For the third year running, staff across PIH have shared their favorite books. What started as a summer reading list has turned, amid the time-flying tumult of 2017, into a fall reading list—or even, dare we say, into a "pre-holiday-season gift guide." Use these recommendations however suits you best. This diverse list includes essential books for helping answer questions of poverty and justice, light-hearted reads that are much needed in complex times, and, by sheer coincidence, a surprising number of dark Norwegian novels. Enjoy, and happy reading!
In his uplifting memoir, comedian, social critic, and "The Daily Show" host Trevor Noah recounts his extraordinary experiences growing up biracial and under apartheid in South Africa. He never quite fit in, but he used his "outsider" perspective to his advantage. A speaker of English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, Tsonga, Tswana, German, and Spanish, Noah bounced from group to group and won acceptance from all of them.
Although his story is often tragic, the comedian's writing leaves me laughing.
"The Black Jacobins" is a history of the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804, and of the role of Touissant L' Ouverture, a former slave who led the uprising and later became governor of Saint Domingue (before Napoleon ousted him in 1803).
James is an odd historian. He wrote the book in 1938 and his writing is anything but dispassionate, so the book comes across as not very objective or academic. But I found it refreshing that James made his political views clear, and he effectively captures the horrors of slavery and the hypocrisy of the French.
One of the most interesting and puzzling parts of the story for me is how L'Ouverture—with no military training or experience—emerged as a brilliant military strategist. We tend to think people can only do what they have been trained to do, and I feel this creates passivity that stunts creativity. While we have recently seen what can happen when someone with no preparation for leadership becomes a national leader, and I don't want to encourage people to follow his lead, I think the idea that we need technocrats to move fields forward is an error that can be easy to make.
Nesbø is a Norwegian writer known for his crime novels and their main character, Harry Hole, who is kind of a mess but "gets the job done." There tends to be grisly murders of very nice people and lots and lots (and lots) of coffee drinking (in between benders).
Rhoden's book is disturbing and uncomfortable. It draws parallels between slavery and today's black athletes playing for white-owned sports teams. He goes back to the beginning of sports in America to show the plight of black athletes, from jockeys to boxers, under white control.
It gave me a broader view of today's athletes. I look at Colin Kaepernick, the former 49ers quarterback who protested racial injustice by refusing to stand at games during the national anthem, and it's apparent to me that Kaepernick understands that he and his peers are not really playing for themselves.
While riveting, it was saddening and made me feel we haven't come very far. But if nothing else, it's a must-read for its historical background, which shows how important a role African-Americans played in starting sports in America.
This summer I reread Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men," which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. The novel is loosely based on the story of Huey Long, a populist politician in Louisiana in the 1930s, but it's really a story about how people compromise or uphold their values. After 70 years, it seems incredibly current, demonstrating the power a politician can wield over people who feel they are unappreciated and not getting a fair deal. It captures how narrators can be unreliable and how seemingly hardened people can still be damaged or change completely. It's totally captivating.
L.A. Times' critic Mark Athitakis called it brilliant. The New Yorker's James Woods ultimately found it unsatisfying. Whatever your take on this short novel published in July, Cohen's maximalist writing style definitely makes other contemporary fiction look timid by comparison. (E.g. One character wears "a vintage polyblend suit pullulating with pleats.") And the story, about a young Israeli soldier attempting to start afresh in modern-day New York City, never panders to a reader's desire for easy truths. Indeed, it made me squirm, snort with laughter, and deeply appreciate the traumas that can hide behind familiar faces.
For a book that I imagine no one's read, I'd recommend a novel called Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by a Norwegian author named Johan Harstad. It's about a guy who has a bit of a mental breakdown and ends up recovering in the Faroe Islands. The narrator's voice is quirky and unique, and the descriptions of the Faroe Islands have kept me wanting to visit for years. I found it at the library accidentally, but the story has stayed with me.
This is Hannes van Rensburg's personal story about starting a mobile banking business in South Africa in 1999. The entrepreneur poured his blood, sweat, and tears into the company, Fundamo, and is brutally honest about his struggles, doubts, failures, and lucky breaks. He describes choosing between his personal and professional goals and how his morals guided his business decisions.
It is still too early to understand how mobile banking will change the lives of the poorest citizens, but van Rensburg offers exciting possibilities: He believes that the mobile banking economy goes hand in hand with poverty alleviation. It's a book that challenged me to consider how banking fits with human rights and our work at PIH.
Lai's story is about a 10-year-old Vietnamese refugee girl who fled Saigon with her family to resettle in Alabama. It's based on Lai's own experience leaving the city at the end of the Vietnam War. She writes in verse and tells the story through the young girl's eyes. It won adult and children's literary awards and is a New York Times bestseller. I read it as part of a mommy-daughter book club I just joined. It's timely, considering the current political climate in the U.S. and Trump's position toward immigration. A quick and lovely read.