JOYCE:
Sarah
By J.T. LeRoy
(Bloomsbury Publishing)
Truck stops. Lot lizards. And cheap motels. Hey, I’m from Stockton — it was like reading about home.
Ji:
John Henry Days
By Colson Whitehead
(Doubleday Publishing)
A freeloading junketeer, a.k.a. a Web journalist, named J. Sutter thinks that his trip to West Virginia to cover a commemorative festival introducing the John Henry stamp is going to be another meaningless stint. However, Sutter discovers the parallelürelationship between the black folk hero’s life in the age of industrialism and his own life in the age of technology. I picked it up because I saw an interview with Whitehead on Charlie Rose. We’re both from the same generation and grew up in front of the tube. I could relate to his language, and his writing style is cool, too.
NEELA:
A Theory of Everything
By Ken Wilbur
(Shambhala Books)
A good friend passed this book onto me, saying it would change my life. I tried a number of times to get into Ken Wilbur’s simple, yet revolutionary, ideas about integrating body, mind, soul and spirit to no avail. Then on a particularly turbulent plane ride to Chicago, it all came together and I zipped through half the book and came to a pretty intense understanding of which stage of human development I am functioning in. This is a must-read for anyone inter$sted in transcending the bullshit.
ETHEN:
The Boys of Summer
Roger Kahn
(HarperCollins)
The next best thing than going to the ballpark is reading Roger Kahn’s classic The Boys of Summer, the visceral account of the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers in the early 1950s. Kahn touches on the intricacies of what made “Them Bums” click. From Pee Wee to Furillo to Jackie, this book does justice to the original Dodgers who called Ebbets Field their home.
YVONNE:
Fast Food Nation
Eric Schlosser
(Houghton Mifflin)
Do you ever get that guilty feeling that starts to sink in 10 minutes after scarfing down a quarter-pounder with cheese and super-sized fries? A feeling that goes deeper than the looming thought of cholesterol steadfastly marching toward your gut, butt and heart? A sinking feeling, perhaps, that you might have done disservice to the child you might have in the future? No? Well, that’s fine. No matter where you fall in the spectrum of health consciousness and business savvy, after Fast Food Nation, you will have a much expanded view on mystery meats and other treats.
JENNIE:
Ender’s Game
By Orson Scott Card
(Tom Doherty Associates)
Ever felt like you knew things others didn’t? Ender Wiggin, is a boy just like that. In a society where birth is limited to one child per couple, the Wiggin family is allowed three. It is all part of a secret military plan to find a child who will lead Earth into a counter-attack against alien buggers who attacked our planet years ago, and Ender has just the intuition and personality that the government needs. Orson Scott Card writes seamlessly, with an uncanny ability to embellish fully the personality traits and emotions of all his characters. The book is great.
