The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

How do you feel about Lily Bart, the central character in The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton? What kind of person do you think she was? I use the past tense in referring to her (spoiler alert!) as she dies at the end of The House of Mirth. What did Wharton intend by having Lily die? Our book group found much to discuss when we tackled the novel last week. I felt it was one of our more focused discussions.

While Wharton's second novel, the one that earned her initial fame, can be called a classic, it is not guaranteed to be liked by readers. At least two of our group thought Lily was irredeemable. Most of us thought that there were very few characters to like in the book. Readers have to look hard to find good points for many of the men and women in this society novel, but I think they are there, especially for Lily. I think her failure to carry through on some of her schemes to land a wealthy husband were subconsciously conscience-driven. Sadly, she never achieved anything good for herself.

While reading I realized that The House of Mirth can be cast as a prequel to The Great Gatsby. There were more self-made millionaires invading society by the time of Gatsby, and Wharton heralded their coming twenty years earlier. By the time of Gatsby and the Jazz Age, the refined cover over the emptiness and cruelty of high society had been removed.

The characters, the story, the historical setting, and the life of the author all led to a lively discussions. Keep The House of Mirth in mind for the classic fiction slot in your book club's schedule. If you do choose it, suggest your members keep their own scorecard of characters. There are many of them. 

Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905.

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink

I think Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink is one of the most disturbing books that I have read in a long time. While there are no totally evil people on which to blame what may have been unnecessary Hurricane Katrina-related deaths at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans in 2005, many seemingly good people behaved in ways inconsistent with their training and ideals. The doctors and nurses at Memorial were obviously in a crisis and not helped by the shockingly inadequate response of the corporation that owned the hospital, but they let their fears blind them to other courses of action than those that they took. Tragically, they had more resources within easy reach than they realized. Lack of planning and poor communications inside and outside the hospital led to confusion. Patients could have been treated for their diseases and kept more comfortable throughout the crisis. Some might have been saved. Fink tells the story in much fascinating and dramatic detail.

There are many lessons to be learned from Hurricane Katrina stories, but, as the author tells in the later chapters and the appendix to Five Days at Memorial, people are not learning them. Our society does not as a whole have a will to make the sacrifices and do the work necessary to prevent future tragedies. Fink tells how a hospital in New York performed much better in Hurricane Sandy, showing that preparation and clearer thinking can make a difference, but she also reports on many cases in which medical personnel and community emergency workers make the same mistakes made in New Orleans.

Five Days at Memorial is too large a book for many book discussion groups, which is unfortunate as there are so many topics to discuss. Groups that focus on public policy or meet quarterly (giving members more time to read) can tackle it. Five Days at Memorial is a great read for someone willing to make the effort.

Fink, Sheri. Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital. Crown Publishers, 2013. 558p. ISBN 9780307718969.

Unabridged audiobook: Random House Audio, 2013. 14 compact discs. ISBN 9780804128094.

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley

It is Memorial Day, so summer reading is upon us. At the Thomas Ford Library this summer, we will be featuring graphic novels in our adult summer reading program Picture This: Exploring Graphic Novels. Along with the reading of books to earn prizes, we will have some graphic novel events, including an author talk by Lucy Knisley, whose graphic novel memoir Relish: My Life in the Kitchen came out in 2013.

Liking to read authors who come to our library, I borrowed Relish and found it very entertaining. Knisley recounts her admittedly still young life with charm and humor through full-color drawings and well-chosen words. In each chapter, she tells about a period or particular aspect of her life. I kept reading wanting to know more about her mom the chef, her dad the gourmet, and the kitchens in which Knisley has cooked.

Like all food memoirs, Relish includes recipes. Unlike many memoirs, these instructions are heavily illustrated. I particularly like the exploded view of the huevos rancheros and the action-packed telling of how to make pickles.

As you can see, graphic novels are not all super hero tales. With Relish, Knisley has shown that everyday life is a great subject for the genre. It is not alone. Check for graphic novels at your library.

Knisley, Lucy. Relish: My Life in the Kitchen. First Second, 2013. 173p. ISBN 9781596436237.

Jim Green in Concert at the Library

The library is a place for learning. Last Friday everyone who came to Jim Green's concert at the Thomas Ford Library learned the sound of percussive acoustic guitar, a method perfected by the Chicago area musician. With his fingers positioned above the strings, Jim can sound like a guitarist and a drummer, and when he adds his harmonica, he is a band. Several of his compositions played Friday night evoked the sounds of trains, especially his instrumental "Hotshot" and his vocal piece "Boxcar Man." In the later we also learned classic hobo vocabulary.

As appropriate as it is, learning was not really the objective Friday night. The pleasure of being entertained by a talented musician with a sneaky sense of humor is what I take away. We all laughed at his story of being a street musician getting advice from a preschool boy, a story I do not want to spoil in case you attend one of his concerts. I also took away his CD Boxcar Man.

If you look at the cover of his CD, you will not see the name Jim Green. Until recently he performed as The Wandering Endorphin, but has now decided to use his own name. The CD has eight pieces, two vocals and six instrumentals. Of course, there is a lot of instrumental in the vocals, too. Like his concert, the pieces create many moods. My favorite might be the foot-stomping "Let It Ride," though I am very moved by "Old-Timer" and "Weathered." Well, "Boxcar Man" may be my favorite, or maybe whichever piece I am listening to when I'm trying to decide.

If you get a chance to hear Jim at a library, pub, or summer festival, take it. In the meantime, you can learn more at his website or view Boxcar Man on YouTube.

Tim's Vermeer, a film by Teller

Tim Jenison is a former rock musician whose tinkering with sound equipment led to his becoming an inventor and computer graphics artist. At some unspecified time in the past, he noticed how perfect the light, shadows, and colors are in the paintings by Johannes Vermeer. He read books questioning Vermeer's undocumented techniques and concluded that the Dutch painter had to have used an optical device. Flush with funds from all of his successful inventions, he set out to discover Vermeer's method.

Tim's Vermeer is an entertaining film documenting Jenison's obsessive five-year effort. The "proof" of discovery would be Jenison's recreating one of Vermeer's masterpieces using the theorized methods. How could the inventor pull this off, for he was not even an amateur painter? Confidence in himself is something Jenison seems to have in abundance. His experience with the infinitesimal details of computer graphics probably helped developed his awareness of all things optical. Through trial and error, he developed an unusual sequence of mirrors that helped him paint spot by spot with no underlying drawings. The results were almost photographic.

Many in the art world doubt that Jenison really discovered Vermeer's method. If Vermeer did use Jenison's system of mirrors, it would help explain why there are so few paintings by the master, for it is a very slow process. But neither the secretive Vermeer nor any of his contemporaries wrote about how he painted nor left any such mirrors in their studios. We will never know unless some 17th century documents are discovered.

In any case, as I have said, the film is very entertaining. Jenison and the cast of characters around him, including magician Penn Jillette and painter David Hockney, are fascinating people. The mysterious subject of Vermeer appeals to many art fans. Viewers are left with numerous unanswered questions. I think Tim's Vermeer is a great choice for film discussion groups.

Tim's Vermeer. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2014. 80 minutes.

Pitching in a Pinch: Baseball from the Inside by Christy Mathewson

Christy Mathewson was one of the most important figures in early 20th century baseball. Not only was he a great pitcher and later an able manager, he was college educated and an important symbol for the proponents of a more gentlemanly game of baseball than had been played in the late 19th century. He was one of five great players honored with election to the first class of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Knowing he could cash in on his fame, he "wrote" a column for the New York Herald with much assistance from sports writer John Wheeler, and from those pieces came his 1912 book Pitching in a Pinch: Baseball from the Inside. It was his moment, as he had been a star for slightly over a decade and his skills were just starting to decline. He had already witness and been part of many legendary games. His World War I disability and early death were yet to come.

The state of baseball in 1912 was far different in many ways from 2014. It was a dead-ball era when few hitters could clear the fences (hit a home run). Most players were paid poorly. Pitchers were frequently called "twirlers." The Chicago Cubs were a dominant team. But a 21st century reader of Pitching in a Pinch will find much familiar as well, especially in the descriptions of pitcher-batter encounters, which Mathewson describes with great clarity. Pitchers still need to get ahead in the count to be effective. Batter should still pick their pitch.

Penguin's 2013 republication of Mathewson's book is a must for baseball fans interested in the history of the game. Readers learn much about Giant's manager John McGraw, Mathewson's Giant teammates, and opponents, especially the Cubs Tinker, Evers, and Chance. Readers also get a foreward by novelist Chad Harbach and an afterward by famed sports writer Red Smith.

Mathewson, Christy. Pitching in a Pinch: Baseball from the Inside. Penguin Books, 2013. 178p. ISBN 9780143107248.

Chasing Cheetahs: The Race to Save Africa's Fastest Cats by Sy Montgomery and photographs by Nic Bishop

I can not decide whether I like cheetahs or snow leopards best. Luckily for me, Sy Montgomery and photographer Nic Bishop have written books about both. Chasing Cheetahs: The Race to Save Africa's Fastest Cats is the fourth of their books that I have read. The other two featured tree kangaroos and tapirs.

There are certain factors that keep bringing me back to their books:

1. Bonnie brings them home from her library.
2. They are filled with big beautiful photos.
3. Montgomery and Bishop travel to great locations to learn about their animal subjects.
4. They profile a dedicated naturalist in the field.
5. They add important factual tables and reading lists to their conservation conscious books.

In Chasing Cheetahs, the duo travel to Namibia, which has the highest concentration of the world's endanger cheetah population. There they meet with Laurie Marker and her team at the Cheetah Conservation Fund's center, where the abandoned infant and injured cheetahs are studied and harbored until they can be released into the wild. Montgomery and Bishop accompany the scientists on their daily rounds.

I am hooked on these books and hope for more. I see I missed their book on kakapo parrots of New Zealand. Time to place a reserve at the library.

Montgomery, Sy. Chasing Cheetahs: The Race to Save Africa's Fastest Cats. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. 69p. ISBN 9780547815497.

Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies by Lawrence Goldstone

I have been naive. I have always thought that scientists and inventors were mostly driven by wonder and curiosity. Men and women, I thought, wanted to discover how things work just because they longed to know. I thought most invention was a test of intellect and creativity. I understood that some research was driven by necessity, such as the need to cure diseases or protect the environment, but even then, part of the results should be joy for work well done. What I did not count on was anyone like Wilbur Wright. Intent on exploiting his patents for profit even before he and his brother successfully flew, he seemed to find little joy in putting pilots in the air.

Readers of Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies by Lawrence Goldstone will get their fill of Wilbur Wright. He truly loved his family, including the brother he sometimes bullied, but his opinion of the rest of humanity seems to have been low. He felt that all modern people owed the Wright brothers a debt for the discovery of powered flight. He expected that the brothers' broadly written patents gave them a well-earned monopoly of the industry. He also expected the U.S. and foreign governments to contract through the Wright firm for all of their aircraft development. When other inventors and manufacturers opposed paying royalties and pilots fought against paying license fees for the right to fly, he filed law suits.

Engine builder and pilot Glenn Curtis was among the many inventors who felt the Wright Brothers had learned as much from their experimental designs as they learned from the brothers. An entire society of flying men and women had been trying to fly for years before the Wright brothers even started. They took offense at the Wright brothers' notion that air flight belonged to them alone. Mostly ignoring the Wright brothers and their demands, they continued to fly, risking their lives to test and demonstrate aircraft. In a four year period, 142 of these barnstorming pilots died in accidents.

Birdmen is a great in-depth story that shows a dark side to American business history. Look for it at your public library.

Goldstone, Lawrence. Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies. Ballantine Books, 2014. 448p. ISBN 9780345538031.

The Waiting Room, a film by Peter Nicks

Who has not been to a hospital emergency room, either as a patient or as companion to a patient? I think I have been twice as a patient: once when I hit my head with a hammer trying to pull a nail and another time when I popped my knee out of joint. Both times were minor emergencies when I could not wait for a doctor's office hours. Emergency rooms are created for such times, but that is not what we see in the documentary The Waiting Room (2012) directed by Peter Nicks.

The Waiting Room was filmed at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California over a 24-hour period in 2011 or possibly 2010. On the DVD cover below the title is the statement "24 hours. 241 patients. One stretched ER." Of all those patients, several were victims of accidents and violent crimes, but most were people without health insurance trying to obtain treatments that they were unable to procure from general practitioners or the specialists to whom they would have been referred if they had health plans. Without appointments, those without life threatening conditions sometimes waited many hours to be seen by the physicians and nurses of the hospital ER. The waiting room was large and crowded.

Unlike many documentaries, The Waiting Room has no explanatory narration. One film reviewer says film viewers are "like flies on the wall." Another said that the film was true cinema verite. In an interview, the directory said that he wanted to show exactly what happens in an urban county hospital emergency room and let viewers decide what it all means. He also indicated that policy wonks from opposite ends of the political spectrum have praised the film as evidence for their positions.

Attendance at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library's showing of The Waiting Room for its film discussion was small, but our discussion was lively and somewhat personal. There was empathy for the patients followed by the filmmaker's cameras and admiration for the hospital staff. Discussion trended toward national health care policy, of course, and were left with a series of timely questions: "Has the launch of the Affordable Health Care Act relieved any of the stress on urban emergency rooms? Is The Waiting Room now an out-of-date film?" Time to ask a librarian.

Nicks, Peter. The Waiting Room. Cinedigm Entertainment Corp., 2013. 80 minutes. OCLC: 856022442.

The Giver by Lois Lowry and Messenger by Lois Lowry

On the recommendation of my eleven-year-old daughter Laura, years ago, I read The Giver by Lois Lowry. I remember liking it very much, but I had forgotten much about it until this week. I wanted an audiobook and was striking out in my search for a downloadable nonfiction title from our consortium that I hadn't already read that I wanted to read (we've got far too many books about war!). Just looking at what was recently returned to see if anything would interest me (maybe a classic mystery?), I noticed Messenger by Lois Lowry, book 3 in the series. Not sure whether it made sense to skip book 2, I went ahead and borrowed and downloaded Messenger.

To complicate matters, I then borrowed print copies of The Giver and the second book in the series, Gathering Blue. I thought I might delay listening to the audiobook to read the print books. I really wanted an audiobook, however, when it came time to work in the garden a few days later, and I went ahead and started Messenger. Then in bed the same night, I started The Giver.

Reading two books in a series at the same time, I thought that I might mix details from the stories, but I should not have worried. The settings, characters, and plots are so clear and different that I had no problem. I soon recognized one common character, and it was interesting observing him at two points in his life. Maybe that makes me the Watcher. Naming is important in both books.

Neither utopia-gone-wrong story took me long to finish. The Giver was as good as I remembered, and Messenger its equal. Now I need to fill the gap.

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Houghton Mifflin, 1993. 180p. ISBN 0395645662.

Lowry, Lois. Messenger. Houghton Mifflin, 2004. 169p. ISBN 0681404414.

Why Do Ducks Have Webby Toes? by Mim Eichmann and Doug Lofstrom

I think I met Mim Eichmann when she attended a performance of other folk musicians at a Friday at the Ford concert. She told me that she was in the band Trillium and sent over a CD to encourage me to book it for our concert series, which I did. She recently sent me a different kind of CD. Why Do Ducks Have Webby Toes? is a collection of children's song by Mim and her friend Doug Lofstrom. She kindly agreed to answer some questions that I had about the delightful CD.

Rick: I have been listening to Why Do Ducks Have Webby Toes?, thinking that I may be enjoying it as much as any kid. Some of the songs are really finger-snapping jazz. I do not usually expect such cool clarinet and saxophone parts in children's songs. I also hear some bluegrass. How many musical traditions have you folded into the song collection?

Mim: I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the tunes! Quite a few adults have admitted that they're listening to the cd in their car even after they've dropped the kids off at daycare, which is something of a surprise! Most of the tunes have something of a jazzy or easy pop feel, but, as you've noted, there's a bluegrass tune, a couple of folk ballads, a ragtime piece and two fast Gilbert and Sullivan-type tunes, among others. Doug Lofstrom did all of the arrangements for his contemporary jazz group, The New Quartet, which includes the clarinet/saxophone, piano, violin, bass and drums on the album. Ed Hall, who of course, is our Trillium guitarist and banjo player, did those arrangements. When I heard our first playback at the recording studio session of "I Love Pizza" (which was the first tune we tackled) it sounded so huge with all of those instruments, it was extremely daunting. I really wasn't sure that my material -- much less, my voice -- was going to sound like anything at all against that kind of awesome instrumental power. But, after that first sort of shock, it started to feel completely normal -- and it's been a very fun project!

Rick: I'm interested in knowing more about the origins of the song collection. Have you been writing these songs one at a time over a long time or do they all come from a project effort? They seem a departure from your music with Trillium. What led to the recording of this collection?

Mim: I do have an earlier kids' album of all original music called "Wander Down Beyond the Rainbow" which was released in 1999, and obviously pre-dates anything in the Trillium repertoire, since Trillium didn't form until 2005. Many of the WDBR pieces were song and dance/pantomime tunes, sung a cappella with my little 3-5 year old ballet dancers. And, after hearing the tunes, the parents wanted to know where they could find the music. I finally recorded them, to a synth track, arranged by Doug, in 1998. Actually all of those tunes have been playing on Satellite radio in particular, since 2004. I had wanted to do another album, but really just didn't have the time until recently. With the exception of a couple tunes, everything on "Why Do Ducks Have Webby Toes?" was written sometime in the past year. A couple of interesting anecdotes: The music for "The Inch Worm" I originally wrote for piano when I was about 10 years old ... I was intrigued by the fact that the bass line in Ravel's "Bolero" never changed, so that's where that idea came from. The poem is new, however. I recorded "Baby Everett's Music Box Rag" on hammered dulcimer the day that Baby Everett (my grandson) was born last October!

Rick: Do you use difference voices in the songs? I sense that most songs are from the point of view of a child. Am I getting that right?

Mim: Just about everything is written in first person, sometimes vaguely implied, but definitely seen from a child's point of view. And, same as when I sing with Trillium, I like to change things up a bit to best fit with the music style of the song. So sometimes there's a hint of Julie Andrews or Alison Krauss or Judy Collins or Whitney Houston without going too far in any direction. Tell you the truth, I think I'm something of a vocal chameleon. I really don't think I have a particular singing style, although these days, too bad I can't say that I sound like Idina Menzel ...

Rick: Are there performance plans for this collection? 

Mim: Very possibly sometime in the future!

Rick: How do people find your CD?

Mim: It's available through Cdbaby: http://cdbaby.com/cd/mimeichmanndouglofstrom and for libraries through Midwest Tapes.

American Hornpipe by Dana and Susan Robinson

One of the benefits of running a concert series is getting to meet many nice people and hear their music. I just arranged to have Dana and Susan Robinson return to our Friday at the Ford concert series in 2015, and they sent us their latest CD American Hornpipe, which I am adding to our library collection.

American Hornpipe resembles a Dana and Susan Robinson concert. Both of them have their vocal solos, there is much harmonizing, and the voices are always supported by delightful guitars, a mandolin, and/or a fiddle. Some of the pieces are original compositions while others are traditional pieces, such as "Who Killed Cock Robin" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken." The duo also mix in instrumentals, such as "Fair and Tender Ladies" and "Sailing Around Cape Solstice."

I particularly like "The Invitation" which Dana sang when the couple last visited us in Western Springs. I vividly remember the lines about disconnecting the phones and Internet to enjoy a vacation in nature. As summer is just about to begin (really if it will stop being cold), I was roused by "Farmers Market A-Z," eager to get locally grown farm produce myself.

What the CD does not have is the Robinsons' delightful storytelling between songs. You'll have to attend a concert for that. We'll have one, as I said, in 2015. In the meantime, enjoy a CD.

Robinson, Dana and Susan Robinson. American Hornpipe. Threshold Music, 2012.

The Swoop! and The Military Invasion of America by P. G. Wodehouse

From her library, Bonnie brought home a thin volume of early P. G. Wodehouse fiction that at first glance seemed particularly silly to me. It is a 2013 republishing of two early Wodehouse stories, The Swoop! and The Military Invasion of America. I say "two stories" because both have titles and both take up part of the volume. In fact, they are one story, which I will explain in a moment.

"The Swoop!" is an illustrated satire about British public nonchalance about national security. Published in Great Britain in 1908, about six years before the start of World War I, Wodehouse portrays his country's citizens as much more concerned about cricket, tennis, and football than about the movements of foreign armies. When the island country is invaded by nine other nations, the news is buried below the sports scores. I do not want to give away too much of the plot, but only the Boy Scouts have the resolve to rid the country of its foreign invaders.

Having finished "Swoop!", I began to read "The Military Invasion of America," a story published in the United States in 1915, before the Americans entered World War I. To my surprise, I found it was essentially the same story relocated across the Atlantic Ocean. Wodehouse reduced the invading armies to two, set much of the action in New York, and left out the comic illustrations, but the plot, main character, and many of the punch lines are exactly the same. Again, the unconcerned public relies on the Boy Scouts to defend the nation.

Even a hundred years later, these stories by the English author who later became an American citizen are enjoyable light comedy that should make readers of British comedy smile. Most readers will finish the two stories in an evening or less easily. Then they should read some Bertie and Jeeves stories until bedtime.

Curiously, people may be just as intent on their sports and other entertainment in 2014. What dangers do we ignore?

Wodehouse, P. G. The Swoop! and The Military Invasion of America. Overlook Press, 2013. 138p. ISBN 9781468308341.

Hope Rising: How Christians Can End Extreme Poverty in This Generation by Scott Todd

Can extreme poverty be ended by 2030? That is only 16 years away, and 1.4 billion people are currently living in extreme poverty. Around 21,000 children die because of poverty every day. Most of the poor are in Africa and Asia. The task of ending poverty may sound impossible to many who were raised with the Bible verse "The poor you will always have with you," but Scott Todd of Compassion International says that these words from Jesus are taken out of context and often used as an excuse for not responding to a Biblical call to service. He explains why effort to end poverty is worthwhile in Hope Rising: How Christians Can End Extreme Poverty in This Generation.

2030 is not just a randomly chosen year. The date has been set as a goal for ending poverty by the World Bank and endorsed by the United Nations and the Brookings Institute. Prime Minister of Great Britain David Cameron and Microsoft founder Bill Gates both think it can be done.

Why such optimism? In 1981, 52 percent of the earth's population lived in extreme poverty. By 2009, only 21 percent lived in extreme poverty. That is still a lot of people, but there has been great progress. The author cites much evidence showing that international aid to fight poverty has already been very effective. The challenge to eradicate poverty will still require great effort, but Scott Todd believes it can and should be done.

While Hope Rising provides some practical ideas and success stories, it is stronger on spiritual and moral justification. Many of the chapters could be sermons, which is appropriate for a book aimed at faith-based readers. Agnostic readers may find much to encourage them also if they can look beyond the Biblical quotes. The author obviously wants everyone's help, as he describes a vision of governmental, business, and non-corporate campaigns working together. 

Who will pay for ending poverty? We will, joyfully, awaking from our media/entertainment stupor, glad to be alive, serious about making a difference in the future of the planet. Working people who can give will be the inspiration for the billionaires to join, some of whom are already impressed.

Only in the last chapter of Hope Rising does Todd mention donating to his own organization Compassion International. Charity Navigator gives it a high rating, especially for accountability and transparency.Not everyone will be interested in becoming a child sponsor, which Todd suggests as a primary way to help end poverty. Luckily, his book as a whole indicates that there are many other ways to fight poverty.

Todd, Scott. Hope Rising: How Christians Can End Extreme Poverty in This Generation. Thomas Nelson, 2014. 224p. ISBN 9780529101129.

The Public Library: A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson

Photographer Robert Dawson has been aiming his cameras at public libraries for 18 years, capturing exterior and interior images to show the role of libraries in their communities and the nation. His project began slowly, as he photographed libraries while traveling on other assignments. Then in 2011 and 2012, he and his son Walker took cross-country trips specifically to visit libraries, often two or three a day. From thousands of photos, Dawson assembled a representative collection in The Public Library: A Photographic Essay.

The Public Library is not just a pretty book of pictures, though many photos celebrate the art and architecture of public buildings serving as libraries. The book serves as an introductory history of American public libraries and as a state of the institution report. In his captions and in essays collected from well-known writers, such as Bill Moyers, Ann Patchett, Barbara Kingsolver, Isaac Asimov, and Dr. Seuss, Dawson poses that our nation would not be so diverse and strong nor so rich if we had not had public libraries. Libraries have been essential in educating and inspiring individuals who have built the country, and they continue to be needed as the gap between haves and have-nots widens.

Dawson's book will not please everyone. Sometimes he aimed at the weather-beaten backs or windowless sides of beleaguered libraries; sometimes he shows abandoned buildings. I can imagine there are a few librarians and trustees who rue that he did not show their libraries more positively. I only hope that they see he is making the case that libraries (including theirs) need support to continue.

Every public library can benefit from having this book for their readers, staff, and trustees. I'd like every political leader to read it. Dawson's The Public Library is an important contribution to our effort to support the cause of libraries.

Dawson, Robert. The Public Library: A Photographic Essay. Princeton Architectural Press, 2014. 191p. ISBN 9781616892173.

Top Recent Magazine Articles about Birds

Let's belatedly call this Bird Week at ricklibrarian. There may be many bird weeks to come, as I always enjoy reading about birds and birding. If you do, too, here are some recent magazine articles that I suggest to you.

"Flight Club" by Alex Shoumatoff and photographs by Melissa Groo. Smithsonian, March 2014. Pages 54-67. 

The author tells us what it is like to visit the sandhill cranes at their spring migration stopover on the Platte River in Nebraska. Shoumatoff tells us about crane evolution, migration routes, and future survival, while Groo adds some beautiful photographs. Reading the article makes me want to go to Nebraska some spring soon. (Thanks to Bonnie who found this article. If I go, she goes, too.)


"A Mighty Wind" by Ted Williams. Audubon, March-April, 2014. Pages 32, 34, 64-67.

Articles written by Ted Williams under the banner "Incite" always tackle difficult topics. In this latest issue of Audubon, he measures the impact of wind turbine crashes on bird populations. He interviews research scientists, government wildlife experts, and birders. There are statistics to ponder, but there is no consensus.


"Have Lemmings, Will Travel" by Scott Weidensaul. and photographs by Francois Portmann. Audubon, March-April, 2014. Pages 36-40, 62.

The winter of 2013-2014 will be remembered not only for the snow and bitter cold across much of the U.S. but also for the surprising large number of snowy owls that migrated south, sometimes to places where they had never before been seen. The author reports on the irruption (a word birders should learn). One point is that snowy owls have an uncanny ability to locate sources of food and communicate the information to others. They will go where the food is, not back to prior haunts. Unlike many birds, they show little site fidelity (another good term to learn).


"Hotel Kalahari" by Bernd Heinrich and photographs by Dillon Marsh. Audubon, March-April, 2014. Pages 42-45.

This is the third of three articles from one issue. Birds are still a primary concern of Audubon. The readers sees and reads about spectacular communal nests built by sociable weavers. Sociable weavers (Philetairus socius) is a species - I looked it up.


"Marsh Madness" by Scott McMillion and Photographs by Karine Aigner. Nature Conservancy, November-December 2013. Pages 52-59. 

The author tells about the annual Christmas Bird Count at Mad Island Marsh Preserve in Texas, which had recorded the highest number of species of any count sites in the U.S. in 14 of 15 years at the time of the writing of the article. There are seven nice bird photos that are not captioned. Readers have to do their own identifications.

David Sibley at Anderson's Books in Downers Grove

Thanks to a string of conversations at the Downers Grove Public Library on April 10, Bonnie learned just a few hours before the event that bird guide artist and author David Sibley would speak at Anderson's Books in Downers Grove. Bonnie called to notify me, and I quickly called Anderson's to reserve a seat and a copy of the new The Sibley Guide to Birds, Second Edition. What great luck! My luck continued at Anderson's where the event was intimate and relaxed. Everyone who came sat close and had an opportunity to ask questions.

The author told us about his methods for sketching in the field and painting in the studio, resulting in paintings three times larger than the corresponding pages in his guide book. He kept all the masters from the first edition to help with the second. Half of the paintings were slightly updated and about 10 percent were updated greatly. New pages were also produced as over 100 bird species were added. Range maps have new colors, and most of the text was rewritten. The second edition of The Sibley Guide to Birds looks very fresh next to my well-used first edition.

Sibley's discussion of his artistry led to stories about his life as a birder. He started around age eight helping his father (an ornithologist) band birds. His practice of sketching birds led to making close observations of behavior, and he always encourages all birders to field sketch. He considers himself equally an artist and a scientist. Much of the latter part of his presentation and the questions dealt with bird behavior, population dynamics, and birding practices.

It was a wonderful evening. Now I am looking forward to using my new edition The Sibley Guide to Birds. 

Sibley, David. The Sibley Guide to Birds, Second Edition. Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. 598p. ISBN 9780307957900.

A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction by Joel Greenberg

The 100th anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon, once North America's most populous species, is this year. The last pigeon, a female named Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914 after being the only one of her kind for about three years. There may have been billions of passenger pigeons only 40 years earlier. Just how could this have happened? The Field Museum of Chicago's Joel Greenberg tells us the very sad story in A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction.

Passenger pigeon science is a bit iffy as the birds disappeared before academically-trained research scientists were available to study them. Greenberg has had to plow through all sorts of newspaper accounts, letters, journals, and other papers that were obviously filled with as much myth and misinformation as firm data. One of the most misleading statements often repeated by professional hunters was that the passenger pigeon nested up to four times in a breeding season and that a clutch usually included two eggs. They stated that there would never be a shortage of passenger pigeons. What Greenberg concludes from more reliable sources was that most pigeons bred once and raised one chick. Usually the flocks moved too often to new feeding grounds to have bred more than once.

According to Greenberg in A Feathered River Across the Sky, there never seems to have been much sympathy for passenger pigeons while they lived in great quantities. They could arrive in the millions and destroy farmers' crops and woodlots. Ironically, many hungry people celebrated when passenger pigeons arrived in their areas as they supplemented their family meals with pigeons. Once railroads crossed the country, professional hunting companies harvested and shipped millions of birds as cheap food for cities. In the 1870s and 1880s, every mass pigeon gathering was a slaughter with people netting birds for the live bird trade trying to keep from being shot by local and corporate hunters with guns. The population plummeted quickly.

21st century readers may be shocked by the behavior of their ancestors. Yet every thing they did was thought justified at their time. That should make us question current times, when we say that we need to exploit our resources for economic reasons and deny that they are limited.

I fear that A Feathered River Across the Sky will be passed over by many in our entertainment-crazy society, but Greenberg tells many good stories with lessons that should be headed. Look for it at your public, school, or college library.

Greenberg, Joel. A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction. Bloomsbury, 2014. 289p. ISBN 9781620405345.

An Autobiography of Black Chicago by Dempsey Travis

If bookshelves were streets, you would find An Autobiography of Black Chicago by Dempsey Travis at the busy intersection of Chicago Way and Memory Lane. Stopped at this corner, the book's pages would open for you to see billboards for black-owned real estate, banking, and insurance companies and in the shop windows posters asking you to march for civil rights. And you would hear a calm, steady voice explaining to you why you have to get up early and do your part to change the world. By all accounts, black businessman and civil rights leader Dempsey Travis (1920-2009) did his part.

An Autobiography of Black Chicago was first published in 1981. That this memoir was ever written is remarkable, because in 1946 when he enrolled in college, Travis's poor reading ability forced him into remedial classes. When challenged by the probable failure of many in his situation, he applied himself and succeeded in college and business thereafter. Near the end of his book, he wrote of the importance of daily study for business people, stating that he read from ten newspapers each day.

In his book, Travis recounted what he saw in Chicago from the early 1920s to 1981 when Ronald Reagan became president. The account may surprise readers who mistakenly think that Jim Crow attitudes were confined to the South. 20th century Chicago was a very racist city, where most of the discrimination radiated from industry, unions, banks, real estate, and professional organizations, most controlled by white people. Blacks could only take the lowest paid jobs in factories, could not secure business loans, could not rent or buy properties in many neighborhoods, and were denied opportunities to join professional organizations, even when they had gotten college degrees. Fighting discrimination and making opportunities for himself and his race was Travis's mission.

Chicago was not the only stage in Travis's book. He was active in national business, professional, and civil rights organizations and eventually became an advisor to several presidents. He also was greatly shaped by a childhood trip to a funeral in Kentucky and his experiences in a racially-segregated military during World War II.

Agate Publishing put out a new paperback edition of An Autobiography of Black Chicago in 2013, preserving the essential Travis book but eliminating a collection of short autobiographical pieces by other black leaders. Serious students of Black Chicago may want to seek the older edition, which also includes many illustrations, but many contemporary readers will be more attracted to the new slimmer edition with greatly improved font and the most compelling part of the older book. An Autobiography of Black Chicago belongs in many Chicago area libraries and is a worthy addition to any collection on the national civil rights movement.

Travis, Dempsey. An Autobiography of Black Chicago. Agate Publishing, 2013. 216p. ISBN 9781932841671.

God Got a Dog by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Marla Fraze

BBWB. Bonnie brings wonderful books. I could label many of my reviews with this code.

After reading God Got a Dog written by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Marla Fraze, I could write a sermon, but this is a book review.

If I wrote a sermon, I would say how we would be more mindful and respectful toward other people if we realized who they really were. I would go on to say that we probably would restrain ourselves from hurting others, and if we did harm, we would be sorrowful and make amends.

But this is a book review, and God Got a Dog is a good book. I want to tell you about it without telling too much. You should discover its contents yourself.

God Got a Dog is a book filled with one-page story poems aimed at children that should also be made available to open-minded adults. With every poem is a delightful illustration clarifying its story's character and mood.

My favorite poems in the book:

"God woke up"
"God went to the doctor"
"God wrote a book"
"God got cable"
"God went to India"

Actually, I like them all. God Got a Dog is charming, sweet, and profound. Now I need to get God Went to Beauty School from which these poems were selected.

Rylant, Cynthia. God Got a Dog. Beach Lane Books, 2013. 9781442465183.