{"id":12042,"date":"2017-08-31T16:40:51","date_gmt":"2017-08-31T22:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=12042"},"modified":"2017-09-07T13:36:42","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T19:36:42","slug":"whats-on-your-reading-list-gail-murphy-geiss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2017\/08\/whats-on-your-reading-list-gail-murphy-geiss\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s on Your Reading List, Gail Murphy-Geiss?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We asked Professor of Sociology, Gail Murphy-Geiss<\/p>\n

What\u2019s on Your Reading List?<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Photo by Jennifer Coombes<\/p><\/div>\n

When I\u2019m not reading sociology, I love reading for my European Book Group at the Alliance Fran\u00e7aise in Denver. Because only 3 percent of the American book market comes from translations of works written elsewhere, we read from that small portion, focusing on books written in languages spoken in Europe. Sometimes that includes books from Francophone writers in Tunisia or Angolan authors writing in Portuguese, but most of our books, all novels, come from European writers, and cover a wide range of themes.<\/p>\n

Our next book is \u201cCrabwalk\u201d by G\u00fcnter Grass, a semi-fictional account of the real 1945 Soviet attack on the Wilhelm Gustloff<\/i>, a German cruise ship carrying \u201crefugees\u201d (hundreds of Nazi soldiers with thousands of innocent children) away from crumbling Nazi Germany. The story is told from the perspective of a man who was born immediately after his mother was rescued from the shipwreck, as he struggles with Germany\u2019s post-war memories. After that, the reading list will take us through Sweden, Bulgaria, and Italy. It\u2019s sort of like the Block Plan \u2013 one book from one language\/culture\/nation each month.<\/p>\n

For titles and reviews of books from the full 3 percent (well beyond Europe), go to http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Web Extra<\/h3>\n

I can\u2019t remember all of the books since we started in 2011, but I\u2019ve kept the list and would be happy to share it via email.<\/p>\n

Recently we read Per Petterson\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s Fine by Me,\u201d a coming of age story about a working class boy in Norway, a demographic I had never really thought about. We\u2019ve read Dominique Fabre\u2019s \u201cGuys Like Me\u201d about a middle-aged man looking for a second chance at life and love in the outskirts of Paris \u2014 fun for anyone who loves to explore the lesser known parts of Paris. Before that was one of my favorites, Andrey Kurkov\u2019s Ukrainian novel, \u201cDeath and the Penguin,\u201d a hilarious and dark story about a poverty-stricken writer in Kiev whose only friend is his penguin \u2014 impossible to summarize in one sentence, but you\u2019ve got to be curious at least!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We asked Professor of Sociology, Gail Murphy-Geiss What\u2019s on Your Reading List? When I\u2019m not reading sociology, I love reading for my European Book Group at the Alliance Fran\u00e7aise in Denver. Because only 3 percent of the American book market comes from translations of works written elsewhere, we read from that small portion, focusing on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[30,38],"class_list":["post-12042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summer-2017","tag-on-the-bookshelf","tag-web-extras"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12042"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12457,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12042\/revisions\/12457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}