A Book Recommendation from Me (and Many from My Colleagues)

A faculty tradition at the University of Chicago is recommending various books that we recently read and recommend. (Usually these are recent books, but this year my colleague Martha Nussbaum also recommended Moby Dick, remarking that "[i]t is definitely a book people need to read today, when we have hunted some species of whales to the brink of extinction.")

I recommended:

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

The moving story of three college friends who create a video game empire. Of course, this entails setbacks, betrayals, and ultimately rehabilitation, but with many unexpected themes along the way, such as life with a physical disability, the selfishness of creativity, and a dose of magical realism.

A runner-up for me was Helen DeWitt's very short The English Understand Wool, as well as a couple of slightly older books like Adam Johnson's The Orphan-Master's Son and Madeline Miller's Circe.

You can read many more suggestions from my colleagues here.

Comments

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Thanks for that, good book recommendations always welcome!

[Dan Schiavetta]

“Natural History” by Andrea Barrett. An easy read and a finely observed series of interlocking stories about a science teacher from the Civil War to Prohibition (she’s technically just offstage).

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

BOOKS FOR ADULTS: Anything by Robert Fish. A terrific, not-very-well-remembered writer of hard-boiled 1960s-70s noir thrillers. Most famous for authoring the screenplay of Bullitt (1968) starring Steve McQueen. Oh, and for finishing, and publishing, Jack London’s unfinished novel THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU, LTD.

I’m currently reading his novel PURSUIT, about a high-ranking administrator of a Nazi death camp, who realizes that the War is lost, and that the Russians will arrive soon to liberate the camp. In order to avoid being tried for war crimes and hung, he files a false record of his own death from typhus, and disguises himself as a Jew, and becomes a prisoner. Then, of course, orders arrive to evacuate the camp and transfer the prisoners to another camp further from the eastern border. So he spends much more time living like a prisoner than he had planned.

For kids: MISSING MELINDA by Jacqueline Jackson. Published 1967. The protagonists are twin sisters, whose father is a Shakespeare freak and bit of a wag (hence the twins’ names: Cordelia and Ophelia). The family moves into the home of a recently-deceased relative, and finds it cluttered with all kinds of junk, including (as it turns out) a valuable antique doll. Before the twins learn its value, it gets stolen and the twins must figure out who the thief is and bring him to justice. During their sleuthing they make the acquaintance of several doll-owners and dealers, and learn a lot about the history of dolls and doll-making.

The story is told in the first person by the twins, each writing alternate chapters.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

PURSUIT (Robert Fish)

MISSING MELINDA (Jacqueline Jackson)

FULL DISCLOSURE: Robert Fish is my great-uncle; my mom used to refer to him as her "Drunkle" because of he enjoyed sipping liquor while writing (and while not writing).

(I have no personal connection to Jacqueline Jackson, at least, none that I know of.)

[Ohio Lawyer]

So Martha Nusbaum thinks Moby Dick is about whales?

[Jokibif0]

Exactly my reaction. Not a very deep reading of Moby Dick.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I mean, the book is very obviously about whales. (You’ll note that the eponymous character is a whale, and the alternate title is, “The Whale”. And if you’ve read the book, you’ll recall there’s a lot of stuff about whales in there!)

Or, what do you think Moby Dick is about?

[Bill Poser]

Postmodernists reportedly think that it is about the Republic of Ireland, but it is actually about whales, among other things.