Reminder: Friday, August 31, 2012 is the deadline to submit books for
consideration for the 2013 Oregon Book Awards. The guidelines and
applications can be found on Literary Arts' web site. Contact Susan Denning for more information.
Through the particular
story of Mexican American activist Sonny Montes, from the 1960s to the present
day, Glenn Anthony May creates a richly textured history of the Mexican
American movement in Oregon. Montes’ determination and hard work, his capacity to seize opportunity
and foster ideals, is a important story in and of itself. Additionally, in telling one man’s
story, May also examines the plight of farm workers, the inter-generational and
cultural struggles within the Mexican American community, and various
approaches towards dealing with the entrenched challenges of migrant
communities. In a book of
remarkable range and depth, May brings an understanding of cultural movements
in general to bear upon his examination. He also makes history personal, and in doing so gives his readers a
thorough and engrossing examination of an evolving and maturing Mexican
American culture in Oregon.
All families are complex, and families
with secrets at their heart are infinitely so. In his compelling exploration and analysis of memoirs
written by those whose parents’ secrets haunt their lives, Roger Porter
examines both the nature of family mysteries and the desire to clarify them. Ultimately, whether the family pasts
have been hidden or created, guided by fear or shame or simply the desire to
forget, the writers Porter considers must not only come to terms with what can
only be partially known and understood, but also with the consequences of
revelation. Bureau of Missing Persons implicitly ranges farther than the
particular circumstances of these writers by suggesting that our family
stories, with all their inevitable mystery, are inextricably bound up with the
way we see ourselves.
In his examination of the way Japan created and exploited its founding
“moment,” Kenneth Ruoff provides a concise, clear view into the complex society
of wartime Japan. He charts not
only mass participation in the celebrations of the anniversary during a time
when the country was entrenched in its conflict with China, but also the way
attendant consumerism and tourism, both in Japan proper and its colonies,
helped to reinforce feelings of nationalism. Ruoff meticulously examines the way in which such feelings
were essential to wartime morale and to the popular support of a militaristic
and aggressive government, and he clarifies his examination of this phenomenon
though contrasts and comparisons to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Precise, clear, and beautifully
written, Imperial Japan at Its Zenith
is a fascinating narrative, which can be appreciated by scholars and general
readers alike.
