Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism by Elizabeth Becker

I recently reviewed Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism by Elizabeth Becker for Booklist. Here are several thoughts that I could not fit into the 175 word review. 

I don't think I will ever want to take a cruise. At least not on a gigantic cruise ship, which is more like a combination shopping mall and resort hotel than a ship of the sea. Most cruises are designed to keep you on board spending money most of the time. Being licensed by remote third world nations, they often do not adhere to any responsible environmental or labor laws. According to journalist Elizabeth Becker in Overbooked, her book on the travel and tourism industry, waiters and other service staff, mostly hired from poor nations, work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for about $50 per month. They are instructed by the cruise operators to lobby guests for generous tips. That is exploitation. Vacationers almost always spend more than they expect and see very little of whatever ports they pass. You might as well be at the Mall of America. What fun is that?

Travel journalism does not adhere to the ethics of responsible news reporting. Hotels, resorts, ships, airlines, etc. often give travel writers free tickets and special attention. As a result, most travel literature is uncritical.

According to Becker, the tourist industry in Florida has so much power that it has fought off legislation to increase the days required in Florida public schools. Hotel owners, resort operators, and other business want the cheap labor of students for as much of the year as they can get.

Becker's book does have reports of tourism done right, too. Still, I remember the horror stories and want to be careful how I spend my tourist dollars.

Becker, Elizabeth. Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism. Simon and Schuster, 2013. 432p. ISBN 9781439160992.

Tenth of December by George Saunders

Earlier this year, listening to episodes of the New York Times Book Review Podcast, I kept hearing that short stories were back in vogue. New collections, such as Astray by Emma Donoghue, were getting excellent reviews, and Tenth of December by George Saunders was at the top of the fiction hardcover bestseller list. It was good news for short story readers.

Analysts speculate that digital reading is supporting a short story renaissance. Novellas are doing well, too, as some digital readers buy short forms for their readers. Of course, short stories never actually went away. I find they have more inventive plots, quirky ideas, and quick, intense characterizations. I always seem to read 5 or 6 collections a year, as well as my usual fare of nonfiction.

So, I was primed for Tenth of December when my request was filled. Knowing others are still waiting, I moved it to the head of the list and enjoyed several days with stories that reminds me of works by Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

If there is a running theme in Tenth of December, it is the issue of control and lack of control. "Victory Lap" and "Sticks" have parents whose rule of the household is obsessive. Mood and behavior altering drugs are involved in controlling convicts and employees in "Escape from Spiderhead" and "My Chivalric Fiasco." In "Home" the central character and his parents seem to lack self-control.

I think the strangest of the lot is"The Semplica Girl Diaries." It would be a great choice for a short story discussion group. I'd love to hear whether readers believe it a fair criticism of our consumer culture living without regard to ethics. Maybe that is not what it is about it. I don't want to spoil the mystery of the story by saying too much.

I would also like to learn what readers think of the title story, the last piece in the collection. It seems totally different from the rest of the book, more of a straight drama and less about ideas. Still, it is a compelling piece of a collection that as a whole is a good omen for future reading. We should never worry about the habit of reading when there are books like Tenth of December.

Saunders, George. Tenth of December: Stories. Random House, 2013. 251p. ISBN 9780812993806.

Have You Forgotten These Hollywood Stars?

I have recently reviewed two biographies for Booklist: Hopper by Tom Folsom and Flip: The Inside Story of TVs First Black Superstar by Kevin Cook. I knew very little about actor Dennis Hopper or comedian Flip Wilson before the books arrived in the mail. I saw only a few of Hopper's movies, and I vaguely remember watching The Flip Wilson Show. I had read little about either man, having never subscribed to People or The National Enquirer. I would not have suspected that they shared so many traits.

Ambition. Of course, most entertainers are ambitious, desiring the limelight, but both Hopper and Wilson were extreme. Hopper was going to be the most artistic, most revolutionary actor ever, the one who would change the industry. Likewise, Wilson was going to be America's funniest man and was not happy if his television show did not get the highest Neilsen rating every week. Both were very jealous when rivals got attention. Wilson got closer to the top than Hopper, but the moment was brief. 

Eras. Both peaked in the early 1970s and then disappeared from the public eye in the mid-1970s. Both then had revivals after that, but without anyone ever considering them key players again. Surprisingly, Hopper, who had vowed to be a revolutionary artist of film, lasted longer in the lowly art of television than Wilson.

Drugs. Both were totally stoned for years. Marijuana, cocaine, heroin. Hopper befriended Timothy Leary and LSD.

Women. Both were involved with many of them. Hopper married five times. Wilson often promised marriage.

Money. Both wanted lots of it, especially Wilson, who was a pretty shrewd investor. Hopper put much of his money into contemporary art.

Neither of these books is really surprising, for many entertainers live lives of excess and self-absorption. I had more sympathy for Wilson who seemed to want to help the civil rights movement and really seemed to care for his children. Hopper as portrayed by Folsom seems mostly sinister. Reading about their lives let me travel back to my youth and see things I missed because I was too young to understand. Both book should interest other Baby Boomers.

Folsom, Tom. Hopper. !t, 2013. 320p. ISBN 9780062206947.

Cook, Kevin. Flip: The Inside Story of TVs First Black Superstar. Viking, 2013. 230p. ISBN 9780670025701.

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens never sought to comfort his readers or listeners. Instead, he believed in writing whatever was on his mind uncensored and without platitudes, and thus he made many uncomfortable. But he did have a certain charm admitted by the very people with whom he sparred in debates. Love the man and hate his ideas was the stance of many. When he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, they prayed for him despite his disparaging of prayer.

In Mortality, a small collection of essays that he wrote before his death in 2011, Hitchens discussed his illness and the reaction of his friends and acquaintances. He included and responded to a few letter-writers who claimed that Hitchens deserved a painful death. His descriptions of pain, medical procedures, and frustrations can be appreciated by readers who also have to face their own demise, but few will love this book.

Hitchens intended to write more, and this book definitely has an unfinished feel. Still, it can be a portal for discussion and contemplation. It is already in many public libraries.

Hitchens, Christopher. Mortality. Twelve, 2012. 104p. ISBN 9781455502752.

The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych by Doug Wilson

Detroit Tigers pitcher Mark Fidrych was not a flake. On the pitcher's mound, he talked to himself, not the ball, trying to stay focused as he prepared to pitch to the batter. The reason he seemed hyperactive on the field was that he actually was hyperactive. While he would have liked to have slowed down as often advised by coaches and teammates, but he just could not. That was the way he was, according to Doug Wilson in his new book The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych.

The story of Fidrych's 1976 rookie season is wonderful. He caught other players and baseball fans off guard, and they were charmed. Usually rookies who could win scarce jobs were not warmly treated by established players, but Fidrych was so joyous that even old veterans embraced him. His flamboyant goofiness and blue collar origins really struck a cord with Detroit fans. They filled the stands every time he pitched. He always performed well, finishing 24 of 29 starts, including three 11-inning games and one 12-inning game. He was elected American League Rookie of the Year and fans looked forward to many great years from him.

Fidrych was injured the next spring, however, and after several years of trying to regain his form, he had to retire.

The rest of the story could have been sad, but it was not, as Fidrych returned to his hometown in Massachusetts and proved that all that he had told reporters in his rookie season was true. He really did not care much about money. He really did want to be a farmer and own a truck. He felt so fortunate to have been a major league player and wanted to spread his luck by helping others.

As I read the latter part of The Bird, I was reminded of the books by Michael Perry with compassionate descriptions of small town life in Wisconsin. Wilson's story about Fidrych only hints at everything Perry describes fully, but you know Fidrych lived in that kind of world. The Bird also serves as another entry in the parade of books about Detroit. This book deserves to be in more public libraries along side them.

Wilson, Doug. The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych. Thomas Dunne Books, 2013. 306p. ISBN 9781250004925.

True Stories into the Hands of Readers

Today I am speaking at Reaching Forward Conference in Rosement, Illinois. I'll talk with library staff about helping readers find books with true stories in their library collections.

Click to view my slideshow: True Stories into the Hands of Readers

Click to view some of my true story suggestions arranged by appeal factors: The Appeal of Reading True Stories

Here are some notes to go along with and explain some of what I will be saying with some of the slides:

2. Our focus today is reading true stories for pleasure. I define pleasure broadly, so that does include reading for knowledge. Wanting to learn about a person, time, or place and satisfying that want  can be as good as spending time with well-written stories populated with compelling characters in settings that interests readers.

In doing readers' advisory, Joyce Saricks advises that you suggest books instead of recommend them. That lets the client decline more gracefully, gives the client more control of the transaction. You are working with the reader to pick books. You also have less to lose if the reader then dislikes the books she or he takes home.

3. Readers have long had a choose to read fiction or true stories. Both of these books deal with the Battle of Gettysburg. Killer Angels on the left is a story told by soldiers. Stars in Their Courses is an intimate account of the battle incorporating letters, diaries, and other accounts of the time. Shelby Foote also wrote fiction. Neither his fiction nor history disappoints.

4. Both are emotional stories about women suddenly widowed by well-known authors. I was mesmerized by Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and how she moves around and around her topic. I could hardly put it down.

5. The Natural was first a short story based on a true incident about a former Chicago Cub being shot by a young fanatical woman. Eight Men Out is the true story of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox Scandal. Both stories have complicated baseball players navigating through difficult situations. Both should be required reading for anyone interested in Chicago - no love of baseball necessary.

6. The advantages for true stories are information and authority. Truth should be informative and verifiable. Of course, these qualities may also be in fiction based on truth, but it may be hard to know where authors take their liberties for the sake of story.

7. I am using the appeal categories emphasized in the Read On … series of readers' advisory books. A good story is the most common quality wanted in books by readers. History that appeals broadly is focused. It takes a certain event or follows a certain theme. It validates the story in history.

8. Readers often say that they want books with sympathetic characters. Some like villains. Of course, biographies and memoirs give us plenty of both.

9. Setting has always been a big appeal to me. I particularly like to learn about places far different from my own environs. Stories in Asia, Africa, or South America appeal to me. Place can be presented almost like characters by talented writers.

10. By language, we refer to the type and quality of the writing. Some readers say that they will read anything that is written well. Personal essays are the true stories equivalent of fictional short stories. Sometimes every word and sentence has been crafted.

11. By mood, we mean books that have a certain atmosphere. Like mystery novels, true crime stories have a particular gritty toughness necessary to recount horrible events. Like romance novels, true romance recounts amorous relationships that may succeed or fail.

12. In the past, history and biography tended to be academic in tone, filled with lots of facts with an emphasis on scholarship and less concern for storytelling.

13. The trend now is to write a slice of biography or a slice of history, well-crafted works that use an especially noteworthy bit of the story to evoke the whole story. There is more celebration of true story writing. More reporting and more awards. Colleges and universities offer courses in creative nonfiction, including the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Readers keep books like Seabiscuit and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand on best seller lists for months and years. Bill O'Reilly is reeling in profits with Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, and in Setember Killing Jesus.

Of course, there are a lot more slides. I'll try to add more after the conference.

You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism by Brad Hirschfield

You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism by Brad Hirschfield is an obvious title choice for a church book group. Hirschfield is a rabbi with a somewhat fanatical past who is now an advocate of open dialogue among adherents of any religion. His book about his own faith journey is filled with ideas and quotes that merit discussion by spiritually minded readers. Some of my favorites follow below.

When faith simplifies things that need to remain complex, instead of giving us strength to live with complexity, when it gives answers where none exists, instead of helping us appreciate the sacredness of living with questions, when it offers certainty when there needs to be doubt, and when it tells us we have arrived when we should still be searching - then there is a problem with that faith. (page 9)

… I always try to accept, deep inside myself, that no matter how passionately I feel about the position I'm taking, I may be completely wrong. (page 56)

In a more just and forgiving world we would realize that the people who hurt us have often been hurt themselves. We would remember that those against whom we struggle are actually "us," not some wholly other "them." It's not that we would never have to fight against certain people and specific things. We would. But how would those fights be different, how much more slowly would they be entered into and how much more quickly resolved if all those involved acknowledged that their intended victims were their own relatives, and they were actually fighting against themselves. (page 67-68)

It is so easy to forget that the system that is right for you, even one that you believe God wants for you, may not be right for everyone. After all, how could the will of an infinite God ever be made so small as to fit into one finite system? Ironically, when it comes to our spiritual lives, we should be making the most room for one another, but it seems that instead we make the least. (page 112)

When the existence of the members becomes more important than their experience of membership, something is wrong. (page 113)

There are more quotable passages throughout. Still, our church discussion group was not totally satisfied with the book. Some members thought it was all rather easily said and predictable. Some thought Hirschfield told too many stories about himself for the book to be taken seriously. Someone else thought his stories were the best part of the book. In any case, it is a fairly short book and quickly read, which is important for many discussion groups. I also believe that imperfect books open up more discussion and think it is worthy of consideration for groups that have not already read it.

Hirschfield, Brad. You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Harmony Books, 2007. 271p. ISBN 9780307382979.

State Street: One Brick at a Time by Robert P. Ledermann

I always think of Michigan Avenue as the great street in Chicago. Downtown you find beautiful buildings on one side of the street and green Grant Park with the Art Institute of Chicago on the other. Follow it north over the Chicago River and you pass the Tribune Tower and the Wrigley Building into high end shopping. For author Robert P. Ledermann, however, State Street has always been the heart of the city, the street for Christmas parades and shopping in department stores. He recounts the past, some of which he has witnessed, in State Street: One Brick at a Time.

If your first thought about State Street is Marshall Field's Department Store, then you are in Mr. Ledermann's camp. Slightly over half of the book is about this famous department store which covered an entire Chicago city block. The author fully describes the building and recounts many stories about the introduction of new customer services by the innovative retailer. He includes an entire chapter on Christmas at Marshall Field's. In doing so, he carefully never says anything against Macy's, the New York company that killed the Marshall Field's name, but as a reader you can sense that he'd like to turn back the hands on the famous clocks. I'd help him.

After all the attention that the author gives Marshall Field's, I expected a bit more detail on the other well-known department stores that once lined the street - Carson Pire Scott & Company gets a chapter and all the others are lumped into one chapter. A consistent theme throughout these two chapters is that most of the store owners learned their trade working for Marshall Field and that their stores sat on land owned by Marshall Field.

State Street: One Brick at a Time is an entertaining read - you learn why not to decorate a Christmas tree with candy - but it is just an introduction to a street with much history told in other books. Still, all Chicago area public libraries should have it for its great collection of photographs.

Ledermann, Robert P. State Street: One Brick at a Time. History Press, 2011. 157p. ISBN 9781609492946.

38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier's End by Scott W. Berg

With a growing interest in the history of the state of Minnesota and continuing interest in Abraham Lincoln, I chose naturally to read 38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier's End by Scott W. Berg, which tells the story of the Dakota Uprising of 1862. The events are known by a variety of names including Sioux Uprising, Dakota Conflict, and Little Crow's War. Little Crow was an aging chief in August 1862 when warriors of the Dakota nation killed several hundred white settlers in communities strung along the Minnesota river southwest of St. Paul, the capital the new state. Little Crow was reported to have argued against the uprising but stepped up to lead it once some younger men started the conflict. He became a central figure in a tragedy that seemed at the time inevitable.

The Dakota were living in western Minnesota after a series of treaties with the United States moved them off their traditional lands. Though the treaties promised them annual payments in gold for their sale of lands, the tribes had discovered by 1862 than much of each payment disappeared into the hands merchants, Indian agents, and government officials every year. In late summer 1862 the payments were already long overdue and many Dakota were near starving. There was also a report that the U.S. had no gold to deliver, thanks to the cost of the Civil War, and was bringing paper money instead. With whites constantly encroaching on their territory, some of the Dakota were ready to rise, hoping they could chase the whites out of Minnesota.

In 38 Nooses, Berg recounts the events leading up to and after the mass execution in Mankato, Minnesota of 38 participants in the uprising. I was a little surprised that the description of this central event itself is fairly brief. The cast of characters in the narrative is large, but certain names recur frequently, including Sarah Wakefield, a woman who was held hostage by the Dakota, and Episcopal minister Henry Benjamin Whipple who lobbied with President Lincoln for reform of the corrupt Bureau of Indian Affairs. Lincoln's role was that of ultimate judge, reducing the number of executions from over 300 to what was still the largest mass execution on U.S. soil.

Because 1862 represents a turning in the affairs of North American Indians, 38 Nooses is an valuable title for students of 19th century America.

Berg, Scott W. 38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier's End. Pantheon Books, 2012. 364p. ISBN 9780307377241.

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.