Lawrence Today magazine, Spring 2007
Time and again, Lawrence Today readers asked if we could do an article in which faculty members recommended books for them to read. In 2001, we began doing just that, and it has become one of the most popular features of the magazine. The professors seem to like it, too.
Minoo Adenwalla, professor emeritus of government
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta (Vantage Books, 2004).
This work, which won the Kiriyama Book Prize, was also a Pulitzer Prize and
Samuel Johnson Prize finalist. Mehta, a journalist and fiction writer based
in New York, returns to his original home in Bombay for two years, to write
a devastating expose of its
undercover
and seamier side, in addition to more conventional aspects of life — the
liaison between crime and law enforcement, its night life and “houses
of pleasure,” its beer bars and prostitutes, its crowds and teeming
slums, its pavement dwellers, its movie industry, and some of its extreme,
acetic,
religious groups. Yet, in the midst of teeming misery he finds examples of
kindness and concern, of grit and endurance, of an amazing ability to adapt
and survive.
I grew up in Bombay (now Mumbai) and have returned often. I recognize all
the parts and geographic sections mentioned by the author. Yet, it was like
reading
about a city to which I had never been!
Merton D. Finkler, professor of economics
Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists, by Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales
(Princeton University Press, 2004).
The authors, both on the faculty of the
University of Chicago School of Business, argue that “capitalism’s
biggest political enemies are not the firebrand trade unionists spewing vitriol
against the system but the executives in pin-striped suits extolling the virtues
of competitive markets with every breadth while attempting to extinguish them
with every action.”
They further argue that broad access to financial markets and instruments
helps countries to grow as well as inhibits the ability of incumbents (either
political
or business) to place barriers in front of the rest of us. Thus, such “democratic” financial
markets provide critical support for human ingenuity and entrepreneurship that
can sustain healthy economic growth in both developed and developing countries.
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas
L. Friedman (Updated and expanded edition, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2006).
Friedman’s latest focus on the global economy highlights the role of
ten forces that have reduced the barriers to competition at the global level.
He uses comprehensive and colorful examples to illustrate how each force works
and how it will impact what we will buy, whom (and where) we will buy it from,
and where work opportunities will be available.
The updated and expanded edition adds over 100 pages that respond to the
question “O.K.,
Mr. Friedman, thank you for telling us that the world is flat — now,
what do I tell my kids?” His answer — spelled out in the description
of seven essential skills — can be shortened to “obtain a liberal
arts education.”
As one Appleton lawyer recently opined, “It should be required reading
for every eighth grader in America.” I agree but would not exempt those
who managed to move beyond the eighth grade.
Mark Frazier, associate professor of government
April 1865: The Month That Saved America, by Jay Winik (Harper Perennial,
2002).
Civil War historians frequently remind us just how differently things
might
have turned out for the United States had this battle or that campaign gone
another way, but you don’t have to be a Civil War aficionado to appreciate
this gripping account of the war’s final month.
Winik, who had a career in government and was on the ground during the Yugoslavian
civil war, shows how American leaders on both sides made crucial decisions
in the final month of the Civil War to end a conflict that could have easily
persisted for decades as a major insurgency, with all the traits of civil
wars that we’ve witnessed in our own era. Uncontrollable militias, terrorist
attacks on civilians, assassinations of political leaders, even ethnic cleansing
were all realities and potential long-term risks for the American republic
in 1865. As Winik shows, our political leaders made sometimes unpopular decisions
that led America down a different path toward imperfect but sustainable reconciliation.
Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000, by Robert
L. Suettinger ’68 (Brookings Institution Press, 2004).
This book chronicles
the turbulent course of what many experts argue is America’s most complex
and significant foreign policy challenge — how to manage peacefully the
rise of China as a major power in global affairs.
The Chinese government’s use of military force against unarmed demonstrators
in Beijing’s streets on June 4, 1989, seared American perceptions of
China, for a generation, if not longer. Suettinger (the 2007 Stephen
Edward Scarff Memorial Visiting Professor in Government at Lawrence) observed the
fallout of the Tiananmen bloodshed from his position as an intelligence analyst
and advisor during the Bush (senior) and Clinton administrations. He provides
a compelling narrative of the twisting course of U.S.-China relations, by examining
the policy process — and it’s not a pretty one — from the
perspective of key players in both Washington and Beijing.
Given the broad set of competing interests and personalities who clash regularly
over America’s China policy, one is left wondering how the U.S. and China
have managed to get by without encountering even more crises than have transpired
since Tiananmen.
Bertrand A. Goldgar, professor of English and the John N. Bergstrom Professor
of Humanities
I am currently reading and enjoying the winner of this year’s Man Booker
Prize, The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006);
it’s set in India and New York.
Thinking of Desai’s work made me recall that I really ought to have
recommended previously Interpreter of Maladies (stories, Mariner
Books, 1999) and The
Namesake (novel, Mariner, 2004), both excellent works by Jhumpa Lahiri,
again fiction set both in India and in the U.S.
Finally, to keep my list all-female and thus confound my enemies, let me
suggest almost any novel by Muriel Spark, who died this year after an outstanding
career
as a brilliant serious/comic novelist. For starters, try Memento Mori (New
Directions, 2004), then The Ballad of Peckham Rye (Penguin, 1972), The
Mandelbaum Gate (Knopf, 1965), The Only Problem (Bodley Head, 1984), and, of course,
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Lippincott, 1962).
Karen Park Koenig ’91, Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellow in Religious
Studies
I am recommending two Swedish novels, one for older children, one for adults.
The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren (Purple House Press, 2004).
Lindgren
is best known in this country for her Pippi Longstocking tales, but much
of her work is far less silly and cheerful. The Brothers Lionheart was first
published
in 1973 but was out of print for many years. It is the story of two young
brothers who die — one while trying to save the other (thus the name Lionheart).
The entire book takes place in the afterlife — where good and evil are
still struggling against each other. I first read this book as a child and
never forgot it. Despite its seemingly dark subject matter, The Brothers
Lionheart is ultimately an amazing story of freedom, courage, and selfless love. I was
very happy to find that it had recently been reissued in a new English translation
so that I could share it with my own children. A good one to read aloud together.
Suitable for ages 9 and up.
Lewi’s Journey by Per Olov Enquist (Overlook, 2005). Enquist is one of
Sweden’s most acclaimed writers. This book is a dense and moving fictional
account of the two men who began the Swedish Pentecostal movement — transplanting
the ecstatic religiosity of turn-of-the-20th-century Los Angeles to the cold
climate of Lutheran Sweden, where Pentecostal practices of speaking in tongues
and spirit baptism seemed strange indeed. While dealing with a particular moment
in the history of Christianity, the book succeeds in illuminating much about
the human desire for communion with the divine, as well as the ways in which
we frequently fail to live up to our own higher callings. An unusual, powerful,
and rewarding book.
Carol Mason, adjunct professor of anthropology
Middlemarch, by George Eliot. Everyone has read something of Eliot’s
in high school or college, and now is the time to read or reread or re-reread
Middlemarch. This extraordinary work grows in intelligence and humanity with
each re-reading; it speaks to the interfaces between individuals and the dire
consequences of “listening to one’s own heart beat so violently
that one cannot hear the hearts of others.” George Eliot’s insights
are astonishing in their incisiveness, tender in their judgments, and glorious
in the uses she makes of language.
A first reading of Middlemarch in high school left this reader appalled at
the unequal marriage of Dorothea and Casaubon, the latter’s vicious after-death
attempt to control her future, and the deadliness of Lydgate and Rosamond’s
opposite expectations of life. Now, the world of each of these real people
is rounded and full, and one can see them from all angles and understand their
initial failures to listen to those other hearts and act accordingly. Take
Middlemarch on a long plane trip, and you will wish it were longer.
The Apprentice, by Jacques Pepin (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). For those of us
whose highest ambition is to relax on a beach and read recipes, Pepin’s
memoir of how he became a chef makes for fascinating reading. In this day of
instant expertise, the lifetime of work dedicated to making a real chef out
of an ambitious 13-year-old resembles nothing so much as a monastic existence
with kitchen labor substituting for beads and chants. Pepin worked at small
things — chopping and boning and filleting — until he rose step
by step into the ranks of the elect.
Reading of how these steps were accomplished in a restaurant world that has
all but disappeared and following the charming Jacques from restaurant job
to restaurant job, learning all the way, is an assay into the growth of real
expertise, that priceless commodity that we all dream of when we really need
to get something done. In addition, the memoir is enlivened with recipes
that make the reader long to grab a cast-iron pot and have at it.
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, by David Quammen (Norton, 2006). After Janet Browne’s
outstanding, two-volume biography, who would have the nerve to take on Darwin
yet again! Everything has been said — right? Clearly not; this little
volume does not attempt to be a whole life, only “an intimate portrait
of Charles Darwin and the making of his theory of evolution.” In concept,
it is a simple examination of Darwin after the Beagle, how he came to write
the book, and his struggles to understand the origins of variation in a pre-Mendelian
world.
That being said, this book is for everyone; it is a short, lucid, amazingly
well-written essay on the man himself. The word “charming” comes
to mind, if such a characterization can be appropriate in such an erudite and
truly scholarly little book. The author does not claim to be a biologist, much
less a historian, but he does both biology and history a real service in this
gracefully written study. Such a fine piece of work should have been expected
by any reader familiar with his Song of the Dodo, similarly well-written and
engaging.
Quammen’s volume reminds this reader — and not for the first time — of
the character and nature of that great and good man, Charles R. Darwin, so
vilified by many and so misunderstood by even more. This little book will go
far to put the man in his time and place and help readers see what all the
fuss was about
.
Andrew Mast, assistant professor of music
Quite a bit of my reading lately has focused on spiritual matters, and two
books that have been revelatory for different reasons are Pema Chodron’s
No Time to Lose (Shambhala, 2005) and Karen Armstrong’s The
Great Transformation (Knopf, 2006).
I learned of Chodron when watching Bill Moyers’ series on religion and
spirituality last summer and loved her insights as presented in this book — essentially
a commentary on the Way of the Bodhisattva — but her remarks are
concise and beautiful.
I love just about everything I’ve read of Karen Armstrong’s, and
The Great Transformation is no exception. In this text she focuses on the development
of religion in the “Axial Age” and casts the searchlight around
the areas we now know as Greece, China, Israel, and India.
In the fiction area, I’d recommend The Music of the Spheres, by Elizabeth
Redfern (Jove, 2002). If you liked Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, you’ll
love this, which is set in late 18th-century London and full of the dark side
of that time.
Speaking of the underbelly of life, I’d conclude with a book by fellow
Hawkeye Scott Sandage: Born Losers: A History of Failure in America (Harvard
University Press, 2005). This book examines primarily 19th-century cases in
which those who sought the riches of capitalism found mostly the rags. I happened
to read this shortly after Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of
the United States and found ironic similarities of history as viewed from
the cheap seats.
David McGlynn, assistant professor of English
Things That Fall from the Sky, by Kevin Brockmeier (Vintage, 2003). Eleven
perfectly pitched and decadently imaginative tales from one of America’s
most talented young writers. Brockmeier bends language as though shining a
flashlight through water, making ordinary scenes — a babysitter giving
a toddler a bath, a father and son watching the night sky during a blackout,
a husband slowly uncovering his wife’s infidelity — feel like new
literary territory.
Graveyard of the Atlantic, by Alyson Hagy (Graywolf Press, 2000). A native
of rural Virginia, Hagy writes with compelling fury and starkness about rugged,
weather-whipped landscapes. Set primarily on North Carolina’s Outer Banks,
the seven stories tell of shark fishing, failed rescued attempts, and desire
among Coast Guard swimmers — all with the churning sea as a backdrop.
The longest and most probing story is “Search Bay” — selected
by Annie Proulx for the 1997 Best American Stories anthology. Set on the icy
shore of Lake Huron, it tells of a veteran fisherman’s grief over the
death of a drowned boy. The geographical overlaps allow the collection to adhere
as though a novel, though each story is powerful and affecting all on its own.
Peter Peregrine, professor of anthropology
New
York Times science writer Nicholas Wade has produced a well-written summary
of current research on the history of the human species in Before the
Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors (Penguin, 2006). Like any summary
for a popular audience, the book tends to overgeneralize at times and often
claims as facts what are really fairly tenuous conclusions, but Wade does
a remarkable job of covering lots of scholarly territory — and countless
millennia of human history — in less than 300 pages.
He focuses on the fascinating new insights gained from population genetics
and historical linguistics, but there is plenty of archaeology and human
paleontology as well. It’s a pleasant and informative read.
Jerald Podair, associate professor of history and the Robert S. French Professor
of American Studies
All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren (Harcourt, Brace,
1946). The release of Sean Penn’s film remake
(skip it and rent the 1949 original instead) brings us back to America’s
greatest political novel. Warren’s Willie Stark, loosely based on Louisiana
demagogue Huey Long, could be any number of self-aggrandizing American politicians
today, a sad, prescient commentary on our own low, dishonest times.
Ernie Pyle’s War, by James Tobin (Free Press, 2006). Every contemporary
war correspondent walks in the shadow of Ernie Pyle, whose World War II dispatches
from North Africa, Europe, and the South Pacific celebrated both the average
GI and the average American. But it wasn’t easy. Tobin’s study
of this tortured soul reminds us how genius often feeds on personal torment
and vulnerability.
Here is New York, by E.B. White (The Little Bookroom, 2000). White,
the same guy who wrote Charlotte’s Web, an iconic New
Yorker writer,
offers an impressionistic portrait of the world’s greatest city at
a moment in time (the summer of 1948) that captures it for all time.
The Battle for Spain, by Antony Beevor (Penguin, 2006). Want to understand
the Second World War? Start here. The bloody Spanish Civil War (1936-39)
was a military and ideological staging ground for what would follow, a world
war
in microcosm. Given that Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini were all involved,
the war presents historians with a political minefield, but Beevor navigates
it
deftly, allowing this dramatic, tragic story to speak for itself.
How Soccer Explains the World, by Franklin Foer (Harper Perennial,
2005). If you’re still not sure why this game matters so much to so
many people everywhere (else) in the world, read this book. Soccer is a surrogate
for political, religious, ethnic, and class rivalries across the globe, lending
the game an
urgency that belies its customary 1-0 scoring pattern. More proof that sports
are a metaphor for life.
Benjamin D. Rinehart, assistant professor of art
Creating Books & Boxes: Fun and Unique Approaches to Handmade Structures by Benjamin D. Rinehart (Paper Art Workbooks, 2007).
Making your own books
and boxes does not have to be intimidating. It is a great tactile and rewarding
exercise. Even if there isn’t a creative bone in your body, making beautiful
objects can be easy. My book examines terminology, tools, materials, and, most
importantly, step-by-step projects with variations and helpful tips on each
structure. Creating Books & Boxes is a compilation of course materials
initially created for my classes and workshops. The classroom has been a great
way for people to get to know the materials and feel comfortable with folding,
cutting, sewing, and gluing — the essentials in book- and box-making — but
you don’t need to take a class to learn the basics and make wonderful
works of art.
This book serves as a literal and visual guide to making your own beautiful
bound and boxed creations. Enjoy yourself and keep in mind that, when learning
something new, mistakes happen. Be brave and experiment with different materials
and projects. I hope that you find this book insightful, captivating, and
fun!
Richard Yatzeck, professor of Russian
Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson (Picador, 2004). Women on their own.
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004). Thoughtful
small town minister.
The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart (Harvest Books, 2006). Walking a dog
across Afghanistan.
The Heartless Stone, by Tom Zoellner ’91 (St. Martin’s, 2006).
Why not to buy her a diamond.
The View from Castle Rock: Stories, by Alice Munro (Knopf, 2006). Today’s
Chekhov, read all of her stuff.
Books by Lawrence alumni:
www.lawrence.edu/news/pubs/books
Compact discs by Lawrence musicians:
www.lawrence.edu/alumni/cds
www.lawrence.edu/conservatory/CD