her brother's window, counting the cars going in each direction, I recalled slow hot summer afternoons looking out my grandmother's front window with my sister. Would the next car be red or green? What a delight it was when we were right.

There is a good mix of similarities and differences in Marquart's life and mine to keep her story fascinating and unpredictable. Many of the circumstances were the same but her actions were far different from mine, but I can understand why she rebelled. I was not faced with the prospects of being expected to become a farmer's wife. I never had daily farm chores that kept me from friends. My life was much easier, and I was given my ticket for escape. Marquart traveled a hard road out.

Yet, in middle age, we are in similar places. Both of us are book people now living in communities of little interest to our families. We pass through time portals when we revisit our origins. We have reconciled with and care for our aging parents. Our dreams often take us back to houses we will never reenter.

Marquart is a fine storyteller with an eye for detail and sense of place. She'll string you along, and you'll gladly follow. By the way, turn your head 90 degrees to look at the book cover.

Marquart, Debra. The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere. 2006. 270p. ISBN 9781582433455.

Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) by Joseph Haydn

Each summer, Bonnie and I try to attend at least one of the evening concert at Grant Park in Chicago. This year we made a Saturday evening performance by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus under the direction of Carlos Kalmar of the epic oratorio The Seasons by Joseph Haydn. It is epic in that a full performance takes two hours to perform. I do not remember previously hearing even parts, but with three strong soloists and a huge chorus, it was glorious.

If you have ever heard a Christmas performance of The Messiah by George Frideric Handel, imagine that kind of music but longer. (The Messiah is much longer, too, when played in full.) There are orchestral parts, recitatives with voice and harpsichord, arias, and big choral blockbusters. Everything was impression, except the lyrics sung in English. "Come, sweet maidens, let us wander o'er the glowing fields" is a representative line. Haydn himself complained about the lyrics that he was commissioned to set to music. He preferred his previous oratorio The Creation. (I want to hear it, too.) Most of the time, I could not actually understand the lyrics, so I was not distracted from the music.

The next week I borrowed Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) by Joseph Haydn performed by the London Symphony Chorus and London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sir Colin Davis. The oratorio is sung in German! It is fabulous in German. I listened to the two CDs three times through in the next several weeks, mostly while driving or cooking. I hoped to memorize some of the melodies, but I failed. I can not hum any part now, but I did enjoy imagining myself like Inspector Morse driving around in a hot red sports car with the opera cranked up. (For the record, we have a modest green car.) 

Here is a sample from "Winter" so you can see if you might also enjoy Haydn's The Seasons.

The Day the Revolution Ended: 19 October 1781 by William H. Hallahan

After reading The Day the Revolution Ended: 19 October 1781 by William H. Hallahan, I am left with the impression that the American colonists were always a long shot to win their revolution. With strong leadership, the British military should have mopped up the remnants of the hastily formed rebellion on several occasions. The rebels were short of funds, clothing, and ammunition. Their ranks were reduced by disease and the annual needs of soldier farmers to get back to sow and harvest crops. Why did the British not finish them off?

Historian and novelist Hallahan tells in great detail how many British officers and soldiers profited from their occupation of cities and campaigns through the various states. Why rush the war? While in New York, many officers under General Clinton took over great houses in the city, living lavishly in some and renting out others as barracks for their own men, pocketing the rent. These same officers shipped furniture and books taken from these homes back to their estates in Britain. Some also skimmed from the payrolls of their own troops. During campaigns chasing rebel forces, they loaded wagons full of goods to sell or keep. After defecting the colonial cause, General Benedict Arnold was openly joyous about the profit he would make marching through the rich plantations of Virginia.

This corruption in the British military contributed to its eventual demise, as the officers and soldiers stole from loyalists as wantonly as from rebels. As the war progressed, the British found it more and more difficult to enlist more loyalists into their ranks. Of course, rebel violence against loyalists had reduced their numbers, too. Hallahan is also very critical of most colonial political leaders, especially the Continental Congress, which he claims usually did nothing other than debate issues, leaving the army underfunded. He especially rebukes Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson for doing little to prepare his state for invasion and Boston's Samuel Adams for opposing any measure to strengthen the national government. The only heroes in the narrative are Generals Washington, Lafayette, and Greene.

A better title for the book would have been The Year the Revolution Ended, as Hallahan chronicles how the American, British, and French forces all arrived at the Yorktown battlefield, a long process that seemed to develop in slow motion. It is a good story that Hallahan tells well from his point of view. We should be eternally grateful to the French, who were really there to oppose the British.

I like the Afterward which reports what happened to each of the principal characters after the war.

Hallahan, William H. The Day the Revolution Ended: 19 October 1781. John Wiley & Sons, 2004. 292p. ISBN 0471262404.

60 Ways to Use Your Library Card

September is National Library Card Month. Here are 60 reasons to get a library card.


               


 Visit your local library to see what it can do for you.

The Mighty Mars Rovers: The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity by Elizabeth Rusch

Just a week ago, I wrote about The Mighty Ted. This week, it is the mighty Spirit and the mighty Opportunity, NASA's Mars surface rovers that far exceeded the expectations of scientists and engineers in 2004. Both went about taking pictures and soil samples and then relaying data back to Earth beyond their three month missions. In fact, Opportunity in still chugging away. Science writer Elizabeth Rusch tells their stories in The Mighty Mars Rovers: The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity. 

The narrative begins on Earth with the dreams of science kid Steven Squyres, who got his first telescope at eight and tried to build a robot when he was nine. Of course, he grew up to be a NASA scientist whose proposal for Mars rovers was commissioned in the year 2000. Rusch tells how in less than four years Steve and a team of engineers, scientists, and contractors built the two rovers sent to opposite sides of the our sister planet. The story continues with the nail-biting landing and difficult explorations across the rock-strewn and sometimes sandy Martian surface.

Though aimed at late elementary or middle school readers, this book is perfect for an adult wanting to revisit the years of rover activity. It is a slim but substantial book. I spent about three hours reading and studying the many photos and maps of Mars. With the recent landing of Curiosity on Mars, this is a great time to put The Mighty Mars Rovers on display in libraries and bookstores.

Rusch, Elizabeth. The Mighty Mars Rovers: The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity. Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2012. 79p. ISBN 9780547478814.

Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die: The Assassination of a British Prime Minister by Andro Linklater

It has been 200 years since an event of which I had never heard - an event that author Andro Linklater claims changed the course of history. On May 11, 1812, British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was shot and killed upon entering the lobby of Parliament on his way to a hearing in the House of Commons. With many witnesses, there was no doubt that John Bellingham, a businessman from Liverpool, was the assassin. Linklater recounts how paths of the prime minister and businessman crossed in Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die: The Assassination of a British Prime Minister.

The author thinks that it is curious that such a dramatic and important incident has been mostly forgotten. It seems that British authorities wanted it that way. Bellingham was tried and hung within a week of the crime. Little effort was made to investigate why the businessman wanted to kill the prime minister, and the story was soon out of the newspapers. Many people were actually pleased to have the very powerful Perceval dead, Linklater claims. The people of London poured into the streets to celebrate upon hearing the news of the assassination.

In a way, Linklater's research was cold case investigation. Readers learn from his book much about the people who benefited from the crime and its impact on the ongoing war with France, the new war with the former American colonies, and the British Navy's efforts to enforce the Abolition Act of 1807 which aimed to stop the international slave trade. British bankers and shipowners of Liverpool had a lot of money invested in the slave trade. Fans of both American and British history will enjoy Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die.

Linklater, Andro. Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die: The Assassination of a British Prime Minister. Walker & Company, 2012. 296p. ISBN 9780802779984.

Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare

Recently, I heard voices telling me "Read Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare." First, it was Lorenzo speaking with Jessica in Act V Scene I of The Merchant of Venice, which we saw under the stars in July.

   "Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls
   And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,
   Where Cressid lay that night."

Then it was a group of actors in Oxford in an episode of PBS Masterpiece Mystery's Inspector Lewis. They were recording Troilus and Cressida for a professor. The young woman playing Cressida became a murder victim, and her boyfriend who read Troilus was a suspect.

Finally, we replaced a bunch of old Shakespeare volumes in our library's play collection with fresh copies. Among the additions was an edition of Troilus and Cressida from the Folger Shakespeare Library. It was definitely time to read this play of which I was unfamiliar.

Despite the clues in the brief encounters above, I was totally surprised to learn that Troilus and Cressida tells a story from the siege of Troy by the Greeks wanting the return of Helen, Queen of Sparta, who had been kidnapped by the besotted Paris. Having once read The Iliad, I was able to figure out some of what was going on. The story, however, seems a bit different from what I remember of the battle between Achilles and Hector. It is certainly different than the battle in the movie Troy.

According to the introduction in the Folger Shakespeare Library edition, the playwright drew from Homer and from Troilus and Criseyde, a play by Chaucer. Shakespeare's play was published in 1609, but there is no evidence of its being performed during his lifetime. The Riverside Shakespeare says the first known performance was in 1898. To help modern readers, the Folger edition has text on the right hand page with extensive footnotes on the left hand page.

Troilus and Cressida is a hard play to categorize. There is comic banter that reminds me of Much Ado About Nothing and a forbidden steamy romance much like Romeo and Juliet. In the fourth act, most of the Greeks and Trojans enjoy a friendly banquet together to prepare for the next day's battle. The main characters (if you use the title as a clue) hardly appear in the final act and then not doing much of final importance. The Riverside Shakespeare groups it with the comedies but calls it historical.

Troilus and Cressida is not among Shakespeare's masterpieces, but it is interesting for those wanting more after having repeatedly seen or read the major plays.

Shakespeare, William. Troilus and Cressida. Simon and Schuster, 2007. 343p. ISBN 9780743273312.

The Mighty Ted: An Unexpected Journey, Written and Performed by Ted Waltmire

Ted Waltmire just wants to be "An Average Guy" again, as he tells us in song in his short musical comedy The Mighty Ted: An Unexpected Journey, performed each Saturday night this September at Donny's Skybox Theater in Pipers Alley in Chicago. He's getting there, as we learn in his funny look at his recovery efforts from the stroke that nearly killed him in 2009.

Ted has been the musical director for community and college theaters in the Chicago area for several decades, as well as being the computer guy at the Downers Grove Public Library. Bonnie and I have attended numerous musicals (Into the Woods, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Godspell, 1776, and more) where he would direct the pit orchestra (often including his wife Michelle) from the piano. Of course, some of the pits were under the stage and hardly visible, but we would always see him at intermission or after the performance. So he was a natural to turn his own experiences into a performance. After the stroke, his colleague and friend Dale Galiniak (who is in the cast) suggested that they take an improv class at Second City. Ted eventually also took a writing class and from that came the script, which was accepted for performance.

For the debut performance, there were many of Ted's family and friends as well as his nurses and therapists in the audience watching him graduate from wheelchair to walker to cane. There was even a song about his many canes. Some got to see themselves comically portrayed. Of course, comedy can include anger, and in this case most was directed at Social Security and impatient people unwilling to give stroke victims time to do the things they are relearning to do. It was an emotion-filled performance with lots of laughs and lively tunes.

Of the remaining four shows, one is already sold out. Go to the Second City website to get tickets. If you decide to go, the best parking deal is at the Treasure Island supermarket across the street.

The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death by Jill Lepore

I remember playing Milton Bradley's The Game of Life as a kid. There was not really much to it besides spinning the wheel and moving the little plastic cars filled with pale blue and pink pegs around the board. Going to college to get the higher salaries seemed the only important decision to make. Luck of the spin seemed the primary influence on winning and losing. Still, my friends and I played over and over. It was so seductive to contemplate what might happen to us for real.

Historian Jill Lepore refers to the game and its predecessors throughout her book The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death, as she explores several centuries of thought about the stages of human life: conception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, marriage, parenthood, adulthood, middle age, old age, and afterlife. Each stage gets a chapter in which the author reports on changes through the ages. In the chapter "Baby Food," she chronicles the many movements for and against breastfeeding. In "The Children's Room," she tells how the magazine Life shocked many in 1938 with what would now be considered very tame photos of a human birth; later revealed to have been staged, no private parts were actually shown in the tiny grainy thumbnail shots. In "Mr. Marriage," she reports on the eugenics movement of the early 20th century which supported state laws for forced stylization of "the feeble, the insane, and the criminal"; over 20,000 people of low regard where sterilized in California alone.

I see libraries are putting The Mansion of Happiness in their American history sections. That is okay as the book does focus on U.S. event. It could just as easily go in collections of philosophy and ethics or with books of sociology. Whatever, it is an entertaining and enlightening work from a historian with a growing shelf of titles, including one novel.

Lepore, Jill. The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. 282p. ISBN 9780307592996.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Perhaps it is a sign of my age, but I can not think of a book that is more romantic than Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson, which was published in 2010, which I have just read. It was on my possibilities list for some time, but its being the choice for an upcoming book discussion moved me to actually read it. It is jolly good to be in a book club, as I am now very glad to have read it.

Major Ernest Pettigrew is a retired British soldier of traditional values who lives in the quiet village of St. Mary, England. As the story begins, his brother has died, and he learns that reuniting the very valuable family hunting rifles (called "Churchills") was not specified in the brother's will as the major has been led to believe. Both his mercenary banker son and his ambitious niece want the guns sold so they can fund their projects, but the major just wants to have them to use at annual duck hunts. The major sense that neither of the young people nor his sister-in-law have any sense of tradition.

The major explains all of this to Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani widow who runs a little shop in the village. As they walk along the beachfront and drink tea, he discovers that the attractive widow shares his love of Kipling and a sense of what is proper behavior. He is enamored, but how does Mrs. Ali feel?

Being a fan of many British books and television, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand was ready made for me, and I do not think I am alone. It is no longer on bestseller lists, but there are many copies in public libraries. If you are similarly inclined, put it on the top of your list.

Simonson, Helen. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. Random House, 2010. 358p. ISBN 9781400068937.

Anyway: A Story about Me with 138 Footnotes, 27 Exaggerations, and 1 Plate of Spaghetti by Arthur Salm

Most of my memories of junior high are pleasant, but not all, and I am very happy that I do not have to live through the age again. Usually good kid Max, who is between seventh and eighth grade, often hears that his mishaps will be funny someday, but he is ready to get past the tween stage and never return. He tell all about his rocky summer in Anyway: A Story about Me with 138 Footnotes, 27 Exaggerations, and 1 Plate of Spaghetti by Arthur Salm.

Max is not a storyteller who can stay on subject, which is why he includes 138 footnotes. Don't skip them for they reveal much about Max's character and that of his alter ego Mad Max. They also alert you to the 27 exaggerations.

Max would not want me to reveal too much about his story, but let me just say that he has one set of friends (and an enemy) from his school and makes another set when he goes to summer camp with his family. Action takes place at a shopping mall, in Max's backyard, at camp, and at a big birthday party where girls and boys play musical chairs. Can you guess where the spaghetti comes into the story? See if you are right by reading Anyway.

Salm, Arthur. Anyway: A Story about Me with 138 Footnotes, 27 Exaggerations, and 1 Plate of Spaghetti. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2012. 138p. ISBN 9781442429307.

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

While My Reading Life by Pat Conroy is obviously about books and reading, it is very much a book about people who introduced Conroy to the joy of reading and books that have shaped his life. His mother, an English teacher, a high school librarian, a bookseller, and publisher's representative populate the story along with influential books, including Gone with the Wind, Catcher in the Rye, Deliverance, War and Peace, A Christmas Carol, and Look Homeward, Angel.

It won't surprise the readers of Conroy's novels that he portrays his benefactors warts and all. Each chapter focuses on either one of these people or an influential author. Being unsparing does not mean being ungrateful. The mentors all seem better people for overcoming obstacles, such as prejudice or cowardice, and readers sense Conroy's love for all of them.

My Reading Life is also filled with great statements about writing and reading and life. I could have chosen many to post on social media.

• "Books contained powerful amulets that could lead to paths of certain wisdom." 
• "I grew ups word-haunted boy. I felt words inside me and store them wondrous as pearls." 
• "The veneration of books carries its own rewards." 
• "On that first day, not one kid said hello to me. By chance, I stumbled onto the library and I felt the deep pull of a homecoming as I walked into its silences." 
• "Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence. You touch them as they quiver with a divine pleasure." 
• "In every great story, I encounter a head-on collision with self and imagination." 

By the end, readers sense Conroy's philosophy of literature. I enjoyed listening to the author read the book himself. It was eight hours well spent.

Conroy, Pat. My Reading Life. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2010. 337p. ISBN 9780385533577.

7 compact discs. Books on Tape, 2010. ISBN 9780307749222.

Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers

One of the benefits of listening to NPR Science Podcasts is learning about interesting science books. From NPR recently I learned about Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers. The pair coined the term "zoobiquity" to name interspecies medical studies, which they think go deeper than simple comparative anatomy. Physician Natterson-Horowitz particularly believes that her medical colleagues are slower than veterinarians in recognizing the convergence of their disciplines. She does not go so far as to suggest that animals get better care, but she does say that vets are far ahead in some fields of treatment. 

Of course, animal studies have long been conducted for the benefit of human medicine, but they have usually been limited to laboratory animals in sterile environments. The authors argue there is much also to be learned from the treatment of pets and from the lives of animals in the wild. They show how similarly animals and humans faint at times of danger, suffer from cancer, pursue sexual partners, abuse drugs, self-mutilate, and surrender to obesity. Almost any human trouble seems to have a corollary in the animal world that might provide insight.

Thanks to Bowers being a mainstream journalist, the text is kept from being too technical. Anyone with a pet will experience a few revelations. I recommend reading a chapter a date to not overdose on the fascinating detail. It will be in many public libraries.

Natterson-Horowitz, Barbara and Kathryn Bowers. Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. 308p. ISBN 9780307593481.

Whose Body by Dorothy L. Sayers

When I recently read a blog piece about the British Queens of Crime (Christie, Allingham, Sayers, and Marsh), I remembered that I had not read Dorothy L. Sayers in a long time. Even then, I had only read two or three of the books, which I had liked immensely. Feeling it was time for another, I downloaded the audiobook read by Roe Kendall of Whose Body?, first of Sayer's published mysteries.

Upon listening, I was immediately struck by how much of the story is told through conversations between the investigators, witnesses, and suspects. I suspect I would have noticed this in print, but in performance with the reader lending so many voices, it was theater. The quick pace made putting down my iPod difficult. I kept wanting to hear just a little more before stopping.

Of course, the main sleuth is the gentleman Lord Peter Wimsey, who loves nothing better than a puzzle to solve. He has survived World War I, but he needs diversion to keep from thinking about the horror. With the clever help of his valet Mervyn Bunter, who was his sergeant on the Western Front, Wimsey assists Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard who has been charged with discovering why financier Reuben Levy has disappeared. The odd body that has appeared in architect Alfred Thipps's bathtub in a nearby flat is most certainly not Levy - but is there a connection?

I am happy to have reacquainted myself with Wimsey and will start working my way through the series. Thanks to whoever wrote the blog piece that I have now misplaced.

By the way, the cover image used for the audiobook has absolutely no relevance to the story.

Sayers, Dorothy L. Whose Body? Harper, 1923.

Audiobook from Tantor Media, 2005. 6 compact discs.

Burying the Typewriter: A Memoir by Carmen Bugan

Librarians like to classify, and I am struggling to label Burying the Typewriter: A Memoir by Carmen Bugan. Obviously it is a memoir, and it is easy to identify it as a childhood memoir and somewhat of a coming of age memoir. I think it is more than either of these. It is similar to a Holocaust memoir, in that Bugan tells about how her family survived a time of great danger, but it is not set during the Holocaust. Instead, she tells of life during the waining years of communism in Romania. Iron Curtain memoir doesn't sound bad - better than totalitarian state memoir.

I know I would group it with First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung and Egg on Mao by Denise Chong, but neither of these were behind the Iron Curtain and second is not even a memoir. How about a description instead? Burying the Typewriter is an intimate account of surviving in an unjust society while actively trying to reform it. The effort to inspire the people to rise up against the oppression is a big part of the story. Bugan's father spends much of his life in Romania in prison for distributing anti-regime newsletters and openly protesting, thinking that his example would encourage others. Instead, they disowned him as friend and helped the secret police spy on Bugan's family.

Of course, it was Bugan's parents, not Bugan, who were demonstrating and conspiring against the Ceasescue regime. She hoped her father would behave himself so they would be left alone and could live a normal life. She prayed the typewriter would not be found. Bugan was, however, the member of the family who dashed past Romania police to enter the American Embassy to apply for asylum. Bugan recounts the time of her childhood with passion and understanding.

Burying the Typewriter is a great addition to a literary genre that I am having trouble naming.

Bugan, Carmen. Burying the Typewriter: A Memoir. Graywolf Press, 2012. ISBN 9781555976170.

Into the Western Winds: Pioneer Boys Traveling the Overland Trails by Mary Barmeyer O'Brien

No self-respecting boy of the nineteenth century could pass up the opportunity for adventure. What could be better than crossing the American West in a wagon train? There were horses to ride, wild animals to hunt, rivers to cross, mountains to climb, and lots of other boys to befriend. There would be no school and little bathing. How hard could it be? In Into the Western Winds: Pioneer Boys Traveling the Overland Trails, author Mary Barmeyer O'Brien lets us know how hard.

In her compact book, author O'Brien tells us stories of eight boys who joined their families in crossing the continent between the 1840s and 1860s, before there were railroads to speed their journeys. Each of them either kept a journal or wrote a memoir about his experience. O'Brien identifies the resources and retells some of the best stories from each.

Readers will quickly realize how important the boys turned out to be to the success of their families' fortunes. They herded livestock, hunted, drove wagons, gathered firewood, and went for help in emergencies. Some were even left in the wild to guard family possessions when they were dropped to lighten wagon loads. Moses Schallenberger survived a winter alone in the high Sierras two years before the Donner Party was stuck there! All eight lived to become import men in their frontier communities.

At 107 pages, many readers can finish Into the Western Winds in a night or two. I enjoyed looking at the trail maps and old photographs. A trip out west to see western migration historic sites could be a lot of fun.

O'Brien, Mary Barmeyer. Into the Western Winds: Pioneer Boys Traveling the Overland Trails. Twodot, 2003. 107p. ISBN 0762710209.

The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley

Kosovo is not on our minds much. It is not surprising that The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley has not been borrowed from my library recently. But I found it, took it home, and enjoyed reading about a woman's year teaching English in Prishtina, Kosovo.


Though we have pretty much forgotten the former parts of Yugoslavia, the Kosovo Albanians think of us often. They have little trust for the governments of Europe but consider the United States the force of justice on the planet. With NATO and UN forces, we saved them from the Serbian Army which was trying to remove all Albanians from Kosovo in the late 1990s. Naturally, many think of us as friends and hope we will continue to support them with investments and education. Many Kosovar Albanian students dream of learning English, attending college in the United States, and returning to Kosovo to rebuild their country.


Huntley learns all of this first hand from her students, most of whom attend high school. To help them further their language skills, she starts a book club to read in English. Their first book is The Old Man and the Sea, which turns out to speak directly to the plight of down-on-their-luck Kosovars. 


Of course, The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo speaks directly to us. Huntley wonders what role we intend to play in a world in which there seems to be another crisis every week. What will ultimately happen when we seem to never help enough in one country after another?

Huntley, Paula. The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2003. 236p. ISBN 1585422118.