One more sad memoir...and this one's not so sad! And then I'm not reviewing any more memoirs.

Jesus Land : A Memoir, by Julia Scheeres, is another heartwrenching memoir--get out your handkerchiefs. Scheeres is a journalist, and delivers the goods in a straightforward manner without a drop of self-pity. The last part takes place in a boot-camp style religious camp for wayward youth, of which we see all too much in the news these days. Her white parents adopted two black children, which, as you can imagine, made for some unique experiences--well, probably not that unique, sadly. Although this would seem a large-hearted gesture, the parent's emotional coldness sounds extreme--it's easier to love humanity than to like people. This would make a good book group read.

Golden Boy : Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood, by Martin Booth, is a little sad, and a lot enchanting. Booth wrote it as a legacy for his children, and managed to finish it before he succumbed to cancer. As a young boy, his family spent several years in Hong Kong, and he seems able to recall every tiny detail from half a century ago. His father was a low-level narrow-minded bureaucrat, while his mother shared his delight in exploring Hong Kong. His descriptions of the street life, the food, and the people will have you enthralled. One thing that struck me was how they had such a rich variety of food and goods in Hong Kong, while their English relatives were still living under rationing.

from the Public Library Association conference...

The Public Library Association held its bi-annual conference this March in Boston. There were many opportunities to hear authors speak, or press their flesh while they peddled their books. I'm in the midst of a very fun read, Lapham Rising, by Roger Rosenblatt. He was very merrily signing free copies of the book--if you've ever read authors' accounts of dreary, poorly attended book tours, you can see how being at a conference full of interested, eager readers must come as quite a relief. (the wonderful Laurie Notaro, who should be as rich and famous as Dave Barry, has some pretty funny book tour stories.) Lapham Rising strikes me as very similar to Nicholson Baker's A Box of Matches. In both books there's very little action, and the main character/narrator is peculiar, but the sly humor and vivid descriptions are so engaging that it doesn't matter. The rising refers is of over-the-top McMansion being built in the Hamptons.

I felt fortunate to be at the rubber chicken luncheon to hear Elie Wiesel speak. He talked about how difficult it had been to get Night, the harrowing account of his time in Auschwitz, published originally, and how he signed the rights away at the time. Although the book has stayed in print ever since, it sounded like he'd never made much money from it. Good for him that Oprah made it one of her picks. He described the Oprah Effect as being like having the presidents of several major world powers demanding their citizens all purchase his book.

I also enjoyed meeting the two guys behind the comic strip of librarianship, Unshelved. The strip is great, and so is their merchandise. (In case you need to purchase a gift for National Library Week--this is it!) I was disappointed to hear they weren't able to quit their day jobs, although how would they come up with ideas for the strip if they did? I was happy to get a book from the hand of Terry Moore--incidentally, two of the characters in Unshelved are able to find their only literary common ground in his series of graphic novels, Strangers in Paradise. I think I met children's book author, Kathleen Duey--I don't think you could pay a sales rep to be as enthusiastic as she was. The book she was handing out, Rex 2, in the Time Soldiers series, looked like a photo-novella--it might be good for a reluctant reader. I'm going to try her Unicorn's Secret series.