The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey

Josephine Tey (1896-1952) is less remembered by the general public than Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and other big name writers of the Golden Age of British Crime (1920-1950), but Tey (her real name was Elizabeth Macintosh) is still very well-regarded by devoted readers. In fact, the Crime Writers Association, a British literary group, put Tey's Daughter of Time at the top of its 100 best mystery novels list issued in 1990. The Franchise Affair is #11 on the list. Her books are still in print and finding readers.

Strangely, her publisher doesn't even know what it is marketing. The banner across the back cover of The Franchise Affair proclaims "Inspector Alan Grant returns in one of Tey's finest mysteries." While this is technically true, there is very little of Tey's famous inspector in the book. I think he appears in two scenes and is otherwise offstage. The main character in this case is a small village lawyer who is asked to represent a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother in an alleged kidnapping case. It is alleged because there is no actual evidence that the two women locked a teenager in their attic for a month as the girl who had been missing claimed. At first, no one wants to believe the girl, but she is able to describe the house and its attic very well.

The lawyer Robert Blair is an endearing man who knows much more about wills and deeds than criminal proceeding, but he learns what he has to do and calls in help when necessary. The local mechanic and his elderly aunt may be his most clever allies in this somewhat gentle mystery that avoids being in any way predictable. If you want a sample of a mystery in which no one dies (despite the picture on the cover), this is your book.

Tey, Josephine. The Franchise Affair. Touchstone Books, 2009, 1949. 300p. ISBN 9780684842561.

Who's on Worst: The Lousiest Players, Biggest Cheaters, Saddest Goats and Other Antiheroes in Baseball History by Filip Bondy

As Filip Bondy says in his introduction to Who's on Worst: The Lousiest Players, Biggest Cheaters, Saddest Goats and Other Antiheroes in Baseball History, it is unfair to categorize anyone who makes it to the major leagues as truly untalented. So few aspirants make it. They have all been very, very good at some level. Even the hapless Marv Throneberry of the 1962 New York Mets was an accomplished hitter in triple A minor league baseball. That said, Bondy goes forward with some humor and a bit of indignation to name players, managers, and other baseball people to a sort of hall of shame.

Take Bill Buckner. He enjoyed a great baseball career, but he was embarrassed by an error at a key moment in a world series. His missing of what should have been an easy play is what many people remember about him today. Totally unfair. To his credit, Bondy lets you know how good Buckner was and how he's coped with the aftermath of the error.

Humor prevails in the profile of spitball pitching Gaylord Perry. Bondy recounts how Perry learned and perfected the illegal pitch. In his case, the rumor of the pitch was almost as effective as the pitch itself. Only near the end of his career did the pitcher get caught and ejected from a game.

The heaviest doses of indignation concentrate in the chapters "Most Overpaid Yankees" and "Most Overpaid Outside the Bronx." In these chapter, Bondy exposes not only players who performed pitifully after accepting millions of dollars but also the baseball executives who foolishly hired them when there were plenty of indicators signalling probable failure (age, prior injuries, inconsistent performance, etc.)

I particularly enjoyed the chapter about the worst players who turned into the most accomplished managers, as the author tells well the stories of Tony LaRussa, Sparky Anderson, and Tommy Lasorda, men who entertained fans for years. For sports fans looking for a light read that can be dipped into a little at a time, Who's on Worst is an entertaining book in print or audio read ably by Scott Brick.

Bondy, Filip. Who's on Worst: The Lousiest Players, Biggest Cheaters, Saddest Goats and Other Antiheroes in Baseball History. Doubleday, 2013. 252 p. ISBN 9780385536127.

Audiobook: Books on Tape, 2013. 7 compact discs. ISBN 9780385362603.

The Frick Collection: Handbook of Paintings

I collect few things. I have compact discs from some of the performers who have appeared at our library's concert series. I sometimes buy small bird guides when I travel to other states or countries. Now I am selectively collecting books from the gift shops of art museums I visit. I recently bought guides to both the Frick Collection and the Cloisters on our trip to New York.

The Frick Collection: Handbook of Paintings is a catalog with photographs of every painting in the museum, arranged alphabetically by artists. 131 paintings were left to the museum by its benefactor, industrialist Henry Clay Frick, and 48 were added later by his descendants. He was obviously a very, very rich man of refined tastes, who focused on European paintings from the Renaissance to the 1800s. Collecting at a time before art prices inflated to today's standards, he acquired works from many of the most renowned artists, including Constable, David, Gainsborough, Goya, Monet, Rembrandt, Titian, Turner, Van Dyck, Vermeer, and Whistler.

Being a 6 X 9 handbook and not an oversize art book, The Frick Collection is not adequate for detailed study of the paintings, but it serves as an attractive reminder and useful reference to the wonderful afternoon we spent at the museum. I have it when I want to verify which Vermeers we saw that day.

Now I look forward to reading about the Cloisters.

The Frick Collection: Handbook of Paintings. Frick Collection, 2012. 168p. ISBN 9780912114095.

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit writes personal essays about travel, art, architecture, and culture. In each she mixes her experiences with what she discerns through research. Because the pieces are unpredictable, the reader never knows what to expect, other than Solnit will be insightful and entertaining.

In her 2005 collection, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, her binding idea is that getting lost can be a good thing. Only when you are lost do you have the freedom to discover what you never imagined. She writes about losing one's way, losing things, losing one's confidence or identity, losing loved ones, losing focus, and even disappearing. Even painful loss can yield benefits, such as the deepening of one's soul.

A second common element through many of the essays is the color blue, how it is used and what it means in various situations. Deeper blues show greater distance in Leonardo's paintings. Lakes and the sky are blue until you reach them, and they then prove colorless. Blue can be perceived as calm or cold. We sing the blues. Some of Solnit's reflections on the color are autobiographical, revealing losses in her life, a life about which we come to care in our reading of her essays.

Solnit has written at least a dozen books so far, including A Book of Migrations: Some Passages in Ireland. You may find A Field Guide to Getting Lost your portal to more reading.

Solnit, Rebecca. A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Viking, 2005. 209p. ISBN 0670034215.

How Animals Grieve by Barbara J. King

The feeling of emotions and self-awareness in animals other than humans is still a fairly recent topic in science. Historically the science community as a whole and probably much of society assumed that animals did not feel or think. Instead, animals were thought to be governed by instincts. The idea that animals could grieve would have been ridiculed, except possibly by sympathetic pet owners who witnessed behaviors hard to attribute to emotionless beings. A book like How Animals Grieve by Barbara J. King was unthinkable.

After much research, some scientists are now positing that animals (including humans) are complex emotionally. They recognize that members of species do not all behave the same. The consequence is that humans must now consider their actions and the suffering they may cause by inconsiderate acts towards animals. Anthropologist King is part of the movement studying how animals experience life in a world dominated by humans.

How Animals Grieve is a book in a space between disciplines. King is faithful to her scientific training and resists projecting human motivation onto other species, but she also reports many stories, some of them personal, that give evidence to a great variety of animal responses to death of their companions. She also discusses the possibility that animals love. Two chapters near the end look at human grief practices.

How Animals Grieve is published by an academic press but is easy reading for almost anyone who regularly uses a library card. Animal lover will enjoy King's storytelling and concern for the ethical treatment of our companion species.

King, Barbara J. How Animals Grieve. University of Chicago Press, 2013. 193p. ISBN 9780226436944.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Why was Susannah Cahalan, a promising, articulate reporter for the New York Post, suddenly rendered afraid, confused, awkward, lethargic, regressive, suspicious, and forgetful in 2009? Why did she sometimes explode in anger? Why did she lose her appetite and interest in almost everything? With test after test showing her to be normal and healthy, why was she losing control? One of her family's doctors assumed she was partying too much. Others thought she exhibited various psychotic diseases, but for weeks the condition could not be identified and worsened. Having read her book Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, I can now tell you what was wrong, but you may not want to know quite yet. Cahalan reveals the solution late in her book, so I'll wait, too.

If you enjoy puzzles, stop reading this review now and get the book.

Brain on Fire may just seem to be a well-written true medical thriller and not much more, but there is much to ponder. The recently identified infection that debilitated Cahalan may have infected many people throughout history. They may have been unjustly branded shameful and locked away in mental institutions for life. Other just died suddenly without explanation. Our current thinking of some historical figures could change if we knew something like this infection was behind their behavior.

Cahalan is very fortunate to have been diagnoses and treated. Another thing to consider is our health care system. Because Cahalan was covered by a generous insurance policy from her employer and because her family kept insisting on further tests, she was cured. She could have been written off easily when her condition was at its worst.

I am assuming if you have read this far, you do not mind a spoiler. The culprit in the story was anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis. Cahalan reports on the research being conducted on this assumed to be rare disease. No one knows how she contracted it. When interviewed by Cahalan after her recovery, some doctors involved in the early parts of the story claimed to have never heard of it.

Cahalan, Susannah. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness. Free Press, 2012. 264p. ISBN 9781451621372.

The Panda Chronicles, Book 2: Wheel of Pandas by Anne Belov

In March at Panda-Monium 2013 in San Diego, Bonnie acquired a copy of The Panda Chronicles, Book 2: Wheel of Pandas by Anne Belov. When she finished joyfully reading, she passed it to me. Silly me left it on my bookshelf until Wednesday night. I laughed through about half of the book then and finished in the morning. Why had I waited so long? Now I want The Panda Chronicles, Book 1: Your Brain on Pandas and look forward to The Panda Chronicles, Book 3: Tails from the Panda Kindergarten. 

The Panda Chronicles series collects comic strips from the website The Panda Chronicles. Belov posts a new strip every Wednesday and sometimes on others, too. In them you follow the exploits of Bob T. Panda, Mehitabel the Cat, Babette de Panda, and the mischievous class of the Panda Kindergarten. Bob T. and Mehitabel report for the Panda Channel, which seems to be a subsidiary of The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire, which is a couple of rungs below Way Better Than Working, Inc. on the organizational chart found in the front of Book 2.

I don't want to spoil any of the fun, but I will tell you that I enjoyed bits about the panda sex identity misunderstanding at the Atlanta Zoo and about Bob T. wanting to reduce his carbonated footprint. I read with many smiles and finished with a desire for cuppycakes with black and white frosting.

Belov, Anne. The Panda Chronicles, Book 2: Wheel of Pandas. Leaping Panda Press, 2013. 133p. ISBN 9780988388017.

"Help Me" by Joni Mitchell

The Thomas Ford Memorial Library is celebrating songs on its blog Thommy Ford Reads this year. I wrote this piece recently for Thommy Ford's Playlist.

By 1974, Canadian singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell had plenty of loyal fans and had won much praise from music critics for her inventive lyrics and strange chords. Young women admired her feminist stand and her ability to perform and record mostly alone. Her five albums had charted well, but she did not have a top ten hit record. Whether she really cared about the charts is debatable, but her studio was certainly interested. With backing of musicians from the jazz band LA Express, she worked for a brighter sound on her sixth album Court and Spark. She succeeded and the album was both a critical and commercial hit. It also included her biggest single ever “Help Me” which peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The sound of “Help Me” might have been new but Mitchell stuck to the message she had been touting since her debut album Song to a Seagull. She was interested in love but not as much as her freedom. It was a seductive anthem that played well in the 1970s. More than any other Mitchell album, Court and Spark had a consistent theme, that being a look at life in Los Angeles. Listeners will notice that the next track “Free Man in Paris” has almost the same tone and again romanticizes freedom. It also ridicules the seeking of pop music fame, exactly what the producers of her album wanted for her.

In addition to the compact disc of the album, my library has a small book about it, Court and Spark by Sean Nelson. Mitchell fans wanting to learn more about the individual songs and the place of the album in the artist’s chronology will want to check it out.

The Second City Guide to the Opera

Being on the stage of the Civic Opera House in Chicago is not an experience I expected, but I have now been up there twice this year. The first was to take the Lyric Opera tour last February. Since many public buildings now give tours, it is not a rare privilege, but it was a great tour. On Sunday night I returned for a less likely event, The Second Guide Guide to the Opera, a melding of talent from two famous Chicago institutions from very different pages of the weekly entertainment guide.

Bonnie, our mastermind of fun, told me that the audience would sit on the stage, but I had not grasped the meaning of this detail. I just expected folding chairs around the performance area. To my surprise, the stage was turned into a comedy club just like the Second City home. We sat in cafe chairs around a little table, while some people who paid top price had couches or easy chairs. Our party of four ordered drinks, a hummus plate, and a cheese and cracker platter. I tried to spread crumbly cheese on a fragile cracker and littered the floor of the stage of the Civic Opera House! They'll never ask me back. 

On reflection, I see that a joint Second City-Lyric Opera venture is a logical merger. Both comics and opera singers find themselves in ridiculous situations. They also share a love of outrageous costumes. We only knew the actual opera singers because they each sang solos. I especially enjoyed Bernard Holcolm singing a piece from the American opera A View from the Bridge. 

Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune reviewed the revue, indicating that he wanted a bit more edge to the performance. He thought the comics were really too kind to the hosting institution. I enjoyed the performance just as it was and laughed heartily. My favorite section was the improv opera based on the lives of a couple from the audience.

The Second City Guide to the Opera runs through the month. The website video for the production shows the original one-time show with a mostly different cast in more formal attire playing to the real theater, unlike what is running this summer. No Patrick Stewart or Rene Fleming this month. Still, the songs and stunts are the same. Get your tickets soon.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

The shape of my latest books-I-want-to-read list keeps changing. I start anew periodically with databases or spreadsheets or posts on social media. My latest is a wish list on the library's online catalog. I never seem to complete a list before I begin another. Somewhere along the line, I am sure that I identified The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle for reading. When my friend George linked from Facebook to an essential fantasy book list recently, I was reminded of my intention and finally borrowed the book to take on a vacation. I finally started it on the flight home.

As so often happens, I had the right book at the right time. At the Cloisters in New York, Bonnie and I saw a very famous series of unicorn tapestries. They tell a story about the plight of unicorns hunted for the pleasure of kings, a theme that appears in The Last Unicorn. What separates Beagle's story from other humans in conflict with nature stories is that the author does not vilify anyone. A few humans and mythical creatures do cruel things intentionally, but most of the characters are just trying to survive. Conflict is inevitable, and those guilty of misdeeds seem to anticipate and accept the consequences. The heroes that prevail mourn for those defeated. Celebrations are tempered with sadness for losses.

Peter Beagle must be an interesting man. He is certainly a talented writer who has spun a fairy tale that is at times comic, philosophical, and compassionate. The story of The Last Unicorn will surprise readers to the end.

Beagle, Peter S. The Last Unicorn. 40th anniversary ed. ROC, 2008. 294p. ISBN 9780451450524.

Cronkite's War: His World War II Letters Home by Walter Cronkite IV and Maurice Isserman

Embedding journalists with military units in the Iraq War was not really a new thing in 2003. Walter Cronkite, then a print reporter with United Press, closely covered the U.S. Eighth Air Force during its 1943-1944 bombing campaign of German military and industrial targets. He got to know many of the air force officers and some of the young pilots, many of whom died on missions. He even flew with a few missions before UP forbad such dangerous work.

Cronkite was young and recently married when the U.S. joined the war. Despite the danger of living in often-bombed London, he eagerly accepted the assignment, leaving with the intention of writing his wife Betsy every day. He discovered that he stayed too busy to do that, but he did send frequent typed letters, V-mail, and telegrams back to her. His grandson, one of the authors of Cronkite's War: His World War II Letters Home, Walter Cronkite IV, read scores of these letters at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum at the University of Texas at Austin.

In Cronkite's War, the authors transcribe letters with clarifying commentaries, adding stories published by UP newspapers. In the letters, the correspondent told his wife a bit about the war and much about finding an apartment, being cold and hungry, entreating other journalists, running out of typewriter ribbons, and how to follow a lead to a story. He expressed his loneliness and schemed to get her a newspaper position in London and later on the continent. The letters ended when he got his wish.

The daily reports in Cronkite's War are a bit repetitive, as letters can be, but they do impart the experience of being separated from one's family. The book will appeal to a variety of readers, many of whom do not regularly read about war.

Cronkite, Walter IV and Maurice Isserman. Cronkite's War: His World War II Letters Home. National Geographic, 2013. 318p. ISBN 9781426210198.

Google Art Project Thoughts

I am surprised to find that I have not written about the Google Art Project. I thought that I had. I remember when Bonnie introduced me to the website, which had images from about a dozen art museum from several countries, I thought everyone should know about the project. Google had loaded very high quality images that could be inspected minutely. I was impressed. I could see art in Paris, London, or Tokyo without leaving home.

I am still impressed. The images are still beautiful, and navigation of the website has improved. There are now 261 collections, over 9,500 artists, and over 45,000 images with detailed descriptions, including artist, date, media, size, original name, provenance, and notes on viewing. Paintings, sculpture, tapestries, mosaics, jewelry, etc. are included. You may browse a collection, view representative work by an artist, or search by keywords.

The Google Art Project lets you share images through your social media and put together your own virtual galleries. Users galleries may be an art lovers favorite pieces or guides developed by museums to help visitors. Some are thematic presentations, such as "Mathematics and Art" and "Boats and historical events."

Not everything with the Google Art Project is right, however. I can not imagine why we are expected to browse for artists by their first names. I remember that Picasso's first name is Pablo and that Pollack's first name is Jackson. Some are known by first names, such as Titian or Rembrandt. What are the first names of Rubens or Renoir? What about Van Dyke? It's not Dick. Actually, there are so many artists that I do not even recommend browsing. Use the search box instead.

Not every museum is participating. The Louvre and the Prado museums are among the missing.

The level of participation for collections varies, and even in the best cases is selective. Having just gotten home from a trip to New York, I have found that the Google Art Project just doesn't have many of my favorites from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, and the Museum of Modern Art. Looking at the collection for the Morgan Library, I almost wonder if I went to the right place. I recognize very little from its project images. Of course, the Morgan is always changing much of what is on exhibit.

The Google Art Project does not substitute for a trip to the museum, but it may certainly make you want to go.

The Who Sell Out by John Dougan

As a kid in rural America in the 1960s, listening to rock music from distant radio stations at night, I knew next to nothing about the songs and little about the performers. The top 40 disc jockeys might say whether a group was British or American, but not much more. So I never knew that the Who's Pete Townshend was serious about pop art and that there was meaning as well as humor behind the strange cover for The Who Sell Out (1967). Being just a seventh grader when I saw it, I thought the cover very strange, not something I want to have. I did not know it parodied commercialism. I doubt I even knew the word parody.

I also knew nothing about pirate radio stationed off the coast of Great Britain, playing music not offered by the selectors of BBC Radio. The musicians' union contract allowing only a limited number of "needle hours" on BBC Radio (to stop recorded music from replacing live music) and British bureaucrats wanting to keep radio refined kept a savvy BBC minority from responding effectively to the growing demand for youth oriented music. It was in this context that the Who recorded their third album. The story is deftly recounted in the compact music history The Who Sell Out by John Dougan. 

Who fans will, of course, enjoy this quick-reading book, which profiles the members of the band, recounts the recording of the album, and explains the reactions in Britain and America. The Who Sell Out would be fun to borrow from a library with a Who CD and a DVD of Pirate Radio.

By the way, the beans were refrigerated and Roger Daltrey developed a slight case of pneumonia.

Dougan, John. The Who Sell Out. Continuum, 2006. 131p. ISBN 9780826417435.

Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man by Brian McGrory

Thanks to Kathy Strange for suggesting this book.

If you are middle aged and falling in love again after a long time on your own, there is a good chance that your new love will have a former spouse, children, and maybe some pets. What you do not expect is to add a rooster to your household, but that is what happened to journalist Brian McGrory. He describes his difficult relationship with the demanding bird in Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man.

I listened to this mostly humorous memoir read by Johnny Heller, whose lively reading portrays the Boston Globe columnist as a man who, with some reluctance, gives up his urban bachelorhood for a suburban family life. Another reader told me that she relished the first part of the book in which McGrory recounts ten years with his wonderful dog Harry. Buddy is everything that Harry is not - loud, unfriendly to McGrory, and dangerous - maybe even evil. His new love and her two daughters, however, love Buddy, who is a sweetheart to them. Whether McGrory can adjust to his new life and protect his shins is the dramatic question.

Buddy is well-told and a good alternative to readers who have tired of dog and cat stories - if that is actually possible.

McGrory, Brian. Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a  Family Man. Crown Publishers, 2012. 328p. ISBN 9780307953063. Tantor Audio, 2012. 7 compact discs. ISBN 9781452639215.

The End of Your Life Book Club by William Schwalbe

As they sat in waiting rooms, early for medical appointments, William Schwabe and his mother Mary Anne Schwalbe more often than not found themselves discussing books. His mother, a former school teacher and once head of admissions to Harvard University, had raised William with books, and he had become an editor with a major book publisher. He sometimes got advance review copies for his mother, who had been diagnosed to have pancreatic cancer. At some point they realized that thanks to the many medical appointments, they had formed a small book club, thus the title of William's book, The End of Your Life Book Club.

The list of books that the mother and son club read is quite inspiring for someone with a like mind to read. According to Listopia in GoodReads, there are 107 titles at least mentioned. Some of these are used as chapter title's in William's book. There are fiction classics, literary novels, history, memoirs, and spiritual meditations. In view of Mary Ann's condition and religious faith, books like The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott are to be expected. A few, however, are titles that I would never consider reading with my mom, including Continental Drift by Russell Banks and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

As you read, you realize that Mary Anne was a most impressive humanitarian. After retiring from school administration, she devoted her life to refugees, spending years in places like Bosnia, Darfur, and Afghanistan. Her passion was aid, protection, and civil rights for women and children.

Besides the book discussions, what I love about The End of Your Life Book Club is William's recounting a very warm and respectful family relationship. So many families in recent memoirs are dysfunctional. Mother and son disagree about religion, but they allow each his or her own opinion. I also like that William did not initiate the memoir on day one of his mother's diagnosis. He tells an honest every day story, not one set up in advance for the sake of writing a book. He says that he only had the idea for this book after many of the events had passed.

I think I have much to learn from The End of Your Life Book Club. I intend to read it again.

Schwalbe, William. The End of Your Life Book Club. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. 336 p. ISBN 9780307594037.

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley

I am having much fun reading classic mysteries that Matthew has added to our library collection. The latest that I read is a reissue of the 1929 mystery The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley. In it, a box of poisoned chocolates is sent to Sir Eustace Pennefather, a member of a men's club, the Rainbow, off Piccadilly Circle in London. Though almost everyone agrees that Sir Eustace is a man who probably deserves killing, he escapes this fate by donating the chocolates to a man who has lost a wager with his wife. Curiously, the wife bet for a box of chocolates. She will never want any again.

Chief Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard and his police team are struggling to find a suspect for the murder. Amateur detective Roger Sheringham offers the services of his newly formed Crime Circle to help. The chief inspector briefs Sheringham and the club's five other members, and they set off individually to solve the case. Then, in a series of late night meetings, they each propose a different solution. Who is right?

Readers who enjoy Agatha Christie's Miss Marple books will discover similarities in The Poisoned Chocolate Case. At only 221 quick-reading pages, it is a great weekend or vacation read.

Berkeley, Anthony. The Poisoned Chocolates Case. Felony and Mayhem Press, 2010, 1929. 221p. ISBN 9781934609446.

The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America by Steven Johnson

Fame fades. Two centuries ago, readers in America, Great Britain, and on the European continent knew Joseph Priestley well. Now his name sounds familiar, but many find him hard to place. Was Priestley a scientist, theologian, or political philosopher? Actually, he was all three. He conducted import experiments in electricity and chemistry, wrote extensively on religious topics, and upset many of his fellow Englishmen with his political support of the American and French revolutions. His fleeing England for America in 1791 made him our country's first celebrity scientist-exile, long before Albert Einstein.

Many historians have called Priestly a renaissance man, according to Steven Johnson, author of The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America. Some, however, claim that Priestley made his greatest discoveries by accident amid many ill-conceived experiments. Johnson defends the scientist's reputation, praising Priestley for his ability to befriend thinkers from many disciplines and facilitating scholarly debates about many import issues. He was a key member of both the Honest Whigs and the Lunar Society (scholarly societies) and was a frequent corespondent with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. That he was later proved wrong on many counts is now thought inconsequential by the author. He was a great and brave man.

The Invention of Air is not a traditional biography, as Johnson's story line sometimes shifts to Priestley's friends or even his rivals, but every story thread eventually links back to Priestley. In the process scientific and philosophical principles are introduced without becoming so technical as to lose lay readers. It serves well as a popular history of the Age of Reason and is a good choice for either a history or science book club.  I enjoyed it as an audiobook read by Mark Deakins.

Johnson, Steven. The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America. Riverhead Books, 2009. 254p. ISBN 9781594488528.

Books on Tape, 2008. 5 compact discs. ISBN 9781415959329.

Owls by Marianne Taylor

I can recall only one sighting of an owl in nature, not at a zoo. My story is typical, according to Marianne Taylor in her beautiful book Owls. Since owls are nocturnal and are masters of camouflage, many people never see owls and are unaware of the species in their area. You must be skilled to see owls, unless you are lucky enough to have a barn owl in your barn.

You can start honing your owl spotting skills with Taylor's book, which is filled with incredible photos showing the birds in their natural habitats. Most are composed so you see the owls right away, but there were a few that I had to study a bit to see the owls, even when they were big and right in the center of the image. Their feathers mimic bark very effectively.

While almost every page has a photo or two and some of them are full page photos, Owls is more of a reference book than photo book. In the first half, Taylor describes the avian families that can be defined as owls, telling how they live, hunt, court, nest, and grow. She details threats to owl survival and recounts owls from legends and literature. In the second half, she profiles 41 species that can be found in Europe or North America. Some of these species only skirt the eastern edge of Europe and live mainly in Asia or Africa, so the Himalayan wood owl, Ural owl, and Asian barred owl are included.

My favorite photo in Owls might be the Northern saw-whet owl (page 202), though I really like the snowy owl (page 128), too. What is your?

Taylor, Marianne. Owls. Cornell University Press, 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780801451812.

Jungleland: A Mysterious Lost City, a WWII Spy, and a True Story of Deadly Adventure by Christopher S. Stewart

In readers' advisory services in public libraries, we often seek read-alikes for our clients who have enjoyed books. We hope to find books with similar reading qualities that our clients will appreciate just as much as the titles that they report enjoying. With that in mind, I wonder how good a read-alike is Jungleland: A Mysterious Lost City, a WWII Spy, and a True Story of Deadly Adventure by Christopher S. Stewart for pleased readers of The Lost City of Z by David Grann. 

In both books, a journalist recounts historic South American explorations while trying to retrace the steps of famed explorers. The authors describe exotic locations, face dangers themselves, and sort out the fact and the fiction of legends. Published four years apart, Jungleland may just in time for readers who want to relive the experience of reading The Lost City of Z. 

If the reader, however, says "Been there, done that," the librarian and the reader have to look elsewhere. 

Even if the reader wants to try Jungleland, there is room for disappointment. Though Stewart's account is engaging and entertaining, it is shorter and less intense than the The Lost City of Z. Some may think Stewart acts rather foolishly in visiting Honduras during a military takeover. He is in grave danger at one point with no way to call for help, but somehow, the story has less drama than the book to which it is obviously compared. 

The Lost City of Z may be a better follow-up to Jungleland. Some readers may be more willing to try the shorter book, get hooked, and then be ready for more and even greater adventure. 

Stewart, Christopher S. Jungleland: A Mysterious Lost City, a WWII Spy, and a True Story of Deadly Adventure. Harper, 2013. 263p. ISBN 9780061802546.

42 and The Baseball Encyclopedia, 8th ed.

When Bonnie and I got home from seeing 42, the recent movie about Jackie Robinson's breaking the color line of major league baseball, I went straight to one of our bookcases for The Baseball Encyclopedia. We had questions to answer, and since our 8th edition of the BE has comprehensive statistics and facts through the 1989 season, we could verify details from the movie.

My first question came from the opening sequence of the movie. The 42 moviemakers included Stan Musial as one of the star players who missed playing time due to World War II. I thought that he had played for the Cardinals without interruption through the war, but I was wrong. He missed the 1945 season. BE verifies the gap in his career.

My second burning question was the identity of the pitcher that the Dodgers traded to the Pirates early in the 1947 season after he had led a petition effort to get Robinson off the team. (I had trouble keeping track of character names during 42.) I was able to triangulate the answer by checking three sections - "The Teams and Their Players," "Trades," and "Pitcher Register." I learned that K. Higbe was a starting pitcher for the Dodgers in 1946 and for the Pirates in 1947. "Trades" showed that Kirby Higbe was traded by the Dodgers on May 3, 1947 to the Pirates with four other players. I checked the "Pitcher Register" just to see how many games Higbe played before the 1947 trade. The answer was four. He had been the Dodgers' winningest pitcher in 1946, so the trade sent a strong message to the rest of the team.

Bonnie wanted to know about the Pirate pitcher who beaned Robinson in one of the games between the teams. His name was Fritz Ostermueller. Though he was called "a mad dutchman" or something to that effect, he was born in Quincy, Illinois. Not every objecting player was from the South.

I had read about Dodger manager Leo Durocher being suspended for a year but had not remembered that it was 1947. The "Manager Register" in BE showed that it was and that he was back at the helm in 1948. The 42 writers did not rearrange events for dramatic effect in this regard.

Of course, the manager that we most wanted to verify was Ben Chapman, the Phillies skipper, who heckled Robinson with racial slurs mercilessly each time the Dodger came to bat. During the credits at the end of the film, the filmmakers indicate that Chapman's managing career ended the next season. That was true, as Chapman managed 79 games into 1948 and was fired by his 7th place team. His lack of success, not his racism, probably sealed his fate. Bonnie and I discussed why the umpires did not stop what was obvious racist behavior. The umpires and the league that paid them may not have wanted Robinson in uniform either. Besides, umpires mostly eject players or manager for disputing or insulting umpires.

42 shows Robinson, the 1947 Rookie of the Year, stealing bases almost at will whenever he reached first base. He led the National League in the category that year, but I was surprised to see he did so with only 29 stolen bases. Perhaps, being intentionally spiked by a rival player mid-season took a toll on his speed. Two years later, when he was the National League Most Valuable Player, he would again lead the league with 37 steals. He played 10 years in the major leagues, all with the Dodgers in Brooklyn, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1962.

At first, I thought Harrison Ford's portrayal of Branch Rickey oddly comic, especially his low voice, but I got used to it. He has many of the best lines in the movie. However, I was always aware that it was Harrison Ford on the screen. The rest of the cast seemed real to me. The movie was a bit too pretty, as movies often are. Perhaps it should have been in black and white. Still, it achieved its goal of telling the story and I would like to see it again.

The Baseball Encyclopedia. 8th ed. MacMillan Publishing, 1990. 2781p. ISBN 0025790404.