The
Alchemist,
by
Paulo Ceolho (208 pages): Paulo Coelho's
enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world.
This story, dazzling in its simplicity and wisdom, is about an
Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in
Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of treasure buried in the
Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself
king, and an Alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of
his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be
able to surmount the obstacles along the way But what starts out as a
journey to find worldly goods turns into a meditation on the treasures
found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago
is art eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and
the importance of listening to our hearts.
The
Color
of
Water, A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James
McBride, 256 pages. This national bestseller tells the story
of James McBride and his mother—a rabbi's daughter, born in Poland and
raised in the South, who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a
church, and put 12 children through college.
The
Handmaid's
Tale,
by Margaret Atwood, (136 pages): In the
world of the near future, who will control women's bodies? Offred is a
Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the
Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs
are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed
to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the
Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births,
Offred and the other Handmaids are only valued if their ovaries are
viable. Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made
love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her
daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to
knowledge. But all of that is gone now....
Shadows
at
Dawn:
A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History, by Karl
Jacoby, (384 pages): Historian Jacoby makes an important
contribution to the scholarship of the American West with this balanced
portrait of the brutal Camp Grant massacre in Arizona. On April 30,
1871, more than 50 Apache Indians—mostly women and children—were
massacred by a group of vigilantes made up of Americans, Mexicans, and
Tohono O’odham Indians. What made the atrocity even more unbelievable
to the general public was the fact that the Apaches were living under
the protection of the U.S. Army on a government-sponsored tract of
land. Recounting the story from four divergent points of view, Jacoby
sheds insight into the social, political, and economic complexities
that characterized the nineteenth-century frontier. In addition, he
also places the massacre and the federal investigation that followed
firmly into historical context by providing a concise history of the
highly charged cultural conflicts that plagued the territory for
several preceding centuries
Never
Let
Me
Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (304 pages) As a child,
Kathy-–now thirty-one years old–-lived at Hailsham, a private school in
the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from
the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and
that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the
society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this
idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back
into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory. And so, as
her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long
ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love,
Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of
boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed-–even comforted-–by
their isolation....
The
Forgotten
Man:
A
New
History
of
the Great Depression (396
pages excluding references, acknowledgements,
etc..). Jason's Comments: I’ve read this book and consider it to be
among the best
books that I’ve read in several years.I
highly recommend it. The book looks at the personalities and the
political issues and philosophies of the day. It looks at what
people were
thinking and why they were thinking it. I've learned about Hoover's
background as a
mining engineer. It also discusses a junket to Russia
in the 1920's to examine
Russian society after the recent Bolshevik revolution.
Blink:
The
Power
of
Thinking
Without
Thinking , by Malcolm Gladwell
(320 pages). Amazon Review: Blink is about the first two seconds of
looking--the decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the
best-selling author of The
Tipping Point,
campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for
translating research into splendid storytelling. Building his case with
scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on
the golf course, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades
readers to think small and focus on the meaning of "thin slices" of
behavior. The key is to rely on our "adaptive unconscious"--a 24/7
mental valet--that provides us with instant and sophisticated
information to warn of danger, read a stranger, or react to a new idea.
Gladwell includes caveats about leaping to conclusions: marketers
can manipulate our first impressions, high arousal moments make us
"mind blind," focusing on the wrong cue leaves us vulnerable to "the
Warren Harding Effect" (i.e., voting for a handsome but hapless
president). In a provocative chapter that exposes the "dark side of
blink," he illuminates the failure of rapid cognition in the tragic
stakeout and murder of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. He underlines
studies about autism, facial reading and cardio uptick to urge training
that enhances high-stakes decision-making. In this brilliant,
cage-rattling book, one can only wish for a thicker slice of Gladwell's
ideas about what Blink Camp might look like.
Packing
for
Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, by Mary Roach
(334
pages): Jason's comments: This is the same Mary Roach
who wrote "Stiff" and "Bonk." I heard a radio interview with her about
this book and they covered lots of weird, gross, and interesting stuff
about travelling to Mars. Here's a description from Amazon: Amazon
Best
Books of the Month, August 2010: With her wry humor and inextinguishable
curiosity, Mary Roach has crafted her own quirky niche in the somewhat
staid world of science writing, showing no fear (or shame) in the face
of cadavers, ectoplasm, or sex. In Packing for Mars, Roach tackles the strange science of
space travel, and the psychology, technology, and politics that go into
sending a crew into orbit. Roach is unfailingly inquisitive (Why is it
impolite for astronauts to float upside down during conversations? Just
how smelly does a spacecraft get after a two week mission?), and she
eagerly seeks out the stories that don't make it onto NASA's
website--from SPCA-certified space suits for chimps, to the
trial-and-error approach to crafting menus during the space program's
early years (when the chefs are former livestock veterinarians, taste
isn't high on the priority list). Packing
for
Mars is a book for grownups
who still secretly dream of being astronauts, and Roach lives it up on
their behalf--weightless in a C-9 aircraft, she just can't resist the
opportunity to go "Supermanning" around the cabin. Her zeal for
discovery, combined with her love of the absurd, amazing, and
stranger-than-fiction, make Packing
for
Mars an uproarious trip into
the world of space travel.
1984,
by
George Orwell (368 pages) Amazon description:Novel by George Orwell, published
in 1949 as a warning about the menaces of totalitarianism. The novel is
set in an imaginary future world that is dominated by three perpetually
warring totalitarian police states. The book's hero, Winston Smith, is
a minor party functionary in one of these states. His longing for truth
and decency leads him to secretly rebel against the government. Smith
has a love affair with a like-minded woman, but they are both arrested
by the Thought Police. The ensuing imprisonment, torture, and
reeducation of Smith are intended not merely to break him physically or
make him submit but to root out his independent mental existence and
his spiritual dignity. Orwell's warning of the dangers of
totalitarianism made a deep impression on his contemporaries and upon
subsequent readers, and the book's title and many of its coinages, such
as NEWSPEAK, became bywords for modern political abuses.
The
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (290 pages)
Amazon review: The letters comprising this small charming
novel begin in 1946, when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton
(nom de plume Izzy Bickerstaff) writes to her publisher to say she is
tired of covering the sunny side of war and its aftermath. When
Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams finds Juliet's name in a used book and
invites articulate—and not-so-articulate—neighbors to write Juliet with
their stories, the book's epistolary circle widens, putting Juliet back
in the path of war stories. The occasionally contrived letters jump
from incident to incident—including the formation of the Guernsey
Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while Guernsey was under German
occupation—and person to person in a manner that feels disjointed. But
Juliet's quips are so clever, the Guernsey inhabitants so enchanting
and the small acts of heroism so vivid and moving that one forgives the
authors (Shaffer died earlier this year) for not being able to settle
on a single person or plot. Juliet finds in the letters not just
inspiration for her next work, but also for her life—as will readers.
