The Objective Reader - Reviews

The Objective Reader

Lost in Yonkers

9/6/2015

Author: Neil Simon
Publisher: Plume, Jan. 1993, ISBN 978-0-452-26883-8
Lexile Measure: Not available
Classification: Fiction/Play

Summary:
Lost in Yonkers, a play by Neil Simon, has become an American classic. Set in New York in the 1940s, it tells the tale of two brothers, Jay and Arty, who find their lives changed in an instant when their loving father leaves them with his stern, unloving German-immigrant mother.

The Devil in the White City

9/2/2015

Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: First Vintage Books, Feb. 2004
ISBN: 0-375-72560-1
Lexile Measure: 1170L
Classification: Non-Fiction

Summary:
The Devil in the White City is a non-fiction work that reads like a novel. It is set in Chicago in the 1890s and tells two tales: the story of Chicago’s ultimately successful quest to put on the greatest world’s fair ever seen, and the story of a serial killer who lured female victims to his lair on the fair’s doorstep.

Leaving Berlin

8/26/2015

Author: Joseph Kanon
Published: 2015, Atria Books, ISBN 978-1476704647
Lexile Measure: Not available
Classification: Fiction

Summary:
Leaving Berlin is a spy novel set in post-war Berlin, a Berlin still reeling from the war’s loss of life, independence, and identity. While three countries, Germany, the United States, and the Soviet Union struggle for the upper hand, Alex Meier, an author returned from a long exile in the United States, gets caught in the middle.

The Boys in the Boat

8/13/2015

Author: Daniel James Brown
Publisher: Penguin Books, 2013, ISBN 978-0-670-025817
Lexile Measure: 1260L
Classification: Non-fiction

Summary:
The Boys in the Boat is Daniel James Brown’s thrilling and sometimes heartbreaking account of the working-class Americans who defied the odds and beat not just the Northeastern elite but also the entire world when they won gold at the 1936 Olympics.

Last year, I attended a convention in Seattle with a group of women whose children row. On a break, they wanted to visit University of Washington’s Conibear Boathouse and see the shell featured in The Boys in the Boat. I was happy to tag along but, silently, I was thinking, “This is so weird. Why are these women staring at this skinny boat when we could be at the mothership Nordstrom?” All I can say is that now, I get it.

David and Goliath

8/3/2015

Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; Reprint edition October, 2013
ISBN # 978-0-316-20436-1
Lexile Measure: 580L
Classification: Non-fiction

Summary:
In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell explores our assumptions about obstacles and whether they are based in fact or fiction.

Outliers

6/14/2015

Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Back Bay Books; Reprint edition June, 2011
ISBN#: 978-0316017830
Lexile Measure: 1080L
Classification: Non-fiction

Summary:
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell turns his powers of investigation, observation, and explanation to the question of what makes immensely successful people succeed. He argues that, contrary to popular belief, that the very successful, the “outliers,” are innately more talented than the rest of us, that the roots of their achievement can be found equally in their birth dates, their heritage, and the small circumstances that, when taken together, place them in positions to seize success denied others.

Farewell to Manzanar

6/14/2015

Author: Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston
Publisher: Ember, 1973, ISBN#978-0-307-97607
Lexile Measure: 1040L
Classification: Historical fiction

Summary:
Farewell to Manzanar tells the story of Jeanne Wakatsuki, a seven year old girl living with her fisherman father and family on the west coast of the United States during World War II. In 1942, she and her family were sent to live at the Manzanar internment camp. This book tells of Jeanne’s reaction, as well as the reactions of her family members, to their forced relocation and efforts to rebuild their lives after they were freed.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

6/5/2015

Author: Jamie Ford
Published: 2009, Ballantine Books, ISBN 978-0345505346
Lexile Level: 850L
Classification: Fiction

Summary:
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet tells the story of Henry Lee, a young American citizen growing up in Seattle in the 1940s. He befriends Keiko, a young Japanese girl from his school. Both of them are outcasts because of their races. After they become friends (and after Japan attacks the U.S. at Pearl Harbor), Keiko and her family are forced to live in an internment camp. Despite their strong feelings for each other, time and distance separates them until they reconnect much later in life.

The Devil's Highway

5/27/2015

Author: Luis Alberto Urrea
Publisher: 2005, Back Bay Books, ISBN 978-0316010801
Lexile Measure: Unavailable
Classification: Non-fiction

Summary:
Luis Alberto Urrea’s gritty non-fiction work tells the story of an attempted May 2001 illegal crossing through the Arizona desert from Mexico to the United States. Of the twenty-six men who began the trek, only twelve survived. The book discusses that incident as well as greater issues of Mexican immigration to the United States.

The Power of One

5/27/2015

Author: Bryce Courtenay
Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-345-41005-4
Lexile Measure: 940L
Classification: Fiction

Summary:
The book’s main character, Peekay, is a young boy (growing into a man) who is relatively unsupervised. He spends most the book either at boarding school, traveling to and from boarding school, or roaming around the outdoors with his friends. Although a few female characters appear in the book, some of whom are strong role models to Peekay, the book takes place in a man’s world.
The book’s main character, Peekay, is a young boy (growing into a man) who is relatively unsupervised. He spends most the book either at boarding school, traveling to and from boarding school, or roaming around the outdoors with his friends. Although a few female characters appear in the book, some of whom are strong role models to Peekay, the book takes place in a man’s world.