Summer Reads

BOTH of my seminar handbooks have been shipped off to Seattle AND the editor at the publishing company tells me that the downloadable Spanish projects have been corrected and proofed and are ready for the world to see...and hopefully buy! While proud of all that writing, none of the above are things I would recommend for good summer reads! The following,however, come highly recommended by this panel of one.

Run, don't walk, to your local library for a copy of "Broken for You" by Kallos. Having recently been in Seattle I enjoyed the fact that the book is set in that city but, more importantly, this is an improbable book that teaches a whole lot about relationships, family, love, life and death, the Holocaust, and bowling....yes, the Holocaust and bowling...in a well-written, often humorous fashion.

A totally different but equally amazing book is "Escape" by Carolyn Jessop. This book reads like fiction but unbelievably, is true. The author tells of her young life in an ultra-conservative polygamos sect of the Mormon church and of her eventual escape with her many young children. We hear about the horrors of the Taliban and other regimes hostile to women around the world but I, for one, was not aware of the horrors that very recently occurred in our own country. If you are like me, you will inhale this great read.

There have recently been a glut of great novels about China and Afghanistan. "Broken Paradise" by Cecilia Samartin takes us to a totally different part of the world, Cuba in the pre- and post-Castro years. We follow a wealthy young Cuban girl and her cousin from the wonderful life they lead in the late 50's to the trials they face post-Castro. Nora migrates to the U.S., Alicia stays in Havanna and we track their lives through their letters. It's a great read even if you don't know anything about Cuba, but I found myself back in my senior year independent study of Latin American literature with Sra. P. Sra. P, like the heroines Nora and Alicia, grew up among Havana's privileged class. Like Nora she fled soon after Castro. Even though Sra. P. had a good life in Chicago, it took nothing for her to break down in tears as we read Cuban poetry together. For me, a naive 20 year old Chicagoan, a semester of talking and sometimes crying together profoundly opened my eyes to what it is like to have to leave your beloved home.

The next book spoke to me in a different way. "Bridge of Sighs" by Richard Russo is on the long side, but it needs its length to tell its story. The hero is a sixty year old man who has spent his entire life in a small town in upstate New York. His childhood friend left for Italy as a young adult and never looked back. Both of their stories and the multiple inter-twinings of their lives are told in fascinating detail. Even though I am female, grew up in Chicago, and have had totally different life experiences, I felt like I relived my life as I read. I know any sixty-something person would have the same reaction and I suspect, any twenty- or thirty something may better understand the world in which their parents grew up by reading this book.

My final read on this list is "Girl Meets God" by Lauren Winner. This unusual book, an autobiography, tells of the child of a Jewish father and a lapsed Southern Baptist mother who chose to become an Orthodox Jew...with a vengeance. As a super-observant, Orthodox woman she became increasingly drawn to Christianity. The book's focus is on the first year of Lauren's life as a Christian. All I can say is that, as a life-long Christian, I found her observations and faith statements profound and, in spite of the "quirkiness" of the heroine, her message was deep and inspiring. I rarely re-read books, but there are parts of this I want to look at again.

So, now that I've read my summer books and have even written my book reports, I guess I'm ready to go back to school except I DON'T HAVE TO!