Gena Johnson's Best Reads of 2014

December 12, 2014

Johnson Family - CopyMy name is Gena Johnson, and I work at Lurie Children’s Hospital putting the “zing” in Fundraising.  I have lived in Evanston since 2005 with my husband and 2 children.  I love history, genealogy, and learning about how things came to be.

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1) Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple (2012)

I loved this sweet story about a girl and her eccentric mother.  It was written in a creative style; a collection of clips from diary entries, emails and newspaper articles.  It made it fun and feel like you were piecing together the story instead of simply reading.  I genuinely laughed and cried throughout the book and could not put it down!

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New Take on Cleopatra by Pulitzer-winning Author

November 18, 2010

Stacy Schiff has written a book delving into the life of Cleopatra in a way that hasn’t been done for a while. Schiff focuses more on the ruler’s character and political skill than the Hollywood version many of us are familiar with. (This view corresponds to a National Geographic article I read recently on Cleopatra that showed a physical reconstruction of her face. The contention of the article was that she won over Marc Antony and Julius Caesar not with her beauty, but with her forceful and charming personality.)

For links to a fascinating major exhibit by National Geographic at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia click here.

Shira S.


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