Let's Talk About It
Biography of a Runaway Slave (Esteban Montejo) by Miguel Barnet
Montejo (1860-1973) was born a slave on a sugar plantation, escaped, and went on to live an extraordinary life. Honest, blunt, compassionate, and engaging, his voice provides an extraordinary insight into the African culture that took root in the Caribbean. One of the few accounts that exist of Latin American slavery from a slave’s point of view.
In the Cold of the Malecon & Other Stories by Antonio Jose Ponte
Riveting stories set in Cuba following the collapse of the Soviet Union, when people lived uncertain of what the future held for them. While living in this state of suspension, Ponte's dynamic characters create their own startling worlds.
The Chase by Alejo Carpentier
A thrilling tale written in 1958 by one of Cuba’s most important intellectuals. " In a nameless, Havana-like city, an anonymous man flees a team of shadowy, relentless political assassins, and ultimately takes refuge in a symphony auditorium during a performance of Beethoven’s Eroica . . . This nightmarish novel does not so much tell a story as map the secret political infrastructure of cities, governments, churches, music, and bodies." (The Independent) The New York Times called The Chase “A masterpiece."
Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia
A story of a Cuban family at home and in exile in the 1970s and 1980s. This novel captures the hard lives of those in Cuba and of those dedicated to the revolution, yet also presents the vivid picture of those who have left Cuba and carry a profound bitterness against the revolution and must define their identity as Cubans. The New York Times Review said Dreaming in Cuban "is beautifully written in language that is by turns languid and sensual, curt and suprising...a jewel of a first novel." And we agree! It is full of color and poetry. Not to be missed!
Paradiso by Jose Lezama Lima
Hailed as one of the great masterpieces of modern literature and written by one of Cuba’s foremost poets, Paradiso is the story of Jose Cemi, who in the wake of his father’s premature death comes of age in turn-of-the-century Cuba.
Benjamin Franklin by Edward S. Morgan
“The best short biography of Franklin ever written...[a] concise and beautifully written portrait." Gordon Wood, New York Times Review of Books
Women of the Republic by Linda Kerber
A groundbreaking analysis of the role of women during the Revolutionary Era- their participation in the war, social and political status, and the development of the ideology of "Republican motherhood," which urged women to direct their patriotism toward the nurturing of the next generation of public-spirited citizens.
Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution by John Ferling
“An interesting case study of the factors that enable a few remarkable men to ride the tide of history and, ultimately, to shape it." - review, American History
The Minutemen and their World by Robert Gross
A detailed reconstruction of the lives and community of Concord, Massachusetts, where the Revolution began in 1775. A compelling interpretation of the American Revolution as a social movement.
The American Revolution: A History by Gordon S. Wood
A synthesis of the events of the American Revolution by a leading scholar on the subject.
This series uses a lively selection of readings to approach a central and sometimes thorny issue in American society: philanthropy. Giving, be it of time or treasure, has played a significant role in the development of the United States and its unique network of charitable and voluntary organizations. Yet questions of wealth, generosity and money are almost guaranteed to provoke discomfort, as charity has always been a deeply personal and private matter.
Why do people give? Why do certain people give to certain causes but not to others? How do you know if your giving is doing any good? These are the sorts of provocative questions to be considered in Thoughtful Giving: Philanthropy as Civic Engagement. Readings are drawn from a new anthology edited by Amy Kass entitled The Perfect Gift: the Philanthropic Imagination in Poetry and Prose and include short selections by wonderful writers and thinkers such as Edith Wharton, O. Henry, Sarah Orne Jewett, Rabindranath Tagore, C.S. Lewis, Aristotle, P.G. Wodehouse, George Eliot, Jane Addams, Rudyard Kipling, John O’Hara, His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, Woodrow Wilson, Shakespeare, Andrew Carnegie, and others.
This special series is supported by Thoughtful Giving: Philanthropy As Civic Engagement, a project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Voted best novel of the century by librarians across the country, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel explores "with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s through the eyes of two children. The conscience of a town, steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man’s struggle for justice for a black man wrongly accused of a horrible crime- but the weight of history will only tolerate so much." (from the 40th Anniversary Edition of the book).
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
A Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Maine author Richard Russo. Empire Falls is set in a dying Maine mill town and depicts blue-collar life, which itself increasingly resembles a kind of high-wire act performed without the benefit of any middle-class safety nets. A novel filled with humor, insight, and grace, the Christian Science Monitor called this one of the " last great novels of the 20th century."
The Commitments by Roddy Doyle
"Dublin soul" is what the lads call it. Obsessed with James Brown, Percy Sledge and other rhythm-and-blues greats from across the ocean, young Jimmy Rabbitte organizes the "world’s hardest working band," made up of fellow Dubliners, and sets out to teach the town a lesson about soul. This cheeky first novel by a Dublin native, punctuated with Irish obscenities and quotes from soul classics, informed by righteous working-class anger and youthful alienation, offers the entertaining and insightful chronicle of The Commitment’s rise and inevitable fall. In the process, impromptu sermons on the true meaning of soul are delivered in delightfully offhand fashion ("soul is lifting yourself up, soul is dusting yourself off"). (Publishers Weekly)
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
The Pulitzer Prize winning story of Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, who is wrenched violently out of his workaday life by the death of his estranged wife. He retreats with his daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle’s struggle to reclaim his life. As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons- and the unpredictable forces of nature and society- and begins to see the possibility of love. A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family." Annie Proulx is one of the most gifted and original writers in America today. (Book description)
Climbing the God Tree: A Novel in Stories by Jaimee Wriston Colbert
Colbert won the Willa Cather Fiction Prize for this novel set in Maine. "Jaimee Wriston Colbert looks deeply into the ragged places of our psyches and reveals our humanity in all its beauty and imperfection. Here is a writer who, in powerfully linked stories, movingly evokes both our craving for the sacred and out tenacious embrace of the profane." (Dawn Raffel, from book description).
Choice II:Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing edited by Bell Gale Chevigny
“Doing time." For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than serving a sentence; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one’s humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers’ organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges... These are the best of the submissions." (Book description)
“In a time when the nation wants less than ever to hear these voices, this book says to all readers, we are one...There is a groping authenticity of language here that encourages us to think again about prison life." New York Times Book Review
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
A fictionalized account of the suffering of an English village that quarantined itself n 1666 when struck by the plague. But as death reaches every household, the community begins to disintegrate even as Anna, the main character, begins to see this as a year of wonders. “Vivid in its humanity, immediate in its narrative, it confirms in compelling terms the universal vulnerability of humankind, and the wonder of survival." Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s List.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A woman is rejected by her Puritan community for her non-conformity in this classic novel. “With The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne became the first American novelist to forge from our Puritan heritage a universal classic, a masterful exploration of humanity’s unending struggle with sin, guilt and pride." (from then publisher)
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
A group of English schoolboys are stranded on a remote island and form their own community with rules of conduct to survive, The structure of their civilization deteriorates, however, as the group splits into two factions and a darker side of human nature is revealed. "It is not only a first -rate adventure story but a parable of our times." Time and Tide. “This brilliant work is a frightening parody on man’s return . . . to that state of darkness from which it took him thousands of years to emerge . . . Superbly written." --The New York Times
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
This novel ha been translated in over fifty different languages. Chinua Achebe’s masterpiece often compared to the great Greek tragedies. A classic novel about the confrontation of African tribal life with colonial rule tells the tragic story of a warrior whose manly, fearless exterior conceals bewilderment, fear, and anger at the breakdown of his society.
“Chinua Achebe is gloriously gifted with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent." Nadine Gordimer
