Highlights Archives
Summer Reading Suggestions from WHS Staff
Society members and visitors often tell us they'd like to know more about the staff behind the programs and services that they enjoy. Here's a glimpse into a random sample of staff through the books they're reading this summer, or that they recommend you might want to take along to the beach or cottage. Suggestions for young readers are at the end. Many of these titles are for sale through our Museum Gift Shop. To browse the books that the Society publishes, visit our Publications pages.
Jim Draeger, architectural historian:
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson. A riveting novelized account of the 1893 Worlds Fair that intertwines two stories — that of the Fair's construction and that of America's most notorious serial killer.
- Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America by Gwendolyn Wright. The fascinating story of how contemporary ideas, building technology, and culture shape the houses we live in.
Michael Edmonds, digital librarian:
- Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead by Phil Lesh. The author was deeply into a serious classical music education when he met Jerry Garcia in the early 1960s. Then they both encountered the dreaded lysergic (as George Harrison called it) and the die was cast. Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test may be the best book about the hippies but Wolfe was outside looking in, while Lesh was directly in the center of the whirlwind. Steven Stills is rumored to have remarked that if you can remember the Sixties you weren't really there. Lesh refutes that maxim, often in remarkably vivid and insightful (as well as funny) prose.
James Ellis, webmaster:
- Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis. Still the most interesting and hilarious history of the late 1980s financial markets there ever was. Anyone who's ever tried to understand the stock and bond market will enjoy (and laugh with) this book, told from an insider's perspective.
Alicia Goehring, division of historic sites administrator
- The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. This book, first published in the 1950s, is widely considered one of the best mysteries of all time and is often cited as a book that people who don't normally read mysteries will enjoy. British Detective Inspector Alan Grant is stuck in the hospital for an extended stay and becomes intrigued by a portrait of Richard III. Did he really have his two nephews murdered in the Tower of London or has history misrepresented him? With the help of an American researcher, Grant tries to determine the truth.
Erika Janik, coordinator of our Turning Points in Wisconsin History [link] Web site:
- Rural Renaissance: Renewing the Quest for the Good Life by John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist. Trading the urban rat race for a simple and self-sustaining life in the country, Ivanko and Kivirist chronicle their journey to a small farm in Wisconsin, providing practical advice and inspiration for capturing the American dream of country living. This book combines the historical and the contemporary by showing how the wisdom and values associated with earlier "good life" advocates — community, family, self-sufficiency — can be realized by anyone, anywhere in the modern world.
- Bananas: An American History by Virginia Scott Jenkins. In this fascinating portrait of one of the most popular, ubiquitous, and inexpensive fruits in the United States, Jenkins shows how developments in international trade and transportation allowed bananas to go from virtually unknown in 1880 to commonplace by 1910. Marketing and public health campaigns encouraged Americans to eat more and more bananas, and bananas were even touted as an effective weapon against communism. You will never look at bananas the same way again after reading this book.
Ann Koski, museum director:
- A History of Ancient Egypt by Dr. Bob Brier. This series of lectures from The Teaching Company is available in CD and audiotapes.
- Crocodile on the Sandbank by Amelia Peabody. The first book in a series about the various developments in Egyptian archaeology.
- Gateway to Empire by Allen Eckert. This book is especially good, as it deals with the history of the Chicago portage and includes many familiar landmarks in the Midwest.
Melissa McLimans, coordinator of our Wisconsin Genealogical Research Service:
- Spanish Steps by Tim Moore. Travel writer Moore follows the path of pilgrims when he takes on the Camino de Santiago with his trusty if enigmatic sidekick, Shinto the donkey. On his 500-mile trek across Northern Spain, Moore hopes to learn a bit more about Spain, history, donkeys and, perhaps, himself.
Trent Nichols, director of research, Wisconsin Historical Foundation
- Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl by Richard Moe and Carter Wilkie. In this book Richard Moe presents cases of communities that have used preservation as a tool to fight decay and sprawl to become vibrant places, making the case that historic preservation is good for America's communities.
Anne Rauh, administrative assistant:
- Son of the Revolution by Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro. This autobiography gives a great recount of the events of China's Cultural Revolution while illustrating the love/hate relationship that the Chinese people had with the Communist Party.
Julia Steege, student intern:
- They Marched Into Sunlight by David Maraniss. This book expertly contrasts the events in Vietnam and at the University of Wisconsin — Madison during the Vietnam War.
- The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara. Guevara chronicles his trip across Argentina, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Columbia and Venezuela. Particularly interesting is that the reader can glimpse what a 23-year-old Guevara learned from his journey that later helped him to become a revolutionary.
Michael Stevens, state historian:
Sidonie Straughn-Morse, student intern:
- Al-Jazeera by Hugh Miles. The book is full of interesting anecdotes about the history of the controversial Arab news network, specific programs, and the full gamut of responses the channel has received.
Gerry Strey, map curator and reference librarian:
- Constant Battles: the Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage by Steven A LeBlanc. The author disputes the idea of a "golden age" in which primitive cultures lived in peace and plenty, respecting and conserving their environments.
Betsy Trane, policy advisor:
- A Full-Blown Yankee of the Iron Brigade: Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers by Rufus Dawes. Personal memoir of a soldier with one of the most famous military units in the Civil War, originally published in 1890.
- Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae by Steven Pressfield. Perfect read for the beach, this fictional account of the famous battle in 480 BC between the Persians and the Greeks has hooked many a reader on revisiting classical history.
And For Kids:
Beth A. Lemke, museum educator, Wisconsin Historical Museum:
- Time of the Eagle: A Story Of An Ojibwe Winter by Stephanie Golightly Lowden. This story highlights the courage of a sister and brother who must survive in the woods when they flee their village during a smallpox outbreak.
- Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In this story Laura Ingalls Wilder shares the details of her husband's experiences as he grew up as a farmer boy far from the little house where she lived.
- The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. Follow Omakayas a spirited 7 year old through the different seasons and daily life of her adopted family during the middle of the 19th century.
Anne Rauh, administrative assistant:
- Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. This is my all-time favorite children's book. It is a great story about two best friends, one Jewish, one not, in Denmark during World War II.
Bobbie Malone, director, office of school services
- Any volume of Joy Hakim's The History of US, a splendidly written and compelling American history survey for upper-elementary and middle-schoolers.
- Elizabeth Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond, a Newberry-award winning classic about Colonial America at the time of the Salem witch trials.
- Kathleen Ernst's Trouble at Fort La Pointe, an American Girl history mystery that focuses on Madeleine Island at the time of fur-trading.
- Two of my all-time favorites for young readers are Katherine Paterson's The Sign of the Chrysanthemum and Bridge to Terebithia by one of the best authors of fine books for a 10-14 year-old audience.
:: Posted July 5, 2005
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