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Reading: comfort and wisdom

Here’s what I’ve been reading and liking lately.

shoppingEvicted is a thick work of nonfiction by sociologist Matthew Desmond, about tenants and landlords in a poor part of Milwaukee. The book is richly told, detailed, Dickensian. I liked the telling more than the tale, which is depressing, heartbreaking, hopeless. Women and children, the disabled, the underemployed, the drug addicted losing their homes. Housing as a human right? I’m sold.

imagesOn to a big read, The Nix, by Nathan Hill, which tells the story of a young man who must reunite with the mother who abandoned him as a child, who has resurfaced as a political terrorist. This read is a wild ride that spans continents and decades, mostly set in and around contemporary Chicago. It’s a coming of age story, a love story, a satire, a terrifying on-the-ground retelling of the 1968 Chicago riots. 620 pages, so much to like.

images-1In my post-election funk, I needed comedy. Francine Prose’s Mister Monkey was my salve. From a musical that never goes out of style — Mister Monkey — we enter the lives of actors, the director, the author, a man and his grandson in the audience. What a delightful web! Each of their stories entrances; I especially loved the grandfather in the mix with today’s fussy parents and the school teacher on a first date from hell. Sweet, funny, surprising. A rollicking read.

Also in the blog

The college tour continued, in New York, where we stayed in Union Square with my sister Mary Beth (thank you) and visited two of Columbia University’s undergraduate colleges: Columbia College and Barnard College. Each deserves a day, and that’s how we toured. We were in Morningside Heights, so we visited the magnificent Cathedral of St.

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My sister Mary Beth settled into the porch hammock each day, steadily making her way through Michael Ondaatje’s “The Cat’s Table,” a book I’d loved and given her earlier in the year. Ah, Pythonga: There’s nowhere better to give yourself over to a book. It’s quiet, the lake shimmers, there’s few chores. Breakfast and dinner

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Summer is over, winter is upon us: reading is a constant. One I loved — every single page — is Ian McEwan’s The Children Act. Let’s review my feelings for Mr. McEwan’s work. I thoroughly enjoyed his last two efforts, the spy spoof Sweet Tooth and the environmental satire Solar. Both are wise and well

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