Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
I loved Gladwell’s The Tipping Point because it deals with how changes move through groups of people; that is an area I’m quite interested in and have opportunities to teach to others. I didn’t know if I’d enjoy his other books as much, but they are marvelous. Great and fascinating analysis of the principles and circumstances that allow some to achieve greatness while others do not. Ever since reading it I’ve found myself weaving his examples into conversation. I'll resist the urge to do so here - at least today! Sadly, it's due back at the library.
A Live Coal in the Sea, by Madeleine L'Engle
Not as engaging as some of her stuff, though it covers similar territory. This one emphasizes the redemptive power of grace and forgiveness, compared to which the worst of offenses are like “a live coal in the sea.”
Also read: Mansfield Park Revisited: A Jane Austen Entertainment, by Joan Aiken. Fan fiction is seldom written by such accomplished writers. Joan Aiken handles Austen well.
I was hoping this would be as good as his brilliant book for kids, Holes (to which it is something of a sequel) but it fell short. Still a good young-adult novel; clever, appealing, and funny, just not outstanding. Have any of you – or your kids - read his other books?
Also read: The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization, by Daniel Pinkwater, likewise probably not his best, but had some great lines in it and the added bonus, this time, of a lot of culture/history. A child might have trouble separating what’s story from what’s true, but that line can be fuzzy in real life, as well!
Selected Stories, by Rudyard Kipling
The guy who wrote the introduction to this fine collection said “Rudyard Kipling is beyond question the greatest short-story writer in the English language, and this collection illustrates the richness and variety of his achievement.” Whomever wrote the copy for the back cover felt this language was too strong and amended it to, “Rudyard Kipling is undoubtedly one of the greatest short-story writers in the English language.” Ha!
Either way, he’s powerful good! I’d tried to read some of Kipling's more famous works before and hadn’t been sucked in. Certainly he uses a lot of Hindi and British dialect that can be hard to follow (Many of his stories are set in
Also read: A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw, by Isaac Bashevis Singer, which is a great window on the Hasidic Jewish life in Eastern Europe.
Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman's Story, by Mark Richie
Whew, this one was tough. I can’t say I wasn’t warned, but the sexual assault and other nastiness was hard to swallow, page after page. Tribal jungle types are not universally endearing. So I didn't read this one straight through. One thing this volume illustrates is how really awful the community of anthropologists can be, as well. Some of those in this book were really there to build their own prestige and bank accounts at the expense of the locals. This reinforced my suspicion that going back to school in the social sciences, at a public school, would often mean swimming upstream against the currents that would fight my desire to use my skills to actually make people’s lives better. That’s right, I don’t believe in the Prime Directive!
Also read: Champagne for the Soul: Celebrating God's Gift of Joy, by Mike Mason, which I blogged about earlier. What a powerful book!
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