I talked to folks at four of my favorite independent bookstores across the Chicago area and asked them to give me their picks for timeless and engaging summer reads. Here they are:
Heidi Schmidt, the store manager of Town House Books & Cafe in suburban St. Charles, recommends:
*”A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True” by Brigid Pasulka, who’s an English teacher at Whitney Young Magnet High School, is about a granddaughter who ventures to Poland to seek a new life and learn more about her grandparents’ love affair. “Pasulka’s writing is subtle, wry and beautiful and the book reminds me of Sandra Cisneros’ ‘Caramelo,'” said Schmidt.
Carol Anshaw’s “Aquamarine” tells the story of swimmer Jesse Austin and lays out three possible outcomes of her life after she wins the silver medal at the 1968 Olympic Games. “In the first story, she’s married and pregnant,” said Schmidt. “In the second, she’s a lesbian and a professor of English. And in the third, she has two children and is divorced. The stories are so very satisfying.” Anshaw teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Of Jhumpa Lahiri’s writing, Schmidt said, “We all get 26 letters, but what she does with hers is so amazing!” Her work, “Unaccustomed Earth,” is a compilation of short stories, with the last third of the book reading like a novella because the stories are connected.
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Laura Prail, a store manager at 57th Street Booksin Hyde Park, suggests four books.
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” by Rebecca Skloot is the story of Lacks’ amazing cells, called HeLa cells, which have led to some of the most important discoveries in modern science. “It’s a great story about race and family, and it’s so well-written,” Prail said. “Everyone can learn something from it.”
“Who Fears Death” is by Nnedi Okorafor, who has a Ph.D. in English and is a professor at Chicago State University. A mixture of science fiction and fantasy, “Who Fears Death” is a post-apocalyptic novel set in Africa about a mixed-race young sorceress.
Prail said that “The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis” by Lydia Davis is not just a book of short stories. But some are extremely short, microstories that you can dip in and out of easily. “It’s a gorgeous book and the best argument for reading the actual book, rather than on an e-reader.”
“Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between” is by Theresa Brown, an oncology nurse. “It’s a memoir, but because she also has a Ph.D. in English (from the University of Chicago,) it’s so beautifully written,” Prail said.
Constance Shabazz owns Books Ink in the Beverly neighborhood. She offered the following:
“Wench” by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is an intriguing historical novel about Tawawa House, a place where wealthy Southern slaveholders took their slave mistresses for open-air “vacations.”
“Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African American Identity” by Ytasha Womack examines the changing perceptions of race among younger blacks as they move away from identifying by race to defining themselves more in terms of their professions, sexuality and culture. Womack lives in Chicago.
“Post Black” pairs nicely with Ellis Cose’s “The End of Anger.” “It looks at how in certain instances blacks are not as angry as we used to be,” said Shabazz. Cose “talked to Harvard MBAs, and they don’t see the glass ceiling in the same way because blacks have broken through it — although they acknowledge corporate life is far from perfect.”
Linda Bubon, co-owner of Women & Children First in Andersonville, recommends four novels.
“Three Stages of Amazement,” by Carol Edgarian, is a beautifully written, nuanced and complex novel that shows a marriage unraveling under the stress of a failing economy, a sick baby, a precocious preschooler and too little time together.
In W. Bruce Cameron’s novel “A Dog’s Purpose,” the narrator, a dog that travels through four incarnations to find his purpose, is a dog’s dog, wonderfully voiced and utterly charming. Because Cameron has done his homework on dog breeds and behavior, his narration is completely believable, and the novel rises above the genre to become a fable for us humans.
Bubon calls “Once Upon a River” by Bonnie Jo Campbell “the best book I’ve read this year and one of the best books ever about an unusual girl’s coming of age. Spirited and fierce, wise and naive, strong and vulnerable, Margo Crane is a heroine you’ll never forget.”
Rachel Simon’s “The Story of Beautiful Girl” is a most unusual and moving story of a retired schoolteacher who hides the baby of a deaf African-American man and a developmentally disabled young woman on a stormy night. This story contrasts their emotional tenderness with the cruelty and ignorance of the society around them.
So there you have it. Happy reading!