Dr. Seuss has a birthday this week. Theodor Seuss Geisel, the wildly creative creator of Horton, Sam, the Grinch and the Cat in the Hat, would have been 107 on Wednesday.

To celebrate. head on over to the Seussville website, or pick up our favorite book. Mine were "And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street" or "McElligott's Pool," which transported the readers to fanciful, immensely entertaining worlds. They were great reading when my children were little.

Was it easy for the Springfield, Mass., native? Hardly. Here's what the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden in his hometown says of his start in publishing: "Getting the first book that he both wrote and illustrated, 'And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,' published, however, required a great degree of persistence - it was rejected 27 times before being published by Vanguard Press.

" 'The Cat in the Hat,' perhaps the defining book of Ted's career, developed as part of a unique joint venture between Houghton Mifflin (Vanguard Press) and Random House. Houghton Mifflin asked Ted to write and illustrate a children's primer using only 225 "new-reader" vocabulary words. Because he was under contract to Random House, Random House obtained the trade publication rights, and Houghton Mifflin kept the school rights. With the release of 'The Cat in the Hat,' Ted became the definitive children's book author and illustrator."

Geisel died on Sept. 24, 1991. But we can celebrate his genius this week, by recalling his birthday: March 2.

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News that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are trying to make a movie about the wife-swapping N.Y. Yankees, Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson brought back memories of that wild period of the late 1960s and early 1970s. That was a time of wild Afros that barely fit under a cap, and pill-popping players who brought new meaning to the phrase "in the zone."

For all the kids out there who are busy Googling the names Kekich and Peterson -- players who swapped wives in 1972 -- there's no better introduction to the era than Jim Bouton's book, "Ball Four." It captured the craziness of our national game, as American society changed radically.

Later, steroids and other drugs would threaten to cripple the game and tarnish some of its greatest stars. But in the Ball Four era, which preceded the Kekich-Peterson deal by a

few years, the players seemed merely eccentric. Wife-swapping -- why not? Pitching while on LSD -- let's give it a shot. Hell, Doc Ellis claims he even pitched a no-hitter while tripping.

It's great reading as spring training begins.

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In this week's Freebie Friday giveaway, you have a chance to win "33 Men," which details last year's dramatic rescue of the Chilean miners.

Journalist Jonathan Franklin, who lives in Chile and is a correspondent for The Guardian, covered the event for weeks. Here's how his books is described on Amazon: "He sat in on planning meetings, pored over government documents, and recorded sessions between the miners and the psychologists charged with looking after their mental health. He conducted interviews with miners' families, rescue workers, engineers, drill operators, and many others, including President Piñera of Chile. Even before the miners were rescued, while they were still underground, Franklin interviewed them via a makeshift phone that connected them to the surface. 'I sat in this container where you could pick up a phone, dial eleven, and the phone would ring down below,' says Franklin."

For a chance to win, just leave a comment below, and tell us what you're reading this week.

Meanwhile, congratulations to Lori of The Next Best Book Blog, who won last week's giveaway: T.C. Boyle's "When the Killing's Done."

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Categories: Freebie Friday
        

The Baltimore Sun's Mary Carole McCauley, who often writes about books, attended a weekend reading by Jonathan Franzen, and kindly provided this guest post. Here's her dispatch -- accompanied by a photo of her cats Caliban (L) and Grendel (R): In his acclaimed novel, “Freedom,” Franzen persuasively – and it must be admitted, hilariously – describes the escalating war between Walter, a dedicated bird-watcher, and Bobby the cat. The battle of wills ends when Walter cat-naps Bobby and drives him to an animal shelter in a distant city. So, when Franzen stopped by Washington’s National Cathedral, I asked the writer, who has spoken out many times on the plight of native songbirds, if he had anything he wished to confess.

Franzen grimaced, but was game.

“Let’s say that I was peripherally involved with some conspirators,” he said. “Never mind where. There was a problematic neighbor with a problematic cat. I like cats – indoors. Some, like this particular cat, are killing machines.

“Over time, I was gradually becoming less than peripherally involved. It occurred to me that maybe we should stop, because if we got caught, it would be pretty bad press. Also, my partner, Kathy – the Californian—feels strongly about people’s connection to their pets. So I thought, ‘Why don’t I write about this instead?”

Luckily, the writer has a sense of humor about his own obsessions. After the book-signing, when I asked Franzen to make out a copy of “Freedom” to Caliban and Grendel, my two cats, he complied without a murmur.

Franzen was in town on behalf of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. After reading for about 30 minutes from his new novel, he took questions from the audience . Refreshingly, and though he must have answered the same questions many times before, the author avoided the temptation to be glib. Though Franzen sometimes began an answer with a quip, he would almost visibly stop himself. Standing with his legs wide apart and his brow furrowed, he made the effort to engage. Here’s what he had to say:

On his visit earlier Friday to a prison book club, where he met with teen-aged boys: “It was the most intense, and best experience. There were a couple of kids kept in solitary confinement, who looked out through this narrow slot, and I was able to talk to them. One slipped some poems out through the slot that were incredibly moving and heart-stoppingly good. I left feeling terribly sad, but not hopeless.”

On his writing process: “I go through fits of agony, basically. The short answer is that character comes first, and character is dramatically defined -- what they want, what they’re aiming for.

“After a while, I’ll have stacks of failed attempts of one or five or twenty pages each. But, when you’ve got a thousand pages of false starts, you start to see patterns in your failures. Character magically starts to coalesce. You keep coming back to Walter’s blush or his giggle.”

On calling his book, “Freedom”: “I slapped the title on a book proposal because I thought it was going to be a short, comic novel about a love triangle, and I didn’t want them to think that it was all fluff. I thought if I put a grandiose title on it, they’d bid accordingly.”

[Then the author got serious.]

“But, the title has to do with my own attempt to free myself. One has this kind of oppressive shame about certain memories. You kind of walk around burdened. I kept imagining that I could somewhat liberate myself if I managed to write about certain things.”

On the relationship in “Freedom” between longtime best friends Walter and Richard: “I really wanted to write about competition. I knew from having been in a long marriage [to the writer Valerie Cornell] what it’s like to be in a long term relationship that’s very loving but also very competitive. In our society, we have this unbridled joy in winning, and that doesn’t take into account that in competitions, people lose.

“So much of literature stems from the sense of failure. Writers are interested in limits, we’re interested in failure and we’re interested in loss.”

On whether the old-fashioned medium of books will survive the electronic age: “Your guess is as good as mine. But, there is research that confirms that the permanence of print, the ireradicability of words on the page, is part of the transaction of reading. There’s a need for substance that books can provide.”

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Reports from ABC News and other outlets reports that Dwayne McDuffie, a well-known comics writer, creator and industry pioneer, has died. McDuffie will be remembered for characters such as Static Shock, and for advancing the cause of minorities -- on the page and in the comics business.

Dan DiDio, co-publisher of DC Entertainment, said McDuffie "left a lasting legacy on the world of comics that many writers can only aspire to. He will not only be remembered as the extremely gifted writer whose scripts have been realized as comic books, in television shows and on the silver screen, but as the creator or co-creator of so many of the much-loved Milestone characters, including Static Shock. The industry has lost a true talent."

McDuffie, who was born in Detroit, studied at the University of Michigan and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. After building a successful career as an animator, he co-founded Milestone Media in 1993. As Comic Book Resources noted, he was "a voice in the industry for diversity, particularly fighting against stereotypical portrayals of people of color on the comic book page. ... The company's mission statement involved expanding the role of minorities in comics both on the page and off ... "

That year, McDuffie told The Sun that Milestone's goal was to tell entertaining stories that deal with teen pregnancy, gay-bashing, welfare, anorexia and the like without being preachy. "For me, the fun of this is making the superheroes the fantasy element and making everything else close [to reality] so you can identify with it."

He also hoped that his company's mission would one day become obsolete. He told The Sun. "If we do this well ... Marvel and DC and Valiant and Image will look at their lineups and say, 'Well, why do the next six heroes have to be white males?' At the point where everyone's universe will be so diversified that that's no longer an issue, the only thing that will be left is us doing better stories than them. That's where I'd like us to be in five years. We're basically trying to make the need that caused us to arise vanish and then it's just, 'OK, let's do some good comics.' "

Rest in peace, Dwayne.

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As a long-time, long-suffering fan of the N.Y. Knicks pro basketball team, I welcomed the news that the team had acquired young star Carmelo Anthony, one of the many great players to come out of the Baltimore area. (He played at Towson Catholic not too long ago.) But like many Knicks fans with long memories, I'm a little leery of superstar signings, because they often promise more than they yield.

I still recall the heroics of the 1969-70 championship team led by Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere and Bill Bradley, which was much, much greater than the sum of its parts.

So for the first road trip, I'd suggest the Anthony -- and the other players who are joining the Knicks in the big trade -- read a bit of basketball history. There's no better place to start than "A Sense of Where You Are," John McPhee's classic about Bradley's college days at Princeton. McPhee is one of my favorite writers, and has an amazing range, from basketball to geology to oranges to shad. 

Here's an excerpt, from the Macmillan website: "After watching Bradley play several times, even when he was eighteen, it seemed to me that I had been watching all the possibilities of the game that I had ever imagined, and then some. His play was integral. There was nothing missing. He not only worked hard on defense, for example, he worked hard on defense when the other team was hopelessly beaten. He did all kinds of things he didn't have to do simply because those were the dimensions of the game."

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The New York Daily News is reporting that Perry Moore, executive producer of the hit "Chronicles of Narnia" movie trilogy, was found dead in his apartment on Thursday after an apparent overdose. In addition to his great work adapting the C.S. Lewis books, Moore was an author himself. He wrote "Hero," about a gay teen superhero who struggles in a homophobic society -- a novel that must have made the book-banners blanch.

R.I.P. Perry.

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This week, you have a chance to win "When the Killing's Done," a new novel by T.C. Boyle. He won great acclaim (and lots of book club referrals) for "The Women," which revolved around the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, but he has many other successes, including "The Tortilla Curtain," a compelling look at the immigration issue in southern California.

Here's an excerpt from the Los Angeles Times' review of his latest: Mudslides, earthquakes, floods, fires — nothing quite gets T.C. Boyle's juices going like a natural disaster putting his characters through the wringer. His new novel, "When the Killing's Done," opens with an action set piece that is unusually fraught and tense even by the author's nearly apocalyptic standard.

For a chance to win, leave a comment with an answer to this question: Now that Borders has declared bankruptcy, what do you think will happen to the chain, and will it affect you?

And let's not forget to congratulate John, the winner of "A Widow's Story" in last week's giveaway.

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Local writer Rosalia Scalia stopped by Atomic Books recently for a book launch and reading of "Kiss Me, Stranger" by local author Ron Tanner. Here's her direct-to-Read-Street report on the illustrated novel (Thanks Rosalia!):

"Kiss Me, Stranger" offers a tragic, but comical commentary on war, violence, and consumerism as the narrator, Penelope, holds her family of 14 children together despite the civil war raging around them in their small country built atop a landfill.

“I wrote the first draft of this book about 10 years ago when I was going through a horrible divorce," Tanner told the standing room only crowd. "Every night, I’d go home to my sublet apartment and escape into this world because it was a safe haven as I was trying to hold everything together while everything around me fell apart. The family in this book prevails even while everything around them is falling apart.”

During the reading, he held up posters, artwork of his own illustrations, and he gave away artifacts and passed out pieces of “Presidential Toffee,” a candy that plays a role in the novel. The book contains more than 50 whimsical drawings depicting the darker objects and scenarios of the novel’s imagined world. Aside from the Presidential Toffee, there’s the Minotaur, a small car designed, manufactured and sold by the President despite its constant penchant to break down; the “mimi,” or rocket bombs that scream past, among others.

“Ron is a Renaissance man and one of the funniest serious men I’ve ever met,” said Clarinda Harriss, poet, Baltimore icon, and the force behind BHB Inc., a local press. “This book is hilarious but you can’t read it without thinking about what’s being reported on CNN every night.”

Penelope’s husband and son have been drafted by opposing factions, leaving her and the rest of the children to fend for themselves. The novel’s dark humor explores the absurdity of war: the interchangeable factions wear pots for helmets and shoes consisting of milk cartons taped together with duct tape. The Metal Man also wears a pot helmet and comes daily to collect metals from Penelope and her nearly starving family which is forced to scavenge for scrap consisting of discarded consumer good in the bombed out city.

The novel’s opening line thrusts the reader directly into the absurdity: “Unbeknownst to the children, I added wood shavings to their turnip stew last night: pine to be exact, which I grated meticulously as if it were hard cheese.” Despite their deprivation, Metal Man forces them to turn over anything metal that can be melted into bullets. Then Penelope slaps the Metal Man when he makes an unreasonable request, an act that leads to her arrest and subsequent escape, sending her and her family literally into the landfill where the stupidity and absurdity of war collides with the destructive absurdity of modern consumerism.

“What a contradiction! The book is dark, makes us feel an interesting tension between dream and nightmare. As dark as it is, it’s also so charming that we don’t want to wake up,” said Kathy Flann, organizer of the Atomic Fiction series and a faculty member at Goucher College.

James Magruder, author of "Sugarless," bought the book at Atomic. “I haven’t read it yet but I’m looking forward to it. I read Ron’s previous book, Bed of Nails, in which he gets us to glimpse his unique vision of the world that is both darkly funny and tender at the same time.”

Tanner, known to some as the drummer in the musical group Jazz Caravan and to others as a writing professor at Loyola University, has won numerous awards for his fiction, including a Faulkner Society Gold Medal, a Pushcart Prize, a New Letters Award first prize, a Best of the Web award, among others. His stories have appeared in dozens of literary magazines and his collection of short stories, "Bed of Nails," won both the G.S. Sharat Chandra Award and the Towson Prize for Literature.

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As we noted earlier this morning, Borders has filed for bankruptcy protections from its creditors, and has announced plans to close about a third of its 500-plus stores. The Baltimore area has been spared, though Read Street readers may be familiar with other area stores that got the bad news. Here are the Maryland and Washington, D.C., stores on the hit list:

11301 Rockville Pike, Kensington

4420 Mitchellville Road, Bowie

931 Capital Centre Blvd., Largo

1801 K Street, Washington

5333 Wisconsin Ave., Washington

Publishers Weekly has the complete list.

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The move gives Borders room to breathe and cut its debt, but unless the company can regroup in a hurry, it may never regain prominence. And any time a big competitor drops out of an industry, consumer choice is cut -- which is usually bad. Today, though, the loss of Borders and its stores will have less impact because digital books have become so popular. Borders wasn't a huge player online, and pricing competition has been driven by retailers such as Amazon and Walmart. As more and more folks buy e-readers, that market will increase rapidly, and Borders will be missed less and less.

Sales at Borders declined by double-digit percentage rates in 2008, 2009 and in each quarter in 2010 it has reported, according to Reuters. Borders, which has 6,100 full time staff, operates 508 namesake superstores as well as a chain of smaller Waldenbooks stores. No word yet on the fate of Baltimore-area stores; I'll keep you posted as the details trickle out.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

It's easy to get caught up in the Westminster dog show, the annual highlight in New York for the Westminster Kennel Club.

The dogs all look amazing -- who wouldn't after a day at the spa and hairdresser? During the telecasts it's fun to learn about each breed's origins -- and to speculate on the personalities of the contenders in each class.

But let's not forget the dogs that don't quite make it to Madison Square Garden, those that lack the exact standards set up for each breed, or that (dare we say it?) are mutts. My family's standard poodle, Poppy, was purchased from a breeder who said the dog was a "bad black," meaning she lacked the deep color of a champ. Still, Poppy was a great dog (she died a couple of years ago), and as a pet, I'd put her up against any of the Westminster entries. Plus, as you can see, she could read!

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Now that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned, the country is likely to be headed for weeks, months or years or turmoil. There will be a rush to fill the political power vacuum, so let's hope it doesn't get ugly -- and bloody. Meanwhile, if you want to brush up on your knowledge of the country, its modern history, culture and people, here are some suggestions:

"Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution" by John R. Bradley

"Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam, and Democracy in the Arab World" by Bruce K. Rutherford

The Cairo Trilogy: "Palace Walk," "Palace of Desire" and "Sugar Street" by Naguib Mahfouz

"The Yacoubian Building: A Novel" by Alaa Al Aswany

"The Cheapest Nights" by Yusuf Idris

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For Freebie Friday this week, you have a chance to win Joyce Carol Oates' new memoir, "A Widow's Story." She describes her shock and pain in early 2008, when she took her husband of 46 years to the emergency room at Princeton Medical Center. He was admitted with a diagnosis of pneumonia, and less than a week later -- even as Oates was preparing for his discharge -- he died of an infection.

Here's more from the publisher, Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins: As never before, Joyce Carol Oates shares the derangement of denial, the anguish of loss, the disorientation of the survivor amid a nightmare of "death-duties," and the solace of friendship. She writes unflinchingly of the experience of grief—the almost unbearable suspense of the hospital vigil, the treacherous "pools" of memory that surround us, the vocabulary of illness, the absurdities of commercialized forms of mourning. Here is a frank acknowledgment of the widow's desperation—only gradually yielding to the recognition that "this is my life now."

For a chance to win, just leave a comment about what you're reading this week.

Meanwhile, let's congratulate Gail Farrelly, the winner of "Endgame," our most recent giveaway. The biography of chess genius Bobby Fischer chronicles his rise to world champion -- and his descent into paranoia.

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Categories: Freebie Friday
        

Just finished "War," Sebastian Junger's inside look at a group of soldiers fighting at a remote outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. It's a compelling look at the brutality and craziness of war-time, when both intense combat and periodic lulls come with their own special dangers. (His work was also made into the documentary "Restrepo," whose trailer is shown here.)

Fighting can bring sudden death from a sniper's rifle, a roadside bomb or a trailside ambush. But the quiet and tension that build between battles also can challenge the soldiers' sanity, as Junger shows.

Junger, who also wrote "The Perfect Storm," does his best work exploring the soldiers' feelings, trying to explain fear, anger, brotherhood -- and incredible feats of heroism. One enemy ambush left several Americans dead or wounded, and triggered an act of bravery that led to a Congressional Medal of Honor. If you watched the Super Bowl, you may have seen the recipient, Sal Giunta, being applauded by the thousands of fans in the stands.

If you've never been in battle, this book will give provide plenty of insight, and leave you with a better understanding of the people fighting for the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a quick read -- and well worth the time.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

If you haven't Googled anyone or anything today, take a look at the main search page, where the Google logo has been transformed in honor of the birthday of author Jules Verne.

Verne gave us many sci-fi classics, including "Around the World In Eighty Days," "Journey to the Center of the Earth," and "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," which got special treatment from Google.

The familiar Google logo has been customized with fish and other sea creatures -- cool enough. But it also includes a lever that allows you to control the motion of the logo, moving it in various directions, an awesome innovation. Take 'er down, mate!

Google doodler Jennifer Hom said in a blog post that her first encounter with 20,000 Leagues "sent my imagination into hyper drive. I first found the novel while browsing through a random aisle in my local library. The cover was dark, murky and a little worn—but it was the most spectacular thing I’d ever seen. A pair of old-fashioned divers drag their feet over the ocean floor, watching a school of fish drift by. They don’t seem to notice the twisting silhouette of a monster inching toward them. ... Looking back, I realize that what fascinated me most was the unknown: a creative spark and the imaginative exploration that followed."

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Last night's game between the Packers and Steelers was a classic, with lots of subplots, but there was plenty of competition for the top Super Bowl commercials. Bud Light, as usual, provided some fun with the "product placement" spot, and the Doritos house sitter ad was good, too.

But my winner is the VW ad featuring a little kid dressed up as Darth Vader. It perfectly captures every kid's dream for world domination -- yet does it in a charming way. I though the ad was hilarious; my wife described it as cute. Either way, it's #1 on my list this year. (Added points for actually being effective in making you recall the product.)

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Freebie Friday has been on hiatus for a few weeks -- demands of a new assignment have slowed my postings -- but is back today with a chance to win "Endgame," a biography of Bobby Fischer. Frank Brady recounts the remarkable rise of Fischer, including the 1972 World Championship against Soviet Boris Spassky, which captivated both nations and much of the world. (You can read an excerpt here.) Years later, Fischer's tightly-wound personna unraveled, and he was reduced to a paranoid anti-Semite, shunned by those who once admired him.

Amazon guest reviewer Dick Cavett said, "In Brady’s telling the high drama of the Spassky match quickens the pulse; the contest that made America a chess-crazed land was seen by more people than the Superbowl. People skipped school and played sick in vast numbers, glued to watching Shelby Lyman explain what was happening. The fanaticism was worldwide. The match was seen as a Cold War event, with the time out of mind chess-ruling Russian bear vanquished.

"Arguably the best known man on the planet at his triumphant peak, Bobby is later seen in this account riding buses in Los Angeles, able to pay his rent in a dump of an apartment only because his mother sent him her social-security checks. The details of all this are stranger than fiction, as is nearly everything in the life of this much-rewarded, much-tortured genius."

For a chance to win "Endgame," post a comment about your favorite sports book (chess counts).

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

This is Day Two of The Daily, the newspaper created specifically for the iPad, and so far, I'm impressed.

I've said many times that books, newspaper and magazines must adapt to the iPad, rather than simply repackage content that was designed for a print or web audience. The iPad's startling display, portability and video capabilities make it much more of an entertainment device than a laptop, and that's what media companies need to address.

And that's what I like about The Daily -- the way it integrates text, video and other multimedia features. News Corp. has built a publication that is much more attractive and innovative than the iPad versions of newspapers. It's not perfect. You won't need hours to read it, and as PC Magazine noted, the reporting is not as deep as The New York Times. Others have questioned whether it is out of step with iPad viewing habits, which tend to clump in the evening, rather than the morning.

But the navigation options -- including a "carousel" of stories that takes advantage of the touch screen -- is slick. The photos are sharp, and the ads are enticing. Keeping it fresh every day will be a big challenge. But it's a promising start.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

In a bid to capitalize -- literally -- on the protests in Egypt, a publisher has moved up the release date of Mohammed ElBaradei's book, "The Age of Deception." The international release, orginally scheduled for June, has been shifted to April 26th, "due to recent events and bookseller demand," publisher Macmillan said.

It's great that we won't have to wait so long to hear ElBaradei's take on nuclear proliferation and his time as director general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency. I just wish the book could include some of the intrigue taking place in Egypt right now. If ever there was a need for e-books -- works that can be prepared and distributed quickly -- this is it.

Here's how Macmillan describes the book: "For the first time, the Nobel laureate and "man in the middle" of the planet's most explosive confrontations speaks out—on his dealings with America, negotiations with Iran, and the prospects for a nuclear-free future."

When the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency elected an unknown lawyer as its director, few could have predicted the role Mohamed ElBaradei would play in the most high-stakes conflicts of our time. Contending with the Bush administration's assault on Iraq, the nuclear aspirations of North Korea, and the West's standoff with Iran, ElBaradei emerged as a lone independent voice, unique in maintaining credibility in the Arab world and the West alike. For their efforts to control nuclear proliferation, ElBaradei and his agency received the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

Now, in a vivid and thoughtful account, ElBaradei takes us inside the nuclear fray. Inspector, consultant, and carrier of messages, he moves from Baghdad, where Iraqi officials bleakly predict the coming war, to behind-the-scenes exchanges with Condoleezza Rice, to the streets of Pyongyang and the trail of Pakistani nuclear smugglers. He dissects the possibility of rapprochement with Iran, all the while rejecting hard-line ideologies of every kind, decrying an us-versus-them approach, and insisting on the necessity of relentless diplomacy. "We have no other choice," ElBaradei says, "the other option is unthinkable."

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For Black History Month, the Smithsonian Institution has provided a peek at a real American treasure: Harriet Tubman’s personal hymnal, from 1876.

Tubman was born into slavery in Dorcester County on the Eastern Shore, and married a free black man. She settled in Philadelphia and became known as the "Moses" of her people, leading hundreds of slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad. After the Civil War, she fought for wonen's rights, and died in 1913 in Auburn, N.Y., where she is buried.

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

As Black History Month 2011 begins, I thought back to some of the books I read last year on the topic -- and a few that I missed. Here's a short list of recommendations, including two favorites, bios of Louis Armstrong and Willie Mays, who lived through the Civil Rights era but stayed mostly on the sidelines of the major upheavals. Still, their stories provided insight into the turmoil gripping America in those days. (I don't have a good book on the topic on my nightstand right now, so suggestions are welcome.)

"Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend" by James S. Hirsch.

"Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong" by Terry Teachout.

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot.

"The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" by Isabel Wilkerson.

"The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates" by Wes Moore.

Enjoy!

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)