What Are You Reading?

What Are You

Reading?

What Are You Reading? A project sponsored by the Friends of the Macomb Public Library District to encourage reading and book discussion in our community. Would you like to share your favorite books with other readers? Please send your name, occupation or grade level, book author and title, and a brief statement about the book and why you liked it to Kate Joswick, [email protected].

Reviewer’s Name: Martha Klems Reviewer’s Occupation: Retired Book Title: Lincoln in the Bardo Book’s Author: George Saunders I listened to the audiobook version first and did not like it much. But then I read the text version and really changed my mind. It is quite an unusual book. When reading it, I realized it was all about empathy: the lack of it, the difficulty in truly empathizing with others, even with longtime companions whose stories we've heard a thousand times. Saunders very effectively uses brief moments when one being is able to actually inhabit another and the incredible difference those moments make in their true empathy with the other. Lincoln is the catalyst for all that happens in one night in the Bardo and Saunders suggests his own great capacity for both honest introspection and empathy, even in the midst of terrible grief, were key to Lincoln's greatness.