And now the question is: What’s next?
Over the past two months, tens of thousands of Chicagoans and their suburban neighbors read Harper Lee’s classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” together and discussed it. Now, as members of a new metropolitan-wide book club, they want to know what the second selection will be. And many don’t want to wait another 12 months for the club to meet.
Well, they probably won’t have to.
At the urging of Mayor Richard M. Daley, Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey said she is strongly considering making the library system’s One Book, One Chicago project a twice-a-year event, with one book for the spring and another for the fall. (Since Dempsey is appointed by Daley and serves at his pleasure, two books a year is probably a done deal.)
And the title of the next book? That’s still up in the air.
“Mockingbird” was chosen June 1 by a small committee of librarians. It was only later, Dempsey insists, that the librarians realized Lee’s novel was Daley’s favorite book.
As last week’s multitude of “Mockingbird” readings, events and discussions wound down, Dempsey said she is open to suggestions for the next selection, and anyone can send proposed titles to her by e-mail (at 1book@chipublib.org) or regular mail (at the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State St., Chicago, IL 60605).
She said there are only two requirements: The book has to be in print. And the book has to be one that teenagers can read as well as their parents and other Chicago-area adults.
That leaves a lot of room for ideas. And part of the fun of being in a book club is to recommend — and, let’s face it, lobby for — your own favorite books.
So, for what it’s worth, here, in no particular order, are some books that I’ve read over the years and liked a lot, or have long wanted to read. (And, no, I don’t know if any is the mayor’s second favorite book.):
“Bang the Drum Slowly” by Mark Harris (published in 1956): An evocative, often hilarious story of male friendship between a major-league pitcher and his dying catcher, and among the members of their team. Two bonuses: the 1973 movie of the story, featuring a young Robert De Niro, and a 1956 live performance featuring a young Paul Newman.
“The Killer Angels” by Michael Shaara (1974): Better than any history book, this novel takes the reader step-by-step through the battle of Gettysburg, making clear the personalities of the commanders and the questions they faced at this turning point of the Civil War. Not only does the book have day-by-day and, at times, hour-by-hour maps, but there’s also a stirring 1993 movie that was made from it, “Gettysburg.”
“The Short History of a Prince” by Jane Hamilton (1998): Set in a suburb of Chicago — a thinly disguised Oak Park — Walter McCloud is seen as a teenager trying to come to terms with his homosexuality, the bittersweetness of young love and the wasting death of his older brother, and later as a quietly desperate, unfocused 38-year-old. Not only is this a local book, but Hamilton lives just over the state line in Wisconsin and would have an easy time taking part in the week’s worth of events that caps off the whole-city reading effort.
“The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros (1984): Poetic, seemingly simple yet deceptively powerful, this novel sketches the life of a young Mexican-American girl growing up in a heavily Latino neighborhood on Chicago’s Near Southwest Side. For Hispanics, it’s a mirror of their experience. For non-Hispanics, it’s a window into an aspect of American life frequently misunderstood.
“The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition” by Anne Frank, edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler (1947, 1995): Anne Frank’s haunting story, written with great honesty and art, about her family’s efforts to evade the Nazis in occupied Holland during World War II. This new translation restores nearly a third of Anne’s diaryomitted by her father from the original .
“The Death of Vishnu” by Manil Suri (2001): Suri, an Indian-born mathematics professor, writes in this first novel about a 24-hour period in the life of a small apartment building in Bombay, weaving together the stories of its diverse and frequently cantankerous residents in a mix of romance, comedy, social observation and theological musings. Not only is this novel funny and fun to read, but it also gives a view into a culture that few Americans know about.
“Maud Martha” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1953): In poetic vignettes, Brooks tells the story of a woman who grows up in Chicago’s South Side Black Belt and triumphs over racial prejudice by whites, dismissal by African-Americans because of her darker skin and her own feelings of low self-regard.
“Make Believe” by Joanna Scott (2000): This is the story of a custody battle between two sets of grandparents — one black, one white — over 3-year-old Bo, suddenly orphaned in the book’s opening pages. Scott writes from the point of view of several of the characters, including Bo, and the result is a funny, touching, eloquent and gritty novel.
We’d like to know what you think the next One Book, One Chicago selection should be. E-mail your suggestions to preardon@tribune.com.
One Book was one successful venture
How successful was the Chicago Public Library’s first-ever One Book, One Chicago initiative? Here are some measures:
– The library system estimates that its 3,678 copies of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” were checked out more than 8,000 times over the last two months. In a normal year, the novel would have circulated only about 140 times during the same period.
– At the three Chicago Barnes & Noble stores and many of the chain’s suburban locations, “Mockingbird” has been among the top 10 best sellers since the beginning of August, an unheard of achievement for a 41-year-old book.
– Online, the mass market paperback of “Mockingbird” rose to 51st place nationally among the 1 million-plus titles at Barnesandnoble.com, and to 67th place at Amazon.com, which has more than 2 million titles. At one point, the book ranked 11th in the category of paperback fiction at Amazon.com.
– The four Chicago Borders bookstores sold about 2,800 copies of the book over the last eight weeks, and the title was selling briskly at the chain’s stores in Oak Park, Naperville and Wheaton.
– In Winnetka, customers at the Book Stall at Chestnut Court purchased 225 copies of the paperback and hardcover. In the same period in a normal year, they would have bought only five or six.
— Patrick T. Reardon
