I mean big as in heavy books to lug to the beach this summer. I wrote earlier about oral history books leading up to the Oral History Association conference in October, 2008. The Dayton Teachers History Book Club is reading Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals as a companion to following the nominating conventions and presidential electioneering this summer. Fortunately, I already read that one because it weighs in around 900 pages. Let me know if you are in Dayton, Ohio and want to join us for this discussion come September.
I recently finished three novels—Noah Charney’s The Art Thief, Louise Erdrich’s The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse and Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero. All three are good reads that I recommend. Charney’s is a debut novel and it’s a kind of mash-up of sociologist Howard Becker’s Art Worlds and mystery writers Janwillem Van de Wetering and Georges Simenon (“Maigret” for PBS watchers). Now I realize that I read the short, easily portable books first and have the weighty tomes to carry on vacation. By the way, if you haven’t read Van de Wetering–take one of his mysteries to the beach.
What I want to haul around, to the dismay of my husband, are John Mack Faragher’s A Great and Noble Scheme: the Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland and Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. I noticed that a Canadian blog, Gen X at 40, linked to my earlier piece on the Acadian Bank Museum in Rustico and I was embarrassed because a local historian in Rustico had to correct so much of my first draft. I want to get the Acadian story right. I also liked Faragher’s Daniel Boone a lot. Some how the lottery of books on hold at the public library landed the second big book in my lap this weekend – Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth. I know there will be a hold on this when I get back so I’ll try to shoe horn it into my suitcase as well. Perhaps I should just download the audio book? I’m also taking Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven because recent events in Texas have so many people talking about it.
I’m saving Elliot Jaspin’s Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America and Christopher M. Kelty’s Two Bits: the Cultural Significance of Free Software for my return. Kelty’s book is available free online but I couldn’t seem to wean myself off of a book to hold in my hands. Perhaps the new One Laptop Per Child computer that also functions as an ebook will solve that problem. These two did not sound like vacation reading. Looks like I’ll facilitate a Center for Teaching and Learning book discussion of Two Bits at Wright State in the fall.
If you like photographs, I recommend a book that is both beautiful and serious. Gary Harwood’s Growing Season: the Life of a Migrant Community will remind you where your fresh vegetables come from this summer. You can see many of his photographs online but buy the book.
I find myself eagerly awaiting the next addition to Louise Erdrich’s children’s book series (The Birchbark House and The Game of Silence). Some adults got hooked on Harry Potter but not me. I should go back and read more of her adult novels but I don’t think there’s room in my suitcase or my two-week vacation.
