The Appeal of Reading True Stories

I will be talking about nonfiction readers' advisory next week at the 2013 Reaching Forward Conference. One of the points that I want to make is that true stories have as much appeal as fiction, and like fiction, certain subgenres of true stories have different primary appeals. Story, character, setting, language , and mood are the categories identified by books in the Read On ... Series of books from Libraries Unlimited.

For the attendees of Reaching Forward and for readers who find their way to this page, here are some book suggestions according to appeal categories.

Story

Historical episode

City of Scoundrels: The Twelve Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago by Gary Krist
Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked the Nation by Deborah Davis
The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and the 82 Days That Inspired America by Thurston Clarke
The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964 by Jon Margolis
The Day the Revolution Ended: 19 October 1781 by William H. Hallahan

Microhistory

The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story Of Rock and Roll's Best-Kept Secret by Kent Hartman
The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift
Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World by Tom Zoellner
Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester

Character

Biography

The President is a Sick Man by Matthew Algeo
Branch Rickey by Jimmy Breslin
The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl's Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster by Tim Crothers
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Memoirs

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore
The Grace of Silence: A Memoir by Michele Norris
Life Itself: A Memoir by Roger Ebert
Just Kids by Patti Smith
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

Setting

Foreign adventure

A Wedding in Haiti: The Story of a Friendship by Julia Alvarez
Never the Hope Itself: Love and Ghosts in Latin America and Haiti by Gerry Hadden
Instant City by Steve Inskeep
Burma Chronicles by Guy DeLisle
End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica by Peter Matthiessen

Language

Nature discovery

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds by Julie Zickefoose
Settled in the Wild: Notes from the Edge of Town by Susan Hand Shetterly
Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story by Dame Daphne Sheldrick

Personal essays

Farther Away by Jonathan Franzen
Off Main Street: Barnstormers, Prophets, & Gatemouth's Gator by Michael Perry
Havanas in Camelot: Personal Essays by William Styron
At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays by Anne Fadiman

Mood

True crime

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor by Mark Seal
The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired Chicago by Douglas Perry
A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale

I have built a preview slideshow for the Reaching Forward Presentation. It shows a lot of true story books that I like.

Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and Misbehavior by Brandon Schrand

I reviewed this title for Booklist. Here are further thoughts.

Many of us think about writing memoirs these days, regardless of whether there has been any drama in our lives. It may be that the talent of the writer and the life of the mind are more important than events, but many of us do not have the goods to deliver to a wide audience. One who does is Brandon R. Schrand, who has found a very clever way to present his unlikely life in Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and Misbehavior.

Schrand is a reader, though he came to serious literary books rather late compared with many others now in literary professions. He wanted to be a rock musician and neglected most of his studies in public school. With very suspect grades, he enrolled in college to avoid working in the mines of Idaho and because college was a place to find women, booze, and drugs. That he would end up an English professor and writer is an unlikely end.

I did not spoil the ending of Works Cited just now, for Schrand himself lets you know the outcome early in the process. Nothing about his book is chronological. Instead, he has written 27 essays about books that have altered the course of his life, and as the title states, the essays are placed in alphabetical order by author. So readers jump back and forth in time learning about Schrand as he remembers reading Edward Abbey, Ralph Waldo Emerson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Hornby, Jim Morrison of the Doors, Hunter S. Thompson, and others. Each essay provides some of the pieces to the puzzle that is Schrand, and all pieces are necessary.

It is amazing how much forgiveness Schrand has needed and received. Some readers may become exasperated, but others may see a bit of themselves or people they know. This is why we read as well as think about writing memoirs.

Schrand, Brandon. Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and Misbehavior. University of Nebraska Press, 2013. 240p. ISBN 9780803243378.

The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne

Matthew at Thomas Ford has been restocking our genre collections with classics and rare finds. Among the latter is a book by A. A. Milne. Who now would guess that Milne was a great mystery fan? Most of us associate the once famous humorist with Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. But Milne wasn't thinking of writing children's stories all the time. According to his introduction, he was reading mysteries, which he compared to beers. He rarely found one he did not like, and he wanted one with his own signature. So he wrote The Red House Mystery in 1922.

Milne did not try to reinvent the genre on his first try. Instead, he introduced Antony Gillingham, a bright young man who in The Red House Mystery happens upon a crime and thinks that solving it before the police would be smashing fun. Of course, the murder occurs at a country estate where Bill Beverly, one of Antony's close friends, has been a guest. They begin calling each other Holmes and Watson and start looking for clues. It is all great fun.

There are lots of classic mystery elements: a missing suspect, a case that seems open-and-shut to the police, maids to interview, a secret passage, missing keys, disguises, and pretty girls to impress. Milne introduces these pretty girls but then keeps them off-stage, perhaps available for sequels that did not follow. With insight and a bit of luck, Antony and Bill solve the crime and suggest they will be setting up shop to solve further mysteries. Alas, for the reader, they never did. The Red House Mystery is treat that leaves you wishing for more.

Milne, A. A. The Red House Mystery. Vintage Books, 2009. 211p. ISBN 9780099521273.

The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History by William K. Klingman and Nicholas P. Klingman

Snow in July in New Hampshire. Hard frost in Virginia every month of the year. Constant rain and flooding all summer in Switzerland. 1816 was a very strange year, and no one knew why at the time. Amateur astronomers noticed unusual sunspot activity early in the year, but it did not persist. With no global communication technology other than letters carried by sailing ships, no one in North America or Europe knew about a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia that scientists now agree was responsible for crop failures and famine worldwide. Instead, some evangelists claimed that it was the beginnings of the apocalypse.

The story of 1816 is hard to tell even now, as there are no documents from official weather bureaus or professional meteorologists to consult. In order to write The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History, authors William K. Klingman and Nicholas P. Klingman had to piece together archived newspaper accounts with comments from letters and diaries of people as diverse as authors Jane Austen and Mary Shelley, farmer David Thomas of western Pennsylvania, and diplomat John Quincy Adams. They also used the gardening records of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The result is a story woven from many threads, perhaps too many for some readers tastes.

With few accounts available from outside North America and Europe, The Year Without Summer is geographically unbalanced. Readers learn about terrible suffering in the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, and Switzerland, but very little about India, China, or Japan. Still, a dedicated history reader will glean historical nuggets from the story, especially regarding human migrations. Many people left New England for the Midwest or the South as their crops failed and they sold off their properties to buy food at highly inflated prices. Irish peasants left for North America, and desperate Germans headed for southern Russia. Lawmakers tried to prevent the exporting of grains from hard-hit regions, but that hardly constituted assistance for the poor. Readers may notice how many nineteenth century officials in America and Europe agreed that charity was not the role of government.

Shelved with science books in many libraries, The Year Without Summer, is a bit light on science and stronger on history. I think the authors might have more fully developed their conclusions. As it is, the story seems unfinished. I want to know more.

Klingman, William K. and Nicholas P. Klingman. The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History. St. Martin's Press, 2013. 338p. ISBN 9780312676452.

Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes by John Rosengren

Hank Greenberg did not set out to be an icon for his faith. Not devout and very private, he said little about being Jewish, but being 6' 4" and named Greenberg, he could not help being noticed at a time when there were very few Jewish baseball players. The 1930s were also a time of heightened anti-Semitism. While only a few Americans openly supported Adolf Hitler's suppression of German Jews, dislike and distrust of American Jews was widespread. In Greenberg's early years with the Detroit Tigers, some of his teammates were cold, and many opposing players were vicious. When he debated sitting out games on Jewish holidays, some newspaper columnists denounced him.

Only with quiet, steady play and delivering winning hits did Greenberg earn fans. In Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes, author John Rosengren recounts how the tall first baseman became the key player of the Tigers in 1934, when he hit 63 doubles and drove in 139 runs in only his second full season with the team. In 1938 he challenged Babe Ruth's season record by hitting 58 home runs. In 12 seasons with the Tigers, he led them to the World Series four times. He spent one final year with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Greenberg's career was shortened by the U.S. involvement in World War II. He was one of the first players drafted into military service, inducted in spring 1941 long before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He rose in rank from private to captain and was the commanding officer for the 58th Bombardment Wing's base in China. He missed over four season's worth of games at peak of his career, having led the American League in doubles, home runs, and RBIs in the season before his military service began.

After retiring as a player, Greenberg became a baseball executive. According to Rosengren, he was just as tough in negotiations of players' salaries as management as he had been a player. He was in some ways, however, still sympathetic to players and was an early advocate for ridding baseball of the reserve clause that bound players to teams. He also helped the Cleveland Indians add their first black players.

Rosengren's biography of Greenberg is a traditional birth to death account, admiring but frank about some of the player's shortcomings. The bulk of the text covers Greenberg's years as a player, satisfying the interest of the sports fan, but it is not a game-by-game account. Rosengren highlights Greenberg's life and takes much effort to place him in the context of his community and culture. You do not have to be a sports fan to enjoy this biography.

Rosengren, John. Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes. New American Library, 2013. 392p. ISBN 9780451235763.

In his final years, Greenberg recorded the contents of what became Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life, were edited by veteran sports writer Ira Berkow. John Rosengren praises the book for its candor and feeling but warns that it includes numerous factual errors.

If you enjoyed Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes, here are books that you might enjoy:

Sandy Koufax by Jane Leavy - Koufax was a high profile Jewish player in the 1950s and 1960s. Like Greenberg, he sat out some games on Jewish holidays, including an important World Series game. He retired in his prime, walking away from what was at the time a large contract, to protect the health of his arm.

The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron by Howard Brandt - Aaron played and lived baseball much the way Greenberg did, never relaxing, carry his teams through success and failure. Like Greenberg, Aaron received death threats when he chased a Babe Ruth home run record.

Two Pioneers: How Hank Greenberg and Jackie Robinson Transformed Baseball - And America by Robert Cottrell - When Greenberg and Robinson collided at first base on a play in 1947, the former made sure the latter knew it was not intentional. Both withstood prejudicial abuse to become star players.

Abbey Road: The Best Studio in the World by Alistair Lawrence with a forward by Sir George Martin

Say that you have a talented young band and you want to sound like the Beatles. What could help more than to record at Abbey Road Studio in Studio 2 using some of the same microphones? It is possible. Abbey Road Studio may now be rented, and the studio has kept much of the recording equipment it has used since its opening in 1931, including a vast array of microphones. You can learn more in the big, beautiful photohistory Abbey Road: The Best Studio in the World by Alistair Lawrence with a forward by Sir George Martin.

Abbey Road Studios may be best known for rock recordings now, including Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, but it began and continues to be a center for classical recording. The first official recording made in the studio featured Sir Edward Elgar conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in his own "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, Opus 39." Sir Thomas Beecham, Arthur Rubinstein, Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Andres Segovia, and Pablo Casals recorded at Abbey Road in its early days. Violinist Yehudi Menuhin was associated with the studios for nearly 70 years. In the 1960s, cellist Jacqueline du Pre and her husband pianist/conductor Daniel Barenboim recorded there.

Since the 1980s, Studio 1 has been busy with recording soundtracks for blockbuster movies, including The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Braveheart, Evita, Apollo 13, and all of the Harry Potter films. Pages 212-215 show work on various Lord of the Rings movies. The studio provided historic microphones for use in The King's Speech.

Throughout the book, the author features the employees of the studio, including engineers, producers, artistic directors, and even tea ladies, and shows vintage and cutting edge equipment, making the book a sort of introduction to recording science. The engineers at Abbey Road developed and patented many audio innovations.

"And in the end" (Beatles quote), readers will open their phonograph cabinets or run to You-Tube to revisit the music. Abbey Road is a big book worth lifting.

Lawrence, Alistair. Abbey Road: The Best Studio in the World. Bloomsbury, 2012. 303p. ISBN 9781608199990.

The Days Are Gods by Liz Stephens

I reviewed this book positively for Booklist and want to continue my thoughts here.

No matter whether we should or not, we judge
books by covers. When I first saw The Days Are Gods by Liz Stephens, with its somber picture of horses walking in the snow, I thought it would be good. I had never heard of the author, but the muted gray and white of the illustration and title in script spoke to me of serious introspection. It also helped that I saw "AMERICAN LIVES SERIES | Tobias Wolff, editor" at the bottom of the cover. I have read other titles in this series from the University of Nebraska Press with great pleasure. I was in no way disappointed.

Stephen spent ten years "below the line" in the production of television commercials. Her job was catering snacks and refreshments to actors and production crews. Longing to write and eager to do something more honest than advertising, she entered graduate school in northern Utah. She and her long time soulmate Christopher married and moved into an old house outside of Wellsville, Utah. Through their windows, they saw the changing colors of the mountains and the scattered houses of their neighbors, whose children might drop by at any time asking to use their bathroom or to take their horses into Stephen's pasture for a ride. The neighbors, mostly Mormons, were gracious and tolerant, not bent on converting her as she had feared. Wanting not to feel an outsider, she tried to fit in, dressing plainly, hiding her tattoo, and participating in the life of the community. Still, any local could pick her out as not one of them.

Her surprising feeling of belonging in her new setting led Stephens to document her present, examine her past, and contemplate her future. Was there a seed in her upbringing that made her long for the countryside? She recalled stories of her parents move from rural Oklahoma to suburban Chicago. She traveled to Oklahoma to see family landmarks, returning to Utah uncertain about committing to the state. Would her nearly pristine valley be spoiled by the increasing migration of disenchanted urbanites? Should she leave the place she loves?

In her first book, Stephens has intimately described a situation faced by others seeking a place to find a wholesome lifestyle. She also reveals much about her own soul. Memoir readers will really enjoy The Days Are Gods.

Stephens, Liz. The Days Are Gods. University of Nebraska Press, 2013. ISBN 9780803243545.

Read On … Speculative Fiction for Teens: Reading Lists for Every Taste by Jamie Kallio

One of my pleasures during the last year has been seeing my latest book promoted with Jamie Kallio's Read On … Speculative Fiction for Teens: Reading Lists for Every Taste, first on a poster at the Public Library Association Conference in Philadelphia when Jamie's book was a forthcoming title and recently in Libraries Unlimited catalogs that list it for sale. Both are titles in the Read On Series edited by Barry Trott. I am pleased because Jamie was working with us at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library when she started her book, and I like to think that by virtue of our working at a medium-small library and getting published nationally we have made a positive statement to the profession about the work at every size of libraries. She now works for the larger Orland Park Public Library.

Books written for teen readers are hot, especially in the science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal genres, which Jamie addresses in her readers' advisory book. Teens are not the only people reading these books, however. Many adults will recognize some of authors included in her book - Neil Gaiman, Isabel Allende, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card, Ursala K. LeGuin, and J. K. Rowling. The great service of her book is that she goes beyond the familiar to introduce us to other talented authors, their memorable characters, and worlds we can hardly imagine.

Like all Read On Series books, Read On … Speculative Fiction for Teens is divided into five chapters, each of which contains between 11 and 20 lists of books related by reading appeal factors. Chapters focus on story, character, setting, mood, and language. Lists have clever titles which indicate their themes, such as "Look, Ma, I Can Fly! … and Other Experiments," "Falling for You: Immortal Beings," "You're Such a Witch," and "Stranger with My Face: Possession." If you want books with zombies, dragons, robots, vampires, or strong women, you can find them in Jamie's book. You can also find audiobooks, graphic novels, and award winning titles among the entries.

I especially like that Jamie dedicates the book to two of our library's former teen employees, readers with whom Jamie discussed books. How fitting.

Kallio, Jamie. Read On … Speculative Fiction for Teens: Reading Lists for Every Taste. Libraries Unlimited, 2012. 126p.ISBN 9781598846539.

"Who is Paul Auster?" I asked myself when I saw his memoir Winter Journal on so many of the 2012 best book lists. Perhaps I would know if I were a devoted fiction reader, as he has written over a dozen novels. The book jacket indicates that he is a bestselling author and has won lots of important awards for his books and screenplays. He has also written essays, poetry, and other memoirs. No bells, however, rang in my librarian's head. There is a reason I need library catalogs and reference books. There is far too much to remember.

One of the trends that I both celebrate and fear is the publishing of more memoirs by people that our readers and we do not recognize. Some of my best reading experiences have been with autobiographical books by unfamiliar authors. There is so much for a reader to discover in such books - if written well. But there are so many of these books now, and our book budgets are inadequate. How do we pick memoirs that our readers will want? I read the reviews and still miss picking some of the books that readers later request.

So, who is Paul Auster, besides being an author? Turns out he is an aging guy just a little older than me, with a family he loves, with the clock ticking away. Many of his concerns are also mine, but, unlike me, he lives the literary life - books, travel, interviews with editors and publishers, making ends meet, overcoming writer's block, etc. In Winter Journal, it is not a glamorous life. I am happy not to be Auster.

Looking at the cover, I notice how the author's name is much bigger than the book title. It is as if the author is the title, which would be appropriate as he is the subject. The book is described as a memoir of his body, but I am not so sure that I would agree. There are so many tangents and so much detail. Much of the narrative did not seem to be about his body.

Auster sometimes overwhelms the reader with lists within paragraphs. Several times I just skipped to the next page to find where the narrative continued. I debated whether to drop the book, but I did finish. I enjoyed most of his stories and can imagine that he is a talented novelist. I suspect this memoir appeals mostly to his fiction readers and people who give prizes. I am glad to have discovered him and am enjoying thinking about all the places I have lived. (Auster tells readers about every place he has lived.)

Auster, Paul. Winter Journal. Henry Holt, 2012. 230p. ISBN 9780805095531.

Here by Wislawa Szymborska

Reading books leads to reading more books. Along the path down which an author leads readers are signposts to paths blazed by other authors. In reading a collection of newspaper columns by Mary Schmich, I noted her quoting the Nobel Prize-winning poet Wislawa Szymborska. Liking the quote, I emailed Bonnie who borrowed for me Here, a collection of poems in Polish with English translations on facing pages. At only 84 pages of text with a lot of white space, of which I read only the English half, it was a attractive choice, a short path that may lead to wider roads.

Even 42 pages of poetry can be hard going if the reader can not discern the topic or the meaning. I had no worries with this collection by Szymborska. Most of the poems chronicle daily life or describe tangible ideas of art or science. I was particularly struck by "Hard Life with Memory." Of an age when there is more to look back on than to look forward to, it tells about a struggle to balance one's attention in the present. "She" refers to Memory in this verse:

She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly,
stirs up events both important and un-,
turns my eyes to overlooked views,
peoples them with my dead. 

With some poems I identify, see myself. In others I am introduced to others and their views. Here is a mixture of emotions and high ideals, familiar and the strange, new and old. Szymborska's poems are never dull.

Szymborska, Wislawa. Here. Houghton Mifflin, 2010. 85p. ISBN 9780547364612.

Chike and the River by Chinua Achebe

The late Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian author Chinua Achebe is most known for his novel Things Fall Apart, set in the 1890s when British colonization disturbed the balance of tribal societies across Africa. Not only did Achebe write several sequels to the story, he also wrote poetry, essays, and children's books. The first of the children's stories, Chike and the River, first published in 1966, has recently been reissued with bright new  illustrations by Edel Rodriguez.

Chike is a young Nigerian boy of eleven living in rural Umuofia with his widowed mother as the story begins, but he is soon sent to stay with his uncle in Onitsha, where he attends school and learns about city life. He is an innocent who sometimes falls prey to the deceptions of city boys.While he misses village life, he is ready for adventures that the city offers, particularly riding a ferry across the Niger River. His mother has warned him never to go close to the River, so you can easily imagine what he wants to do.

Written for children, Chike and the River is somewhat light and optimistic and has been criticized as not up to Achebe's standards for realistic fiction. Being just a big kid, I enjoyed it for the story and sense of place.

I read a digital library copy of Chike and the River (88 pages in print but unspecified as an ebook) using Overdrive Read, a new ebook reader that works on Internet browsers, saving the borrower from downloading any files. I started in Firefox on a PC running Window XP, switched to Safari on my iPhone, and finish in Chrome on an iMac. Overdrive claims that my place will be kept each time I switch devices, but that did not happen. Each time I logged in, I started at the beginning. Luckily, the table of contents made it easy to navigate, and it was helpful not having to download the files.

Achebe, Chinua. Chike and the River. Anchor Books, 1966. Illustrations, 2011. 88p. ISBN 9780307473868. eISBN 9780307742070.

Aerogrammes and Other Stories by Tania James

The popularity of short stories is growing, according to commentators on the New York Times Book Review podcasts. They cite recent titles, such as Tenth of December by George Saunders, which have become best sellers in a market that is usually dominated by novels. Long a short story fan myself, it is a trend I welcome. The latest collection that I have enjoyed is Aerogrammes and Other Stories by Tania James. 

If her stories may be used as evidence, James has wide-ranging interests. Her stories include wrestling, scriptology, Indian classical dance, chimpanzees, and ghosts. Most involve immigrants from India or their children living in the United States or Great Britain, and all have uncommon problems. How can serious wrestlers win respect in a country where wrestling is scripted farce? How can a young girl cope with a grandfather who thinks she is his deceased wife returned to her youth? How can a down-on-her-luck widow adjust to a new marriage to a wealthy Louisville ghost?

Aerogrammes and Other Stories is not a book full of happy endings. Most of the stories conclude with characters facing truths they have previously ignored or denied. Readers may think James a bit hard on her creations, but if readers care so much, the author has succeeded in making her stories believable. Let readers look beyond the endings and imagine what the characters can now do with their new-found knowledge. 

James, Tania. Aerogrammes and Other Stories. Knopf, 2012. 180p. ISBN 9780307268914.

Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris

In telling stories about the five 1967 Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture (announced in 1968), Mark Harris, author of Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, describes a generational struggle that changed how American films were made and viewed. The nominees were:

• Bonnie and Clyde 
• The Graduate 
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? 
• In the Heat of the Night 
• Doctor Doolittle 

Without looking online or in a reference book, can you identify the film that got the Oscar? I could not before reading Pictures at a Revolution. I know that I did not see any of the movies that year, growing up in a town that was much like that in The Last Picture Show. Even if the doors to our theater were still open, at 14, I was too old to want to see Doctor Doolittle and was considered by film reviewers of the Catholic Church to be too young to see the others.

So Pictures at a Revolution fits well into a category of books that I now find fascinating - history that I lived through without actually witnessing. I listened to the audiobook over the course of two weeks, which worked well for me. There were many names and subplots to follow, and I appreciated having time for thought between chapters. I knew many of the names, but I suspect readers from my daughter's generation do not and may find the book more challenging. I enjoyed the backstories of the actors and directors as much as the behind the scene stories of film production. Since each of the films took up to five years to develop after being conceived by a writer or producer, readers get a sustained account of an era of studio politics. The collapse of decades-old censorship rules is also an important subplot.

I especially enjoyed details that are almost hard to believe over forty years later, such as the following.

Extras on the set of In the Heat of the Night earned $1.50 a day. And it was often a long day.

A few weeks after shooting of The Graduate ended, Dustin Hoffman collected $55 a week unemployment. He was so disregarded by the studio, he was not invited to any of the early screenings. 

The producers of Doctor Doolittle had no inkling that their California-raised animals would be quarantined by British Customs when they traveled to England for location shots. It also rained almost every day that they planned to shoot.

While Harris does not give awards, there are winners and losers in his book. Warren Beatty, Mike Nichols, and Sidney Poitier get his admiration, and Rex Harrison, Bob Hope, and numerous studio executives fair poorly. Other losers were Doctor Doolittle and other lavishly-funded musicals that wanted to repeat the successes of The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and Mary Poppins. American filmgoers with a new era of films to view were very big winners.

Harris, Mark. Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood. Penguin Press, 2008. 490p. ISBN 9781594201523.

David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Annual Report 2012

Annual reports usually focus solely on a company or an organization, identifying directors, highlighting a year's developments, and providing lots of statistics. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Annual Report is not, however, a run of the mill report. This account from a leading wildlife conservation organization offers readers an up-close view of the critical situation brought about by the increase in poaching in Africa and efforts being made to resolve the crisis.

2012 was a difficult year as over 1000 elephants were poached in Kenya alone. The force behind the crimes is the growing demand for ivory in China and other Asian nations. In the report is the year's poaching news, a litany of elephant death and the arrest of numerous Chinese nationals caught trying to smuggle ivory out of Africa. Efforts to stem the demand included a publicity campaign featuring basketball star Yao Ming telling the Chinese people not to buy ivory. Apparently many Chinese people believe that elephants shed tusks and grow more. Of course, some Chinese people do know the true story yet still long for ivory, a traditional status symbol.

What is being done to help the elephants? The beautifully-illustrated 104-page report details the work of the trust, which rescues dozens of orphaned elephants each year. Readers also learn that the trust works with rhinoceroses and small hoofed animals, providing a second chance for a variety of infants whose parents have been poached or otherwise died. I particularly like seeing photos of the elephant keepers tending and playing with the elephants.

The report online includes links so you can help with the effort.

Bomb: The Race to Build - and Steal - the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

Among the winners of awards at this winter's American Library Association conference was Bomb: The Race to Build - and Steal - the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin. It won both the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children and the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults, as well as being named a Newbery Honor Book. Though these awards firmly identify Bomb as a book for middle and high school readers, I believe it works well with adult readers as well. I enjoyed it.

Of course, my perspective is different from that of young readers. Though I was not around when these events occurred, I remember the resulting Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union built huge nuclear arsenals aimed at each other. There was assured mutual destruction if the weapons were ever used, which some historians contend assured our survival. This might be news to young readers. For me, it is a review, but even then, I found stories that I had not heard and read with interest.

I was also impressed with how well Sheinkin characterized the players in the drama. No one is vilified. Readers can grasp why the scientists, spies, federal agents, generals, and political leaders of various nations felt and acted as they did. Readers can see why President Truman felt justified in using atomic weapons on Japanese cities. Likewise, they can understand why Robert Oppenheimer led the effort to build the first generation of atomic weapons and then refused to develop the second. Sheinkin judges no right or wrong. Even with the scientists who passed their secrets to the Soviets, the author simply reports.

For adults, Bomb is a quick read. For students it is a helpful introduction to a period that shaped the world we have today. Illustrations are well-chosen and the index is helpful. A worthy award winner.

Sheinkin, Steve. Bomb: The Race to Build - and Steal - the World's Most Dangerous Weapon. Roaring Books Press, 2012. 266p. ISBN 9781596434875.

The Best of Mary Schmich: Selected Writings by the Tribune's 2012 Pulitzer Prize Winner by Mary Schmich

I do not always make time to read Mary Schmich's columns in the Chicago Tribune, but when I do, I often appreciate her wit and insight. So, when we signed up for the Digital Chicago Tribune, which was free with our print subscription, I chose her The Best of Mary Schmich as the first free Tribune ebook to download.

Over the course of about a month, I have been reading a few columns a day, usually at the beginning and end of the day. I've enjoyed revisiting events of the past twenty years, many of which took place in or around Chicago, and learning about Schmich and her family. Being her age and growing up somewhere else but now living in the Chicago metropolitan area, I find I have a lot in common with her and can identify with much that she says. I am the perfect target audience.

Schmich has had a more challenging life than I have for sure. My Texas family did not have a lot of money either when I was young, but there were not so many of us, so we never had to actually pinch the pennies as hard. Still, I can remember not wanting to pass on notes from school asking my mom to make a couple of dozen cookies for a bake sale. Could we afford that? It turns out that we could, and I should not have worried so. As Schmich's dad explained to her, we were not actually poor, having more than the people who really were.

Her columns about her mother and her sister Gina are the pieces that I found most touching. She always writes respectfully and with the intension of informing readers about life in general. Though she uses the personal as her foundation, she and her family are not the real focus.

Wondering whether readers other than Tribune subscribers can get this collection, I discovered that it is available digitally from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but not Google Play. It will be coming out in paperback later this year.

Maisie Dobbs: A Novel by Jacqueline Winspear

British women mystery authors have brought much joy to readers over the last century. Following in the tradition of Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, P. D. James, and others is now Jacqueline Winspear with her series of mystery novels featuring personal investigator Maisie Dobbs. Unlike many of her predecessors, Winspear is writing from the United States, where she has lived since 1990. Maisie Dobbs: A Novel was published in 2003. I have been handing it out to readers for several years but just now finally read it myself. Why did I wait so long?

Winspear's novel starts in 1929 as Maisie starts her own detective agency. She had been the assistant of Maurice Blanche, an academic man whose expertise had been for hire for an unspecified number of years. He had also been Maisie's tutor since her days as a young maid discovered by her employer Lady Rowan reading in the library in the wee hours of the morning. The prospects for a young woman up from poverty to succeed in a man's business world are not encouraging, but Maisie is determined.

Maisie Dobbs is a book divided in thirds with the middle section taking readers back into the heroine's past. In doing so, it examines divisions in British society before World War I and the great changes of the war. A mystery is introduced in the first section and solved in the third. In some senses, the mystery is not even needed to sustain the reader. Winspear's evocation of Britain in the 1910s and 1920s and her descriptions of Maisie's life can hold their own without the mystery. Readers, however, do ultimately enjoy having Maisie use her learning, so the mystery is welcomed.

I appreciated Maisie's loyalty to her father and the concern she shows for both her clients and the people she investigates. Readers can not help but love her. Maisie Dobbs is a hard first act to follow. I am now eager to see how well Jacqueline Winspear has continued the story with her sequels.

Winspear, Jacqueline. Maisie Dobbs: A Novel. Soho Press, 2003. 294p. ISBN 1569473307.

Vivian Maier: Street Photographer by Vivian Maier

My interest in the photographer Vivian Maier continues. A few weeks ago I reviewed Vivian Maier by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, which tells how the finding of Maier's abandoned prints, negatives, and over 1,000 rolls of undeveloped film in a storage facility in Chicago in 2007 surprised the art world. No one had ever heard of her, but some critics instantly proclaimed her among the best of twentieth century photographers.

Now I have seen Vivian Maier: Street Photographer edited by John Maloof, who purchased one of the auctioned blocks in 2007. In this book, after a very brief introduction by critic Geoff Dyer, he lets the photos speak for themselves. This is a smaller but more focused collection of images than the previously reviewed book. Here each photograph gets a full page. Someone not knowing her story would assume on viewing this collection that Maier was a renowned Life or Look photojournalist of the 1950s and 1960 instead of an unknown nanny who took photos on her day off.

Being a nanny did not make Maier sweet in any way. She strolled rough streets in New York and Chicago documenting drunks, panhandlers, weary commuters, and police against a backdrop of decay and ruin. Though the scenes are sometimes stark and I doubt some of the subjects were aware of Maier's photographing them, Maier is respectful. She was even whimsical in the series of self-portraits, which may be found at the back of the book.

If you reserved the Vivian Maier book by Cahan and Williams, order this one, too.

Maier, Vivian. Vivian Maier: Street Photographer. PowerHouse Books, 2011. 123p. ISBN 9781576875773

Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow

There was a second depressing book that I read while also reading the uplifting The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba. Unlike Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, which is fiction, this book is history. Some readers might dispute the author's sources and interpretations of history, but the people are real and the events are true. The book is the 2012 bestseller Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow, which I borrowed in downloadable audio read by the author.

In Drift, Maddow recounts how our country has veered away from our Founders' idea of citizen soldiers who were only in uniform when our country was at war. Of course, there was never a time when there were absolutely no soldiers, as there were always a few to stand guard in the capitol and to maintain a bit of structure should it be needed. However, the idea of a large standing army was thought a danger to democracy by many in the first two centuries of our nation. Through the bloody 20th century, the idea eroded, taking an especially big hit when Ronald Reagan and his political alliance arranged a massive expansion of our military force and vast spending on weapons at a time when we had actually been without a ground war to fight. So he and his advisers arranged for us to send weapons through Israel to Iran to get money for fighting rebels in Nicaragua - all under the table and off the books. In defense, Reagan touted the superior strength and spending of the Soviet Union, when in truth the communist power was crumbling. His administration was admonished for the illegal activities but never punished. All of the presidential administrations since have interpretted Reagan's success as a nod toward their own bypassing Congress and the American people in extralegal military activities. 

Maddow recounts all the subsequent wars to arrive at the present, when we are in a state of perpetual war exhausting our economy and straining our ability to find willing soldiers. It is a time when the CIA has become a branch of the military with missions and budgets that are kept secret even from Congress. There is also a stockpile of atomic weapons that is aging and redundant to maintain; using them is unthinkable. Democracy seems to have no role in the running of the military. It seems that our nation is unredeemably lost in this account, until the epilogue in which Maddow lays out some ideas for reforming the military, making it accountable for its spending and actions - a surprisingly upbeat end to a woe-filled story.

I am left thinking everyone should read Drift (and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind) and believing that few will. Too many are sedated by reality TV playing constantly in their homes on their big screens, as predicted by Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451.

Maddow, Rachel. Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. Crown, 2012. 275p. ISBN 9780307460983.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

In my previous review of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, I mentioned depressing books. One of the titles that I had in mind was Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, which I just read for a book discussion. I am not knocking Bradbury for his imaginative story not only exposed problems of his own times but foresaw some of the troubling trends in 21st century. It is depressing but essential to read.

We had a good variety of ages for our group discussion, which helped with our exploring Bradbury's context. Some of us remember the 1950s and strong forces compelling everyone to conform to societal norms, a movement that may have lost strength but has not actually gone away. Others first encountered Fahrenheit 451 as assigned high school reading, along with Lord of the Flies and 1984. No one was unaware of Bradbury's tale, but it was a good time to revisit this story that includes earbuds that deliver sound and music, big flat-screen televisions showing a police chase live, and robot drones used to deliver death.

In case you have never read Fahrenheit 451, do not expect to understand what is happening from the beginning. Give the story a chance to develop and stay open to surprising developments throughout the story. Late night might not be a good time if you like to sleep undisturbed. Save the forewords for afterwards.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Ballantine Books, 1953. 147p.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

If you have been reading depressing books and need a pick-me-up to lift your mood, you should consider The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. You may have passed before it thinking that it was just a technical achievement story. Your library may have contributed to this misconception by shelving it at Dewey 621.31 with how-to books about electricity. If there is ever a contest for books most-handicapped by Dewey, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind can contend. It is a great story unlikely to be borrowed by someone just wanting to rewire their house.

Running electrical wires is part of the story, but no one should do it as Kamkwamba did. After he built a power-generating windmill from scraps mostly found at a local dump, he strung second-hand wires for lights and a radio in his family's house in rural Malawi, but he almost burned the place down. Constantly reading textbooks borrowed from the library of the school he could not afford to attend, he had no one with whom to consult. Safety was not one of his strong subjects and there was no one to warn him of dangers, which adds suspense and a bit of humor to this entertaining story.

Readers will be drawn into The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by the quality of Kamkwamba's storytelling, a talent the author inherited from his father. He was born into poverty in an undeveloped country where superstition still played a large role in daily life. His parents worked hard to provide for their children, but corrupt government and severe droughts threatened their survival. Kamkwamba shows how having a dream of a better life can lift a person, his family, and his village out of a seemingly hopeless situation. Likewise, his story is a great antidote for depressing books. Ask your librarian if you have trouble finding it.

Kamkwamba, William and Bryan Mealer. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope. Willaim Morrow, 2009. 272p. ISBN 9780061730320.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

"… the right book exactly, at exactly the right time."

Who is to say I would not have like Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan as much or more if I read it last week or maybe next month? What I do know is that I had begun reading it just days before I got a snow day. With an unexpected day off and the magic and beauty of the snow to go along with the magic inside the book, it was a perfect day for a book, if not the only right day for the only right book.

I see that the library from which I borrowed a copy of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore put a fantasy label on its spine. This is curious for the setting is the present and nothing that happens is beyond what is possible. What is magical are the relationships among the characters and their creative solutions to problems. Friendship, care, and wonder generate the power needed to drive Clay Jannon in his quest. He is the rover, accompanied by his warrior and his wizard. The roles are defined by their favorite fantasy trilogy, but they live in contemporary San Francisco.

Granted, the bookstore is unlike any that you are likely to find, as is the library Clay and friends visit in New York. The ancient order with which he becomes involved has an unusual methodology, it is true, but its mission is in line with the scholarly pursuits of all peoples of the book. His friends at Google have developed some amazing technologies, too, but I can imagine it all could be true. Robin Sloan has made the possibilities in our real world seem wonderful.

I so wish I could have set this review of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore in the Gerritszoon font.

Sloan, Robin. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780374214913.

Proposing the End of Nonfiction as a Label and Organizing Default

It's been said before. "Nonfiction" is a poor label for what is a majority of the books in our libraries. As librarians, we define these books by what they are not instead of what they are. It is no wonder that some readers fail to be attracted by this ill-defined category of books. We are not touting the legitimate appeal factors of reality-based books when we use such a vague word. "Reality-based." See, I am struggling myself to find an alternative encompassing term.

Think about "nonfiction." This term means "not fiction." "Fiction" itself means "not true." So we offer our readers a "not not true books section" from which to find books. Who'd go there if they did not already know the treasures to be found? Terrible labeling. Let's try to clean it up. Cancel the two negatives, and we are left with "true books." Better, but can you truly believe everything you will read from a book from the not fiction section of the library? No, there is much to dispute in reality-based books (lacking a better term). Will scientific theories prove true? Do histories recount events correctly? Are the policies of one political party really as bad as the opposition pundits claim? "True" sounds certain when much of the content is not.

"Real books," "verifiable books," "fact books," or "Dewey decimals books." I try to replace the term "nonfiction," but I find no better collective word or phrase, a brand with a good ring to it. Perhaps the reason is that "nonfiction" is really the section that we have created - a grouping of books with little in common other than not being fiction.

I think our stumbling block to connecting books with readers is our mind-set of grouping together all these diverse books that are not fiction. In libraries, when we separate fiction from everything else and then group all the remaining books together by Dewey Decimal numbers, we imply there are only two kinds of books - fiction and nonfiction. Then, when prospective pleasure readers enter the nonfiction area and come face to face with the 000s or generalities, they may stop and turn back toward the dramatic, action-packed, suspense-filled novels. They may never discover the many well-told narratives scattered among the books of psychology, religion, science, art, sports, history, and biography.

Librarians are not alone under the yoke of nonfiction. Some book review journals use fiction and nonfiction labels for grouping their reviews and lists. Laid out much like a library, part of a typical journal is the fiction section and another is the nonfiction section. Navigation to reviews can, of course, be improved with headings, and readers who have learned the layout can find what they want, just as they may in a library. But is it a good layout?

There are beginning to be some signs of breaking apart nonfiction at review journals. Library Journal has turned nonfiction into several sections. Also, within the last five years, the editors of the New York Times Book Review moved how-to and self-help books off of the "Nonfiction Bestsellers" lists (hardcover and paperback) and into new lists called "Advice and Misc." I suspect the literary minds at the newspaper tired of seeing investing guides and cookbooks crowd well-reviewed narratives off the revered nonfiction bestseller lists. Making new lists dividing the books was a simple but effective act. Dividing our library nonfiction books will take a bit more effort.

While I sometimes find it difficult to pinpoint the titles that I seek in bookstores, I do appreciate that they rely less on the nonfiction idea for grouping books than libraries do. Instead of a big nonfiction section, shoppers find specific sections for travel, art, sports, business, psychology, religion, cooking, health, history, biography, etc. The bookstores do not suggest by placement that mathematics texts or guides to writing resumes belong with histories of polar exploration or memoirs by movie stars. Dependent on sales to stay in business, bookstores are betting that most of their customers are browsers or will ask for help. Sadly, we see bookstores closing. Perhaps this is not the time to embrace the retail model expecting it to be enough to lure folks to the library.

Reorganizing and relabeling the reality-based books will help, but we will never find one method that will serve all of our readers well. Each reader comes into the library with different interests and skills at navigating collections. This is why libraries need skilled readers' advisory librarians who know their collections and their tools of discovery. The library is a service, not a building full of books, and the staff is the primary delivery system getting books to readers. Using word of mouth, in-library displays, printed book lists, book review blogs, and even social media, we tout our titles. We will lead readers straight to the books when allowed. Even when readers find the books on the shelves themselves and use self-checkout machines, staff have made discovery possible. In an effort to advance our cause, we need to design better tools for ourselves and for our readers, especially better online catalogs that serve discovery more than inventory.

Can we do this and not say "nonfiction"? Habit is hard to break, but we would be better off without it. Readers trust us to organize by design, not by default, and to be able to lay our hands on specific books or lead them to topical material. Some even know that we earned advanced degrees to learn how to organize and manage our collections. Let's not discourage them by using fuzzy words.

Time Ain't Got Nothin' on Me by Mark Dvorak

Mark Dvorak's latest CD sounds old in a very good way. I have been listening to Time Ain't Got Nothin' on Me for a couple of weeks and am struck by how I feel transported back to the 1950s or 1960s. I can almost hear Patsy Cline or Jim Reeves singing some of them and my country-music-loving father humming along with the radio. Other tunes could have been sung by the Weavers or Leadbelly. The songs, however, are not that old. Dvorak wrote 12 of the 15 in the 21st century, but they certainly hark back to less-hurried time and feel very comfortable. They seem like classics.

While listening to the CD, I have played a little game that marks me as an oldster. I have been musing on which tracks should be issued as singles. I first thought of this while listening to "The Bluebells in Kentucky," a song that should be all over the radio. "Song for a Dismal Day" would make a good contrasting B-side for a 45 rpm disc. Then the title cut with "Ruben You Can Play Your Banjo" as the flip side would get my nod if I were a record company executive, to be followed later by "The Middle Years" and "Livin' with the Blues." We'd keep Dvorak on the charts for months.

Which charts? Dvorak is a bit difficult to label and has crossover appeal. I can't imagine anyone not enjoying his songs. You can sample cuts and read his lyrics with informative notes about how he came to write them at his website.

Dvorak is a very library-friendly performer. He has played all over the Chicago area, and we have had him for both adult and children's programs at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library. Listening to his new CD, I'm thinking it's time to call him again.

Dvorak, Mark. Time Ain't Got Nothin' on Me. Waterbug, 2010.

On Hearing the Webinar "Are Books Your Brand? How Libraries Can Stay Relevant to Readers"

I am glad that some webinars are recorded for future viewing. Like many others in smaller libraries, I can not count on actually attending webinars live even when I am off the reference desk. Such was the case when I prepared to attend "Are Books Your Brand? How Libraries Can Stay Relevant to Readers." Just as I was about to log in, a client wanting followup on a prior request asked for me and then a computer at the checkout desk had a problem. By the time I got back to my desk, the program was more than half over. I saw no use in even logging in, knowing that I could hear it later.

I finally "attended" the program two weeks later. While I did not have the opportunity to tweet a question, I still enjoyed hearing the conversation about trends in readers' advisory services. The panel included Robin Nesbitt of Columbus Metropolitan Library, Duncan Smith of NoveList, and Barry Trott of Williamsburg Regional Library. The moderator was Laurel Tarulli of Dalhousie University.

While listening was much more important than viewing in this presentation, I did notice right off the bat  a slide showing that Columbus Metropolitan Library has a plan through 2020 to increase spending and the size of the physical collection. Robin and Barry affirmed their libraries were committed to both physical and digital collections. Barry did note that his library will not buy either format when overpriced (ebooks to libraries at 3 or 4 times the retail rate).

Early in the conversation, the delivery of asynchronous readers' advisory was discussed. This would include suggesting books through displays and booklists - pretty much every pitch that is not face-to-face. Barry pointed out that this important work is sometimes labelled "passive." He dislikes "passive" which suggests it is easy RA, which he wants to dispel. Much study and preparation is required to do effective asynchronous RA. Staff needs time to do it.

One of the panelists mentioned how RA is usually done from desks where some of the staff are not confident in their skills to suggest books, but the job falls to them anyway. Or staff knows some genres but not others. Perhaps it was Robin who said her library keeps short read-a-like lists for major authors handy to help these staff members. Making our own read-a-like lists is something that we would like to do more at my library, but we rarely find much time to do it (asynchronous RA takes time). When in need of read-a-likes for a reader, we pull up NoveList, which has nine titles to suggest for pretty much every title that has an entry. Of course, we then have to see if we own those titles. We do not look as smart as if we had our own in-house lists, but we do teach readers they can use NoveList themselves at any time anywhere.

Duncan noted how readers' advisory is not like most reference work. Usually, librarians are diligent in getting the right answer. With RA, there is not right answer. Librarians are judiciously offering possibilities. The readers will decide what is right for them.

Duncan noted that libraries do well in promoting the message that libraries save people money. What they do not do well is convince people that they save them time. For some people, time is more important than money, and they would be willing to pay to get what they need quickly. Barry (I think) said that people are beginning to ask more frequently whether libraries can sell them books. Perhaps this is a result of bookstores disappearing. Is there an opportunity here for libraries to bridge the gap? Should libraries allow "Buy it now" buttons on websites and in catalogs? The panel seemed willing to consider such changes, but Duncan warned of confusing library users as to what is free library service and what is not.

Robin, who comes to RA as a cataloger, said that the digital transformation of libraries has spread RA services to full library staffs. Anyone who designs the website, writes reviews, or enters data into the catalog influences how well the library delivers reading suggestions to library users. Robin, Barry, and Duncan agreed that the most needed development for RA and for library service as a whole is improving online library catalogs. Surveys of library users have shown that when polled about their library's website experiences, a majority of them think the online catalog is the website. Statistics show that online catalogs have tremendously more traffic than library websites. Robin said that we should focus on catalogs and that they need to change from inventory tools to tools for discovery. Catalogs need to cater to library users' needs with information about library services, programs, and collection, including tools to guide readers to good materials.

I enjoyed the panel discussion which both affirmed RA work being done at our library and offers plenty of ideas to consider.

Birds of Paradise: Revealing the World's Most Extraordinary Birds by Tim Laman and Edwin Scholes

Using baseball lingo, I feel like I've hit for the cycle. I have seen all four of the National Geographic Society's presentations about the bird of paradise research conducted in New Guinea and Australia by Tim Laman and Edwin Scholes.

The single - Distributed in the December issue of National Geographic, the article "Birds of Paradise" introduces readers to the decade-long effort to site and photograph all 39 species of birds of paradise. The article has maps and diagrams that  appear in every telling of the story. The photos are exquisite. This quickly-read article is how the greatest number of readers will learn the story.

The double - We saw a DVD of the National Geographic Society's television program Winged Seduction: Birds of Paradise. Viewers learn through location shots exactly how difficult it was for Scholes and Laman to find and photograph the birds and their behaviors. Many people able to get the National Geographic Channel on cable television saw this incredible program, and it will be available through libraries on DVD for years to come.

The triple - The triple is always the hardest hit to get. We saw Scholes and Laman's National Geographic Live multimedia presentation at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. The exciting program only visits a limited number of cities. We were so lucky.

The home run - With their book Birds of Paradise: Revealing the World's Most Extraordinary Birds, Laman and Scholes touch all the bases and bring home the deepest, most complete telling of their story. The photos are beautiful. In the back is a species atlas with portraits and maps for all 39 birds of paradise. One of the most beautiful books I've ever seen.

Laman, Tim and Edwin Scholes. Birds of Paradise: Revealing the World's Most Extraordinary Birds. National Geographic/The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2012. 227p. ISBN 9781426209581.

The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith

Many people admire Downton Abbey for its great cast of characters. To these people, who enjoy the continuing shifting of focus from one compelling character to another, who like a cast whose relationships are evolving with the changing times, I recommend the 44 Scotland Street novels by Alexander McCall Smith. They may lack the grand house and estate of the hit BBC television series, but they have the high and low streets of Edinburgh and all of Scotland. There is also a good dose of humor.

Foremost in the cast is Bertie. In The Importance of Being Seven, he is six years old, as he has being since the stories began. McCall Smith admits in his introduction to the book that this is not chronologically possible, but he says that at six Bertie is a perfect character bound to win the sympathy of readers. He just wants to be a boy, but his mother Irene wants him to be a genius. While his struggle to be free of his mother's demands is humorous, he speaks for all of us who are still children well into middle age.

Like Downton Abbey, The Importance of Being Seven has its young married couple concerned about whether they can take over and maintain an old house. The series cast also includes an older woman ready to express her strong opinions. Then there is Bruce, a vain young man who just when you think he is reforming cruelly deceives others as a means of his own advancement. Sound familiar?

No one dies in this novel but continuing readers won't mind. They hope everyone will return in the next 44 Scotland Street novel.

McCall Smith, Alexander. The Importance of Being Seven. Anchor Books, 2012. 311p. ISBN 9780307739360

Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams

Every time I read a book, there is someone to thank. The author obviously and whoever helped get the book published. Right now, however, I am thinking about librarians, and in this case, Matthew at my library. He added an outstanding book, Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows to our photography collection. Before I saw the book on display, I had never heard of Maier, but the jacket caught my eye. The book went home with me to sit on a shelf for a couple of weeks before I finally opened it. Then I devoted much of a day off to reading and examining the photographs.

Hardly anyone had heard of Vivian Maier when she died in 2009, but the wheels of fame had started to roll in 2007 when her abandoned prints, negatives, and over 1,000 rolls of undeveloped film were auctioned in Chicago. She spent over fifty years as a nanny, housekeeper, and caregiver for the infirm, mostly in the northern Chicago suburbs, at every opportunity taking black and white photographs with her old Rolleiflex camera. Her early images focused on children and suburban life, but she began to catch commuter trains and wander the city. She documented downtown Chicago, Maxwell Street, and Skid Row through several decades, and even captured the protesters in Grant Park before the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Restrained by her finances, Maier rarely wasted a shot. Experts now praise her work both for its artistry and for its documenting decades of city experience. Seen as a body of work, it could be called her diary, but she rarely photographed herself. In her younger days, she traveled the world, but much of this book reflects life in Chicago.

As a nanny who would take children on adventures into poor parts of the city, Vivian Maier is compared with Mary Poppins. As a very private soul whose prolific work has only been revealed after her death, she is compared with Emily Dickinson. Much about her is still not really known. This excellent collection introduces her and leaves us wanting more.

Cahan, Richard and Michael Williams. Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows. Cityfiles Press, 2012. 287p. ISBN 9780978545093.

Blandings Castle by P. G. Wodehouse

Blandings Castle is a wonderful place. With fresh air, quiet, and gardens full of beautiful flowers, it is just the place to be alone. If only the ninth Earl of Emsworth could be alone to raise his prize pumpkins and pigs in peace. There always seem to be young people moping about, however, each wanting to fall in love with an unsuitable other young person. Take his son Freddie wanting to marry a young American woman who happens to be some relation of his gardener. Who ever heard of such a thing? Freddie would have to move to America. Hey, what! There's a thought. It would get him out of the old ancestor's hair. 

Blandings Castle is the setting for a series of books by P. G. Wodehouse. While I have read numerous Wodehouse books featuring the ever resource Jeeves, man servant of Bertie Wooster, I had not entered the world of Lord Emsworth until I read a collection of five stories called simply Blandings Castle tucked inside an anthology A Bounty of Blandings.

Being Wodehouse stories, each is filled with silly people facing small problems blown out of proportion. They respond with actions that escalate their problems. Perhaps this is so funny because in a sense it is what many of us actually do. What I particularly like about the five stories in this collection is that what Lord Emsworth at first dreads is exactly what he comes to want in the end.

There are many Blandings books and stories. I may never lack something fun to read.

Wodehouse, P. G. A Bounty of Blandings. W. W. Norton, 2011. 656p. ISBN 9780393341270.

The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit by Emma Thompson

There is always a danger of disappointment when old characters are resurrected for new tales, especially by authors generations after the originals. Will stories be carelessly modernized? Will character traits change? So, it was daring of the publisher Frederick Warne to invite actress Emma Thompson to write a new tale for Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit. Thompson is unquestionably talented, but would she get it right?

Having now read The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit, I think Thompson and her illustrator Eleanor Taylor got it right. Peter is still the irresponsible innocent who sees anything edible as his own. As in the original stories, he gets into trouble, what you might call a pickle if it weren't a radish. Mr. McGregor and Benjamin Bunny play roles in the comedy. And the setting is still the slow-paced 19th century British countryside, filled with verdant forests and ever-watching wildlife.

So, if you had doubts about the new tale, be reassured. You can never have too much Peter Rabbit. 

Thompson, Emma. The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit. Frederick Warne, 2012. 63p. ISBN 9780723269106.

Horton Foote: America's Storyteller by Wilborn Hampton

When Horton Foote left Wharton, Texas for Pasadena, California in 1933, he thought he was gone for good. According to Wilborn Hampton in Horton Foote: America's Storyteller, rather than work in his father's clothing store, Foote planned to be a stage actor, a dream that he nurtured annually when seeing the traveling Dude Arthur Comedians in his home town. Despite his thick Texas drawl, the seventeen-year-old succeeded in getting into acting school at the Pasadena Playhouse and then win small roles in plays in New York, the epicenter of American theater. In 1938 or 1939, after seeing Foote improvise scenes in acting exercises, choreographer Agnes de Mille suggested the struggling actor try writing. Of what should he write? Of what he knew. What he knew best was life in and about Wharton, Texas. His family history and childhood would be sources for his stories for nearly seventy years.

Though he won a Pulitzer Prize for a play and two Oscars for screenplays, Foote never became a household name like his contemporaries Tennessee Williams or Arthur Miller. Though many proposals were made, few of his plays ever made Broadway. He turned to film and television initially just to support his family and later to find venues for his stories. He is considered one of the pioneers of television drama. For each success in Hollywood, however, there were several failures. Foote excelled at finding producers who praised his works and then demanded he change plots and characters drastically. Happily for viewers, he prevailed with his screenplays for To Kill a Mockingbird (based on the novel by Harper Lee), Tender Mercies (original), and The Trip to Bountiful (based on his own play).

Readers will learn Foote's role in the growth of regional theater, public broadcasting, and independent film making. They may also enjoy learning of his work with Lillian Gish, Harper Lee, Gregory Peck, Robert Duvall, Geraldine Page, Matthew Broderick, and many other writers and actors.

Hampton's book about Foote recounts the life of a writer devoted to honest storytelling, an author often labeled as non-commercial by the producers in New York and Hollywood. Readers will admire his persistence, decency, loyalty to lifelong friends, and devotion to family. This biography is a rare uplifting book to offer to readers tired of sordid tales.

Hampton, Wilborn. Horton Foote: America's Storyteller. Free Press, 2009. 292p. ISBN 9781416566403.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce

Bonnie brought home another great children's book. She does that a lot.

Everyone has a story. Because he loved books, Morris Lessmore wrote his story into his book every day. He was very content doing just this, but then a storm destroyed his home and scattered his library. Even the words from his book blew away. It was a blessing in disguise. In The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce, Morris then sees the lady with the flying books. She loans him one that takes him to a home for flying books.

As you may guess, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a book that children, parents, and librarians will love. Illustrated by Joyce with Joe Bluhm, it is beautiful, sweet, and right in line with everything that I believe. I hope that I can live my life so gracefully as Morris, i.e. be a little more understanding when all the books get out of order.

Read the author bio on the jacket to learn more about the origin and meaning of this fantastic book.

A short film inspired by Morris's story won an Academy Award. Take 15 minutes to watch. Enjoy.

Joyce, William. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2012. ISBN 9781442457027.

On Assignment with National Geographic: The Inside Story of Legendary Explorers, Photographers, and Adventurers by Mark Collins Jenkins

2013 is the 125th anniversary of the National Geographic Society. In celebration, the society has publishing several books, including On Assignment with National Geographic: The Inside Story of Legendary Explorers, Photographers, and Adventurers by Mark Collins Jenkins. With such a big title, you might imagine a jumbo coffee table book, but in this case, the volume is compact. (National Geographic 125 Years is a much bigger book.) While the size of On Assignment with National Geographic is small, the anniversary publication is still packed with stories about the history of the society, its monthly magazine, and many of its most famous naturalists, scientists, explorers, and editors.

Readers will readily recognize many names, including its second president Alexander Graham Bell, arctic explorer Richard Byrd, oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, primatologist Jane Goodall, and paleontologist Paul Sereno. Many now mostly forgotten scientists, such as adventurer William Beebe and balloonist William Kepner are also featured. As I read, I recognized many photos and magazine covers that I have seen over the last fifty plus years. I also realized how National Geographic has documented the mapping of the planet, the disappearance of traditional societies, the evolution of scientific knowledge, and the development of technologies that could not have been imagined at the society's founding. Look at a National Geographic from 100 years ago and you see a radically different world.

Finally, On Assignment with National Geographic lets readers see into the processes of grant funding and publishing the big stories. This quick reading history will interest many of the society's members and fans.

Jenkins, Mark Collins. On Assignment with National Geographic: The Inside Story of Legendary Explorers, Photographers, and Adventurers. National Geographic Society, 2013. 134p. ISBN 9781426210136.

Astray by Emma Donoghue

I do not read much fiction, but I listened to an intriguing interview with Emma Donoghue on an NPR Books podcast recently. She spoke about her latest book, a collection of short stories titled Astray. I was charmed by the idea that Donoghue combs through archived documents, historical incidents, and even statistics to find subjects for her stories. Finding the recent book at my library, I brought it home and was rewarded with several mornings and evenings of good reading.

Being mostly a biographical and historical reader (though I also like science), I found Donoghue's short stories appealing. They dramatize times about which I have read, focusing on rare events, giving me new insights into the movements of people across oceans and continents. For example, I had not thought much about the range of emotions within families split by the Atlantic, when a husband preceded the family in immigrating to Canada. Loneliness was a given, but other factors, such as envy, insult, despair, and surrender, shaped the handwritten letters that passed slowly back and forth across the ocean. Having now read "Counting the Days," I now also wonder how many wives and children were not met at the wharves in the New World and what became of them.

Donoghue's reading must be wide ranging. Her stories in Astray go back to Cape Cod in1639 and up to Newmarket, Ontario in 1967. Locations include the goldfields in Alaska, Louisiana slave plantations, and row houses in London. After each she reveals the documents and books that gave her characters and settings. In the back of the collection, she includes an essay that further explains her interests and methods.

Looking at her bio, I see Donoghue's books are wide-ranging, too. I suspect they will be popular in libraries for many years.

Donoghue, Emma. Astray. Little Brown and Company, 2012. 274p. ISBN 9780316206297.

My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile by Isabel Allende

"A country, like a husband, is always open to improvement." 

If you were a librarian, where would you shelve My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile by Isabel Allende? Various libraries in my area have it in the Dewey 800s because it reflects on her fiction, 900s because it is about her country of birth, and biography because she tells how grew up in and left Chile after 1973 military coup d'etat. I would choose the 900s because much of the text is about Chile and the title seems to say that the country is the focus of the book. Someone might counter that the title also says that it is the Chile of Allende's imagination, much like William Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, and thus should be an 800. It may also be argued that My Invented Country is a memoir, though one that is only lightly self-revealing. Our book group may have tended toward calling the book a country description, but we were in by no means unified.

Is it fair to say the book is only lightly personally revealing? Allende tells numerous short stories about her life and admits to many faults, but it seems to me that Chile is really her main focus. Does all this matter? Readers mostly want good reading and do not worry about classification. We were not agreed whether My Invented Country passed that test. Several members of the club who had read Allende's novels were unsatisfied. They thought her voice was very different, somewhat arrogant, not engaging. Others enjoyed her alternately witty and serious assessment of her country and life.

I enjoyed what might just be called "encyclopedia facts," the sections in which Allende describes the country. She is, of course, more entertaining than most encyclopedias. I'd now like to travel through the country, something that none of us had done.

My Invented Country is an imperfect book in that its perceived message clearly is not the same to every reader. Ironically, that makes it a good candidate for book discussions. Discussion leaders should also prepare to discuss what has changed in the ten years since it was published.

Allende, Isabel. My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile. Harper Collins, 2003. ISBN 006054564X.

National Geographic Live: Birds of Paradise

Over the course of ten years, Cornell ornithologist Edwin Scholes and biologist/photographer Tim Laman trekked through the least accessible forests of New Guinea 18 times in search of all 39 species of birds of paradise. After spending thousands of hours in blinds, they have over 39,000 photographs documenting the resplendent colors and courting behaviors of the earth's most strikingly unusual birds. Bonnie and I saw some of the shots and a few amazing videos at their National Geographic Live presentation at the Goodman Theater in Chicago this week.

You may also see these birds in their article in the December 2012 issue of National Geographic, starting with an impressive greater bird of paradise on page 70. You will then want to get their new book Birds of Paradise: Revealing the World's Most Extraordinary Birds. I await the book to learn more than Laman and Scholes were able to say and show in a short hour and 45 minutes. I suspect Bonnie and I will have dueling bookmarks when we get it.

The Goodman was a wonderful place to attend National Geographic Live. The seats were really comfortable and a brilliant screen mostly hid the set of a current play. We were close - no need for binoculars. I also enjoyed eavesdropping on conversations before the lecture. We were among an interesting crowd full of world travelers. I suspect keepers from both of Chicago's zoos and members of the Chicago Geographical Society were there. It did not look like the opera crowd.

I enjoyed the question period at the end also. Someone asked if there might be more than 39 species of birds of paradise. Scholes said there might be and explained how museum collections had been studied to arrive at the current number. He and Laman hope to return to New Guinea to seek out any proposed candidates.

National Geographic Live appears in over a dozen American cities, including Austin, Phoenix, and Seattle. Check the NG website for its events.