How Animals Grieve by Barbara J. King

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

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

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

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

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

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Help Me" by Joni Mitchell

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

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

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

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

The Second City Guide to the Opera

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

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

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

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

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

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Google Art Project Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Who Sell Out by John Dougan

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks to Kathy Strange for suggesting this book.

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

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

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

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

The End of Your Life Book Club by William Schwalbe

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Owls by Marianne Taylor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

42 and The Baseball Encyclopedia, 8th ed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.