The Christmas stocking wouldn’t be adequately stuffed without books, so here are a few–old treats as well as new discoveries– that I believe would make great holiday gifts this season.
My No. 1 pick is from my all-time favorite playwright, August Wilson, who died in October just months after completing his 10th play. Check out the book version of “The Piano Lesson” (Plume Publishers), the story of a brother and sister who are in a conflict over whether to sell an ornately carved upright piano.
The brother wants to use the money to purchase land for a business venture, but his sister views the piano as a family heirloom that has irreplaceable value because the carvings tell a heart-wrenching story involving enslaved family members. The play, which is set in 1930s Pittsburgh, earned Wilson his second Pulitzer Prize.
In October, I interviewed author Bobbie Ann Mason during the Chicago Humanities Festival. We talked about “An Atomic Romance” (Random House), her first novel in nearly 10 years.
Although I wasn’t blown away by the novel, I sure have been by her compilations of short stories, particularly “Shiloh & Other Stories” (Modern Library). Mason’s voice is as unassuming as it is insightful. She can transform the most mundane situations into fascinating discoveries. Much of Mason’s work is set in her home state of Kentucky, and she was impressed when I told her I’ve been to Paducah many times because it’s my father-in-law’s hometown.
Speaking of books of short stories, “I Got Somebody in Staunton” (Amistad Press) by William Henry Lewis offers 10 (sometimes sensual, but always revealing) stories, including the lovely and gritty “Shades.”
In this one, Lewis introduces us to a young man reminiscing about the summer when he ran into his estranged father. “Crusades,” another fine offering, is the tale of a man recently fired from his job as a Federal Emergency Management Agency worker. I re-read that one after Hurricane Katrina.
Earlier this year, I interviewed Andrea Levy at the Newberry Library. She was in town on behalf of the folks who organize the Humanities Festival. Levy’s book “Small Island” weaves the lives of two couples, one Jamaican, the other British, during WWII Great Britain.
Much of the book is set before the wave of postwar emigration from Jamaica, once a British colony, to Britain. “Small Island,” which has won the Orange Prize and a Whitbread award, among many other honors, is a delightful and often hilarious read about people trying to navigate worlds they think they know but really don’t.
I enjoyed Haki Madhubuti’s memoir “YellowBlack, the First Twenty-One Years of a Poet’s Life” (Third World Press). Madhubuti is the founder and director-emeritus of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University and publisher of Third World Press.
“YellowBlack” deftly braids spoken-word poetry into a rich tapestry about a young boy who grew up around pimps and prostitutes “slamming Cadillac doors on the streets of Detroit’s Black Bottom and Chicago’s West Side.” “YellowBlack” is a powerful read.
It was by accident that I found another powerful read, “Love in the Driest Season, a Family Memoir” (Three Rivers Press). I was in Mississippi last summer at a restaurant when I got this as a book on tape to help me stay awake during a grueling road trip.
Using beautiful prose, Neely Tucker, an American journalist, tells of being assigned to cover Africa, falling in love with a Zimbabwean baby girl named Chipo, and the ordeal that followed his and his wife’s decision to adopt the child. The story is an extraordinary exploration into Zimbabwean culture and the power of love.
From Northwestern University Press’ “Chicago Lives” reading series, check out “Challenging the Daley Machine,” by the still-vibrant nonagenarian Leon Despres. He’s the former Chicago alderman who in the 1950s began a 20-year anti-establishment fight to end discrimination and more equitably distribute the city’s wealth and resources.
These are just a few books that aren’t currently on any best-seller lists but were quite memorable for me. Let me know what you think about these or any others you’d like to share.
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