Spring reading plants its seeds deep in the mind

As the Garden State bursts into color, some borough book club selections have been adding depth and intensity to the inner mind. Start off with F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic, Tender Is the Night; join the Great Migration into The Warmth of Other Suns, an eye opener about American apartheid; and explore Penelope Lively's Tiger Moon, a deathbed reflection on the history of the world.

Tender is the Night (1933)
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Only in the years after the Lost Generation did this novel receive classic status. Much like Shakespeare, who took the bare bones of  his stories from Plutarch, Fitzgerald borrowed several people from his own life and mixed their histories to create characters. Using a real life couple who entertained the likes of Picasso, Hemingway, and the Fitzgeralds along the French Riveria, he dedicates this novel "To Gerald and Sara." We tag along for the games they hosted -- swapping partners, crushing egos, and nurturing up-and-coming artists. Stirred into this already rich French broth is Fitzgerald's own experiences with his wife's convalesence in a Swiss sanitarium.

The author clearly creates his literary world; he says to be more truthful. Compared to The Great Gatsby, so trim and ripe with poetic images, this one reads differently but some passages are just as descriptive. Don't skip this classic that fills in the years between the two big wars. It's interesting to note that Dr. Dick Diver, as he cures his wife Nicole, begins his own disintegration.

Moon Tiger (1987)
Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively's Booker Prize Winner also takes place over the course of the two big wars. Claudia, a cultural historian, is writing the world's history in her head, and guess who's the main character? As she recounts her somewhat bizarre life of incest, controversy, and romance, Claudia finds archaeological objects that might shine light on the pivital moments which she now questions.

The narrative moves through the voices of the four main characters and at times through an omniscient pressence. Could it be G-d seeing all? Some interesting language and metaphors, but Claudia's Egyptian romance during World War II makes the rest of her life somewhat anticlimatic. Book clubs can enjoy sorting through the ancient ruins and pulling the curtains on the mysteries of Claudia's life.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (2010)
Isabel Wilkerson

The most powerful books about America take on the subject  of slavery and its aftermath. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her feature writing as the Chicago bureau chief of the New York Times, Wilkerson does an amazing job of tackling the Great Migration of black Americans north and west in the 20th century. The book reads as well as fiction and although the author interviewed thousands, it focuses on three lives that represent the masses.

 

The children and grandchildren of slaves, facing prejudice as fierce as that of Nazi Germany, know it's time to leave the only place they know as home. The book's anchors -- Ida Mae Gladney (1937, from rural Mississippi to southside Chicago), George Starling (1945,  from Florida groveland to Harlem), and Dr. Robert Foster (1953, from small-town Louisiana to Los Angeles) -- all provide personal details that illuminate the migration of millions. The personal narratives also lift the curtain on the era of apartheid in the United States. Book clubs, don't pass this one up.