Dear readers,
As announced in my last newsletter, I am happy to hereby present the very first edition of my reading list, a hopefully quarterly newsletter sharing books I wholeheartedly recommend. These are books I loved; they reflect my taste and choice. Since I mainly read memoir, along with other nonfiction
and the occasional novel, this might fit your taste or it might not. I am not giving you book reviews that would include books I didn't like or am lukewarm about. There is no educational program behind my reading list; it simply presents what I read and loved
enough to want to recommend to you.
Here goes:
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With all the terrible news of evil and violence in our world these days (I drafted this after the horrific events in Dallas), I always ask myself: What can we set against it? And I always end up with the same answer: The pursuit of beauty and the spreading of kindness are the antidote. No Picnic on Mount Kenya is exactly that. During World War II, three POWs in a British internment camp in Kenya hatch and execute a plan to escape. However, they are not escaping in order to gain freedom, but rather to add something positive to their lives, something to plan and to look forward to, something to combat the pettiness and dullness of their indefinite imprisonment, a grand and rather dangerous adventure to experience and
then to hopefully look back upon. This book buoys your spirit simply because that's what it is about. What an unusual book! Reading it will make you want to embrace whatever seemingly impossible schemes have floated through your mind, simply to prove to yourself that you're alive. It will have you cheering for a bunch of crazy-ass, ramshackle prisoners on their hare-brained escape. To boot, Benuzzi's
descriptions of the world they traverse, first the rain forest and then the tundra, are exquisite, and might just have you think about all the startling sounds you have encountered in your life. See my corresponding blog post A
Startling Sound.
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I traveled to China in May, and it is my habit to read books taking place in the countries I am traveling to during my trip, and often before and after. On this trip I ended up reading a mystery taking place in Beijing in the 1930s that gave me nightmares, so I am not recommending that. But after I returned, I listened to the audio version of Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones. It's a big fat book, and I handle those better as audio books while driving my son to school. Peter Hessler first came to China as a peace corps volunteer to teach English in the provincial city of Fuling (recounted in his first China book, River Town). Oracle Bones is his second volume on China when he's making a go of establishing himself as a foreign correspondent in Beijing. He chronicles the lives of some of his former Fuling students (typical for the new generation in China who try to make sense of their lives as migrant workers, often in China's ready-made coastal boom towns). Their sincere quest to understand American culture is simply heart-warming, as is
Hessler's continuous bafflement in trying to understand China. In Oracle Bones I particularly appreciated Hessler's blend of discussing China's ancient culture, his tracing of an archaeologist's work and tragic ending. I also loved his
unique observation towards the end that really, America and China have a lot in common. His musings reframed my own impression of China as a place vastly different from America and Europe, and I am so into his work that I'm now reading his third China volume, Country Driving.
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I recently left this book on a coworker's desk because she had been bugging me for a good book to read. China Dreams is one of those books that I finish and ask myself, why hasn't this been a bestseller? Well, it's too literary probably, but at least in the world of literature it should be well known. It's also one of those books that have me look up the author hoping I can write to her to tell her how much I loved her book. Alas, when I did that I found out that Isabelle Maynard had already passed away. China Dreams was her only prose work. It's a collection of sketches of the people and circumstances of her childhood as the daughter of Russian Jews, who fled the Russian Revolution and found themselves making a life in one of the Chinese port cities that had foreign concessions. China Dreams portrays a lost world in diaphanous language, and it contains the best Holocaust story I have read in a long time, if ever, and I have read a lot of Holocaust stories. Read "Braverman DP" and you will know what I mean.
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Diana Abu Jaber's memoir of growing up with a culinary obsessed, flamboyant, and often exacerbating Jordanian father caused me to hunt for the best fresh baklava here in Chicago, and find it I did at the Pan Hellenic Pastry Shop. It also had me thinking about whether body movements can be described in colors, as Abu Jaber comes up with innovative descriptions such as "my mother's
navy blue sigh." Oh, you have to be a great writer to think that! See my blog post on the navy blue sigh--that combination does make you think! Even though a good part of The Language of Baklava takes place in Jordan, Abu Jaber deftly steers clear of the region's politics, and it only pops up as it would in a child's world, such as when she and her cousins use a sleeping uncle's body to play war battling the "Zionists." I much appreciated getting a peek into what it's like to be the member of a gregarious Jordanian clan in the world beyond Israel's borders.
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If there can be a light-hearted book about the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, this charming love story is it. Written by Hungarian film director Peter Gardos, this slim volume is based on the letters his parents exchanged when they were both convalescing in Swedish hospitals under the care of the Red Cross. I first found the book mentioned in the German women's magazine
Brigitte Woman that I still subscribe to, and as the English version was about to come out as well, I suggested it to the Jewish Book Council. Read my review for them here. Suffice it to say that I was charmed by the protagonist's pluck, resilience and yes, ebullience.
As I review
this list, it strikes me that its theme could indeed be an homage to high spirits, whether it is in climbing Africa's most difficult summit in inadequate gear, making sense of the clash between old and new in an ancient land undergoing rapid change, resurrecting an outsider's life in a long-lost world, surviving Bedouin feasts in the desert, or believing in love after surviving the greatest crime against humanity.
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I wish you great reading adventures, and if you do pick up any of these books, I would love to hear how you felt about them.
Happy reading,
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