From the Desk of Jay Rainey – January 27, 2023

Last week I shared the results of a “favorite characters” survey of our Middle and Upper School students along with reflections on my own recent enjoyment of Don Quixote. Given that there is simply no more important work that occurs at MICDS than the cultivation of the ability to read—both inquisitively and critically—across a variety of academic subjects, genres, and media, and to translate these skills into clear and original written or otherwise creative expression, I thought I might return to the topic this week, but this time with an accompanying invitation: I wonder whether you would like to read a book or two with me?

The following is a list of works that have been published or that have received renewed attention within the last year. All have been generally admired by critics and everyday readers alike, and as a group they represent an expansive range of genres (biography, business, fantasy, history, literary fiction, memoir, science) and a global range of voices. I have included an excerpt of at least one review of each title as well as a link to the full text of same. After you have considered the list, should you be interested in joining a conversation about one or more of these books, please complete this form to indicate your preferences, and I will be back in touch with you about participating in an MICDS community book club this semester. Here are, in alphabetical order, the 17 titles that I have selected as candidates for discussion:

African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals by David Hackett Fischer (Nonfiction, 2022). “Fischer argues that in struggling for their own freedom, Black people expanded and transformed America’s understanding of what freedom meant. The presence of enslaved Africans and their descendants, he suggests, has made us freer than we would otherwise be. Does that describe us today? Is not the exact opposite the case? Perhaps the debate his new book is likely to generate can help move us toward that goal.” (New York Times)

The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni (Fiction, 1827). “The Betrothed succeeds because it is a fully literate attempt to see history from the ground up. Manzoni is interested in the umili, in the oppressed and the defeated, those who have been severely tested by forces that they cannot understand.” (New York Review of Books) • “Twenty years before Italy achieved political unity, The Betrothed offered a persuasive model of what a future national language might look like. By the 1850s, it was already being taught in many schools, and by the time of Manzoni’s death in 1873, it had become a national institution.” (London Review of Books)

The Brain in Search of Itself: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron by Benjamin Ehrlich (Nonfiction, 2022). “The father of the neuron, as Cajal is often called, either introduced or popularized concepts that neuroscientists still debate, from the potential for nervous-system regeneration, to the influence of the chemical environment on the wiring of the embryonic brain, to the organ’s plasticity.” (Economist)

Fathers and Children by Ivan Turgenev (Fiction, 1862). “The remarkable sense throughout this novel is of a writer committedly arguing not with some ideological antagonist but with himself, creating characters realistic and independent enough to challenge his own sympathies and inclinations.” (Wall Street Journal) • “At the heart of this novel about love, politics, and society, strong beliefs and heated disagreements, illness and death, is the generational divide between the young and the old.” (New York Review Books)

Foster by Claire Keegan (Fiction, 2022). “Ms. Keegan has a sharp ear for mundane meanness, but she has an even keener appreciation for kindness and its complications. Is it a gift—or a shattering cruelty—to expose a child to a better life, when that life may only be temporary?” (Wall Street Journal)

Ghost Town by Kevin Chen (Fiction, 2022). “Through the scrim of the family’s overlapping—and hotly contested—memories, we get a pleasantly dense evocation of a rural Taiwanese town becoming enmeshed, through the second half of the 20th century, in increasingly globalized, increasingly fast-moving, networks of industry and capital” (New York Times)

The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories by Jamil Jan Kochai (Fiction, 2022). “Kochai’s fiction has a spoken flair, and part of the beauty of his vision of Afghanistan is the essentiality of its language. He also has a gift for knowing what makes the engine of a story turn over and go, what formal choices might deliver a narrative in such a way as to coax a reader to endure a set of experiences that, whatever their frequent delights, are rooted in sorrow, loss, and rage.” (New York Review of Books)

A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney (Nonfiction, 2022). “This book may be a tribute to a lost son and the family who survives him; it may be a hand outstretched to bereaved parents who feel alone on their planet of grief; but most of all, it is a hopeful plea to people everywhere to make choices, large and small, guided by love. What a world it would be if we did.” (New York Times)

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Fiction, 1997). “The book suggests, repeatedly and in many ways, that perhaps our most essential quality is a void, an incompleteness—that what we need in order to be fully human is to sense something beyond our reach, a future, some possibility, something to be desired or learned or made or done or loved.” (New York Review of Books)

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong (Nonfiction, 2022). “It’s Mr. Yong’s task to expand our thinking, to rouse our sense of wonder, to help us feel humbled and exalted at the capabilities of our fellow inhabitants on Earth. This rich and deeply affectionate travelogue of animal sensory wonders ends with a plea to us to stop and consider others’ needs: for silence, for darkness, for space.” (Wall Street Journal)

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin (Fiction, 2012). “In Vodolazkin’s novels, the deepest moments of self-understanding occur when an empathic hero enters into the souls of others. When readers of fiction identify with characters unlike themselves, they, too, practice empathy. ‘The experience we receive from books,’ Vodolazkin observes, ‘is also our experience.’” (New York Review of Books)

Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins (Fiction, 2022). “The valley of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains is a gorgeous, fertile place troubled, in 1942, by two things of national consequence. One is that the city of Los Angeles has channeled away the region’s water. The second is that, pursuant to the notorious Executive Order 9066, the valley has been chosen as the site of a Japanese-American internment camp.” (Wall Street Journal)

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka (Fiction, 2022). “Readers everywhere will find in Karunatilaka’s demanding specificity what we all seek from great books: the exciting if overwhelming fullness of an otherwise unknown world told on its own terms, and that frisson of unexpected identification and understanding that comes from working to stay in it.” (New York Times)

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott (Fiction, 2022). “An excellent dip into the darker side of Eastern European tales—pogroms, not witches. Nethercott adroitly captures the challenges of adult sibling relationships in a story of survival and memory that is pure poetry, but never glosses over the violence of history.” (Wall Street Journal)

Tomorrow in Shanghai by May-lee Chai (Fiction, 2022). “The collection depicts the toll of migration on families strained by physical distance and sacrifice. Chai has a remarkable skill for building tension, masterfully arranging all the pieces on the board to hook the reader.” (New York Times)

Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa (Nonfiction, 2022). “In this eminently admirable book, there are no easy answers or platitudes. Even as Villarosa meticulously outlines the myriad ways Black people have fought for their own health, from social workers to doulas to community organizers, she stays focused on the nature of a structural problem, which cannot be changed through individual choices.” (New York Times)

Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara (Nonfiction, 2022). “Guidara’s book offers an anecdotal look at his career in food service to illuminate larger ideas about hospitality itself—most ambitiously, the notion that hospitality transcends the world of restaurants and can intentionally be used to strengthen both businesses and relationships.” (Wall Street Journal)

Again, should you be interested in joining a group reading and discussion of any of these titles, please complete this form to indicate your preferences. All members of our community are welcome to participate.

Always reason, always compassion, always courage. My best wishes to you for a very happy weekend with your loved ones.

Jay Rainey
Head of School