Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was the fifteenth of seventeen children of Josiah Franklin. The last of the children was his sister Jane Franklin (1712-1794), of whom little has ever been written. Unlike her famous brother, she spent almost her entire life in Boston dealing with family matters and making soap. She was married at age 15 to Edward Mecom, who proved to be a poor provider and unstable character. He eventually landed in debtor's prison, losing the family home, forcing Jane to move with their children in with her parents. Many of their children and grandchildren also proved to be sickly or unstable, and the industrious Jane outlived most of them. We would know nothing about her today if it were not for her life-long correspondence with her brother Benjamin. Using their remaining letters, noted historian Jill Lepore has written about Jane in The Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin.

Readers might expect an eighteenth century woman of limited means, education, and travel not to be noteworthy. Not Jane. She borrowed books and newspapers and stayed informed about colonial affairs, always watching for news of her brother. He sent her numerous books that she read and sometimes critiqued in her letters back to him. Though not in position to meet and correspond with wealthy women, such as Abigail Adams and Martha Washington, she expressed some of their common concerns. She too thought that the Continental Congress and the writers of the Constitution should, as Adams said to her husband, "consider the ladies."

Because most of what we know of Jane Franklin comes from the Benjamin Franklin sources, Book of Ages is primarily about their relationship. Though he assisted her on numerous occasions, directing his business partners to transfer rental properties to her, readers may wish that he had done more to help. With communications and transportation so slow, the brother and sister were sometimes out of touch for years when she could have used him. Her survival through some really hard times is a testament to her tenacity.

Book of Ages may look like a really big book about a relatively unknown character, but readers will find that nearly half the volume is the appendix with its notes, genealogies, a calendar of letters, and a description of Jane's library collection. Much of this is worth reading after finishing the main text.

I was lucky enough to get a copy of an uncorrected proof of Book of Ages at the American Library Association's Carnegie Awards ceremony, where Lepore's was a finalist for her wonderful book The Mansion of Happiness. Book of Ages will be in libraries and bookstores in October.

Lepore, Jill. Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin. Knopf, October, 2013. 480p. ISBN 9780307958341.

Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier

The first thing that Ian Frazier tells us in Travels in Siberia is that Siberia is not and has never been a well-defined place. It was never an official state of any kind. It is an idea - a really big idea burdened with myths. It is believed by many to be a desolate, forbidding, unforgiving region, frozen in time forever - a place to which people are banished. All of this is true but that is not all that there is to say. Frazier in his numerous trip to and through the fabled region of Russia also found magic.

At the heart of his book is one long trip across Russia from St. Petersburg in the west to the Pacific port of Vladivostok in the east with two guides, Sergei and Volodya, in an unreliable van. Though Frazier had an advance for a magazine article, he was on a tight budget and the trio slept in tents much of the time. He had not allowed for expensive van repairs either. At one point when the tailpipe fell off, Sergei opportunely walked along the littered highway until he found a suitable replacement. After a few twists of wire, a serviceable repair was made and the trip continued. There were many other auto problems, which strained the mood of the companions.

Away from cities much of the time, the roads were rough broken pavement or gravel. To cross some rivers they loaded the van onto ferries. Through one marshy region without any passable road, they drove into a boxcar and rode in semi-darkness for over 24 hours. During six weeks, they met many people, visited historical sites, and fought many mosquitoes. A very well-traveled man, Frazier said he had never seen mosquitoes as plentiful as in Siberia.

In Travels in Siberia, Frazier also recounts several shorter visits, the last being three-week winter trip because all of the others had been hot summer trips. It was only on the last trip that he finally visited a prison camp and drove across frozen lakes and rivers.

Despite the hardships, Frazier, being a great fan of Russian history and literature, remains optimistic to the end of the book. Readers will find him good company, much in the way of Bill Bryson. They may also discover urges to read about the Decembrists, the many czars of Russia, Aleksandr Pushkin, and Siberian energy reserves. If the hardcover book looks daunting, try Frazier's audiobook. He is a great narrator and will keep you well entertained.

Frazier, Ian. Travels in Siberia. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. 529p. ISBN 9780374278724.

16 compact discs. Macmillan Audio, 2010. ISBN 9781427210531.

Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt edited by Rozenn Bailleul-LeSuer

I had the pleasure a couple of weeks ago of seeing an exhibit at the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago for a second time. It is called Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt, and it displays artifacts from the Oriental Institute with a few select items borrowed from other Chicago museums and one coffin for an ibis from the Brooklyn Museum. Everything in the show which ends at the end of this month relates to the role of birds in Ancient Egypt culture. Among the items are bird mummies, statues, reproductions of wall paintings, vases and other pottery, furniture, and a 5000 year old ostrich egg.

I was so impressed at my first viewing of the special exhibit that I bought the catalog, Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt edited by Rozenn Bailleul-LeSuer. The first half of this attractive publication is a collection of short papers about the roles of birds along the Nile River. The last half shows and explains all the items in the exhibit.

One role of birds in Ancient Egypt was as food, as the river attracted great flocks of water fowl. After fish, birds were the second most popular source of protein in the Egyptian diet. In the collection is a wall painting of a royal person hunting birds with a throwstick, an actual 3500 year old throwstick, and another painting showing ducks and geese being herded and caged for sale. Eating was not, however, the Egyptians only concern. They were interested in nature, and everywhere they looked there were birds, especially every spring and fall during the great migrations between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. Many of these birds whose species can still be identified were depicted in Egyptian art works.

But there is more. Egyptians believed their gods took the forms of birds and some birds, because they could fly, served as messengers between earth and heaven. Falcons, ibises, storks, vultures, and owls figure in myths and even lend their shapes to hieroglyphs. There are 54 recognized bird hieroglyphs and another 8 of bird parts, such as feathers and eggs.

There is so much more to say, but I should let you discover it through the catalog which is so beautifully illustrated. It is worth seeking out.

Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt. Oriental Institute Museum Publications 35, 2012. 232p. ISBN 9781885923929.

Still Looking: Essays on American Art by John Updike

With celebrity come privileges. I have to wonder how many publishers would be interested in a book like Still Looking: Essays on American Art if its author were not famous like John Updike. He was, however, having studied painting at the Ruskin School of Art before he became a famous writer. I am happy he had the background and the eminence because I enjoyed the book very much.

Like many books of essays by literary figures, Updike's collection of pieces spans several decades. Reporting on art exhibits that he visited, he described what he liked and did not, often including biographical profiles of artists and explaining their significance in art movements. From early in the book I enjoyed learning that he liked many of the same artists that I do. Feeling akin to Updike, I read essay after essay, even about artists I had not considered. I also enjoyed how beautifully the book is illustrated. Would writers with less influence have been able to get the publisher to acquire rights to so many works of art?

Still Looking includes an introduction to American art and 18 essays. Only the final piece, three pages on Andy Warhol, seems insubstantial. Most run 10 to 20 pages and include a dozen or more color images of major works discussed. My favorites were essays on American landscape painters, James McNeill Whistler, Childe Hassam, and Edward Hopper.

You do not have to like Updike novels to enjoy his essays. I have now reserved Just Looking, an earlier collection about European art.

Updike, John. Still Looking: Essays on American Art. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. 222p ISBN 9781400044184.

The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss by Edmund de Waal

This week all of my books feature art and artifacts: netsuke from Japan today, American painting and sculpture Wednesday, and Ancient Egyptian images of birds Friday.

I think I have a new sure-bet book to suggest to readers who ask me for something wonderful to read. Of course, they will probably not use the word "wonderful," but will somehow indicate that they are tired of settling for formulaic fiction or cookie-cutter memoirs. I will offer The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss by Edmund de Waal. Set in Tokyo, Odessa, Paris, and Vienna, this book recounts six generations of a Jewish family as its fortunes rose and fell with the tides of European history. Binding the threads of story together is the fate of a collection of netsuke, tiny Japanese carvings used to toggle small purses or bags. One of the netsuke is a small hare with yellow stones inlaid as eyes.

Even sure-bet books need a reader ready for them. I know I brought The Hare with Amber Eyes home once before, read two or three pages and decided it was too involved for my mood at that time. This time I borrowed the audiobook expertly read by Michael Maloney. I enjoyed having the epic story of the Ephrussi family, Russian grain merchants transformed into international bankers, wash over me as I drove, cooked, and worked in the garden.

In an interview, de Waal says that he tried to stay out of the story, but I am glad he failed. His descriptions of travels to see old family homes and to visit archives with family papers connects our time with the 19th and 20th centuries, and we get to feel what he felt when he made discoveries. I also enjoyed learning new words, such as netsuke, bibelot, and vitrine. The Hare with Amber Eyes is a richly-told story to enjoy if you are ready.

Libraries have many opportunities to promote de Waal's book. They can add The Hare with Amber Eyes to displays on Japanese art, art collecting, family history, Jewish history, Impressionist France, 20th century Austria, or World War II. They may want to pair it with the novels of Marcel Proust or the poetry of Rainer Marie Rilke, which figure in the telling of the Ephrussi family story.

De Waal, Edmund. The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010. 354p. ISBN 9780374105976.

The King of Infinite Space: Euclid and His Elements by David Berlinski

In high school, I never knew how ancient the proofs of geometry were. I worked with points, lines, and planes without feeling I was part of a continuum, enjoying how new the ideas of logic applied to shapes and spaces felt. Only years later did I read about Euclid and how for over 2000 years his axioms had been applied in mathematics, engineering, and philosophy.

According to David Berlinski in his book The King of Infinite Space: Euclid and His Elements, the writings of Euclid have held up very well, withstanding many who have tried to disprove his propositions. Only the parallel postulate from his book The Elements continues to trouble as no one has been able to definitively prove or disprove it. Euclidean geometry was the only geometry until the middle of the nineteenth century when non-Euclidean geometry rose to explain some phenomena not previously explained.

In picking up this small volume, I hoped to learn more about Euclid himself, but there is little to know. Like Shakespeare, it is his writing that has survived to inspire new generations of scholars, many of whom still swear by him. Though it has been many years since I studied geometry, I found I could follow most of the text of The King of Infinite Space and enjoyed puzzling about negative numbers, infinity, and our ability to test theories about real things on geometrical models. I had to use a dictionary to read several pages, but my vocabulary may expand from the effort.

Berlinski, David. The King of Infinite Space: Euclid and His Elements. Basic Books, 2013. 172p. ISBN 9780465014811.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

I have enjoyed improbably journey stories before. In the movie The Straight Story (1999), an elderly farmer from Iowa rides a small riding mower over 300 miles to Wisconsin to reconcile with his dying brother. In the BBC's mini-series The Missing Postman (1997), a retiring postman empties his last letter box and to protest against new letter-sorting equipment vows to deliver his last bag of letters by bicycle across Great Britain. Both of these stories mix humor and melancholy and feature aging men unhappy about the drift of their lives. I expected a similar situation in the novel The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I was not disappointed.

I do not, however, want to suggest that The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is to be read for laughs. It is filled with delightful details, some of which are funny, but its hero Harold Fry is a complicated character with serious issues to address. His quest to walk across Britain to visit a dying friend will prove his making or breaking. Never predictable, the novel is continually entertaining and honest.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is Joyce's first novel after writing over 20 plays for BBC Radio. I hope she writes more. It was included in the long list for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction and has been read by many book clubs. It is widely available.

Joyce, Rachel. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Random House, 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780812993295.

More Than Human by Tim Flach

Do not let the image of a panda on the cover of More Than Human by photographer Tim Flach deceive you. More Than Human is not a book of pretty nature pictures. While there is much beauty within the photographs, mostly taken in studios, there is also much to disturb. Flach confronts readers, many of whom may have little face-to-face contact with animals, with the impact their lives have on the mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and insects with which we share the planet. The images may challenge the way we think and feel about animals. Sometimes it is the accompanying text written by Lewis Blackwell that shakes us.

Through large, colorful photographs, Flach shows us many things that we have probably not seen, such as the green fluorescent glow of a rat into which genes from luminescent jellyfish have been introduced. Portraits of chickens genetically modified to have no feathers, bizarrely-groomed show animals, and hybrid animals, such as the liger and the zonkey, show how humans tamper with the animals world. Other photos, including those of millipedes, bats, and spiders, force readers to view what they often avoid.

An effort must be made to read More Than Human. I found that I needed two bookmarks, holding my spots in the main series of photos and in explanatory notes in the back of the volume. I also read at a table, as the book is rather heavy. Still, I enjoyed the viewing and suggest the book to readers who seek works on natural history and wildlife conservation.

Flach, Tim. More Than Human. Abrams, 2012. 312p. ISBN 9781419705526.

Collection Development & Community Expectations: Managing Collections and Balancing Resources in an Era of Budgetary Restraints

On the opening day of the American Library Association
in Chicago, a panel of librarians from public and academic libraries discussed measures they have taken to stay within their budgets for acquiring library materials. Rick Anderson of the University of Utah began by suggesting it helps to understand the internal and external forces constraining collection building, including funds, staff time, library space, library policies, and community expectations. The last is hardest to gauge. Should libraries chose to purchase everything that members in their communities desire or should they try to get only materials that will be popular with a predetermined minimum number of library members? What holds enough value (hard to measure) to justify cost (easier to measure)?

Stephanie Chase of the Seattle Public Library continued, telling about how libraries manage in periods of short budgets. To make up for not having as many new titles as readers would like, she emphasized marketing the available collection, especially titles that were little-read when new. Having strong, effective readers’ advisory service can connect members with these less recent books and relieve pressure for new titles. In lean times, she also suggested limiting the number of holds members can make, which makes them make choices similar to those the library has to make and shortens reserve lists that trigger purchasing of additional copies. She thought it a mistake to buy bestsellers disproportionately in lean times.

Chase also thought weeding must continue in lean times. Shelves in popular reading collections need to look fresh to attract readers; removing worn, battered volumes is especially helpful. At her libraries, circulation statistics have shown borrowing up in weeded areas even without significant new purchasing.

Michael Santangelo of the Brooklyn Public Library compared managing an electronic material collection in lean times to reality TV. If a database does not get the votes (visits or document downloads), it is this week’s cut. And there is always someone sad at the passing of a databases out of the collection. How to count the votes is the challenge, as every vendor reports different measures. The librarian’s task is to determine which databases have really provided the most service (not visits or searches) and which combinations of databases cover topics essential to members’ needs.

Santangelo issued several warnings. 1) Consortium purchases save money but they also introduce instability into the collection as groups may change vendors every year looking for better deals. 2) Ebook subscription plans may highlight highly popular materials but they also drag along materials of little interest. Study costs carefully before taking a package deal. 3) Having multiple platforms to provide ebooks from various vendors confuses readers and librarians. 4) Loyalty to vendors can stabilize an online collection and sometimes win discounts but do not go so far as to sign onto new databases just because a favored vendor recommends them.

Re-examining How We Work: What Should We Do With the Staff?

In these days of smaller workforces and technology-based services, the subtitle of this program held at the beginning of the third day of the American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago was layered with foreboding . Before reading the program description (and even after reading it), I anticipated hearing predictions of layoffs and further budget cuts in libraries. I expected a gloomy message but found instead a panel of speakers who seemed somewhat upbeat. Reduced workforces were still a given, but the speakers seemed to assume that was an opportunity and there would still be funds to redesign library public and staff spaces utilizing new furniture.

The first speaker, Christopher Stewart of Dominican University, spoke about the demand for more public space in academic libraries, which becomes possible when libraries reduce their workforce. Meeting rooms, study commons, and even production studios can be added when staff and workspace is reduced. Stewart also said that academic libraries are trying to get their professional staff into private offices away from the public – not something most public libraries will do. Increasingly, some staff have to share desks or tables, which he says works well with low-complexity job employees. Despite having little space of their own, he said employees work best when they have some control over their personal work space, needing good lighting, free from distracting talk or music, with counter spaces, storage, and equipment. High-complexity, high-responsibility employees need more space and privacy.

Whereas the library was once a grocery, it is now a kitchen, according to consultant Joan Frye Williams. The factory has turned into a laboratory, where people come to innovate and create. The public and the staff are being moved into flexible spaces. Focusing on staff, she said that she sees more emphasis on team work and less working alone. The staff is clustered into more collaborative spaces with fewer barriers to separate departments. All work in progress is on display for team comments. Williams warned that this model may be popular but does not work well for all. It assumes all employees will be extroverts.

Designer Elisabeth Martin spoke about the five kinds of work spaces: refuge (for 1 or 2), enclave (3 or 4), team (5 to 8), assembly, and community. The type of work of an organization determines how much of each type is needed. The current trend is toward more collaborative and community efforts, so meeting spaces are being added in libraries. She also posed that modern organizations are moving away from having distinct departments. With less privacy, she thought it particularly important that workspaces be comfortable. She even likes incorporating comfy chairs (some with movable desk tops) in employee spaces.

Joe Agati of AGATI Furniture showed a variety of office pieces and systems. He said that to some extent, modern workers need to learn to go digital and get rid of things. Clutter seemed to be non-existent in most of his photos, but he showed that there were special drawers for shoes and purses (some things employees always have). The most unusual item was a workstation including a treadmill.

Answers about ricklibrarian

I think more and more that the best thing about library conferences is meeting people. This morning I received an email with questions about writing my blog from a librarian I met at the American Library Association Annual Conference this week in Chicago. Since I have not really said much about the blog itself in a long time, I am also posting modified answers to her questions.

I stay at least partially informed on book and library industry trends by reading articles linked from AL Direct and Library Link of the Day as well as listening to the New York Times Book Review podcast. I read newspapers and journals. I also learn at librarians' meeting and from my Facebook friends.

I receive no dollars or cents from my blog. I have never tried because I want to stay totally independent. Money is not as valuable as peace of mind.

I ignore most of the email I get from marketing agents trying to get me to read books. Maybe twice a year I might be willing to read something and tell the author/agent that I make no promises about reviewing. It has probably been more than a year since I have reviewed anything on ricklibrarian by request. I mostly review books from libraries. I have requested maybe three electronic readers copies through Edelweiss.

I review instead of promote. I usually stick to books and media and ignore products and services. I might comment on a product/services good for libraries or readers, but it rare.

I have enjoyed blogging, and it led to my writing two readers' advisory books. It has made me lots of friends. That's the payoff.

American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago

Bonnie and I have attended two full days of the American Library Association in Chicago and are heading back in again today. It has been good so far.

My highlight on Saturday was being a part of a focus group for Booklist, a review journal aimed at public libraries. We were asked questions about how we used the journal in collection development and what we would change in the publication to aid our work. These questions led to a broader discussion about our libraries. I enjoyed the meeting greatly.

On Sunday, I attended several author events. During the day, I heard both Temple Grandin (Animals in Translation and The Autistic Brain) and Ann Patchett (Bel Canto and State of Wonder) speak in the auditorium and Timothy Egan (The Worst Hard Time and Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher) at the Booklist booth on the exhibitions floor. In the evening, Bonnie and I attended the Carnegie Awards presentation, where we heard Timothy Egan, David Quammen, and Richard Ford live and saw videos from Junot Diaz, Louise Erdrich, and Jill Lepore. Egan and Ford won the prizes.

My to-read list is growing longer every day (I came home with a bag of free books from the awards ceremony), and I am looking forward to applying some new ideas at work, especially concerning readers' advisory. I have also seen many friends at sessions and along the hallways, as well as at last night's ceremony. I am feeling recharged.

We are heading in today via train for a third day. More reports later.

The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Frick Collection: Handbook of Paintings

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

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

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

Now I look forward to reading about the Cloisters.

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

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

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

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

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

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

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

How Animals Grieve by Barbara J. King

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

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

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

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

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

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Help Me" by Joni Mitchell

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

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

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

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

The Second City Guide to the Opera

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

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

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

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

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

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Google Art Project Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Who Sell Out by John Dougan

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks to Kathy Strange for suggesting this book.

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

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

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

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

The End of Your Life Book Club by William Schwalbe

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Owls by Marianne Taylor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

42 and The Baseball Encyclopedia, 8th ed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.