EPL's Best Reads of 2016 Archives - Page 2 of 3

Tyler Leach’s Best Reads of 2016

December 19, 2016

Tyler Leach photo My name is Tyler Leach. I am the Middle School Latin teacher at Baker Demonstration School, which draws many of its students from the Evanston community. While my book choices trace back to my love of language, my hobbies revolve around a love of family, music (listening and playing), food (cooking and dining out), and sport. I am a transplant to the Middle West from the Northeast, and my wife Emily (born and raised in Evanston) and I currently live in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood with our two sons Henry and Palmer.

1) Aeneid by Virgil, translated by Stanley Lombardo (19 B.C., 2005)

For those who have never read the Aeneid, Lombardo’s translation makes the text accessible to a modern audience, and the theme of the poem is easily relatable to the story unfolding in modern day Syria. Having attempted to translate Virgil’s work myself, I cannot help but marvel at Lombardo’s keen ability to bring the text to life while all the while remaining true to its classical roots. For anyone who has the time and interest, Lombardo’s translations of the Iliad and Odyssey are real gems, too.

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Michelle Cohen’s Best Reads of 2016

My name is Michelle Cohen. I live in Evanston with my husband and two children. When I’m not designing lush gardens and landscapes for my clients, I can usually be found reading a book, or at the very least, talking about them.

1) Notes From No Man’s Land by Eula Biss (2009)

Intimate and nuanced essays about living in a racist society. Essential reading.

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Chris Skoglund’s Best Reads of 2016

Skoglund photo — Photo by Katie Barthelemy

My name is Chris Skoglund, and I am the librarian at Willard Elementary School in Evanston, where I have worked for almost thirteen years. I am an avid reader of books for both children and adults (which made picking only five books really difficult), so I consider myself to have the best job in the world!

1) Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2016)

An extraordinary mix of historical fiction and science fiction, this novel drew me in and would not let me go. Full of elegant imagery and characters that will linger in your mind long after the story is finished, each element worked seamlessly together.

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Marcus Campbell’s Best Reads of 2016

December 15, 2016

My name is Marcus Campbell. I am the Assistant Superintendent and Principal at Evanston Township High School. I have been at ETHS for 15 years and started my career there teaching English. I love to read and enjoy the food scene.

1) The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois (1903)

I always read something each year from the list of canonical black texts. I find these readings informative in that many of these texts written long ago are still applicable today.

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Eric Robb’s Best Reads of 2016

Eric Robb photo My name is Eric Robb. I am a resident of Evanston and work as an associate teacher at Baker Demonstration School. Outside of my teaching duties, I volunteer for the Dare2tri Paratriathlon Club – an organization that supports triathletes with disabilities. My duties include fundraising as well as guiding and supporting athletes with a diverse array of disabilities toward their athletic goals. I spend what free time I have left playing either guitar, bass guitar, or piano.

1) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980)

This is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, so much so that this was actually my second time reading through it. Toole’s main character, Ignatius Reilly, who considers himself a great misunderstood genius of his time, provides a perfect mixture of highbrow humor and slapstick comedy.

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Patricio Rizzo-Vast’s Best Reads of 2016

My name is Patricio Rizzo-Vast. I love using the libraries, doing yoga and working out in the gym. I also write poetry and paint. I teach Spanish and Latino/Latin American Studies.

1) The Pursuit of Ruins: Archaeology, History, and the Making of Modern Mexico by Christina Bueno (2016)

A local Evanston author who spent more than 15 years doing research on Mexican anthropology and the creation of the Mexican Museum of Anthropology, one of the best in the world. The book is very interesting and informative about the complexities of Mexico.

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Jay Robinson’s Best Reads of 2016

My name is Jay Robinson. I am an industrial designer for Robinson Design – my own consultancy firm that creates interiors for private aircraft. Five years ago I moved with my family from Andersonville to Evanston, and I couldn’t be happier to be part of this amazing community. In my spare time I enjoy reading, cooking, listening to podcasts, and obsessing over home improvement projects.

1) Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (2015)

This is a sprawling, old-school hard-science-fiction novel packed to the gunwales with ideas. Set before and after a freak event creates a cataclysm on Earth, it subjects its characters to a gantlet of perils which they must overcome with wit, determination, and limited resources. A good one for fans of The Martian.

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Gail Schechter’s Best Reads of 2016

gail-schecter My name is Gail Schechter. I am a co-founder of the newly launched Addie Wyatt Center for Nonviolence Training in Chicago, aiming to create a culture of peace in the region starting with our city and suburban high schools, including Evanston Township High School. From 1993 to 2016, I served as Executive Director of Open Communities, the north suburban Chicago area’s housing, economic and social justice organization. By appointment of former Governor Pat Quinn, I sit in the “affordable housing advocate” seat of the State Housing Appeals Board, the enforcement body for the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act whose passage, I am proud to say, was led by north suburban elected officials. I also serve on the Board of Directors of Chicago Area Peace Action. I have taught graduate courses in public policy and civic engagement for Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies. Most recently, I authored the definitive history of the North Shore Summer Project and its evolution into Open Communities for The Chicago Freedom Movement: Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil Rights Activism in the North. I was born and raised in New York City and have two children. While most people know me as a community organizer and fair and affordable housing advocate, I’m also an active clarinetist – and an avid reader.

1) Where Do We Go From Here?: Chaos or Community by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)

This year I read all five of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s books starting with his first, Stride Toward Freedom, his description of the Montgomery bus boycott that launched the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks as the catalyst for this major nonviolent direct action led by African Americans, and Dr. King himself into national prominence. Where Do We Go From Here? is his last complete book and a work of profound wisdom about racial reconciliation that resonates today. Dr. King writes from the vantage point of distress about white backlash to freedom movement gains; African American anger that manifested itself in the Black Power Movement; and the tragic eclipsing of a unified, national push for anti-poverty programs by the Vietnam War. If anything, toward the end of his life Dr. King was even more convinced of the power of nonviolence. He presented our national challenge as a choice between “nonviolent coexistence” or “violent coannhiliation.” He could have been describing himself when he wrote, “Ultimately, a genuine leader is not a searcher of consensus but a molder of consensus.”

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Hilde Kaiser’s Best Reads of 2016

December 7, 2016

My name is Hilde Kaiser. I live in northwest Evanston where I am a Jill-of-all-trades: writer, lead parent, certified Nia instructor, student of earth medicine, knitter, film buff, and home baker, with a bundle of volunteer work thrown in (all in the domain of parenting, education, and personal development). My idea of heaven is reading a book at the Evanston lakefront with a little something to eat from Hewn bakery. As an avid reader (75 books so far this year) I am grateful for our area libraries and their superb programming (hey, how about Our Mutual Friend for Mission: Impossible?). My secret confession is that my favorite thing to read is “The Traffic Guy” column in The Round Table.

1) Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton (2016)

I’m not above choosing a book by its cover, and the lush, evocative, and eccentric portrait of its subject, Margaret Cavendish, convinced me to pick this novella up, knowing nothing about it. It’s so pretty. It’s one of my favorite books of the year because I’m still thinking about this poetic, experimental, slightly odd gem of a historical novel that deserves lots of readers. “Mad Madge” was a 17th-century proto-feminist who was one of the first women to publish under her own name and to earn a living by writing. She also dressed herself on her own terms – crowds assembled to see what she was wearing when she went out for walk. There’s a fab article in the New Yorker on the book as an example of “archival historical fiction” (as opposed to “realistic historical fiction”). Which is another way of warning you this book is anything but straightforward, but it is one-of-a-kind, like its subject. And the language is oh-so-pretty, like the cover.

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