May 23, 2008
May 23, 2008
Much of this year we have written about inspiring books (Three Cups of Tea) or serious historical fiction, but this book, Eat! Pray! Love! by Elizabeth Gilbert, is more frivolous and fun. The author writes about the disintegration of her marriage and herself (not the fun part) and then how she manages to put her life back together. Gilbert is lucky enough to be able to take a year off and visit places that will help rebuild her body and soul. She starts in Italy, where she learns Italian and eats the most scrumptious foods. Once she’s gained the language (and the weight) she’s off to an ashram in India, where she is able to build her spiritual self by finding the divine both in the outer world and within. Her last stop is Indonesia, for balance.
April 08
April 25, 2008
Once again, Ian McEwen, the author of Amsterdam and Atonement, has written a terrific book, Saturday. The main character, Henry Perowne, is a neurosurgeon. He has a wife he loves dearly and two children, both of whom make him very proud. Henry is concerned about the state of the world. It’s 2003 and the war with Iraq is about to begin and in general he is a bit anxious. The book is built around one day, Saturday, when he wakes up early, talks to his son and then sets out for a weekly racquetball game with a hospital colleague. It seems like any other day, but this one will throw Dr. Perowne into a crisis more disturbing than he could ever imagine.
On Beauty
March 28, 2008
For adult readers, On Beauty: A Novel is another fine book by Zadie Smith (author of White Teeth). This time Smith has written about a biracial family headed by a white professor of art history, Howard Belsey, and his African-American wife Kiki. Howard is about to meet adversity head on. He has been unfaithful to his wife, so there is a crisis at home. At the same time a rival art scholar who has nothing but contempt and scorn for Howard, is coming to the university as a visiting professor. The visitor intends to go public about his opinions because he would like Howard’s job.
02.29.08
February 29, 2008
For our older readers, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, is a most inspiring book. This is the true story of a >mountaineer, Greg Mortenson, who is failing in his attempt to climb K2. His body is bruised and weakened from the climb and he needs help if he’s to get off the mountain alive. He finds the support he needs from the nearby Pakistani population. He promises these people that he will return and build them the school that they desperately need. Mortenson goes on to keep his promise and more. At a time of instability and anger in this region, where the Taliban is spreading its anti-Western ideology, Mortenson manages to meet the requests of local leaders and clans and to build 55 schools, some of them for girls. You’ll find this book carries a message of hope for an area where hope seems a pipe dream.
01-18-08
January 18, 2008
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, by Dinaw Mengestu, tells the story of Stepha Stephanos, who 17 years earlier fled Ethiopia after the revolution against Emperor Haile Selasie. Stephanos’ mother sold her jewels so that he could come to the U.S., and he now lives in Washington, D.C., running a grocery store in a marginal neighborhood (prostitutes, gang members et.al. work in the neighborhood while children walk to and from school). Stephanos has two friends, also from Africa: one a waiter and the other an engineer. The three rehash their past and share bitterness about how miserable they are in the benighted USA. And then gradually things change in Stephanos’ neighborhood. Due to gentrification, a woman, Judith, and her youngster, Naomi, move into a house next door and begin to clean up. Will this change be good for Stepha? Will these neighbors offer friendship? Can Stepha connect to others or is the isolation of an immigrant forever?
11-09-07
November 09, 2007
For adults, Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth, is a must read. Smith, a young British author, wrote this, her first book, in 2001 when she was just 23 years old. She has created a terrific novel about diversity in London in the late 1970s, 80s and 90s. She describes two families, one a mixed-race family made up of Archibald Jones, his Jamaican wife, Claire, and their daughter, Irie, who is searching for her identity. Members of the other family are immigrants from Bangladesh with twin sons, Millat and Magid. How the families interact in the midst of multicultural London, how they acclimate or not, the effect of the children on their parents and visa versa make for a terrific overflow of loyalties, emotions, family frictions and humor.
Older Reader
October 26, 2007
Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981. I am not a great fan of humorous books, but this author has managed to create a cast of characters you will never forget. Ignatius Reilley, the main protagonist, is an enormous, bloated man who never wants to go anywhere and certainly never wants to work. He eats, watches TV, and begins journal entries, each of which is a commentary on the world around him. He yearns for the Middle Ages, so 20th century America does not please him. His mother forces him out into the working world and things only get worse. He takes absurd jobs and attempts outlandish political conspiracies from his place of business. This book is worth your consideration, especially if you like slapstick.
September 14, 2007
Adult readers might be interested in Holocaust Odysseys: The Jews of Saint Martin-Vesubie and Their Flight through France and Italy, by Susan Zuccotti. The author relies on historical documents and interviews to describe how nine Central and Eastern European Jewish families running from the Nazis fled to France, Belgium and other western European areas—how they managed to survive for the early years of the war and then how they fled to Italy. When they finally climbed the mountains and reached Italian ground they thought they were safe, but the Germans were retaking Italy and many of the main characters who had struggled valiantly for four years were captured and sent to Auschwitz. But some survived to tell their stories.
May 18, 2007
Adults this summer might enjoy reading Kafka On The Shore, by Haruki Murakami. The genre is fantasy, but the writing pulls you in and soon the reader accepts some pretty unusual circumstances. The story begins in 1946 Japan. A teacher has taken her class on a field trip, and while the children are playing they suddenly all fall down unconscious. After a brief time most of the children regain consciousness except for one. The book then jumps ahead fifty years and we meet the two main characters. The first is Nagate, an older man who lost his memory in the aforementioned incident when he was 10 years old, also lost the ability to read and now lives a simple life, going about talking to cats and finding lost cats for anxious owners. The other character - who calls himself Kafka - is a fifteen-year-old who has run away from home and is trying to find a life. If the novel sounds intriguing, that’s because it is.
04.20.07
April 20, 2007
Born on A Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant, by Daniel Tammet, is a fascinating title. Tammet is writing his autobiography, the story of a 27-year-old who is a highly functioning autistic man. He is a genius at math, good at languages, but slow with social skills. In this book he explains his likes and dislikes. He prefers to live with a regular, predictable routine and he does not like surprises. Yet as he matures he has learned to manage new experiences and has gone on speaking tours to talk about himself and his life. His ability to reflect on his own life is a challenge to all of us to do the same.
03.15.07
March 15, 2007
For our adult readers and precocious seventh and eighth graders who are fascinated by history, Joseph Ellis has written His Excellency: George Washington, a fascinating perspective of our first president. This biography does much to penetrate the air of dignity and aloofness that we associate with Washington. Ellis examines Washington the British soldier who fought the French, Washington the Revolutionary general whose main achievement was keeping the army in the field, and Washington the president, without whose leadership the successful birth and early survival of the nation would have been impossible.
1.12.07b
January 12, 2007
Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, deserves everyone’s attention. The author examines fast food restaurants and how their organization and proliferation have changed the diet of almost all Americans. And the problem is not only here in the U.S., but the rest of the world has become accustomed to a terrible diet because of these popular eateries. The way America grows its food and the quality of the food it grows have caused the health of restaurant workers, agricultural laborers and the general public to suffer immensely.
December 08, 2006
For adults I recommend J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting For The Barbarians: A Novel. This book was written in 1982 by Coetzee, a South African Nobel Prize winner, and describes life in a small town on the frontier of “the Empire” (no name given), an oppressive state where apartheid is practiced with a vengeance. The town’s magistrate, who is a bit lazy and enjoys the good life, worries only occasionally about the ”barbarians” who live just beyond the frontier. An army from the central government comes to deal with the barbarians and brings back hundreds of prisoners, who are then systematically tortured in cells beneath the magistrate’s office. The reader is quickly confronted with the magistrate’s complicity in this brutal behavior. Is it right? Are the barbarians a threat? Who indeed is the barbarian in this book?
November 09, 2006
For adult readers I would recommend The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Here I am reading yet another book about my old home town, Chicago. The book describes its two main characters, Henry and Claire, as they race around the city trying to spend time with each other. Henry is a time traveler as a result of a genetic dysfunction he inherited at birth, and he is likely to be swept into the past or future at any time, wherever he is, whatever he is doing.
For Adults
October 13, 2006
My Sister’s Keeper, by Joan Picoult, offers provocative reading. It is the story of the Fitzgerald family: mother, father, Jessie, and Kate. When Kate was three she was diagnosed with a virulent strain of leukemia. The parents decided to have another child with the same blood type and gene structure as Kate so that when transfusions and bone marrow transplants were necessary, a donor would be available. When Anne was born, she was much loved by the family, but much of her life was spent helping sustain Kate’s health. At age fifteen Kate needed a new kidney and it assumed that Anne would be the donor.
For Adults
October 13, 2006
My Sister’s Keeper, by Joan Picoult, offers provocative reading. It is the story of the Fitzgerald family: mother, father, Jessie, and Kate. When Kate was three she was diagnosed with a virulent strain of leukemia. The parents decided to have another child with the same blood type and gene structure as Kate so that when transfusions and bone marrow transplants were necessary, a donor would be available. When Anne was born, she was much loved by the family, but much of her life was spent helping sustain Kate’s health. At age fifteen Kate needed a new kidney and it assumed that Anne would be the donor.
September 08, 2006
For Adults:
In Devil In The White City: Murder, Magic And Madness At The Fair That Changed America,
Erik Larson tells a story about the 1898 World Fair that was held in Chicago. He describes the city, the social and economic situation of the times, and how men with talents and ambitions (led by Daniel H. Burnham) came together and created an extraordinary collection of exhibits. While this was happening, another Chicagoan, H. H. Holmes, was becoming a serial killer in a neighborhood just adjacent to the fair. Man's potential for greatness and his dark side come together in this book.
May 19, 2006
For older readers, I wish to recommend The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene, a novel that is about an intense love affair that ends when the man involved suffers a dreadful accident and the young woman prays for his survival. It’s a story of love, hate and religious belief. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, is another spiritual book, not my usual cup of tea. In 1958 Reverend John Ames begins to write letters to his young son. The reverend is 70 years old and wants to leave his son some stories from his past about the challenges life offers. Ames comes from a family of preachers, the most notable being his grandfather, who was an avid abolitionist and who made life very difficult for the rest of the family. This is a beautifully written book,March 06, 2006
For the older reader I’d like to recommend The Lighthouse, a mystery by P. D. James, who is one of my favorite mystery writers. She has created a complex plot. A brutal murder occurs on Combe Island, off the Cornish coast in England, in a hideaway where high-powered politicians and scientists come for an occasional rest away from the pressures of their daily lives. Chief Inspector Adam Dagleish is called in to find the murderer and solve the mystery.
February 17, 2006
For the older reader, Frank McCourt (author of Angela’s Ashes) has written another very enjoyable book, Teacher Man. Relying on his own experiences as a high school English teacher, he describes what it was like in the New York public high schools. Mr. McCourt is able to laugh at his own inadequacies and describe occasional successes with students. For teachers this book is a wonderful chance to live the teaching experience through the eyes of someone sympathetic to all participants in the classroom - both teachers and students.
December 09, 2005
The older reader with exotic taste might enjoy Justine, the first novel of “The Alexandria Quartet,” by Lawrence Durrell. The story is told by an Englishman, Darley, who falls in love with Justine, the beautiful wife of a wealthy Coptic Christian. The tale unfolds in Alexandria, Egypt in the late 1930s, just before World War II. Durrell’s great strength lies in his description of this city with its polyglot population. An air of intrigue seems to permeate every street and alley, and no character can avoid being influenced by a sense of mystery and cynicism.
November 04, 2005
If you are an adult who likes nineteenth century European stylized novels, then Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s book, Elective Affinities, will appeal to you. Goethe describes four characters: Eduard, his beloved wife Charlotte, and two visitors to their home, the Captain (a friend of Eduard’s) and Otilia, who comes as a companion to Charlotte. Eduard is attracted to Otilia and the Captain is impressed with Charlotte. What should they do now?
October 07, 2005
For the older reader, Ian McEwan’s book, Atonement, is a good choice. The first half of the book takes place on a single day in the summer of 1935. The main character, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis, is expecting her cousins to visit. She is planning to produce a play with them. The plan falls through and in the course of the afternoon, Briony, with her overactive imagination, witnesses a scene at the pond that she misinterprets. From then on, things go from bad to worse.
September 10, 2005
Herzog, by Saul Bellow, is a novel about an intellectual in mid-20th century America whose life seems to be falling apart around him. To confront his crises he sends to various friends’ letters in which he reflects on and analyzes his past. It’s a provocative and fascinating book.
March 11, 2005
Philip Roth’s The Plot to Save America is not an easy book to digest. Nor is it one of his greatest creations. But it is interesting. Roth points to a pivotal year in our country’s history, 1940, and asks the question, “What if Charles Lindberg had run against Franklin Delano Roosevelt and won?” What kind of country would we have become? Would we have entered World War II?—not likely. Would Lindberg and his supporters have taken action against the Jews? Would we have become an ally of Germany in its war against Britain and the Soviet Union? It’s a thought-provoking book.
January 14, 2005
Older readers might enjoy Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov. In this uniquely constructed book, a professor is ostensibly presenting a poem written by a renowned poet and his friend. The poem takes up about 40 pages, but there are an additional 240 pages of notes by the professor, in which he uses the text to display his own personal ambitions, attack opposing academics, and everyone who has ever annoyed him. It is an entertaining satire as only Nabokov can write. Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini is another interesting title, much more popular at the moment. An Afghani writer tells the story of his childhood in Afghanistan as the son of a rich businessman. While he grew up he was best friends with Hassan, the child of his father’s long-time servant. It is the relationship between the boys and our protagonist’s inability to be a good and loyal friend that constitutes the center of the story.
December 10, 2004
For the parents: My family has just finished reading Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. Definitely a classic, this book requires a bit of patience and getting used to. Joyce writes about his childhood in turn-of-the-century Ireland. He uses a stream-of -consciousness style to describe his feelings as a student in a strict Catholic boarding school, and then his relationship with his father when he returned home. He describes his religious inclinations and fears—the hopes his parents and clergy have of turning him into a Catholic priest and his own struggle to find out if he had the calling. It’s a fascinating piece of literature. If you’re looking for something lighter and you favor mysteries, take a look at Original Sin by P.D. James. Set in modern day England, Adam Dagleish and his team investigate the murder of a most unlikeable publishing house editor. This man, Gerald Etienne, has given every one of his colleagues and acquaintances reason to hate him, and now it’s up to the police to see which one had the nerve to commit murder.
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
November 05, 2004
The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins, is often called the first great British detective story. A young woman, Rachel Verinder, inherits a very beautiful, expensive diamond that was taken from a famous Indian temple, where it was a symbol of the faith. It is stolen the day after she receives it, and the mystery that follows becomes quite complex.
A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines
October 02, 2004
A Gathering of Old Men, by Ernest Gaines, is a book that takes place in the 1970s on a Louisiana sugarcane plantation. Gaines describes the racial tensions that develop when a Cajun farmer is killed by a black man. This is a powerful story about how a group of elderly black men finally unite against the whites who come looking for vengeance.