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June 24, 2005
What's on your summer reading list?
The BC Chronicle recently asked members of the faculty to name the books they might be packing in their beach bags and knapsacks this summer. Here are some of their responses:
Prof. Carlo Rotella (English):
• The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins: A great Boston novel, and a great dialogue novel, stripped-down and gorgeously understated. The first chapter begins with this sentence, "Jackie Brown at twenty-six, with no expression on his face, said that he could get some guns," and that chapter ends with one of my favorite paragraphs in American literature, which in its entirety goes like this: "'Sure,' Jackie Brown said. His expression changed: he smiled."
• The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley: It's just one damn thing after another in 14th century Greenland. Never has the eating of curds and cutting of turves seemed more gripping. I first read it on a very long flight to Asia, and after reading the first two pages and finding myself in such good hands, I took a look at the 580 pages I still had left to read and thanked my lucky stars.
• Homicide by David Simon and The Corner by Simon and Edward Burns: Two beautifully reported nonfiction city books, respectively about a year in the life of a homicide division and a year in the life of a crack corner, both set in Baltimore. TV has seized on both and mostly done them poorly (although the authors and HBO finally combined them to good effect in "The Wire"), but the versions on screen don't begin to touch the depth of character and thickness of social texture in the books.
Asst. Prof. Mariela Paez (LSOE):
• Zorro: A Novel by Isabel Allende: I will read the book in Spanish although it is also available in English. Every summer I try to read in Spanish to keep up with my knowledge and vocabulary in this language. I love the way Allende narrates and I think that Zorro will be a fun novel to read during the summer.
Adj. Assoc. Prof. Richard McGowan, SJ (CSOM):
• Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter Bernstein: This book is a fun historical ride about how people learn to utilize data in making decisions. It has some great examples to illustrate its points.
• Napoleon by Paul Johnson: I just returned from taking 22 Carroll School of Management juniors to Paris so it was appropriate that I read another account of the man before I visited his tomb again. It is a short but insightful book.
• Saint Augustine by Garry Wills: This is a different look at one of the most influential people who shaped the Church. Wills presents a much different Augustine than he is usually portrayed.
Assoc. Prof. David Quigley (History):
• Fourth of July, Asbury Park: A History of the Promised Land by Daniel Wolff: Wolff wrote a great biography of the incomparable Sam Cooke; this new book is a cultural history of the faded Jersey Shore town that Bruce Springsteen has written about for decades. My childhood summers were spent visiting relatives at the Shore; by high school, we had moved from New York to a town just north of Asbury. I'm looking forward to losing myself in the backstory of my favorite beach towns.
• God's Gym by John Edgar Wideman: As a historian of race in America, I find myself regularly drawn back to Wideman's haunting fiction for its rich imagining of various American pasts and his challenging takes on contemporary American lives.
Prof. Joellen Hawkins (CSON):
• Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich, which is about how people in minimum wage and service jobs cannot make it in America.
• Claws and Effect by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown, another of their mystery series. Brown, who wrote Rubyfruit Jungle is one of the funniest authors I have ever read. She and her cat author this series of mysteries which are fun and easy reading.
Prof. Paul Mariani (English):
• Gilead, by Marilyn Robinson which won the Pulitzer, even though the protagonist is a septuagenarian preacher from Gilead, Iowa. Robinson's writing is always a treat.
• Faith Of Our Fathers by Eamon Duffey, about the treasures inherent in the Catholic tradition - beacuse I loved his The Voices of Morebath.
• The Catholic Revolution by Andrew Greeley, on the strengths and failures of Vatican II, which shaped so many of us.
• The Collected Poems of Richard Wilbur, whom I've followed for the past 40 years: the one sane one among that brilliant but unstable Middle Generation of American poets.
• The Collected Poems of Donald Justice, who I got to know at Bread Loaf in the nineties, and whose intelligence I came to cherish.
Prof. Lawrence Cunningham (Law):
Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald, great business writer with a complete catalogue of this amazing saga.
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Friedman, thoughtful observer of the world scene, I've read many of his books and enjoy them all.
Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell, read his book Tipping Point and found it fresh and useful. - Stephen Gawlik •