1990


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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