The Joy
Luck Club
Amy Tan
Putman, 1989
"This is a story about mothers and daughters, about Chinese mothers and
Chinese American daughters. Beautiful and rich stories are blended with
superstitions and myths. The language is evocative; horrifying events
are conveyed in a dreamlike way. Tan successfully communicates the complexity
of immigrating to and growing up in America, and the transformation of
American identities; it's a book that stays with you."
Ellen Meltzer, Moffitt Undergraduate Library
All the
Strange Hours: The Excavation of a Life
Loren Eiseley
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975
"Loren Eiseley, like all great writers, is blessed with a unique vision
and the ability to express it. He contemplates the span of
a billion years with the same equanimity and perception with which
normal people regard their next meal.
Eiseley probes the depths of time and human experience with such clarity
and expression it will give you the chills."
Roy Tennant, The Library
Love in
the Time of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Knopf, 1988
"This is a wonderful novel, very rich in the feel of a Caribbean/South
American setting and culture. This story of a lifelong romance
is full of vivid details of time and place, scents, colors, food,
flowers, and heat. Reading it was like being in a beautiful feverish dream."
Barbara Kornstein, Education/Psychology Libraries
The Middleman
and Other Stories
Bharati Mukherjee
Grove, 1988
"These are superb short stories about America's newest wave of Third World immigrants
and the conflict between their values and those of the West. Written by
a foreign-born author, these witty, diverse, and sometimes sad tales deal
with displacement, poverty, discrimination, and the struggle to realize
the American Dream."
Beth Sibley, Moffitt/Public Health Libraries
At the
Heart of The White Rose
Inges Jens, Editor
Harper and Row, 1984
"On February 22, 1943, about two weeks after the defeat of the Wehrmacht
at Stalingrad, Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans were executed
by guillotine in Munich. She was twenty-one years old, he twenty-five.
Their crime had been the distribution of flyers critical of the National
Socialist regime, and in defense of basic human rights. They
belonged to a clandestine group devoted to the cause of social justice
called the White Rose, most of whose members were also subsequently
arrested and executed. This book is a story of great courage, moral
conviction, and personal engagement, and it illustrates magnificently the
heights to which the human spirit can soar, even in the face of senseless
and brutal repression."
James Spohrer, Collection Development
In Praise
of Imperfection: My Life and Work
Rita Levi-Montalcini; Translated by Luigi Attardi Basic Book, 1988
"Rita Levi-Montalcini shared the 1986 Nobel Price in Medicine with Stanley
Cohen for their discovery of protein growth factors. This book is her
life story, rich and well-told. Born into an Italian-Jewish family in
Turin, she survived the holocaust hiding in a mountain village. After
WWII, she was invited to work at Washington University (St. Louis), which
lead to the Nobel Prize. The book witnesses human determination and accomplishment."
Diane M. Brown, Physics Library
Things
Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe
Heinemann, 1958
"Chinua Achebe's first novel, Things Fall Apart, has been translated into
nearly 30 languages and has sold more than a million copies. It is --deservedly--
Africa's most often read novel. This brief volume explores the meaning
of the coming of colonialism to Nigeria's Ibo people. With an elegant
simplicity, Achebe captures the lives of eternal twoness lived by
colonized people."
Phyllis Bischof, Collection Development
Townscape
Gordon Cullen
Reinhold, 1961
"This is one of those rare books that fundamentally enhances perception
of a city. Its text, photographs, maps, and sketches convey
and exemplify a critical appreciation of the urban context.
After reading this work, one never again
strolls or passes through a city without evaluating its achievements for:
variety of texture, scale, balance, intricacy, or "thereness."
Reinvigorating the senses of the word townscape, this book enriches
the future of one's life for all the time one will spend in and with
cities."
Edward A. "Ted" Riedinger, Hispanic Collections
Running
the Amazon
Joe Kane
Knopf, 1989
"This is the story of the only expedition to ever travel the full length
of the Amazon River - 4200 miles. Starting high in the Andes
the expedition faces altitude sickness, grueling hikes, class 5 and
6 rapids, and other problems. There were many times that Joe Kane
thought he would not survive the next set of rapids, and he conveys
in a riveting manner this as well as his fear and respect of the
river."
Andrea Sevetson, Government Documents
Stephen
Hero
James Joyce
New Direction, 1969
"This is the book 'behind' The Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man which gives more detailed insight into Stephen Daedalus.
It is the private, less polished book from which the masterpiece
was created. I identified with Stephen Daedalus in his personal
conflicts with identity, his Irish nationality, his Catholicism,
and his family. As a young Chicana I thought Stephen was asking
the questions I was asking."
Lillian Castillo-Speed, Chicano Studies Library
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