Annotation (Historical Fiction):Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

(NOTE: I apologize for the lateness of this post. I had technology problems all weekend that could not be resolved, so I had to wait until I could come to the library.)

Bibliographical Information

Title: Ragtime

Author: E.L. Doctorow

Genre: Historical fiction

Historical Period / Geographical Area: Early 20^th Century New York City

Publication Date: January 1975

Number of Pages: 270

Synopsis

Blending fiction and history is not an easy task, but E.L. Doctorow is seemingly a master at it and Ragtime is easily his most recognizable work. The central focus of the novel is the narrator’s wealthy suburban family simply referred to “Father,” “Mother,” and “Mother’s Younger Brother” as he reminisces to his youth in the years before America’s entry into the First World War. The family has made its wealth through the manufacture of American flags and fireworks. Into their lives comes Coalhouse Walker, his son, and his son’s mother. Despite initial prejudice on part of the narrator’s family, they come to find common enjoyment in Coalhouse’s playing of ragtime music. Intertwined with their story is the depiction of tenement life and the “rags-to-riches” story of Tateh, an Eastern European immigrant who sheds his social beliefs and embraces capitalist entrepreneurship. Following a tragic encounter with racist firemen, Coalhouse is driven to violence and the narrator’s family finds itself as participants and mediators in a standoff situation. Eventually, Tateh finds himself a part of the narrator’s new multiracial family, which leaves New York for California.

Characteristics of Historical Fiction

Ragtime features several characteristics of the historical fiction genre.

• Even though the major characters in the novel are fictional, there are numerous historical figures that play a direct role in the story. These characters include Booker T. Washington, Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, and JP Morgan.
• The novel presents its setting in a particular place and time, and uses timely dialogue that seems pluck from newspapers and stories of the day.
• The themes of race, gender, American cultural identity, economic inequality, poverty, and sexuality are certainly explored in a manner that is representative of the historical period that was called the Progressive Era.
• The author uses actual historical events to frame the microcosm the plot explores.

Read-a-likes

Dreamland by Kevin Baker

John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead

Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks

The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers

Home by Toni Morrison

Week 11 Prompt: Ebooks and Audiobooks have a place, but they're not for me

(NOTE: I apologize for the lateness of this post. I had technology problems all weekend that could not be resolved, so I had to wait until I could come to the library.)

The appeal of ebooks and audiobooks cannot be denied; our modern world’s demands on time and attention place strain on free time for recreational reading. Ebooks give people of all ages the ability to take thousands of books anywhere. Commuters can make traffic and public transportation more productive.

However, the change in physical medium in books may reduce the value of the written word. The recording industry has seen the value of music decrease dramatically over the past decade. iTunes and the Play Store have allowed people to purchase songs they like on the go and be able to stream on nearly any device imaginable. As physical album sales have dwindled and been replaced by digital purchase of single songs, music has a smaller mindshare in popular culture. People now place less value on music, both economic and personal. As ebooks reduce in price to their printed counterpart and a new generation of authors is selling ebooks on Amazon for mere pennies, books may become less valuable to readers.

With the ability to change fonts, even the intended tone of books can change with the preferences of the reader. Serif fonts, like Times, give the reader a more classical print, placing an almost subconscious heft to words. Sans serif fonts, like Helvetica, are cleaner and are not common in printed books for adults. There are several books that use fonts to indicate a character’s tone, mindset, or internal voice vs. dialogue. And with the changing in line spacing, pagination may change with the preferences of the reader. As such, revelations and important occurrences that may take place at the beginning or end of a page may be tucked into the middle of a page as determined by the spacing, font type, and font size dictated by the reader. This can change a revelatory moment in a book into a minor moment that may be lost. Audiobooks can also change the impact and meaning of words. The moment the written word becomes the spoken word, whether the speaker is the author or not, readers become listeners and what was once imagined and interpreted is now disseminated from audio effects, tonal shifts, and music.

The appeals of ebooks are incredibly numerous. It provides readers even more relief in protecting the privacy of their readings as they do not have to be embarrassed by book jackets or book topics. This is one reason books like Fifty Shades of Grey became mega popular with the increased proliferation of ereaders and tablets. Along with Goodreads, reading has become even more social with Buy It Now features through Amazon.  The appeal of audiobooks are also numerous. Through steaming options like Hoopla and Audible, audiobooks make sense in this era of streamable media through personal devices.

Ebooks and audiobooks are now part of the literary landscape whether we like it or not. 
Personally, I will not replace my books with either option because I wholeheartedly value the books on my personal bookshelf and those in my library and I see my digital books as less valuable due to the space they take up in my home. But we can and should completely understand the multitude of reasons readers who enjoy the convenience of either format.

Observations of the Starry Night Book Club

            I am currently a member of two book clubs: my library’s young adult book club, which is open to patrons ages 14 to 24, and the Association of Library and Information Science Students’ monthly book club. Both groups are inclusive and extremely dynamic in their discussions. Both groups are also smaller in size, usually having between four and seven people in attendance. The books they choose are also dynamic and content and format agnostic. Young adult, children’s, and adult books have all been discussed each month. However, I wanted to observe a group that I am not a member of to determine things I could do better in my current and future book clubs.

            On March 12, 2015, I observed my library’s monthly night book club, the Starry Night Book Club, for the first time. It is organized by the library’s adult reference librarian, who is tasked with obtaining copies for all members and for scheduling book moderators for each meeting. Membership is capped at twenty to keep the reference librarian from interlibrary loaning too many copies of any single book and to keep conversation robust without overlap. Two years ago, an influx of new prospective members led many older members who did not like to stay up late to begin a daytime book club: the Afternoon Delight Book Club.

            As a passive observer who was well known to patrons, I felt comfortable being around friendly, recognizable faces. Yet, I would have felt out of place instantly if I was not a staff member. Of the thirteen people in attendance, only two were younger than retirement age, and those two are staff members in their early twenties.

            At the start of the book club meeting, the reference librarian went over some unfinished business from the previous meeting regarding moving book club meetings up an hour to allow for more discussion. Many of the members wanted to meet until after the library closed, but the reference librarian stated that was not an option. Despite their disappointment, the other member s of the club began their discussion of the book Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow.

            The reference librarian provided snacks consistent with the era as Scott Joplin played softly in the background. The atmosphere for engaging conversation was top notch. The patron-moderator began the book discussion with a biography and bibliography of E.L. Doctorow. Unfortunately, this stopped any conversation from getting started. I am a fan of E.L. Doctorow, but his other books are not as acclaimed as Ragtime. Any conversation about exploring his bibliography should be held to the end. This is due to members who haven’t finished the book or didn’t initially like the book may be convinced to give it another shot.

            For this meeting, it appears that the short month between meetings kept many members from finishing the novel. Because of this, only five or six members of the group engaged in discussion surrounding the book while other members threw out generalities about the parts of the story they did read. This stilted conversation could have been boosted from watching a brief interview with the author about his work (such as this interview with Charlie Rose).

            With a better moderator and perhaps another week, this book club would have been a rousing experience. I fear that next month will not fare too much better, considering they will be discussing Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent.

Special Topics Paper - More Than Just Panels: An Introduction to Adult Graphic Novel Readers' Advisory

            Since the dawn of the written word, accepted storytelling methodologies have gone through countless revisions. Today’s graphic novels represent a modern twist on the century-old medium of comics, which have foundations that are much older than just Superman and Batman. McCloud (2005), world renowned comic book auteur, noted that since the printed word in the 1400s, “all of the artifacts of modern comics start[ed] to present themselves: rectilinear panel arrangements, simple line drawings without tone and a left-to-right reading sequence” (9:55). Despite having been around since the Gutenberg Bible, comics have typically been looked down upon by librarians as “just trash” (Sheppard, 2007, p. 12). With unique stories that fit nearly every genre represented by publishers, and a plethora of talented artists and writers, graphic novels should be seen as important additions to every public library collection. This paper will serve as an introduction for novices at graphic novel readers’ advisory by presenting a handful of important graphic novels that epitomize several genres as well as possibilities for passive readers’ advisory and displays.

ALAN MOORE

Before exploring genres with excellent graphic novel representation, there is one graphic novel auteur that deserves special recognition. Of the dozens of authors and artists who are recognizable for consolidating consensus for graphic novels as a format of literature, none may be more identifiable than Alan Moore. Since 1978, his works have unified the previously separate mediums of comic books and literature. He has singlehandedly redefined graphic novels in horror, superhero, adventure, and dystopian genres of literature. During the 1980s, he penned three cornerstone graphic novels: V for Vendetta, Watchmen, and Batman: The Killing Joke. Any many ways, the three books, which were critical and financial successes, are representative of the wave of graphic novel revisionism that took place in the 1980s. All three books are extremely dark and explore moral and philosophical dilemmas regarding power, gender, and the state versus the people. V for Vendetta explores a British fascist police state that arises after a nuclear war in the 1980s. Its anarchist protagonist, only known as V, wears a Guy Fawkes mask and commits theatrical terrorism against the government to inspire the downtrodden people of Britain to revolt. Batman: The Killing Joke follows the origins of the Joker, the enigmatic, insane, and nihilistic mirror image of Batman. The novel is now remembered for crippling then-Batgirl Barbara Gordon in a scene of violence unlike anything seen in the medium prior.

            Moore’s magnum opus is without a doubt Watchmen. Grossman (2010), a prominent literature critic, included it in Time Magazine’s 100 best novels since 1923, noting it to be “with ambitions above its station” (para. 1). Watchmen is realistic portrayal of a world that has had costumed heroes since the Second World War, but has forced them into either retirement or forced servitude of the U.S. government. It reads as a mystery, science fiction thriller, and alternate history. It is usually brought up in conversation when discussing graphic novels as literature and tells a story that could not have been told in any other format.

            Since Watchmen, he went on to pen a critically acclaimed gothic horror From Hell, which speculated about the motives of Jack the Ripper, and the rousing Victorian-era superteam adventure The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which featured popular characters from that era’s literature in new adventures as a team tasked with protected the British Empire. These five books are excellent points of entry for adults wanting to start reading graphic novels, and are generally accepted by libraries across the United States to be important works of fiction and should be included in any adult fiction collection.

BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS

            Maus by Art Spiegelman is a highly revered work of nonfiction. In 1992, “it became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize” (Maus, n.d., para. 1). It recounts the horrors of the Holocaust through the postmodern technique of depicting people as animals; Jews are represented as mice, Germans as cats, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. In many ways, it is an extension of the “new journalism” exemplified by Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe. By not presenting a realistic portrayal of the Holocaust and his father, Spiegelman offers a multilayered story that tells as much between panels as it does inside.

Since the release and success of Maus, the graphic novel medium has become a hotbed for heartfelt, powerful memoirs and biographies, including Blankets, Our Cancer Year, Persepolis, Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, Epileptic, and Fun Home. These graphic novels are distinctly different in terms of reliability, morality, philosophy, and geography.

There is no shortage of amazing graphic novel memoirs of youth and family. Craig Thompson’s hauntingly beautiful black and white Blankets is a bildungsroman autobiography that depicts his struggles with growing up in a Baptist home while balancing out first love, spirituality, and his relationship with his brother. Harvey Pekar, famous for his American Splendor books of the 1980s, wrote Our Cancer Year with his wife Joyce Brabner. It is a stark and harrowing graphic novel following Harvey’s bout with testicular cancer, the painful treatment needed to save his life over the course of a year, and their decision to adopt a child. David Beauchard’s Epileptic also explores the impact illness has on family. As the author’s brother starts to lose his battle to severe epilepsy, the graphic novel slowly becomes more and more fantastical as the author retreats into his own imagination to deal with the fears they deal with on a daily basis.

Persepolis depicts Marjane Satrapi’s adolescence in Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, her young adult years in Europe, and early adulthood after returning to Iran through both humor and sadness. It is one of the most successful and respected post-revolution literary portrayals of Iranian culture and life. If Persepolis provided an intimate portrayal of misunderstood country and society, Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea is a descent into the madness and absurd of totalitarian North Korea. He witnesses the cult of personality firsthand through the ubiquitous brainwashing of the nation’s citizens, all of whom are healthy and young. Delisle is left to wonder where the country’s old and disabled, to which he is told that all Korean’s are born strong, healthy, and virile. Perhaps the best post-Maus graphic memoir is Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel. It recounts her childhood in rural Pennsylvania and her bond with her father. The book explores the author’s sexual orientation as well as gender roles and suicide within her family. It has become a resounding critical success that has generated controversy in some states, but has been embraced by those in culture studies.

LITERARY FICTION

While it may seem counterintuitive to include graphic novels into literary fiction, there are a multitude of graphic novels that are believed to hold considerable literary merit. Love and Rockets started as a science fiction fueled spectacle over thirty years ago, and it now has well over twenty graphic novel volumes in print. It was a pioneer in developing a uniquely Latin American voice in comics and popular culture. Brothers Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez have been writing Love and Rockets intermittently and independently from one another since the early 1980s. Gilbert’s stories are fantastical and feature a cast of characters from a Mexican village. Jaime’s stories feature two primary characters: Maggie Chascarrillo and Hopey Glass, who are best friends and, from time to time, lovers. While their stories are wildly different, they touch upon literary notions of love, friendship, community, race and family.

Cult classic Ghost World, by Daniel Clowes, addressed popular culture and the monotony of everyday life from the perspective of two cynical teenaged girls. Deeply embedded into the realm of dark comedy, the bildungsroman Ghost World seems as if it should have been written by Woody Allen. While this book is not recommended for everyone, its biting commentary on the absurdity of some aspects of life will work for some teenagers and those readers who appreciate books like A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

HORROR

            Horror is a genre that has long been seen in comics. Pulp horror comics of the 1940s and 1950s were routinely published for a generation of baby boomer boys who had no interest in the pre-war superheroes of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America. When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby revolutionized the superhero comic book in the 1960s, genre graphic novels were no longer popular with children or their parents. Since the evolution of the graphic novel in the 1980s, two horror graphic novels have transfixed audiences: The Sandman and The Walking Dead.

            Today, Neil Gaiman is one of the most respected authors in the world. American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book have won numerous accolades and are representative of some of the best science fiction and dark fantasy written in recent memory. Gaiman gained international renown with his Sandman series. While not horror in the strictest sense, The Sandman in many ways is the modern version of the gothic dark fantasy / horror of H.P. Lovecraft. The Sandman follows Dream of the Endless, also known as Morpheus, as he travels through the Endless aspects of reality, such as death, desire, and despair. It goes through a vast array of mythology and history in its pages.

            In stark contrast to The Sandman is extremely violent and horrific The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman’s ridiculously successful comic series that has spawned a television show and numerous video games. Following the outbreak of a deadly virus that infects the entire world’s population, the dead of humanity walk the earth feeding upon the flesh of the living. But rather than focus on the horrors of the “walkers,” Kirkman decides to explore the relationships of the humans that remain and the horrors that groups and communities inflict upon each other following the end of the world. He focuses on a group of survivors from around the area of Atlanta who make their way north to Alexandria, Virginia, encountering tyrants, rapists, and cannibals along the way to remaking civilization. Being on two ends of the horror spectrum, these two graphic novels are excellent entry points for fans of Stephen King and horror fiction in general.

SCIENCE FICTION

            Along with horror, science fiction was a regularly published comic genre in the immediate postwar years. In recent years, science fiction has made a huge comeback in graphic novels. While Black Hole, written by Charles Burns, sounds like a novel about space from the title alone, it is actually a story about a sexually transmitted disease that mutates teenagers in horrific and grotesque ways. Like all great genre fiction, Black Hole takes an element of a genre to make an important statement about society itself. In this case, Burns uses the disease to start a discussion about sexual awakening and being a social outcast.

            While Black Hole is a microcosm of science fiction, Y: The Last Man is epic science fiction unlike any other. Perhaps the best science fiction story of the last twenty years, Y: The Last Man follows the last man, Yorick Brown, and his pet male monkey after a mysterious disease kills off all mammals with a Y chromosome. The graphic novels world hops to understand how such a calamity would affect the world. Eventually, the reader begins to unravel the world politics and scientific espionage that caused the end of manhood to occur, and the moral ramifications of the end of “man.” It is easy to understand that this novel would be attractive for several types of readers, especially those who loved Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or other dystopian novels.

PASSIVE READERS’ ADVISORY

            Because of content and worries of controversy, many public libraries tuck adult graphic novels deep into the stacks and rarely promote the wealth of stories they contain. As a readers’ advisor, there are numerous ways to endorse the adult graphic novel collection for your patrons. Zellers (2012) states that a few ways to promote is to “place books face-out on the stands, include them in themed lists, and incorporate them into displays” (para. 5). Putting the graphic novels face out recreates the feeling of going to a comic book store, and it allows for the colorful covers to sell the books for the reader. Creating themed lists, such as “10 Horror Graphic Novels to Scare You This Halloween,” will attract readers and non-readers in the library to the collection. Incorporating one graphic novel out of every ten books in a display will demonstrate to readers of all genres that there are graphic novels for every genre, and most likely at least one that will speak to every reader. For example, if highlighting adventure novels, take the initiative to include The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and create a connection to each of the characters the book contains.

CONCLUSION

            Graphic novels need not be scary to readers’ advisors…even the scary ones like The Walking Dead. With a little work in reading about graphic novels, and maybe even read one or three, you can incorporate graphic novels into advising for every genre. Just like novels, they have read-alikes and important groundbreaking authors who revolutionize the medium with every book, such as Alan Moore. Even through passive methods of readers’ advisory, such as displays or even simply placing the books cover out will increase interest in the collection and its circulation.

REFERENCES

Grossman, L. (2010). Watchmen. Retrieved from

http://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/watchmen-1986-by-alan-moore-dave-gibbons/

Maus. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 4, 2015, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus

McCloud, S. (2005). The visual magic of comics [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics?language=en#t-707503

Sheppard, A. (2007). Graphic novels in the library. Arkansas Libraries, 64(3), 12-16.

Zellers, J. (2012). Graphic nonfiction readers’ advisory. Retrieved from

http://www.ebscohost.com/novelist/novelist-special/graphic-nonfiction-readers-advisory

APPENDIX

These are the graphic novels detailed in the paper that represent great entry points for readers and non-readers alike.

B, D. (2005). Epileptic. New York: Pantheon Books.

Bechdel, A. (2006). Fun home: A family tragicomic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Brabner, J., Pekar, H., & Stack, F. (1994). Our cancer year. New York: Four Walls Eight

Windows.

Burns, C. (2005). Black hole. New York: Pantheon Books.

Clowes, D. (2001). Ghost world. Seattle, Wash: Fantagraphics.

Delisle, G., & Dascher, H. (2005). Pyongyang: A journey in North Korea. Montréal,

Quebec: Drawn & Quarterly.

Gaiman, N., Kieth, S., Dringenberg, M., Jones, M., Klein, T., Busch, R., Vozzo, D., ... McKean, D. (1995). The sandman: Preludes & nocturnes. New York: DC Comics.

Hernandez, G., Hernandez, J., Hernandez, M., & Fantagraphics Books. (1982). Love

and rockets. Stamford, CT: Fantagraphics Books.

Kirkman, R., & Moore, T. (2005). The walking dead: [Vol. 1]. Orange, CA: Image

Comics.

Moore, A., Bolland, B., & Starkings, R. (2008). Batman: The killing joke. New York: DC

Comics.

Moore, A., & Gibbons, D. (1987). Watchmen. New York: DC Comics Inc.

Moore, A., Lloyd, D., Whitaker, S., Dodds, S., O'Connor, J., Craddock, S., Fell, E., ...

Weare, T. (2005). V for vendetta. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics.

Moore, A., Mullins, P., & Campbell, E. (2006). From hell: Being a melodrama in sixteen

parts. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions.

Moore, A., & O'Neill, K. (2000). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Vol. 1, 1898.

La Jolla, CA: America's Best Comics.

Satrapi, M. (2003). Persepolis. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Spiegelman, A. (1986). Maus: A survivor's tale. New York: Pantheon Books.

Thompson, C. (2003). Blankets: A graphic novel. Marietta, Ga: Top Shelf.

Vaughan, B. K., Guerra, P., Marzán, J., Rambo, P., & Robins, C. (2003). Y: The last

man : unmanned. New York, N.Y: DC Comics.

Annotation (Science Fiction): Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Bibliographical Information

Title: Ready Player One

Author: Ernest Cline

Genre: Science Fiction

Subgenre: Dystopian

Publication Date: August 2011

Number of Pages: 384

Synopsis

In this jargon filled, imaginative work, a student named Wade Watts lives his days escaping the bleak future by entering the OASIS, a global virtual network. In the real world, Wade is an orphan in the slums of Oklahoma. Within OASIS, Wade becomes his avatar, Parzival. His mission in this virtual reality is to find the “egg” left behind by OASIS’s creator, the late James Halliday. By finding the secrets, Wade would inherit the estate of Halliday and escape poverty. When he finds the first of three keys to the egg, Wade and his scavenging friends become targets of a multinational corporation hell-bent on obtaining the egg and the prize within. Drawing inspiration from a wealth of movies and games, including World of Warcraft, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Dungeons and Dragons, Ready Player One is a testament to everything geekdom. A science fiction novel that incorporates 1980s and 1990s nostalgia, Cline’s novel is a funny, offbeat, and rousing story aimed to please readers aged 12 to 40.

Characteristics of Science Fiction

Ready Player One features several characteristics of the science fiction genre.

• It is set in the near future after the world has failed to curb climate change and natural resources have become scarce. With its virtual reality called OASIS, the novel subtly explores several intellectual and social quandaries regarding reality vs. fantasy.
• The novel presents setting that is not too far from our own, with more advanced version of technologies like Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus, along with a more ubiquitous presence of the internet.
• Its language is comprised of technical and popular culture jargon that sets it apart from modern English and from other dystopian and cyberpunk novels.
• In the spectrum of tone, Ready Player One trends to the comic end along with novels like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the novels of Robert Asprin.
• With its electronic world of hyperactive communication, Cline’s novel is extremely fast paced and exciting.

Read-a-likes

Strange Flesh by Michael Olson

Insignia by S.J. Kincaid

For the Win by Cory Doctorow

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Moxyland by Lauren Beukes

Week Seven Prompt: Why a Media Mogul Shouldn't Have a Book Club

Between 1996 and 2010, Oprah’s Book Club was the biggest meal ticket in the literary world. Her stamp of approval easily meant an author’s work could go from copies in the tens of thousands into the hundreds of thousands or millions. I have long held mixed emotions regarding her book club; I see her club as opening America’s minds to literary fiction but closing her ardent followers minds to great genre fiction and silencing the important opinions from established outlets, bloggers, and readers’ friends and family. I believe William Faulkner to be a great author, but I do not believe everyone should feel compelled to read The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Light in August as she did in June 2005 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah%27s_Book_Club).

Once upon a time, I worked at a library that separated out their genre fiction from their literary fiction: meaning inspirational, mystery, science fiction, and western were shelved separately.  Oprah’s Book Club, which entry usually had numerous copies available to check out, was also shelved separately. No book was more popular than James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces. When it became a member of the club in October 2005, there were upwards to thirty people on hold for six or eight copies. For over three months. Rather than reading diverse readings, this community enthralled by James Frey’s story of addiction and crime. When it came out that Frey had lied (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/million-little-lies), people weren’t so interested in reading his story except for the controversy surrounding his lies. To my recollection, after the story broke and the façade fell, A Million Little Pieces never saw more than one or two copies out at a time.

As a librarian, I wish people were not so enthralled by stories just because of one person’s opinion. At that time, Oprah’s Book Club being separated from other fiction and nonfiction kept people from exploring other options for their recreational reading. Memoirs and genre fiction of excellent quality went unread and were eventually weeded from the collection because of one media mogul’s impactful book club.