Summer Reading 2009

Here is a sample of the places I’ve visited (so far) thru reading this summer.


Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen (memoir)

 

Stealing Buddha’s Dinner is Bich Minh Nguyen’s story of her family escaping from Saigon in 1975 and settling in the primarily white, European-ancestry (Dutch) area of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Bich Minh focuses on food as the means of becoming American, particularly fast food and processed meals readily available in overwhelming abundance in such superstores as Meijers.  The comparisons between her grandmother’s cooking and what Nguyen identifies as “real American” food the alienation and difference she felt growing up in the Midwest.  Bich Minh and her family do not maintain strong ties with the Vietnamese community, possibly because her father marries a Latina woman.  Her longing to be American is clothed in her rapacious desire for American food, even when she is disappointed by its lack of flavor, such as the dry pork chops served when she has dinner at a young friend’s home. 

 

Note: chosen for the Great Michigan Read.

 

 

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (trilogy) by J. R. R. Tolkien

 

What better way to while away a summer morning than in the land created by Tolkien, inhabited by the ever resourceful Hobbits. I enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with Bilbo and his nephew Frodo, who becomes the ring-bearer.  As he travels towards the Cracks of Doom, I was delighted to meet again the many enchanting and frightening characters created by Tolkien.  Anyone who loves fantasy will enjoy visiting Tolkien’s world, whether it’s a first or repeat visit to Middle-earth.

 

gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson

 

I received a list of books to read this summer from the Festival of Faith & Writing and found gods in Alabama at the library, so I gave it a try.  I became engrossed in the life of Arlene Fleet, who finds herself back in her home town of Possett, Alabama, in spite of her promise to God that she’d never go back to the “fourth rack of hell.”  Murder, romance, and lots of twists and turns.  I couldn’t put it down.

 

 

When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

 

Actually, I started reading Sedaris’ book of personal essays at Christmas time, when one of my students gave it to me as a gift.  I try to read one or two a week, slowly savoring his wit and eccentric angle revealed through a wide variety of life experiences.  I have reached the last, and longest, of the essays, which I am saving for the weekend.  Since it is about quitting smoking, I will probably share it with my husband, another “hint” among many that I’ve tossed his way. If you have a hard time squeezing reading into your schedule, than I highly recommend keeping When You are Engulfed in Flames on your bedside stand.  You will laugh (and cry) your way through the summer as you read about the worm that lived in his mother-in-law’s leg, his funky neighbors in New York and in France, and much more.  Very entertaining!

 

 

Addition by Toni Jordan

 

What if your life had to be measured every action and step you took?  That’s how Grace Vandenburg lives.  At first, I was overwhelmed by her obsessive need to count, count, count.  The story begins after Grace has lost her teaching job.  She is on disability but has given up on her first round of counseling and medication.  One morning, in an attempt to avoid varying her routine, she shares a table with Seamus Joseph O’Reilly at the café. Thus begins the romance that changes her life. Jordan has created a very believable character.  Anyone who has ever been on strong anti-depressants will empathize with Grace, as she seeks to find a way to live her life with a compulsion few understand or tolerate.  Her struggle to maintain her identity and avoid becoming an ant toiling day to day without pleasure is one we all can understand. 

 

Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson

 

I fell in love with Joshilyn Jackson’s strong characters, particularly woman, when I read gods in Alabama, so naturally I checked the library for her other novels and found another gem.  From the moment Nonny Frett is born, she captures the heart.  Again set in a tiny town in the deep South, life takes unexpected twists and turns as Nonny negotiates her way through complex family relationships. Unpredictable plot turns lead to a satisfying ending.  Well worth reading!