The link between energy use and national wealth, the consequences of our shrinking domestic oil refining capacity, new approaches to power generation using hydrocarbons, the reality of global dependence on hydrocarbons for decades to come, and the boom in new extraction methods and identified sources of natural gas (which has a lower carbon to hydrogen ratio than coal or oil) are all covered in this excellent primer on the energy industry today.

The Energy Imperative joins Sunroom Desk’s Glendale Bookshelf, as its co-author Leonard Kalfayan grew up in this area, graduated from Crescenta Valley High School and Occidental College, then got a Master’s in Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. He now works in Houston, is the inventor of several patents, and is recognized globally in the petroleum industry on expertise in enhancing production from oil, gas, and geothermal wells.

Those used to hearing “big oil” disparaged will be impressed by the history and technical accomplishments of the energy sector presented in this book. They might also be unpleasantly surprised that 80% of world oil reserves are owned exclusively by state-owned national oil companies, leaving the former “Super Majors” to focus attention on growth in extreme locations or through acquisitions.

At a level any educated reader can understand, the book explains the organic properties of oil, coal, and gas; where deposits of each are around the world; the methods used to extract, transport and refine them; the political dynamics of energy resource ownership; and the current infeasibility of replacing hydrocarbons with alternative/renewable energy sources on a large scale. One of the many impressive color charts is in the section on transport, covering the evolution of supertankers, and featuring the length of the tanker Knock Nevis compared to skyscrapers:

All fuels are not equal, maintain the authors. Coal is most abundant, with supplies “capable of meeting electricity needs for more than 250 years.” Fossil fuels have enormous versatility and can be processed for interchangeable use, but the lack of overlap uses reflects practical factors and suggests that finding alternative energy sources for power generation would currently save little oil.

Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) are used by a growing number of transportation fleets and industries. The book describes their advantages and disadvantages over crude oil, and explains how they are prepared and transported. A discussion of LNG:

By refrigerating the gas to minus 160° C (about minus 256° F) and pressurizing it very slightly, methane, the principal constituent of natural gas, is transformed into a liquid. It can then be loaded onto an LNG tanker and transported anywhere in the world.

The largest LNG tankers currently have capacities of about 250,000 cubic meters (about 1.6 million barrels) of LNG, equivalent to about 150 million cubic meters (about 5 billion cubic feet) of gaseous product. So, while this is a fairly efficient way to move large volumes of what might otherwise be ’stranded gas’ (gas that may be uneconomic to produce or too remote to justify a pipeline), it is still much more costly than shipping crude oil. It costs money to refrigerate the gas in the first place and to keep the LNG cold during shipment. The LNG tanks themselves must be made of special alloys to resist the cold temperatures and must be well insulated to minimize losses. Furthermore, LNG has a lower energy density than crude oil so an LNG tanker contains only two thirds the energy of an oil tanker of similar capacity.

Well drilling, technology, and transportation mechanisms for the resources are the subject of an entire chapter. Well stimulation methods such as hydraulic and acid fracturing are Kalfayan’s particular area of expertise. From Chapter 4:

Fracturing is gaining particular attention today because of its widespread and critical application in achieving economic production from gas shales. Gas shales are alumino-silicate rocks containing clay minerals and particles of quartz (silica), feldspar, calcite (calcium carbonate), dolomite(calcium-magnesium carbonate), and other minerals. Shales that hold natural gas (or more rarely, oil) are very low in permeability, but they are rigid and brittle and thus amenable to hydraulic fracturing and subsequent retention of open fractures after stimulation. They are also prolific natural gas producers…This makes shale gas fracturing one of the most exciting niches of pressure pumping services and represents the most recent boom industry within the oil services sector.

The authors provide a condensed history of oil refining and a cogent list of current challenges, including declining U.S. capacity and the tremendous challenge of assuring ROI and finding qualified people to run facilities. With respect to gas refining, the authors list its many component products, describe the process with illustrations, and conclude:

The most favorable aspect of natural gas processing relative to oil refining is that the adverse effects of oil refining are largely non-existent in natural gas processing. Gas processing is of lesser complexity than oil refining. Gas processing facilities are also of substantially lower cost than new refineries, more environmentally ‘benign,’ and expansion of capacity and capability (including in the US) is thus more realistic, worldwide.

The chapter on Power Generation discusses how coal and natural gas are used by power plants, and the technical and physical challenges of wind, solar, and geothermal alternatives. The authors suggest that energy could be saved and efficiency improved by using High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) lines carrying electricity from new power plants located right next to coal mines.

Further chapters discuss alternative fuels, pollution and the environment, and climate change, emphasizing throughout the realities of energy needs and the costs of imposing arbitrary restrictions on the energy sector.

Energy Future, the last chapter, discusses energy in a carbon constrained world. The authors call “alarmist” “astonishingly naive” and “transparently biased” the US National Academies of Science and Engineering 2009 report America’s Energy Future. Among their criticisms:

…even though [carbon capture and storage] would substantially increase the cost of electricity, it is portrayed in the Report as a panacea, and is recommended as one of the two technologies to test immediately by 2020 (the other being evolutionary nuclear power). of course, carbon capture is not the only component of CCS. Sequestration, which the AEF does not even tackle, is a far more cumbersome issue. And yet CCS is a presumption for the AEF report to allow continued use of fossil fuels from which 85% of primary energy is derived. Regarding nuclear technologies, the spent fuel issue is not discussed until the end of the Report.

…While the study charge list states ‘key environmental (including CO2 mitigation) impacts’ the Report focuses almost singularly on CO2, while downplaying other environmental issues, e.g., the effects of new technologies on water resources.

…It is a fatal flaw of this report that future technologies for fossil fuels are deliberately left out.

The better alternative, in the authors’ view, is capitalizing on new technologies that will increase the proportion of natural gas among hydrocarbon energy sources. An ultimate recovery estimate of 30,000 trillion cubic feet means a 300-year supply of natural gas, and increasing its use relative to other hydrocarbons means less oil dependency and less particulate pollution and carbon emissions.

The Energy Imperative concludes by celebrating the successful deployment of new technology for gaining access to tremendous reserves of shale gas. Anyone who wants to understand the global energy sector will find this book a great resource, and will gain an appreciation for the pioneering science and technology the industry has developed.

Co-author and La Crescenta resident Susan B. Stroh enjoyed writing this book, and Glendale librarian Lyda Truick enjoyed reading it. Truick recommends Change Your Postures Change Your Life in this Glendale News-Press review, and Sunroom Desk today adds the link and this documentation to its Sidebar featuring books published by Glendale-area authors.

An excerpt from Truick’s review:

I was pleasantly surprised to be reading an insightful, enlightening book about more than posture.

The book defines posture outside of the physical realm, delving into political, social and mental descriptions of posture and the effects of posture on your overall well-being.

Local author E.J. Stephens, a former board member of the Alex Film Society, will be at the Glendale Central Library Thursday night at 7 pm to talk about and sign copies of his book Early Warner Bros. Studios.

The book is part of Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series. It contains rare photos from the 1920s to the 1950s, and covers the history of Warner brothers Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack, who rose from humble beginnings to become Hollywood moguls.

Stephens, a former WB Studios worker, newspaper columnist and film series host, volunteers as a docent for the Warner Bros. Museum. His co-author is film historian and consultant Marc Wanamaker. An extended review of Early Warner Bros. Studios is posted at Examiner.com.

This FREE event is cosponsored by The Glendale Historical Society and the Friends of the Glendale Public Library. Free 3-hour parking is available at the Maryland parking garage – validation at the Library Circulation Desk.

Glendale Historical Society Flyer.

The faith and inspiration of Armenian Evangelicals who first led spiritual revivals in the Ottoman Empire and later led their communities through the chaos of massacres and genocide both shine in this new book, a collection of articles and essays by Glendale resident Rev. Barkev Darakjian.

Darakjian was born in Turkey but raised in Aleppo, Syria. A photo of his father, also an Armenian Evangelical pastor, with glasses and an open Bible, has served as a lifelong example – he died when Darakjian was still a baby. Because of the family’s financial straits, Darakjian quit school early and later opened a bookstore. His motto was to never sell a book without having read it first. Family and fellow church members, including this editor’s beloved grandmother, recognized his intellectual talents and ministerial gifts and urged him to return to school.

From mid-life, when he obtained a Near East School of Theology degree, to today in Glendale, California, Darakjian’s work has affirmed his calling. Armenian Evangelical Movement: History, Faith, and Mission contains knowledge gleaned from decades of personal research, work as a writer and editor for several Armenian Christian journals in the Near East and the United States, and years of Biblical study and preaching.

The book outlines Armenian Church history from ancient times, explaining how the Armenian Evangelical Church was forced to separate from the Armenian Apostolic Church in 1846. It also details the contributions of Evangelical Armenians to the intellectual life of their nation as well as the disproportionate losses they suffered during the genocide.

Darakjian names and honors outstanding leaders martyred by the Turks, but he also celebrates heroes who saved lives and helped form new communities among refugees. As Sunroom Desk indirectly noted awhile back, the resistance memorialized in The Forty Days of Musa Dagh was organized by Darakjian’s own father-in-law, Rev. Dikran Andreassian. Darakjian writes:

[He] received an order of deportation; however, through the mediation of the missionaries, he, together with his wife, were allowed to return to his hometown…Upon reaching their destination, [he] learned that the population of the five villages of Mussa Dagh would be deported within a few days. At a gathering of the community leaders, Andreassian recommended they consider the possibility of self-defense, rather than consenting to the order of deportation. Furthermore, he suggested moving the entire population to the nearby mountain top for defense and safety purposes, because the ocean, being at the foot of the mountain, would provide them with a way out, in case of extreme necessity. At the first meeting on the mountain top, Pastor Andreassian was unanimously elected as the Chief of the Defense Council. It was a precarious and very delicate position for a 27-year-old Minister of the word of God…However, his college education, short experience in Zeytoun, and God-given wisdom and courage provided to be great assets as he shouldered his duties.

Tributes to other heroes of the Armenian Evangelical Movement; chapters on the Confession of Faith, Women in the Early Church, Good Samaritans During and After the Armenian Genocide, John Calvin’s Doctrine of Election and Predestination and its limitations; and meditations on the role of Armenian Evangelicals in the diaspora and toward their nation complete the book.

Darakjian’s theme is revival and reconciliation. As a devoted student of his heritage, he calls on fellow evangelicals to fulfill their purpose in the opening chapter Identity Crisis:

In our quest for identity, we must face and accept the following realities: First, we are all God’s children created in His image. Second, through God’s providential act we have been counted as Armenian among the nations of the world. Third, God has been gracious to us by endowing us with the spirit of Christ by which we are called Christian. Four, God has given Armenians their Mother Church, which was originally founded on the teaching of the Apostles and the efforts of St. Gregory the Illuminator. Fifth, God has called the Armenian Evangelical Movement born within the bosom of the Mother Church and the Armenian nation to rekindle among them the Biblical message of salvation, and to revive in the Mother Church her early evangelistic spirit by which she had evangelized the historic Armenia and the neighboring lands. And finally, our calling and task today remain the same as those embraced by our founders: re-evangelizing our nation, and strengthening the evangelistic arm of the Mother Church both in Armenia and the Diaspora.

While only a slight percentage of Armenians worldwide, the Armenian Evangelical Church continues today with more than 30 congregations in the United States, including four affiliated churches in Glendale alone. Darakjian himself, now 85, often serves local congregations as a guest preacher, writes for Armenian journals, and continues reading and collecting books.

Also available from
Armenian Missionary Association of America
31 W. Century Road
Paramus NJ 07652
(201) 265-5607
amaa@amaa.org

This small selection from the dozens of stories in On Board is in advance of the author’s appearances in Glendale, on Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 3 p.m. at the Glendale Central Library to talk about his book, and on Monday, May 31, 2010, 9:30 a.m. as Keynote Speaker of the Glendale Memorial Day Ceremonies.

Ignatius’ autobiography is a perspective on modern American history from a man who had a significant part in shaping deals between defense contractors and U.S. military clients during WWII and the Cold War, and went on to hold high posts in the newspaper and airline industries.

Born in Glendale in 1920 to parents of Armenian descent, Paul R. Ignatius graduated from Hoover High School as class president in 1938, went on to USC, then entered Harvard Business School’s industrial administration and war production program which included a military commission. After his WWII Navy service, Ignatius completed his Harvard MBA, established a consulting firm, and was appointed to Pentagon posts culminating with his service as Secretary of the Navy during the Johnson Administration. After Nixon’s election, Ignatius segued into managing the Washington Post, then heading the Air Transport Association.

Student of modern American history and the “military-industrial complex” will be fascinated by the stories of his career ladder climb, and the issues he faced at different steps. Some of his ruminations in the book:

On procurement of bombs for Vietnam operations:

I was appalled by the amount of ordnance we were expending on a rural country with no well-established industrial base. On more than one occasion, I spoke to Army Secretary Resor about the huge quantities of artillery ammunition…

On the F-111:

I found myself in the middle of an emotionally charged controversy that had grown in intensity over a period of many months…The climate was so hot that even if the F-111B were an excellent airplane-which it was not-the Navy wouldn’t have wanted any part of it.

Ignatius began a short stint as President of the Washington Post after Nixon took office. His memories of publisher Katherine Graham and his approach to changing newsroom technology (!) and union press workers, offer fascinating anecdotes for students of print journalism history.

On “the newspaper business”:

For roughly six decades, from around 1890 to the middle 1950s, there were no significant changes in the post-Civil War technology…a quick walk through the Post composing room showed what was beginning to happen.

…How fast should we move into the promising new world? Who in the managerial ranks should direct the effort? How could we be sure that the anticipated savings would be realized?

It was easier to pose questions than to find the right answers.

In 2010, the word “profit” would replace “savings” in that last question, but as with his earlier career stories the issues Ignatius faced and how he dealt with them are still instructive today.

Ignatius went on to head a trade group, the Air Transport Association, and while he eschewed a typical lobbyist’s approach, he chose the job because it offered an intellectual challenge:

ATA had to forge industry views on complex operational and safety issues…

Five major problem areas dominated my period of service: hijacking and airline security; the air traffic controllers’ strike; fuel cost increases arising from the Arab oil embargo in 1983 and the Iranian Revolution in 1979; the battle over airline deregulation; and the persistent shortages of airport and airways capacity.

The whole book is a fascinating account of a 20th-century first generation Armenian-American’s success in the military, government, and business.

Thanks to Hoover High School for its 1938 yearbook photos of the school and class president Paul Ignatius, taken from a PowerPoint presentation made for Ignatius when he visited three years ago:





Paul Ignatius also wrote Now I Know in Part, a privately-published book about his childhood and youth.

Available from the author’s Elevated Press webpage, or from Barnes & Noble.

This Glendale News-Press book review of On the Bluffs identifies the author as a Glendale resident, so Steven Schindler and his books, including From Here to Reality, From the Block, Sewer Balls, and The Last Sewer Ball are now on the virtual Glendale Bookshelf of Sunroom Desk.

On the Bluffs is Schindler’s fourth novel, described by the author as “a darkly funny, suspense-filled love story.”

June 1969

“Lookit this,” Lenny said, handing me the bat.

“So?” I said, unimpressed. It was a little heavier than most bats, and its color was a darker blonde than most.

“So?” he said incredulously, snatching the bat out of my hands as if I were unworthy.

“It’s a bat. We going to Verdugo?”

I suddenly did not want to go to the park if it was baseball he had in mind. Usually we played basketball and in the fall we would play tackle football in our jeans and sweatshirts. The football games were interminable marathons and when we were at the point of utter and complete exhaustion, Lenny would declare halftime and I don’t know why the rest us didn’t just quit on him but instead we would go to the drinking fountain, then return to battle for a few more hours until the score of the game became incalculable or forgotten, and Lenny—we ended up dubbing him The Commissioner—would announce that next touchdown would win. I much preferred football or basketball to baseball; I was no good at baseball and my ineptitude drove Lenny crazy.

“No way. We’re not playing baseball at Verdugo. Not until you learn how to swing a bat. You swing like you’re…”

“Chopping wood. ‘Sokay with me, I hate baseball. Let’s play some basketball. At least I know give and go.”

“We got some other business today.”

“What?”

“This bat,” he said, holding it aloft like it was the staff of Moses, “is worth a fortune.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“This is a real old bat. Real old.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Look at it, Jack. It’s in clean shape. It’s a pro bat. A collector’s item.”

“Where’d you find it?”

“A tenant left it when he moved out.”

“Aren’t you gonna send it to him or something?”

“No. Are you kidding? Finders keepers.”

“If it’s so valuable why’d he forget it?”

“Cause he probably didn’t know it was valuable. Probably got it in a junk store from somebody else that didn’t know.”

“How you gonna prove it’s an old bat?”

“Look at the writing right there. What do you see?”

“Looks like scribbles.”

“Hold it this way. Looks like Phil Rizzuto.”

“Who’s he?”

“He played for the Yankees.”

“I can’t tell. Looks like a P but it might a A.”

“No, Jack. Look, that says Phil right there. And that right there, that’s the R for Rizzuto.”

“How you gonna prove it?”

“That’s what we’re doing today. You got a bike?”

“No.”

“You don’t have a bike?” He started laughing.

“I had a bike. It was purple. A Huffy.”

“A Huffy?” he said, laughing louder.

“I got it for Christmas when I was like 10.”

“They didn’t get you a Schwinn?”

“No. Mom bought it used from Morey across the street. It was purple and gigantic.”

“Pitiful. What happened to it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s in the garage. I’m not riding it though, even if it is.”

“I got a bike you can use.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re gonna take the bat to a baseball expert.”

“Coach Libman?”

“Yeah, right. I said an expert. The guy who used to be the manager for the Yankees, not some loser high school coach.”

“Oh you mean Yogi Bear?”

“Yeah we’re gonna go steal picnic baskets.”

“Ok, very funny. I meant Yogi Berra.”

“Better than him. Come on, let’s go.” He grabbed a fistful of sunflower seeds and we went and got his bike under the lemon tree and then found the spare bike in the carport.

We never biked anywhere that I can remember and we never did after that day. Not that it was bad or that anything bad happened that day; it’s just that it wasn’t a sport, it was just a mode of transportation and we walked everywhere, all over Burbank. But this was something new and I was looking forward to it. We got on the bikes and headed east down Verdugo Avenue. I didn’t bother to ask Lenny where or how far or who the baseball expert was. We rode almost a mile and were coming up to Victory Boulevard before I spoke.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to Casey Stengel’s house.”

“Who’s he?”

“Did you just say who’s he?”

“Yeah.” The name was familiar but I wanted some clarification.

“Oh. Nobody, just some guy who managed the New York Yankees to like 10 World Series, that’s all.”

I went silent for another mile. We were on Glenoaks Boulevard before I decided I would speak. I didn’t know much about baseball. I realized that day that although I loved the Los Angeles Dodgers I could only name three of them: Sandy Koufax; Don Drysdale and Maury Wills, and Koufax was retired. I tried to dredge up some face-saving factoid about the Yankees, but all I could think of was Babe Ruth and a pitcher by the name of Whitey Ford. I only knew Whitey Ford because I had heard my brother talk about him. I don’t know how the brain works exactly but a name came to me that was out of my mouth before I even realized I had said it. I think that I was probably trying to make amends for my Yogi Bear gaffe.

“I thought Leo Durocher was the Yankees manager,” I said with an understated authority.

“No, Jake. Durocher managed some other team called the Brooklyn Dodgers. Ever heard of them?”

Why was baseball so essential? Football and basketball are so much better; they were fluid where baseball was static. Football is the best sport of them all. I recalled a question in a kids’ magazine asking which sport is known as the King of Sports. I was sure it was football and stared in disbelief at the answer: Horseracing. I hated baseball. All that standing and waiting and sitting and waiting. I couldn’t hit, field or throw, and I thought standing in the batter’s box trying to not make a fool of yourself was like attending church naked and hoping to go unnoticed. Nevertheless, I was intrigued at the prospect of meeting a famous major league baseball manager from a legendary baseball team.

“Where the heck does he live anyway?”

“Glendale.”

“Glendale?”

“Relax, we’re almost there.”

“If he’s from New York what’s he doing in Glendale?”

“Whatever he wants. He’s retired. There’s lots of old people in Glendale, so he’s in the right place.”

We turned on Glenview Avenue. The houses were nice but not at all ostentatious. It seemed to me if you were a well-paid famous person you would live in San Marino or Newport or maybe Los Feliz—I always thought it would be cool to live in one of those houses on the way to the Griffith Park Observatory—but Glendale, well Glendale wouldn’t be at the top of anyone’s list. I was 15 and didn’t know circumstances and choices of adults any more than I knew baseball history.

“There it is.” Lenny called out, pointing at the house with the bat.

“Who told you where he lives?”

“Marty.”

“Marty? Who’s Marty?”

“Fat Marty. He played football at Verdugo a few times. You liked blocking him because he was blubbery.”

“Oh yeah, Marty. How’d he know?”

“He’s got connections.”

“Huh.” I couldn’t imagine anyone our age having “connections,” even in LA.

We dismounted and walked our bikes up the driveway. We stood on the porch and looked at each other, laughing with joy, quietly. Lenny pressed the doorbell which after a moment’s delay chimed in a humble, modest tone.

“Do we call him Mr. Durocher or Leo?”

“Don’t say anything,” Lenny answered, shaking his head in disbelief.

We stood on the porch for what seemed an inordinate amount of time but I was impatient and didn’t want to get chased away.

“Nobody’s here. Let’s go.”

“Just wait.”

A moment later we heard footsteps inside the house, followed by the unlatching of latches and unbolting of deadbolts. When the door opened an elderly woman stood before us, smiling, waiting for one of us to speak.

“Um, hello,” Lenny began tentatively, “we were in the neighborhood and just wanted to say hello to Mr. Stengel.”

I pondered the notion of being in the neighborhood from five miles away but concluded that our two towns were the neighbors. I raised my eyebrows and nodded my head enthusiastically, accustomed to playing the role of Harpo. The woman looked at us like we were little cherubs hovering on her front porch bearing good news for the Stengels. Lenny had the bat resting on his shoulder.

“Well, isn’t that nice? Why don’t you come in boys?”

“Thank you,” Lenny said, smooth as glass,” I hope we’re not disrupting your Saturday.” He had suddenly morphed into a decorously mannered young man I had no idea he was capable of imitating, let alone becoming. There was no Eddie Haskell in him at the moment; he was sincere.

“Oh why, it’s no disruption at all,” she chuckled at either the word or the notion. “Wait here, I’ll see if Casey wouldn’t mind some visitors. I’m sure he wouldn’t.”

“Thank you, ma’m. I’m Lenny and this is Jack. We won’t stay long.”

“Nice you to meet you, both. I’m Edna, Mrs. Stengel, Casey’s wife. I’ll be right back.”

We stood in the dark, quiet entryway. Lenny took the bat off his shoulder and simply held it at his side. I felt like we were getting away with something because Mrs. Stengel was treating us like were adorable little kids who came to see their hero but we were in fact too old at 15 to be adorable, and my heroes—Roosevelt Grier, David Deacon Jones, Lamar Lundy and Merlin Olsen—were football players. Casey Stengel was too old to be our hero; Lenny knew about him because his dad grew up in New York and was an avid sports enthusiast. And while the visit would mean more to Lenny than it did to me, he was still there on business.

“If the bat is valuable are you going to sell it?”

“No way.”

“Then you have a bat worth a lot that you’ll never sell.”

“You don’t get it.”

I was going to ask Lenny to explain what it was I didn’t understand when Casey Stengel appeared from the back of the living room, appraised us for a moment and then moved toward us, slowly. I knew he was old but I somehow had expected him to still look athletic. He was old but not frail. He moved slowly but with certainty, greeted us amiably and invited us to follow him to the den where we stayed for half an hour listening to stories of the glory days of baseball. He showed us his trophy case but shrugged nonchalantly when we made sounds to express our awe. Lenny was able to carry a conversation with Casey—they talked about the Mets, the Yankees and how the game had changed over the years. I stayed in Harpo mode, mugging, nodding, and putting my hand on my head at what I thought might be appropriate moments. Just when I thought Lenny was going to pass on asking about the bat, he held it up and presented it to Casey.

“Mr. Stengel…”

“Casey.”

“Casey, I found this bat and it looks pretty old. It’s autographed and I was wondering if you could look at it,” Lenny said as if it didn’t matter much to him.

“Huh? Oh yeah,” he said, holding the bat in both hands as if he were weighing it. “It’s a bat all right.” He looked at one end and then the other.

“What do you think?” Lenny asked, unable to maintain his matter of fact tone.

“Well, I’ll tell ya. This bat? It’s just a bat. It’s not rare or nothing.”

“But…”

“It’s not special or nothin’, but it’s especially not worth nothin’ to you.” He smiled and then nodded with finality and handed the bat back to Lenny. No one knew who should speak next but Mrs. Stengel arrived as if on cue. We all stood up and made ready to leave. We thanked him, we thanked her and in a moment we were on the front porch picking up our bikes, the door closing behind us. Lenny was in a funk but I knew if I said something sympathetic he would take the opposite point of view and shake it off.

“Oh well,” I said as we rolled down Grandview Avenue.

“The bat doesn’t matter,” he said with conviction, “we had a visit with Casey Stengel. The bat was just our excuse to go see him.”

“Yeah,” I said, taking my feet off the pedals and for a moment I had that memory of riding a bike for the very first time.

Glendale-raised Colin Legerton and traveling companion Jacob Rawson spent several months during 2006 and 2007 traveling to minority enclaves in all corners of China. Their theme – that diversity in China is not appreciated within the country or by the outside world – is well documented in their experiences but also confirmed by events that occurred in the Uyghur region just this year.

Legerton is fluent in Uyghur, Rawson in Korean, but both also speak Mandarin, and they traveled through many multilingual areas where regular inhabitants used three or more languages in everyday transactions.

The tone of the book is warm, personal, and open, while the pace is active but leisurely. The authors don’t complain about traveling from one place to the next, even if it involved four bus rides over sixty hours on bumpy roads. Brief descriptions, though, give the reader a real sense of the vast distances and poor traveling conditions of their journey.

Their encounters with farmers, monks, officials, soldiers, entrepreneurs, students, and tour guides provided the raw material for the book, which they pieced together expertly. This is a page-turning adventure that brings the reader alongside the travelers as they approach unfamiliar cultures, identify key issues in each region, and establish friendships with ordinary people along the way.

While organized tours feature highlights China would like tourists to see, Legerton and Rawson provide a completely different perspective on the incredible ethnic, economic, religious, cultural, and political diversity in this vast country.

A September 2009 Glendale News Press interview with Colin Legerton has more information on the Glendale author of the book, his journey, and his interest in China.

Jake Gander, Storyville Detective
A sardonic private eye takes a fairy-tale impersonation case.

Baron von Baddie and the Ice Ray Incident
An evil genius loses interest in doomsday plots when his nemesis superhero is sidelined.

Ridin’ Dinos with Buck Bronco
A cowboy teaches saddling and riding terms along with basic dinosaur facts.

Night of the Veggie Monster
An ordinary boy turns dinner into a melodramatic ordeal.

Dinosaur Woods: Can Seven Clever Critters Save Their Forest Home?
Animals construct a dinosaur to save their habitat.

The author of this crime novel series, Denise Hamilton, has written more books than I can store with others on the small Glendale authors’ Bookshelf. (She’s also written more books than I have time to read now – so this review is limited to her five Eve Diamond novels.)

Hamilton draws readers into Eve’s character with side stories on newsroom politics (although her turn of the millenium writing about the newsroom has a nostalgic air – I couldn’t find a San Gabriel Valley bureau on the LA Times website). She also drafts her novels’ scenes of LA communities and subcultures with authentic language and examples most locals will appreciate.

A former LA Times reporter, Hamilton says on her website that she wanted to be a foreign correspondent, but finally realized that a Southern California reporting job fit her interest. Crimes she covered here often involved immigrant communities and their behind-the-scenes political, financial, and criminal struggles.

Her fictional counterpart, Eve Diamond, investigates Hong Kong “parachute kids” in The Jasmine Trade; Mexican Spanglish rap music culture in Sugar Skull; Cambodian/Asian child and drug smuggling operations in Last Lullaby; media glorification of Latino gang culture in Savage Garden; and Russian organized crime operations in Prisoner of Memory.

Hamilton’s works have been featured at several Glendale venues, including the Glendale Library. Her next local appearance will be at the South Pasadena Public Library.

A complete list of Denise Hamilton books is here.