Summer reading recommendations

Yoline Chandler
manager, general books department, Illini Union Bookstore

Lately, Chandler's attention has been focused on making sure other readers
have a steady supply of new books to choose from, so her bedside table has
been stacked with publishers' catalogs of new books. But among the books
she's read most recently, she highly recommends "Culture of Complaint, " a
collection of essays and lectures on American culture by Time magazine art
critic Robert Hughes. Chandler found Hughes to be "a good and witty writer
who brings in a lot of substance and credibility" to his observations. She
also was impressed by James Scotty Reston's biography, which she said was
not only "charming," but gave her "a real feeling for the man."


Leigh Estabrook
dean, Graduate School of Library and Information Science

"I am in the middle of several books, including Jane Smiley's 'Moo.' I am
still forming opinions about 'Moo' and am not far enough into it to
comment. The book I completed recently that I have been recommending to
many people is Frank Conroy's 'Body and Soul' (in paperback). It is 'about'
music and families. There is a scene toward the end of the book where the
hero is playing jazz with another man - his father, the reader finds out -
but the relationship remains hidden from the hero. The description of the
two playing jazz together is a moving description of the relationship most
of us seek with our children. Conroy is on the faculty of the University of
Iowa."

On Estabook's "to-read" list: "I am just beginning a four-month leave, so
the book case is piled high with promising titles, both scholarly and sheer
escapism."