Good reads for summer
Chris Devine
Issue date: 5/14/09 Last update: 5/18/09 at 10:59 AM PST
Section: OpEd
Knowing how popular unrequired reading is amongst the students of Laney College, I thought I would put together a short list of a few books--none of which are new--that I think people may enjoy over their summer.
The first book I would have to recommend is one in which I always suggest to anyone looking for one of the best pieces of fiction from the last decade: "Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Cornbelt," by Tristan Eglof.
This is the story of John Kaltenbrunner's fight against the forces of evil that lie in the shadows of Kentucky's Appalachia. Kaltenbrunner faces armies of red necks, Methodists, and his own bad luck, as Egolf takes us through this red neck Les Miz, packed with a polysyllabic lyrical code that makes keeping a dictionary near a must.
Second, I would suggest the sluggish tale of an overweight door-to-door sales man living in post-World War I Britain. "Coming Up for Air," must be George Orwell's most cynical novel, and follows the rebirth of a middle-aged man who once gave up on life, only to find his youth resurrected through lackadaisical daydreams of his childhood countryside. In my opinion, you haven't read Orwell until you have read this.
For a more light-hearted novel that in the past eight years has been vetted by countless awards, let me suggest to you "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," by the East Bay's own Michael Chabon.
Chabon blends the horrors of World War II with Jewish mysticism, and the infinite adventures of two comic fanatics who create the hero "The Escapist." This tale carries with it the wide-eyed seamless air of childhood imaginative adventure and, that at the same time runs the gamut of a complex enigmatic plot that keeps the attentions of the more mature.
My last suggestion is an easy, although eerie, read that leaves the reader peaking over their shoulder after story's end. Albert Camus', "The Guest," is not a novel, but an impeccable short story. A lone schoolteacher is faced with the moral dilemma of living as colonist in French Algeria who refuses to take sides in the conflict storming around him.
One of Camus' most existentially horrific shorts, it provokes the reader to ponder the role of the West in foreign lands, and still maintains a particular relevance today.
Enjoy your summer and the reads.
The first book I would have to recommend is one in which I always suggest to anyone looking for one of the best pieces of fiction from the last decade: "Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Cornbelt," by Tristan Eglof.
This is the story of John Kaltenbrunner's fight against the forces of evil that lie in the shadows of Kentucky's Appalachia. Kaltenbrunner faces armies of red necks, Methodists, and his own bad luck, as Egolf takes us through this red neck Les Miz, packed with a polysyllabic lyrical code that makes keeping a dictionary near a must.
Second, I would suggest the sluggish tale of an overweight door-to-door sales man living in post-World War I Britain. "Coming Up for Air," must be George Orwell's most cynical novel, and follows the rebirth of a middle-aged man who once gave up on life, only to find his youth resurrected through lackadaisical daydreams of his childhood countryside. In my opinion, you haven't read Orwell until you have read this.
For a more light-hearted novel that in the past eight years has been vetted by countless awards, let me suggest to you "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," by the East Bay's own Michael Chabon.
Chabon blends the horrors of World War II with Jewish mysticism, and the infinite adventures of two comic fanatics who create the hero "The Escapist." This tale carries with it the wide-eyed seamless air of childhood imaginative adventure and, that at the same time runs the gamut of a complex enigmatic plot that keeps the attentions of the more mature.
My last suggestion is an easy, although eerie, read that leaves the reader peaking over their shoulder after story's end. Albert Camus', "The Guest," is not a novel, but an impeccable short story. A lone schoolteacher is faced with the moral dilemma of living as colonist in French Algeria who refuses to take sides in the conflict storming around him.
One of Camus' most existentially horrific shorts, it provokes the reader to ponder the role of the West in foreign lands, and still maintains a particular relevance today.
Enjoy your summer and the reads.
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