2012 Year in Review: 12 Great Human Rights Reads

Rights Readers had a terrific reading/discussion year in 2012, I think one of our best.  Here are the books we read and enjoyed together:

In January we read Andrew X. Pham's
The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars, the 'prequel' to the author's wonderful memoir Catfish and Mandala, which we read a few years ago. Eaves tells the story of Pham's father, from the French occupation through WWII and the Vietnam War, in powerful, elegant prose.

We read Susan Choi's novel of paranoia in the age of terrorism, A Person of Interest, in February. I enjoyed her description of academic life in a Midwestern college town, and although her tendency to overwrite slows the book down, I was very invested in the characters by the end and the story had enough 'thriller' in it to propel me forward, eager to get to the satisfying conclusion.


In March, we read A Woman Among Warlords by Malalai Joya. The real pay-off for reading about this brave pioneer for women's rights in Afghanistan was learning that she was the namesake and personal hero for the young Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai who was nearly killed this fall for advocating for education for girls like herself. We look forward to reading Malala's books some day.

We read Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife in April. This impressive debut novel set in the aftermath of the Balkan conflict combines history and folktale in a narrative quest for recovery and healing. I'll be interested to see what this young author does next.

In May, we set sail with National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis' The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World to explore human diversity in remote corners of the globe. Drawing inspiration from such endangered cultures as the seafaring navigators of Polynesia renewed our commitment to language diversity and cultural preservation.

We read Ursula Hegi's novel set on the cusp of World War II, Children and Fire, in June. This was the first time I read Hegi and it won't be the last. Many of the issues the characters in this novel grapple with--propaganda, reproductive health, the roles of teachers and parents as moral guides-- were especially resonant in this election year.


In July we read Avi Steinberg's memoir about working in a prison library, Running the Books.  We loved the author's humorous insights into prison culture and wise reflections on the value of reading and writing. I managed to spread the love for this book to a second book group. Don't be afraid to suggest it to yours!


As usual, in August we took a break from more serious human rights fare and read The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall. If you enjoyed Alexander McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe, you should give Indian detective Vish Puri a try.


The Devil and Mr. Casement: One Man's Battle for Human Rights in South America's Heart of Darkness by Jordan Goodman, our September selection is a hard book to recommend. The subject, British diplomat Roger Casement's efforts to expose abuses in the South American rubber industry, is fascinating (as is Casement's entire life), but the delivery here is just too dull for the casual reader. If you've read Mario Vargas Llhosa's The Dream of the Celt (which I still want to get to), or you're writing a term paper on the history of corporate accountabilty this would be a good book to consult. Otherwise, I'd hold out for a biopic.

I haven't done a formal poll to find out what our favorite book was this year, but I'd put money on Hector Tobar's The Barbarian Nurseries winning any popularity contest. And that's not just because the author kindly graced us with his presence at our discussion! This book hit all the marks for us with themes like race, class, immigration, parenting and the politics of urban landscaping in a highly readable package. And yes of course, we love a good L.A. story!

In November, we read Anna Funder's Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall. This very personal look at the lives of ordinary East Germans shocked us with how little we knew about the aftermath of reunification and the impunity granted to the secret police. Highly recommended.

Finally, this December, we have read Scenes from Village Life by Israeli novelist Amos Oz. This novel-in-stories spins unsettling tales about what's happening below the surface of a small Israeli town-- a great way to move past the familiar headlines from the Middle East and engage in a new way.

Keep an eye on the blog for news of our great 2013 picks. From what I have read of our up-coming books so far, we will have another great year.

Our July Author: Avi Steinberg

This month we are discussing Avi Steinberg's Running the Books, a memoir about the adventures of a prison librarian. Although I had some concern about being 'trapped' in a book about prisons in July, a month when I usually try to propose travel books, I really enjoyed this journey.  We've got a few links to get things rolling, starting with his personal website: avisteinberg.com.  Because the book contains quite a bit of the author's backstory, the usual interviews don't reveal a whole lot more than you learn in the book, but if you haven't read it yet and need a shortcut to prepare for the meeting, start here. I learned of the book from this NPR interview.  This profile from Harvard magazine is also a good introduction,

Any assumptions about the ease of book learning quickly disappeared. “As a prison librarian, you need to fight for the space, fight to purchase the books, fight to keep books on the shelves, fight for people to be able to come to the library, fight to keep people coming back to the library,” Steinberg says of his daily struggles. “It takes a lot of effort to bring books alive for people. To me, this was not obvious before.”

For those that have read the book and want more, Steinberg has been writing on a variety of (often amusing) subjects for publications like the Paris Review and The New Yorker. Check out this video if you want a preview of his next book. And you definitely want to check out this piece from Huffpo: Conversations with a Young Islamist in the Prison Library,

I can honestly say that if Akh did become a radical Islamist in prison it was despite the education he received in the prison library. It is just as likely that our conversations--simply the example of an open and respectful dialogue--planted a seed. It was, after all, a kind of tolerance that kept him coming back enthusiastically to the prison library and that kept our conversations honest and alive. In prison, and even in the balkanized world at large, this alone is a rare achievement.

Of course, we've covered some of this territory before. I was happy to see that Ted Conover's Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing got a nod from the author. We read the book a while back (along with two others by the author, making Conover Rights Readers' all-time favorite author) and recommend it if you enjoyed Running. You may be interested to learn that New Jack is still contraband in the New York prison system, but the author wrote recently about his first return visit to Sing Sing to see an inmate-produced play and he testifies to the role of theater in envisioning alternative roles as a part of rehabilitation. Huffpo also has a good interview with Conover. By the way, Ted Conover is not the only author we've read whose books have been banned behind bars. I linked to this once before, but I recommend this video of Toni Morrison and Angela Davis discussing the value of prison libraries and problems with censors.  The Austin Statesman has a fascinating report on books and authors banned in Texas prisons, including Edwidge Danticat. I also liked this article about a lawsuit filed by the always inspiring Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative on behalf of an Alabama inmate who was banned from reading the Pulitzer Prize winning book Slavery by Another Name. 

Take a look at this birds-eye view of the U.S. prison-industrial complex. There's a prison near you. If you've got some books you'd like to donate to a prison, this looks like a good place to start. If you want to learn more about prison issues, Slate has a round-up of some excellent investigative journalism on the subject. If you're in favor of more books, more dialog, better libraries, and better rehabilitation programs, you'll want to join the growing campaign to rethink the practice of solitary confinement.  Take action on behalf of the "Angola 3' here. See also the recent action against conditions at TAMMS Supermax prison in Illinois. More info/action from Solitary Watch. There's a lot of work to be done!

The Music of Maurice Sendak

I was starting to research my posts for our discussion of Avi Steinberg's Running the Books when I discovered that he had recently done an interview for the Paris Review with the late Maurice Sendak,

In the past, you’ve spoken of listening to music while you draw. What were you listening to with Bumble-Ardy?

There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books. And there is a logic to my choices, even if I don’t always know it. Here, I chose Verdi. I don’t like early Verdi, and I love very late Verdi. I’m eighty-three. When he was eighty-three, after Aida—it’s too bad he didn’t say this before Aida—he said, “Enough already, enough.”  He said that he was done, finished, kaput. And then he met this young man, Boito, composer of Mefistofele, who told him, “You have more in you, old man. You have more in you!” So Boito wrote libretti for Otello and Falstaff, and, by the time they were done, Verdi was eighty-five or eighty-seven and died. But, in my opinion, those are the two greatest Verdi operas in existence. Those pieces are unbelievably fresh, young, fantastically beautiful.

This reminded me that Sendak collaborated with Tony Kushner on a production of Brundibar, the children's opera which was composed and performed at the Nazi concentration camp Terezin. Kushner and Sendak also produced a book version:  Brundibar.  PBS' Now has a useful page for more information about the opera accompanying this great interview with Bill Moyers in which Sendak explains how he became fascinated with the opera. and probes the author on blackbirds and Schubert, bullies and the Holocaust and how you can't get rid of evil.


I also recommend Fresh Air's Sendak tribute and this cartoon by Sendak and Art Spiegelman from The New Yorker.

Library Rescue!

As follow-up to my previous post on Ray Bradbury and Fahrenheit 451 as well as foreshadowing for our discussion of prison librarian Avi Steinberg's memoir Running the Books coming up in a few weeks and as a fan of creativity in grassroots actions, I thought I would share this video of a clever campaign on behalf of the public library in Troy, Michigan.