Page Turners

Read any good books lately? Share your book recommendations with other Brunonians by sending e-mail to Events@brown.edu. Be sure to include your name, your title and department, the name of the book and author, and your brief critique. This week's page turners are:

James Campbell, associate professor, American Civilization, Africana Studies and History

• "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver: "A novel told in four voices on the experience of an American missionary family in the Congo. Set against the background of independence and the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the book offers a poignant, sometimes humorous, sometimes horrifying exploration of the problem of translation between cultures."

Peggy Chang (left), director, Venture Consortium

• "Talk to Me: Listening Between the Lines" by Anna Deavere Smith: "Unless you saw her at the inaugural theater performance, when she performed her one-woman show, "Fires in the Mirror" at Rites and Reasons Theater about a decade ago, or on PBS doing another one-woman performance, "Twilight: Los Angeles 1992," you may not be very familiar with Ms. Smith's awesome talent of illuminating truths about the way which we present ourselves. She is a master of the spoken word, and this book captures the curious ways in which political figures and the media present themselves to the public. The book is unusual in the way it unfolds and tells its story — it is a series of vignettes from her personal life, as well as portions of her interviews, presented verbatim, of figures such as James Carville, Studs Terkel, Dee Myers, Anita Hill, and Bill Clinton.