Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
What we’re reading
As each year nears its end, it’s time to know what Arkansans we admire are reading. They are generous with their time and and wide-ranging in their opinions. The results—presented today and next week in Perspective—may help you choose a suitable holiday gift for particular book fans on your list. Or find a fine novel or nonfiction work for your personal pleasure.
Saul and Patsy by Charles Baxter A good friend turned me on to Charles Baxter a few months back. So I picked up a couple of his books. For some reason, folks I know—and apparently the entire Internet—call his The Feast of Love something just short of brilliant. I couldn’t make it through that book. (I tossed it aside after another groan-inducing passage halfway through.) But Mr. Baxter’s Saul and Patsy is beautiful. I fell in love with Patsy the way I fell in love with McMurtry’s Karla: head over heels. Now, it takes a few chapters before the tires grip the road on this one. But once they do, off you go. After the trip, I stared at the wall for about an hour, thinking of what I’d read. Which is one sign of a good story.
If you’re more into non-fiction, try Bill Browder’s Red Notice. If you don’t think the Putin regime is full of thugs now, you will.
—David Barham, editorial page editor, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor This is a memoir by the first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court in 2009. Sonia Sotomayor shares the story of her journey from a struggling Puerto Rican community in the South Bronx to her first judicial appointment to the District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1992. Sotomayor’a parents migrated from Puerto Rico. This incredibly talented first-generation Hispanic American was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes around the time of her 8th birthday; lived with and loved her alcoholic father who died when she was 9 years old; and grew up in a housing project with her
working- class mother and a brother. Because of Sotomayor’s intelligence, grit, optimism, determination and the support of her beloved community, she excelled in high school, at Prince-ton University and Yale Law School.
I chose this memoir because of my long-standing interest in and admiration for resilient people. Like Sotomayor, though challenged and pressed down or oppressed, the resilient find ways to live rich and purposeful lives. They may experience physical pain, poverty, isolation or other bone-crunching stresses. The key is that they are able to withstand, overcome, grow, and contribute or serve.
At this time when so many young people appear unable to dare to dream or to rise above their current circumstances, it is essential for those of us who have overcome to write and share our stories as beacons of light.
— Sybil Jordan Hampton, retired president, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation
Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937–1945 by Rana Mitter This is an in- depth historical commentary detailing China’s sacrifices and contributions during WWII. It provides a fascinating upclose look at some of the major players in China during that time: Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, Soong Meiling (Chiang Kai-shek’s wife), Joseph W. “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, Zhou Enlai and various others.
Without China’s contributions to the war, an Allied victory would have been much more difficult. And without the Allied contribution, a Chinese victory would not have been possible. China’s contribution was important; in the West that is not remembered enough. WWII was crucial in shaping China’s worldview. Forgotten Ally is a tool in helping the reader understand China’s evolution to today and its relationship with the West.
— Jeff Thatcher, communications director, Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce/Associated Industries of Arkansas
A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade by Kevin Brockmeier
Brockmeier weaves an entertaining narrative through one year of junior high in which he faces childhood crushes, bullies, and awkward preteen moments. The writing is excellent, part Pat Conroy descriptiveness and part William Faulkner stream of consciousness,
albeit through the lens of a seventh-grader.
This book was loaned to me by the chairperson of the Catholic High English Department for consideration as part of our student reading selection. Clothed in a typical schoolbook cover, A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip guarded a corner of my desk for weeks until I read a paragraph highlighted by the department chair. I was hooked. Brockmeier’s use of language is what makes this book worthwhile and fun. He’s a Little Rock boy so the names and scenes are familiar. An easy read, A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip is the perfect choice for those of us who grew up in the 1980s and knew every word to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.”
—Steve Straessle is a 1988 graduate and current principal of Catholic High School for Boys.
Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee This is a coming-of-age tale that uses changing norms toward race to form the divide between a young adult daughter (Scout) and her deeply revered father (Atticus Finch) in the 1950s South. It’s also a telling look at the now seemingly backward attitudes that prevailed in the South at that time, not just about race but about the expansion of government’s role that began with
FDR. Even racially progressive Scout can’t fathom interracial marriage, and reading Scout’s elderly uncle’s diatribe against government-subsidized home loans and Social Security provided me with insight into that time’s mindset no history book has.
Still, I didn’t find the pace of Watchman as satisfying nor the story as compelling as Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and this won’t be my favorite read of the year by a stretch. Even so, it’s a nice reminder in this era of Michael Brown, Charleston and the University of Missouri that, while we still have a long way to go in perfecting racial relations, many of us are far ahead of the 1950s South when paternalistic attitudes toward people of color equaled progressive ones.
—Julie Johnson Holt, president of First Class Communication, LLC
The Stranger by Albert Camus and Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Short on time, I decided this holiday season to read a couple novellas, turning first to The Stranger by Camus, only to wish halfway through that Meursault had shot himself rather than an anonymous Arab. It might have saved me from the second half of a story in which even the protagonist could not be bothered to take an interest.
Next, I bit on a review likening Denis
Johnson’s novella Train Dreams to Cormac McCarthy’s work. Hoping it would not be a just another knockoff story of soulless itinerants roasting babies over campfires, I gave Train Dreams a try. Like McCarthy indeed, but somehow with a more humane magic in the web of it. It had much of the grittiness of McCarthy’s rough-hewn tooth-splintering worldview, but it also managed a warm-blooded pulse of human dignity, where McCarthy so often leaves me feeling we’re all doomed to be nameless unwept victims in Criminal Minds episodes.
—Dennis Humphrey, professor of English, Arkansas State University— Beebe
Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King
I recently finished reading Wolves of the Calla, the fifth installment in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. It’s hard to summarize the story succinctly other than saying that the series begins with a lone gunslinger obsessed with reaching a faraway tower who recruits three individuals from different time periods in New York City to join him on his quest.
My fifth-grade teacher turned several of my classmates and me on to Stephen King in the early 1980s. I remember reading the first three books before graduating from high school and being frustrated that it took King so long to release another book. I remember reading in the foreword to one of the books where he got letters from death-row inmates begging him to tell them how the story ends. Fast-forward 20-something years later, and I saw that a friend had the complete series, so I dug in. There are two more books left in the series, and I hope to finish them over the holidays.
—Chris Wilks, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival screening chairman
Flash by Rachel Anne Ridge God can take the ordinary and reveal extraordinary things. Rachel Anne Ridge and her family had fallen into tough times. Little did they know that adopting a stray donkey that wandered onto their property would teach them so many wonderful things about life and love. This true story is an insightful and entertaining one. With her artist skills, the author carefully paints a heartfelt picture of her adventures with Flash the donkey while learning and teaching God’s lessons along the way.
—Donna Dailey, Realtor, The Janet Jones Company