2009 NLW Favorite Books

This is one of my favorite poems is from Nikki Giovani's new book of poetry Bicycles: Love Poems. As an avid book collector, I cannot think of anything more wonderful than to become a book, especially an “old” book. If you became a book, what kind of book would you become?

When I grow up I want to be a book. I want to be a blue sky with white fluffy clouds and lots of pretty flowers. I want bluebirds and red birds and mother robins flying by. Maybe a lazy kitten swatting at butterflies that light on her nose. I will tell stories of little possums making friends with Mr. Snake. Everybody thought Mr. Snake was mean and grumpy but he had a small cut on his side and he couldn’t put a Band-Aid on it. When Zip Mouse and his friends discovered the problem they were brave and helped Mr. Snake. Grandmother will put me on her lap and read my stories until the children fall asleep dreaming peppermint dreams. They will learn to be brave.

As I grow older I will be a bigger book. I will gather all the words and definitions for words and definitions of the defining and people will come to me when they need to know something. I will have pictures and examples and maps and formulas. I will show them seven continents; I will present riddles (Cup and saucer. Saucer and cup. Where does a hole go when it’s filled up?) I explain there are seven seas and two big oceans. There were glaciers and dinosaurs. Alexander the Great thought he had conquered the world. He didn’t even get halfway there. Earth thinks it is the only life in the universe, we haven’t been far enough away to know. I will ask questions: Why do we have wars? Why are people hungry? There will be times people will not like me. I will be banned and forbidden. But I will be brave. I will stand for light and truth.

And when I am old I will be the oldest book. I will sit on Grandfather’s lap and tell The Greatest Story Ever Told. The children will be dressed for bed and I will sing a psalm or recite a proverb. I will try to always be a good book. And the children will dream good dreams of good people trying to do good things. - Nikki Giovanni

Recommended by: Lynda M Sampson
Library copy: New Book Section PS3557 .I55 B43 2009

Some of Our Favorite Books that Connect the World

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi was eye opening. I was reminded of how reading always can connect me to other cultures and people. By reading different types of literature, I can appreciate other languages and cultures. I can make connections to people and their experiences. By reading, I am exposed to new thoughts and ideas every time I choose to read. I also realized how I take for granted the many rights and privileges I have by living in the US. For example, I have the opportunity to read anything I want whenever I want. In a country like Iran, someone may not always have access to different types of literature. That is a very difficult concept for me to relate to since I have always been able to choose books and just read them! Reading Lolita in Tehran is a reminder of how when I choose to read a book I can empathize and appreciate other cultures other than my own. I highly recommend reading Azar Nafis’s book.

Recommended by: Mónica López
Library copy: South Stacks PE64.N34 A3 2003

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

If you wonder if one person’s vision can really create positive change in the world today, wonder no more. Three Cups of Tea tells the true story of Greg Mortenson’s quest to fight terrorism by overseeing the building of schools for girls throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan. A truly inspirational book.

Recommended by: Lisa Nitsch

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseni

I love reading good stories about faraway places I can only imagine—especially ones that “tell it like it is.” Hosseini is a masterful storyteller, as anyone who has read his first novel, The Kite Runner, can attest. His images of Afghanistan and the lives of its people are both thrilling and chilling. If you, too, like a good story about the culture of the Middle East, you’ll also enjoy The Bookseller of Kabul, by Asne Seierstad.

Recommended by: Carl Bengston

Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu by Laurence Bergreen

Laurence Bergreen drew from a broad range of surviving manuscripts to construct a convincing portrait of how Marco Polo was able to get to thirteenth century China. Using scholarly materials written in several languages - Chinese, Mongolian, and Persian - Bergreen relied on experts from London to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and Beijing to weave this intricate tale of Marco Polo’s experience with all the adventures and interactions in greater detail than some of the tales we have heard. The author actually retraced Polo’s steps in Mongolia and China, lending an added dimension to this work. The book is further enhanced by the inclusion of color reproductions of medieval miniatures as well as spectacular photographs of the Silk Road and other exotic sites.

Recommended by: Val Mitchell

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri’s first collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize. Her novel, The Namesake, was made into a major motion picture. In the Unaccustomed Earth, Lahiri returns to short stories which deal with the Indian immigrant experience and with the complexities of intimate relationships. The title is taken from the following quotation :

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Custom House”

Recommended by: Deb Moore
Library copy: New Book Section PS3562 .A316 U53 2008

Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer by Lynn Cox

I love exciting tales of human endurance and Lynn Cox’s story is one of the best. Cox is one of the world's leading long-distance swimmers. She’s been a risk-taker ever since she was nine and chose the freezing water of a New Hampshire pool in a storm over getting out and doing calisthenics. She soon discovered long-distance ocean swimming and completed her first open-water event - a team race across the Catalina Channel. She decided then and there to train for the English Channel and at age 15 she broke the Channel record. This book chronicles her many goals and accomplishments, most of which were achieved despite numerous obstacles. Her Nile River swim found her swimming in raw sewage and chemical waste, fending off the dead rats and broken glass. Undeterred, she planned and completed many more ambitious swims - swimming around the shark-infested Cape of Good Hope and across Alaska's Glacier Bay, all to prepare for her really big dream, a swim from Alaska to the Soviet Union across the Bering Strait. Lynn’s amazing abilities helped researchers who were studying the effects of cold on the human body but her political goals are even more important to her. She was determined to bring countries and peoples together using swimming "to establish bridges between borders." Lynn Cox ends her story with her swim to Antarctica, where she finishes the first ever Antarctic mile in 32-degree water in 25 minutes and survived to tell her story in this fascinating book.

Recommended by: Lorraine Gersitz

Cerritos College

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