- June 6, 2016
- 11:14 am
- Al Gini
- no comments
Summer Book Bag
Summer Book Bag
Al Gini
Resident Philosopher, WGN
Quinlan School of Business
Loyola University Chicago
- Summer time and the living is easy! Or so we think!
- Vacation time, backyard time, front porch time.
- Some extra time- relaxing, traveling, and while on vacation reading!
- Plenty of time to curl up with a good book!
- (3 Novels/ 3 Histories)
Jill Alexander Essbaum, Haus Frau, Random House, 2015
The opening line in the book reads: “Anna was a good wife, mostly.” “Mostly” meant when she was not having an affair with a fellow German language student, her husband’s best friend, or a stranger she happen to meet in the park.
But this is not a story of infidelity, sex or even marriage per se. It’s a story of alienation, loneliness, not being comfortable in a language or in a foreign country. Even more basically it’s a story of “not being comfortable in one’s own skin.” It’s about feeling alienated from self, from others, even from one’s own flesh and blood, one’s children. It’s a story reminiscent of Virginia Wolfe’s statement about Oakland California- “There is no there there!” Anna didn’t want to get married! Didn’t want to have children! Didn’t really want much at all. She didn’t even want to have affairs! But at least the sex and the planning and plotting not to get caught, kept her busy.
Elizabeth Strout, My Name is Lucy Barton, 2016
Strout is a Pulitzer Prize winner of fiction for Olive Kitteridge. This book is a beautifully crafted and evocative story of a young woman’s unhappy marriage, a sudden illness that threatened her life, and a surprise visit from her mother. The mother she dreads. The mother she ran away from. The A mother who abused and neglected her.
The thesis of the book is that “we all only have one story in our lives,” and we will play it over and over again in various forms and fashions. Lucy’s mother lived an unhappy life, with a husband she didn’t love, and children she couldn’t relate to. Lucy ran away from all of that. Moved to New York became a writer, married, had a child, And, yet, like her mother she as deeply unhappy. Lucy’s sudden illness, the breakdown of her marriage, her estrangement from her child, and the unexpected visit of her mother-who lacked the ability to offer her comfort – reinforces in Lucy the thesis of the book: “Our personal pain never goes away, in fact, it lasts our whole lifetime!”
Just Ward, Jack Gance, Houghton Muffin, 1989.
Set in Chicago starting around 1959, this is a story about the effects of politics and politicians on our lives. It’s a story about loyalty, commitment and political characters with and without character. It’s a story of power, payola, payback, position and place. It’s the story of a young man who is slowly seduced by the powers that be, members of the establishment, members of the club. The main character wants to run for office (Senate) honestly, but he realizes that he will lose without the help of certain important friends. Slowly, painfully he accepts the fact that, no matter how pure his intentions, politics is always a dirty game.
Tom Carson, Lincoln Ethics, Oxford Press, 2015
Over 16,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln. These books have explored Lincoln the family man, the lawyer, the writer, of arguably, the most important 272 words in American history “The Gettysburg Address”. There are books on Lincoln’s presidency, his choice of generals in the Civil War, and the political reasons behind his decision to enact the Emancipation Proclamation. This book asks: Was Lincoln truly a virtuous human being? Was he a good husband and family man? Where his intentions entirely honorable in regard to the question of slavery? Was his ambition to seek the presidency sincere or self-centered? This book offers us interesting and sometimes surprising insights into a man many refer as a “saint,” “Mr. Ethics.”
Kilohertz Nesteroff, The Comedians, Grove Press, 2015
From the days of Vaudeville, to the Borscht Belt in New York, to Chicago night clubs, to the Las Vegas strip, to the Golden Days of TV, to today’s comedy clubs-this book is a history of show business and the art of humor over the last hundred years. This book is full of comedy stars and comedy flops. It’s full of show business deals and gossip. It’s full of interviews and reflections on how comedy and comedians have reflected, shaped and changed American culture. Ironically what this book is not full of – is jokes! Also, as much as I enjoyed the book it never paused to examine what Mark Twain meant when he said, “Humor is the only weapon we have against reality.” Nonetheless, it’s a fascinating read!
Guy Sajer, The Forgotten Soldier, Potomac Gardens, 2000.
This is the second time I have read this amazing coming of age, biographical account of a 17-year-old Alsatian man/child, Guy Sajer, who is drafted into the German army in early 1942 and for four years fights his way across the bloody battlefields of Europe.
Many of us have read war stories from the point of view of the American and Allied forces, but this is one of the few memoirs available from the perspective of an enemy soldier and his fight to survive the madness of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and East Russia.
Guy is not a Nazi, not even a true German, barely speaks German but, at first, he is excited to be in the army. He thinks it is a great adventure, but it quickly turns into a desperate struggle to somehow stay alive. They do not fight for Hitler, Germany or even home. They fight to stay alive against incredible odds. This is not a story of glory or evil, or aggression. This is a story of a “boy soldier’s” desperate attempt to survive.