Saturdays with Seniors: Janie’s Book Recommendations

Like me, Janie is an avid swimmer who hasn’t been able to do so for a long while.

I am pleased to feature Janie Isackson as our Saturdays with Seniors guest blogger today. A retired educator, Janie is in the “Me, Myself and I” memoir class that used to meet at the Chicago Cultural Center — it now meets via Zoom. The class counts on her for book suggestions, and Janie generously agreed to share her latest list here, too. Notice how it reads as part book list, part memoir:

A Family Who Encouraged Reading

by R. Janie Isackson

When my Grandparents came to America from Russia, my Grandma insisted that her family speak English. Not Russian. Not Yiddish. Not Hebrew. English. She was in America now. She knew that speaking English would teach her the language of her new country.

Anytime you heard Yiddish spoken at my grandma’s house, you knew someone must have done something dreadful: older family members used Yiddish to keep grown-up secrets from the kinder (children). I will never forget the time I heard the Yiddish phrase “Zie glochnicht redden” in a conversation between my Grandma and mother. Translated, this meant, “She doesn’t like to read.” Horrors! A travesty so heinous it required their secret language.

So that was my upbringing: we were all encouraged to read. I’ve updated my book suggestions with books I have read within the past year (give or take a month or two). An initial next to the book acknowledges the recommender. These are books I appreciate. Here goes:

• Friend (M) suggested, in her words, “a beautiful book,” Bridge of Clay by Marcus Zusak. Ditto. The writing is elegant and poetic, a favorite kind of novel for flashing forward and back in time, which some might find puzzling. My husband Clifford gave up after 90 pages; then later he persisted, telling me to tell those who have begun the book to soldier on. If you are one of the many who loved The Book Thief, then consider yourself warned: Bridge of Clay is quite different. For me it is a college Chaucer class: confusing and vivid. Also the novel is a valuable insight into a life in Australia and Poland that many of us can appreciate.
• Friend (D), an avid reader, said that, like Bridge of Clay, another book about parental abandonment is Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. Kya, the main character (some in the town call her The Marsh Girl), raises herself completely alone in rural North Carolina. Her scientific knowledge and prowess are extraordinary, allowing her an adroit yet lonely survival.
• The Other Americans by Laila Lalami is a story of a Moroccan immigrant family who comes to live in California’s Mojave Desert area. Each character, especially main character Nora (a composer) serves as a kind of prism for the mystery and focal point of the story: a hit-and-run accident. Each character is a chapter depicted in vivid prose.
• When Beth let me know she was reading James McBride’s biography of James Brown, Kill ’em and Leave, I jumped, not quite as James Brown does, but figuratively. An author and jazz musician, James McBride combines lyricism, directness, and the history of race in our country as if he is composing a James Brown song.
• The novel Circe by Madeline Miller is one of those books where I feel myself shaking my head, astonished by elegant prose. The author appeared on PBS NewsHour this past winter when her book was selected for now Read This and said she wanted readers to see a reviled character in Greek mythology understood. To me, Circe seems a combination of Kya in Crawdads and Elphaba in Wicked, viewed as initially wicked but becoming sympathetic characters, surprising the reader.
• In the novel Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, the children in the book set themselves afire anytime they become troubled or angry. Those who should protect them “put up the mask” until Lillian the main character becomes their temporary nanny. I appreciate authors like Kevin Wilson and John Irving who switch genders successfully. They deserve generous applause.
• People of a certain age who read News of the World by Paulette Jiles (recommended by S), will think about the cowboy movies in theatres when we were growing up. Those movies of yesteryear at the Northtown, Adelphi, and Howard Theatres were not sensitive lessons for us (although my favorites were Calamity Jane and Westward The Women). News of the World will soon be a movie made by Tom Hanks. The book feels like a combination of the true Old West in 1870 and a great John Prine song.

There are so many more novels to applaud. I will end this to-be-continued list with Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk by Kathleen Rooney (and recommended by S). I am awestruck by how the author, a young woman, captured the life of 84-year-old Auntie Mame-like Lillian Boxfish. This terrific book is based on the life of Margaret Fishbaum, a poet who did advertising for Macy’s in the 1930’s. My mother thought I might major in advertising. Lillian Boxfish/Margaret Fishbaum is a woman I admire: a woman who reminds me that I would not have been successful in the world of advertising!