More books to watch for

Well, how's the reading going? Have you settled in your 2009 reading habits yet? Got those challenges underway?

Here are some titles recently gleaned from the NY Times book review:

The Red Convertible. Louise Erdrich, who I've mentioned as a spectacular Native American author of children's books, has released a new book of adult short stories.

Readers of Erdrich may think of her as a chronicler of Native American ways, and this she certainly is, but her mine taps other veins as well. Many sorts of Americans appear among her characters: a reclusive New Hampshire sculptor; a small-minded German sister-in-law; a trapeze artist who saves her daughter from a burning house; a play-acting bank robber; a Eurasian doctor who lures a college girl by promising to cook her an omelet. (Read Liesl Schillinger's full review at The New York Times.)

Chicago For anyone looking for a novel in translation, Alaa Al Aswany's Chicago may be of interest. Aswany is an Egyptian Arab, but the novel takes place (as you might guess) in Chicago. Ligaya Mishan's review is mixed, but the references to Aswany's earlier book, The Yacoubian Building intrigue me.

In “The Yacoubian Building,” Al Aswany traced the overlapping lives of the residents of a historic building in downtown Cairo. Through the bountiful accumulation of detail, a portrait of an entire society came into focus. He has attempted a similar collage in “Chicago,” but the American urban landscape, with inhabitants sealed off from one another in private lives, seems to have defeated him: there is none of Egypt’s noise, color and seethe of life in close quarters to be found here.

From my local newspaper:
Fifty Miles From Tomorrow, the memoir of Alaskan native activist William L. Iggiagruk Hensley. Publisher's Weekly says:

Although this fascinating memoir is set hundreds of miles from where most Americans have ever dared to travel, Hensley brings to life this 'little-known part of America' through myriad tales of toil, triumph and the Inupiat Ilitqusiat — the Inupiat spirit. Growing up in what he calls the 'twilight of the Stone Age,' Hensley grew up without what many would consider basic necessities; in his homeland on the Kotzebue Sound in rural Alaska, 'survival was the primary concern.' But even through the illness and hardships that plagued his and other families, the life lessons learned as a child stayed with him for decades. As such, despite attending high school and college in the Lower 48, he found himself always drawn back to his homeland, 'like a salmon heading for the waters where he was spawned.' Hensley became a crusader for the Inupiat people, starting as a fresh-out-of-college activist, then his tenure as a state representative, and later his work in the corporate sector.

And here are a few nonfiction books that have been awaiting mention:

The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed (2008 National Book Award winner)

This epic work tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family's dispersal after Jefferson's death in 1826. It brings to life not only Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson but also their children and Hemings's siblings, who shared a father with Jefferson's wife, Martha. The Hemingses of Monticello sets the family's compelling saga against the backdrop of Revolutionary America, Paris on the eve of its own revolution, 1790s Philadelphia, and plantation life at Monticello. Much anticipated, this book promises to be the most important history of an American slave family ever written.

By Malcolm Gladwell (Jamaican-English Canadian):
Outliers: The Story of Success There is a logic behind why some people become successful, and it has more to do with legacy and opportunity than high IQ. In his latest book, New Yorker contributor Gladwell (Blink, 2005, etc.) casts his inquisitive eye on those who have risen meteorically to the top of their fields, analyzing developmental patterns and searching for a common thread.
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking In this best-seller, a staff writer for The New Yorker weighs the factors that determine good decision-making.


Finding Oprah's Roots: Finding Your Own, By Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Gates follows his PBS documentaries on African American genealogy with a book detailing the search for the family tree of the documentaries' best-known subject, talk show host Oprah Winfrey. He chronicles the process of uncovering Oprah's family history, challenged by the same obstacles that all African Americans face in finding documentation during and after slavery. Gates advises readers to begin by gathering oral histories from living relatives, even as he recalls the process of talking to Oprah's relatives and the arduous task of finding a paper trail. (Booklist)

Hope on a Tightrope , Cornell West
The New York Times best-selling author of Race Matters and Democracy Matters offers open-hearted wisdom for our times in this courageous collection of quotations, speech excerpts, letters, philosophy, and photographs that reflect the profound humanity that fuels the passionate public intellectual.

Memoirs

Lots of good memoirs out there, here are just a few of them. Got more suggestions? Leave them in the comments and I'll make another post.

If you're doing Eva's World Citizen Challenge, the following four books are on her reading list:

1. Marie Arana (Peruvian American), American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood.
Eva says, "Marie Arana, born to a Peruvian father and American mother, describes her childhood, mainly in Peru with stints in America, in American Chica. First of all, the writing is incredible-easily the best literary style of any memoir I’ve read. Secondly, Arana’s ability to bring a place to life, especially Peru, and really make the reader part of the experience is breathtaking."Read Eva's full review

2. Jung Chang (Chinese), Wild Swans
Eva says, "This book is often tragic, but the ending is full of hope. I recommend it to everyone: you’ll learn about the history of twentieth-century China and how everyday Chinese people survived it (or didn’t). The book itself is user-friendly: it has a brief pronunciation guide, a map of China, a family tree, and a mutlipage chronology. While the first hundred pages are a bit boring, after that the writing becomes, and stays, fascinating." Read Eva's full review

3. Edward Said (multi-ethnic), Out of Place: A Memoir
Born in 1935 to a Lebanese mother and Palestinian father who had American citizenship, and raised in Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon, Said has always lived with a divided identity. Even as a child he realized that his first name was British, his last name was Arabic and his nationality was American. In a straightforward, often poetic style, Said charts his family history, his education in British and American schools and his move to the U.S. in 1951 to attend Princeton and begin what was to become a distinguished career as an academic and intellectual. The memoir's most engaging elements are the little personal details that help us understand his later work: the young Said's love of such Hollywood films as Arabian Nights, with Maria Montez, or the novels of Twain and Cooper, offer fresh insights into his later writings about orientalism. Said can be frank about his personal life, whether it's learning about masturbation or his intense relationship with his mother, whom he identifies as Gertrude to his Hamlet, which gives the book moments of deep, intimate openness.

4. Ernesto Che Guevera (Latin American), The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey
In 1951, before he was a legendary guerilla fighter, Che Guevera took a year off from college to travel South America by motorcycle with a friend. His account of that trip was first published in 1993, and inspired the 2004 film of the same name.

More memoirs that have been recommended:

James McBride (African American), The Color of Water
The need to clarify his racial identity prompted the author to penetrate his veiled and troubled family history. Ruth McBride Jordan concealed her former life as Rachel Deborah Shilsky, the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, from her children. Her grim upbringing in an abusive environment is left behind when she moves to Harlem, marries a black man, converts to Christianity, and cofounds a Baptist congregation with her husband. The courage and tenacity shown by this twice-widowed mother who manages to raise 12 children, all of whom go on to successful careers, are remarkable. Intertwined accounts, told alternately by mother and son. (School Library Journal)

Kim Reid (African American), No Place Safe
Reid's well-composed, straightforward memoir recounts the two fraught years of her adolescence when a serial killer terrorized Atlanta. Reid's mother, an investigator in the Fulton County District Attorney's Office in 1979, told her every detail of the quest for the murderer of 29 victims, mostly young black boys. Meanwhile, Reid attended a Catholic school in an all-white part of town, torn between loyalty to her black neighborhood friends and the desire to fit in with the white kids and feel safe at her private school, located far from the danger zone of her neighborhood.(Publisher's Weekly)

Julia recommends Soldier: A Poet's Childhood by poet June Jordan (West Indian American)
Publisher's Weekly says, "'Born on the hottest day in Harlem' to West Indian immigrants, Jordan was largely shaped by her ambitious and hardworking but sometimes abusive father: she would be his "sturdy, brilliant soldier, or he would, well, beat me to death." When Jordan turned five, in 1941, the family moved to Brooklyn.... Remarkable passages cover Jordan's youthful obsession with cowboy heroes, "deep-sea fishing" with her protective father and early experiences with religion. Jordan (a professor of African-American Studies at UC-Berkeley) has selected a bitty, broken-up format: single paragraphs, sentences, anecdotes and prose sketches succeed one another as if in a photo album or a book of short poems. (Sometimes Jordan even breaks into verse.) "

Lori Tharps (African American) Kinky Gazpacho
Magazine writer and editor Lori Tharps was born and raised in the comfortable but mostly White suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she was often the only person of color in her school and neighborhood. At an early age, Lori decided that her destiny would be discovered in Spain. She didn't know anyone from Spain, had never visited the country, and hardly spoke the language. Still, she never faltered in her plans to escape to the Iberian Peninsula.
Arriving in the country as an optimistic college student, however, Lori soon discovers Spain's particular attitude toward Blackness. . . The story would end there, except Lori meets and marries a Spaniard, and that's when her true Spanish adventure really begins. . . .At its heart, this is a love story. It is a memoir, a travel essay, and a glimpse into the past and present of Spain. (Publishers Weekly)

Melba Pattillo Beals (African American) Warriors Don't Cry: The Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High comes recommended by M.
In 1957, while most teenage girls were listening to Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue," watching Elvis gyrate and collecting crinoline slips, a 15-year-old Melba Pattillo was escaping the hanging rope of a lynch mob, dodging lighted sticks of dynamite, and washing away burning acid sprayed into her eyes by segregationists determined to prevent her from integrating Little Rock's Central High School. As a teenager, she was caught up in the center of a civil rights firestorm which stunned this nation and altered the course of history. Warriors Don't Cry chronicles her experience as a civil rights heroine. It is a snapshot of a Black family in the south living under a system of apartheid during the 1950s. Facing the oppression which would engulf them, they struggled, holding onto their dignity against overwhelming odds. (from the publisher)

Firoozeh Dumas (Iranian, lives in America), Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America (Recommended)
Dumas came to America for the first time in the early 1970s, when many Americans were unfamiliar with Iran. She and her family spent much of their time correcting misconceptions about Iran--no, it's not in the Sahara; no, they didn't live in a tent; and no, they didn't own camels. After the Iranian revolution, the attitude of Americans changed, and Dumas and her family faced downright hostility from formerly friendly Americans. Her father even lost his job. . . Dumas peppers her memoir with amusing anecdotes about her family's experiences in America . . . Dumas has a unique perspective on American culture, and she effortlessly balances the comedy of her family's misadventures with the more serious prejudices they face. (Booklist)

Azar Nafisi (Persian)
Reading Lolita in Tehran (2004)
Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Azar Nafisi, a bold and inspired teacher, secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. (from the author's website)
Things I've Been Silent About (December 30, 2008)
Nafisi's story of growing up in Iran, memories of her life lived in thrall to a powerful and complex mother, against the background of a country’s political revolution. (Newsday)

Linda Hogan (Native American), Woman Who Watches Over the World
Following critical praise for her other works, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel Mean Spirit, Hogan offers a memoir rich with the texture of her life as a Chickasaw Indian. Each chapter weaves together her personal and often tragic experiences as the daughter of an army sergeant with Native history, myths, legends, earth, and contemporary life. Although she is often depicting painful events, her voice resonates calm. . . A very good book that goes a long way toward explaining Native Americans today. (Library Journal)

Ernestine Hayes (Native American), Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir
Hayes, now an English professor and historian of her mother's Lingit tribe, poignantly relates the sad details of her youth and early adulthood, adroitly interspersing these often-sordid memories with stories of tribal history that have been passed on for generations. . . In and out of detention homes as a teenager and failed relationships as an adult, she eventually returns to Juneau and her roots. There Hayes reclaims her heritage, especially the Lingit worship of and reliance on the land and all it supports, a way of life she hope to pass on to her grandchildren. This sometimes raw, consistently honest memoir is a rewarding, evocative, ultimately uplifting view of Native life. (from Booklist)