Reads

So I've been looking for new textbooks for my English 112 class. I want my students to read something longish that's an example of good writing and strong, curiosity-based research. If my students can see an author write about something he cares about enough to research, perhaps they will see the value in researching something they care about. That's the idea anyway.

So for the last two semesters, my students have chosen between Chasing Che by Patrick Symmes, Girl Sleuth by Melanie Rehak, and The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey.  I love each of these books - they're excellent examples of one person using really comprehensive research and quality writing to pursue some quirky, personal question.

How did his motorcycle journey across South and Central America as a young man change the guerrilla fighter and revolutionary Che Guevara?

Who invented Nancy Drew and why has she been around for so long?

What would compel someone to steal 2.5 million dollars worth of antique maps from university libraries?

I found each of these books completely fascinating. My students, however, generally think they are stinky suck-holes of boredom. Alas. So far, I have found a few things to be true: men choose Chasing Che and women choose Girl Sleuth. Nobody chooses The Island of Lost Maps. Everyone complains about how boring the books are, about how confusing it is that the story goes back and forth in time between the past and the present, For the most part, they slog through, joylessly, and we get to the end of the semester with a palpable sense of relief.

On the one hand, I recognize that part of the problem lies with my students. I take an informal poll at the beginning of each term and what I've found so far is that 60-70% of my students say they made it through high school reading less than 50% of what was assigned. Part of why students struggle with what I give them to read is that they're bad at reading. They're bad at it because they have very little practice. So when they tell me they're having a tough time following what's happening in the book, it's like my four year old telling me she's having a tough time pedaling her bike. No, she's not good at it - but she'll get better at it the more she does it. So it is with my students.

On the other hand, I recognize that my tastes are perhaps more weird and eclectic than they need to be. Not everybody finds recreations of fifty year old motorcycle trips taken by Argentine revolutionaries interesting. It might be just me.

On the other, other hand, it's college and not everything should be a pleasure-filled dance through the posies. It's okay if the readings are challenging. In fact, they probably should be challenging. Students not liking what they're reading is probably more of a good sign than a bad one.

 Anyway, I'm looking for new books, partly for my students but partly to keep my interest too.

So right now, I'm reading Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff. I figured a book about something closer to home might be of greater interest than Argentina or university rare book rooms. LeDuff was a reporter for the New York Times who eventually decided to return to his hometown and write for the Detroit News. As I am reading this book, I find that he was there, writing for the paper and writing this book, at exactly the same time I was in the D, teaching at Young Detroit Builders. He covered all the Kwame Kilpatrick and Monica Conyers business. He met with them, interviewed them and their mouthpieces.

He writes about that right along with the race and class clashes, corruption and graft, decay and depression that come with living and/or working in Detroit. It rings so totally true to me. I have glossed over and valorized my years in Detroit since I was there, but this book brings back with great clarity how debilitating and sad it was to be there. It reminds me of how crazy eager I was to get the heck out of Dodge. So often that place, the overwhelming hopelessness of it, was excruciating. It was really hard.

LeDuff is a heck of a writer - terse, macho, and profane, a Hemingway from the dirty mitten. He handles significant concrete details like a champ, tossing them in at just the right moment in just the right amounts. I'm down to the last couple of chapters and I've decided this book is one of my students' future options for sure. LeDuff does tv for the local Fox affiliate now - a fact I will try to forgive in light of how good his book is.

I have an idea for a second book choice, but I'll have to write about it later. It's late here and tomorrow is a busy day. If you're looking for a book that effectively transports you to downtown Detroit ca. 2009, An American Autopsy will do the trick nicely.