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333. Asymmetry

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:    Frank and Lisanne

Author:   Lisa Halliday

Genre:  Fiction

277 pages, published February 6, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Told in three distinct sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations:  inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. The first section, Folly tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer.   The second section, Madness is narrated by Amar, an Iraqi-American man who, on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan, is detained by immigration officers and spends the last weekend of 2008 in a holding room in Heathrow. The final section is an NPR interview with Ezra Blazer.

Quotes 

“I once heard a filmmaker say that in order to be truly creative a person must be in possession of four things: irony, melancholy, a sense of competition, and boredom.”

 

“But then even someone who imagines for a living is forever bound by the ultimate constraint: she can hold her mirror up to whatever subject she chooses, at whatever angle she likes—she can even hold it such that she herself remains outside its frame, the better to de-narcissize the view—but there’s no getting around the fact that she’s always the one holding the mirror. And just because you can’t see yourself in a reflection doesn’t mean no one can.”

“Some of us wage wars. Others write books. The most delusional ones write books. We have very little choice other than to spend our waking hours trying to sort out and make sense of the perennial pandemonium. To forge patterns and proportions where they don’t actually exist. And it is this same urge, this mania to tame and possess—this necessary folly—that sparks and sustains love.”

 

“for a country is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful.”

 

“We ride too high on deceptive notions of power and security and control and then when it all comes crashing down on us the low is made deeper by the high. By its precipitousness, but also by the humiliation you feel for having failed to see the plummet coming. . . . Lulled by years of relative peace and prosperity we settle into micromanaging our lives with our fancy technologies and custom interest rates and eleven different kinds of milk, and this leads to a certain inwardness, an unchecked narrowing of perspective, the vague expectation that even if we don’t earn them and nurture them the truly essential amenities will endure forever as they are. We trust that someone else is looking after the civil liberties shop, so we don’t have to. Our military might is unmatched and in any case the madness is at least an ocean away. And then all of a sudden we look up from ordering paper towels online to find ourselves delivered right into the madness. And we wonder: How did this happen? What was I doing when this was in the works? Is it too late to think about it now? . . .”

 

“This is because my mind is always turning over this question of how I’m going to feel later, based on what I’m doing now. Later in the day. Later in the week. Later in a life starting to look like a series of activities designed to make me feel good later, but not now. Knowing I’ll feel good later makes me feel good enough now.”

 

“the more time you spend writing things down the less time you spend doing things you don’t want to forget.”

 

“As soon as you are born the sand starts falling and only by demanding to be remembered do you stand a chance of it being upturned again and again.”

 

“The older you get,” he explained, “the more you have to do before you can go to bed. I’m up to a hundred things.”

 

“the music made her more desperate than ever to do, invent, create—to channel all her own energies into the making of something beautiful and unique to herself—but it also made her want to love. To submit to the loving of someone so deeply and well that there could be no question as to whether she were squandering her life, for what could be nobler than dedicating it to the happiness and fulfillment of another?” 

My Take

I wasn’t sure what to make of Asymmetry.  While she is a gifted writer, Halliday has a unique style that takes a little getting used to.  Nevertheless, I still captivated by parts of Asymmetry, especially the first part of the book which chronicles the relationship between a talented, but somewhat aimless young woman and a much older and much more accomplished man.  The second part, which focuses on an Iraqi American detained at Heathrow Airport was much less interesting.  While Asymmetry was not one of my favorites of the year, I would read more from this author.

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330. The Library Book

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Lisa Goldberg

Author:   Susan Orlean

Genre:  Non Fiction, History

336 pages, published October 16, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

In 1986, the Los Angeles Public Library experienced a devastating fire.  It reached 2000 degrees, burned for more than seven hours, destroyed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more.  A thorough investigation failed to solve the mystery of whether someone purposefully set fire to the library.   Author Susan Orlean set out to answer that question and also incorporates her love of books and reading, as well as a history of the Los Angeles Library, into this book.

Quotes 

“The library is a gathering pool of narratives and of the people who come to find them. It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever.”

 

“In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. When I first heard the phrase, I didn’t understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived.”

 

“Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived.”

 

“Destroying a culture’s books is sentencing it to something worse than death: It is sentencing it to seem as if it never lived.”

 

“Books are a sort of cultural DNA, the code for who, as a society, we are, and what we know. All the wonders and failures, all the champions and villains, all the legends and ideas and revelations of a culture last forever in its books.”

 

“It wasn’t that time stopped in the library. It was as if it were captured, collected here, and in all libraries — and not only my time, my life, but all human time as well. In the library, time is dammed up–not just stopped but saved.”

 

“books are the last things that any human being can afford to do without.”

 

“A book feels like a thing alive in this moment, and also alive in a continuum, from the moment the thoughts about it first percolated in the writer’s mind to the moment it sprang from the printing press — a lifeline that continues as someone sits with it and marvels over it, and it continues on, …”

 

“I have come to believe that books have souls—why else would I be so reluctant to throw one away?”

 

“People think that libraries are quiet, but they really aren’t. They rumble with voices and footsteps and a whole orchestral range of book-related noises—the snap of covers clapping shut; the breathy whisk of pages fanning open; the distinctive thunk of one book being stacked on another; the grumble of book carts in the corridors.”

 

“There are so many things in a library, so many books and so much stuff, that I sometimes wondered if any one single person could possibly know what all of it is. I preferred thinking that no one does—I liked the idea that the library is more expansive and grand than one single mind, and that it requires many people together to form a complete index of its bounty.”

 

“The library is a whispering post. You don’t need to take a book off a shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen. It was that affirmation that always amazed me. Even the oddest, most peculiar book was written with that kind of courage — the writer’s belief that someone would find his or her book important to read. I was struck by how precious and foolish and brave that belief is, and how necessary, and how full of hope it is to collect these books and manuscripts and preserve them. It declares that stories matter, and so does every effort to create something that connects us to one another, and to our past, and to what is still to come.”

 

“librarians should “read as a drunkard drinks or as a bird sings or a cat sleeps or a dog responds to an invitation to go walking, not from conscience or training, but because they’d rather do it than anything else in the world.”

 

“Writing a book, just like building a library, is an act of sheer defiance. It is a declaration that you believe in the persistence of memory.”

 

“The publicness of the public library is an increasingly rare commodity. It becomes harder all the time to think of places that welcome everyone and don’t charge any money for that warm embrace.”

 

“Destroying a library is a kind of terrorism. People think of libraries as the safest and most open places in society. Setting them on fire is like announcing that nothing, and nowhere, is safe.”

 

“The idea of being forgotten is terrifying. I fear not just that I, personally, will be forgotten, but that we are all doomed to being forgotten—that the sum of life is ultimately nothing; that we experience joy and disappointment and aches and delights and loss, make our little mark on the world, and then we vanish, and the mark is erased, and it is as if we never existed. If you gaze into that bleakness even for a moment, the sum of life becomes null and void, because if nothing lasts, nothing matters. It means that everything we experience unfolds without a pattern, and life is just a wild, random, baffling occurrence, a scattering of notes with no melody. But if something you learn or observe or imagine can be set down and saved, and if you can see your life reflected in previous lives, and can imagine it reflected in subsequent ones, you can begin to discover order and harmony. You know that you are a part of a larger story that has shape and purpose—a tangible, familiar past and a constantly refreshed future. We are all whispering in a tin can on a string, but we are heard, so we whisper the message into the next tin can and the next string. Writing a book, just like building a library, is an act of sheer defiance. It is a declaration that you believe in the persistence of memory.” 

My Take

As a dedicated and appreciative patron of my local library (the remarkable Boulder Public Library), I am already a big library fan and was interested to read this book, a love letter by author Susan Orlean to books and libraries.  Her beautiful prose and well researched passages made me appreciate libraries even more.   If she had focused on that, I think the book would have been better.  It gets off track when she reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the prime suspect in setting fire to the Los Angeles Public Library.  Despite this, The Library Book is still an interesting read and I recommend it.

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329. The Great Alone

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Drue Emerson

Author:   Kristin Hannah

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

435 pages, published February 6, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

The Great Alone takes place in 1974 Alaska when 13 year old Leni Albright moves there with her father, Ernt, an impulsive and unstable former Vietnam POW, and her mother Cora, whose alternating deferral to and taunting of Ernt causes even more trouble for this already troubled family.  The Albrights move to Alaska for yet another “fresh start” and attempt to make a go of it with little in the way of resources or knowledge necessary to survive.  When Ernt’s mental state deteriorates and her family begins to fracture, Leni must make difficult decisions in order to survive.

Quotes 

“Books are the mile markers of my life. Some people have family photos or home movies to record their past. I’ve got books. Characters. For as long as I can remember, books have been my safe place.”

 

“All this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was. The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home.”

 

“You know what they say about finding a man in Alaska—the odds are good, but the goods are odd.”

 

“Everyone up here had two stories : the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you. No one cared if you had an old car on your deck, let alone a rusted fridge. Any Life that could be imagined could be lived up here.”

 

“A girl was like a kite; without her mother’s strong, steady hold on the string, she might just float away, be lost somewhere among the clouds.”

 

“How will I stop loving him, Mama? Will I …. forget ?

Mama sighed.

Ah. That. Love doesn’t fade or die, baby girl. People tell you it does, but it doesn’t. If you love him now, you’ll love him in ten years and in forty. Differently, maybe , a faded version, but he’s part of you now. And you are part of him.”

 

“You have a child, so you know. You are my heart, baby girl. You are everything I did right. And I want you to know I would do it all again, every wonderful terrible second of it. I would do years and years of it again for one minute with you.”

 

“All this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was. The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home.”

 

“They were trapped, by environment and finances, but mostly by the sick, twisted love that bound her parents together.”

 

“Leni saw suddenly how hope could break you, how it was a shiny lure for the unwary. What happened to you if you hoped too hard for the best and got the worst?”

 

“Did adults just look at the world and see what they wanted to see, think what they wanted to think? Did evidence and experience mean nothing?”

 

“It’s like his back is broken, Mama had said, and you don’t stop loving a person when they’re hurt. You get stronger so they can lean on you. He needs me. Us.” 

My Take

As a big fan of Kristin Hannah, having previously really enjoyed Winter Garden and The Nightingale, I was looking forward to reading The Great Alone.  I liked it, but not nearly as much as her previous books which were more gripping page turners.  The characters and the plot in The Great Alone were not quite as compelling as Hannah’s previous efforts.  Still a good, just not great, read.

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328. Outer Order, Inner Calm: declutter & organize to make more room for happiness

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Gretchen Rubin

Genre:  Non Fiction, Self Improvement

208 pages, published March 5, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Outer Order, Inner Calm is Gretchen Rubin’s take on the idea that maintaining order in your surroundings is an important contributor to your overall happiness.  Rubin argues that getting control of the stuff of life makes us feel more in control of our lives generally.  By getting rid of things we don’t use, don’t need, or don’t love, as well as things that don’t work, don’t fit, or don’t suit, we free our mind (and our shelves) for what we truly value.  The book is organized around helpful ideas and suggestions for achieving order and organization.

Quotes 

“Nothing is more exhausting than the task that’s never started.”

 

“What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.”

 

“Outer order isn’t a matter of having less or having more; it’s a matter of wanting what we have.”

 

“Getting in control of our possessions makes us feel more in control of our fates. If this is an illusion, it’s a helpful illusion–and it’s a more pleasant way to live.”

 

“When deciding what to buy, remember that some things are easy to buy—but then we have to use them. If they’re not used, they don’t enhance our lives; they just contribute to guilt and clutter.”

 

“One of the biggest wastes of time is doing something well that didn’t need to be done at all.”

 

“Rather than striving for a particular level of possessions—minimal or otherwise—it’s helpful to think about getting rid of what’s superfluous. Even people who prefer to own many possessions enjoy their surroundings more when they’ve purged everything that’s not needed, used, or loved.”

 

“Actually spending ten minutes clearing off one shelf is better than fantasizing about spending a weekend cleaning out the basement.”

 

“It’s easier to keep up than to catch up…”

 

“Just because we’re busy doesn’t mean we’re being productive. Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination.”

 

“Having less often leads us to use our things more often and with more enjoyment, because we’re not fighting our way through a welter of unwanted stuff.” 

My Take

As my friends well know, I am a huge fan of Gretchen Rubin (Better than Before, The Four Tendencies, The Happiness Project) and consider her as my personal happiness guru.  I have internalized her many of her numerous pearls of wisdom on happiness and truly believe that I am leading a happier life as a result.  Perhaps because I am such a Rubin devotee, I found that most of the ideas presented in Outer Order, Inner Calm are ones that I have seen before.  However, it was still useful to have them collected together in one place and I think Rubin is spot on when advocates for getting rid of the clutter and organizing your physical surroundings.  I AM much happier when I live this way and I love the little jolt of happiness that I get every time I open a drawer or closet that I have recently cleaned out.

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323. Romans For You 8-16

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Timothy Keller

Genre:  Non Fiction, Christian, Theology

224 pages, published February 3, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Romans For You 8-16 is the second half of Romans study by noted theologian and Christian writer Timothy Keller.

Quotes 

“The same sun that melts wax hardens clay.” In other words, what makes a life “good” is not a particular set of circumstances, but how the heart interacts with them.”

 

“Sin can only grow in the soil of self-pity and a feeling of “owed-ness.” I’m not getting a fair shake! I’m not getting my needs met! I’ve had a hard life! God owes me; people owe me; I owe me! That’s the heart attitude of “owed-ness” or entitlement.”

 

“Notice that in 16:25 Paul does not say “is able to save you”; rather, he says God is powerful to “establish” us through the gospel. This reminds us that the gospel is not only the entry point into the Christian life; it is also the way we continue in, grow in and enjoy life with Christ. Paul has shown in Romans how the gospel not only saves us (chapters 1 – 5), but also how it then changes us (chapters 6 – 8; 12 – 15). If we believe the gospel, God is working powerfully through it, in us. We need never move away from it.”

 

“Look what God’s done for me! Is this how I respond to him?”

 

“This shows us that “the good” God always is working for us is character change. He is making us as loving, noble, true, wise, strong, good, joyful and kind as Jesus is.”

 

“Christians who don’t understand “no condemnation” only obey out of fear and duty. That is not nearly as powerful a motivation as love and gratitude.”

 

“Paul is saying that sin can only be cut off at the root if we expose ourselves constantly to the unimaginable love of Christ for us. That exposure stimulates a wave of gratitude and a feeling of indebtedness.”

 

“children of God” only for those who have received Christ as Savior and Lord: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children [tekna] of God” (John 1:12). Sonship is given to those who receive him. No one has it naturally except Jesus Christ.”

 

“The “Spirit of sonship” that Paul speaks of is, therefore, an ability that the Holy Spirit gives us to approach God as a Father instead of as a boss or slavemaster.”

 

“Not Christians. We don’t expect things in life to “work for good” of their own accord. When we find things working out beneficially for us, it is all of God, all of grace, all of him. When things work out, Christians never say: Of course—that’s as it should be! Rather, they praise God for it.”

 

“But second, this truth removes general fear and anxiety when life “goes wrong.” We know it hasn’t gone wrong at all! If God “works” in “all things,” it means his plan includes what we would call “little” or “senseless” things. Ultimately, there are no accidents.” 

My Take

After reading Galatians for You and especially The Reason for God, I am a fan of Timothy Keller.  A thoughtful and intelligent religious thinker and writer, Keller challenges his readers to dig deep and really think about what it means to be a Christian.  Romans for You 8-16 does this well and Keller has some interesting discussions of some challenging texts in the Bible.

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317. The Outsider

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Stephen King

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Crime, Suspense

561 pages, published May 22, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

When an eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park, all the evidence, from eyewitnesses to fingerprints to DNA, point to Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls.  Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney arrest him with what seems to be a bulletproof case.  When Maitland’s alibi checks out, the authorities start to questions their rush to judgment, but have no answers as to how the two contradictory circumstances are possible.

Quotes 

“If you can’t let go of the past, the mistakes you’ve made will eat you alive.”

 

“I believe there’s another dozen thoughts lined up behind each one I’m aware of.”

 

“I would like to believe in God,” she said, “because I don’t want to believe we just end, even though it balances the equation—since we came from blackness, it seems logical to assume that it’s to blackness we return. But I believe in the stars, and the infinity of the universe. That’s the great Out There. Down here, I believe there are more universes in every fistful of sand, because infinity is a two-way street.”

 

“Dreams are the way we touch the unseen world,”

 

“My tongue runs like a supermarket conveyor belt on payday.”

 

“Money was no cure for sorrow, Alec reflected, but it did allow one to grieve in relative comfort.”

 

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’ ” 

My Take

The Outsider is quintessential Stephen King.  You get to affectionately know a cast of characters comprised of normal people in a normal town that have to deal with something completely abnormal.  King, a master storyteller, delivers the goods once again.

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301. Today Will Be Different

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Beth Roach

Author:   Maria Semple

Genre:  Fiction, Humor

259 pages, published October 4, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Today Will Be Different is a day in the life of Eleanor Flood, an accomplished graphic novelist, mother of preschooler Timby (who has faked an illness to spend the day with his mother), wife of acclaimed hand surgeon Joe (who may be leading a double life), and sister to Ivy who has married into a Southern Gothic family .  As Eleanor navigates her topsy-turvy life, she learns about what is important in life.

Quotes 

“Today will be different. Today I will be present. Today, anyone I speak to, I will look them in the eye and listen deeply. Today I’ll play a board game with Timby. I’ll initiate sex with Joe. Today I will take pride in my appearance. I’ll shower, get dressed in proper clothes, and change into yoga clothes only for yoga, which today I will actually attend. Today I won’t swear. I won’t talk about money. Today there will be an ease about me. My face will be relaxed, its resting place a smile. Today I will radiate calm. Kindness and self-control will abound. Today I will buy local. Today I will be my best self, the person I’m capable of being. Today will be different.”

 

“I don’t mean to ruin the ending for you, sweet child, but life is one long headwind. To make any kind of impact requires self-will bordering on madness. The world will be hostile, it will be suspicious of your intent, it will misinterpret you, it will inject you with doubt, it will flatter you into self-sabotage. My God, I’m making it sound so glamorous and personal! What the world is, more than anything? It’s indifferent.”  “Say amen to that,” Spencer said.

“But you have a vision. You put a frame around it. You sign your name anyway. That’s the risk. That’s the leap. That’s the madness: thinking anyone’s going to care.”

 

“That was happiness. Not the framed greatest hits, but the moments in between. At the time, I hadn’t pegged them as being particularly happy. But now, looking back at those phantom snapshots, I’m struck by my calm, my ease, the evident comfort with my life. I’m happy in retrospect.”

 

“There’s a phenomenon I call the Helpless Traveler. If you’re traveling with someone who’s confident, organized, and decisive you become the Helpless Traveler: “Are we there yet?” “My bags are too heavy.” “My feet are getting blisters.” “This isn’t what I ordered.” We’ve all been that person. But if the person you’re traveling with is helpless, then you become the one able to decipher train schedules, spend five hours walking on marble museum floors without complaint, order fearlessly from foreign menus, and haggle with crooked cabdrivers. Every person has it in him to be either the Competent Traveler or the Helpless Traveler. Because Joe is so clearheaded and sharp, I’ve been able to go through life as the Helpless Traveler. Which, now that I think about it, might not be such a good thing.”

 

“You try your best, or you don’t try your best. The mountains don’t care.”

 

“You know how your brain turns to mush? How it starts when you’re pregnant? You laugh, full of wonder and conspiracy, and you chide yourself, Me and my pregnancy brain! Then you give birth and your brain doesn’t return? But you’re breast-feeding, so you laugh, as if you’re a member of an exclusive club? Me and my nursing brain! But then you stop nursing and the terrible truth descends: Your good brain is never coming back. You’ve traded vocabulary, lucidity, and memory for motherhood. You know how you’re in the middle of a sentence and you realize at the end you’re going to need to call up a certain word and you’re worried you won’t be able to, but you’re already committed so you hurtle along and then pause because you’ve arrived at the end but the word hasn’t? And it’s not even a ten-dollar word you’re after, like polemic or shibboleth, but a two-dollar word, like distinctive, so you just end up saying amazing?  Which is how you join the gang of nitwits who describe everything as amazing.”

 

“There was no relief deeper than being loved by the person who’d known you the longest.”

 

“In the middle of one of her self-help phases, Ivy had once proclaimed that underneath all anger was fear. I’d long since wondered what, if anything, was underneath all fear.

I knew then: If underneath anger was fear, then underneath fear was love. Everything came down to the terror of losing what you love.”

 

“How’s your day so far?”

“Oh, can’t complain,” he said. “You?”

“Can complain, but won’t.”

 

“A live concert needs to be listened to live. Otherwise, it’s like eating day-old salad.”

 

“Because the other way wasn’t working. The waking up just to get the day over with until it was time for bed. The grinding it out was a disgrace, an affront to the honor and long shot of being alive at all.”

 

“One thing that happens when you have an alcoholic for a parent is you grow up the child of an alcoholic. … For a quick trip around the bases, it means you blame yourself for everything, you avoid reality, you can’t trust people, you’re hungry to please. Which isn’t all bad: perfectionism makes the straight-A student; lack of trust begets self-sufficiency; low self-esteem can be a terrific motivator; if everyone were so gung-ho on reality, there’d be no art.”

 

“Pain I’m good with. It’s discomfort I can’t handle.”

 

“Smell the soup, cool the soup,” Timby said. “Huh?” “It’s what they teach us in school when we’re upset. Smell the soup.” He took a deep breath in. “Cool the soup.” He blew out.”

My Take

Having enjoyed Semple’s previous book Where’d You Go, Bernadette, I had high hopes for Today Will Be Different.  I was not disappointed.  The plot isn’t important.  Which is a good thing because there isn’t much of one.  Instead, the reason to read this book is the richly drawn characters and the very clever and enlightening insights about life that Semple regularly delivers.

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299. Carnegie’s Maid

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Marie Benedict

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance

283 pages, published August 12, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Fresh off the boat from Ireland in the 1860s, through a case of mistaken identity, fresh faced and intelligent Clara Kelly finds herself serving as a ladies’ maid to the mother of prominent businessman Andrew Carnegie.  By the end of the book, Clara and Andrew find themselves in love, but at a crossroads.  Throughout the book, we witness Andrew Carnegie’s transformation from hardnosed industrialist into one of America’s greatest philanthropist.

Quotes 

“As Mrs. Barrett Browning says, ‘The world of books is still the world.”

“You know what they say. Any fool can earn money, but it takes a wise man to keep it.”

“Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character.”

 

“Andrew Carnegie, who is the man who built this free library and thousands more libraries with his own money. A man who gave the gift of books and education to every person, regardless of how much money they had.” 

My Take

Other than his namesakes Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Mellon University and his donations to many, many libraries throughout the U.S., I didn’t know much about Andrew Carnegie prior to reading Carnegie’s Maid.  Through the viewpoint of a maid in his house, the book paints a detailed and sympathetic portrait of the man and the times that he lived in.  Not the greatest book, but it is worthwhile for its illumination of this famous man and period of American history.

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298. An Event in Autumn

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Henning Mankell

Genre:  Fiction, Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Foreign

176 pages, published August 12, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

An Event in Autumn is a short novel featuring the famous Swedish detective Kurt Wallander (who has spawned two television series).  Soon after Inspector Wallander looks at a home to potentially buy, he makes a horrifying discovery of a skeletal hand poking through the earth in the garden.  He unearths two corpses and turns the investigation over to the local police.  However, Wallander is soon drawn into the search to discover who died, why and by whose hand.

Quotes 

“A question that wasn’t asked was a question that didn’t need an answer.”

 

“Many years ago Wallander had learned that one of the manifold virtues a police officer must possess is the ability to be patient with himself.”

 

“There was a sort of beauty that only comes with age. A whole life engraved into facial wrinkles.”

 

“It struck Wallander that nothing could make him as depressed as the sight of old spectacles that nobody wanted anymore.”

 

“The great Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose once said, liberally translated, “the only things worth writing about are love and murder.”

 

“No doubt you thought I was dead. I sometimes think I am myself.”        

 

“It’s about contradictions between us and inside us, between individuals and society, between dream and reality. Sometimes these contradictions express themselves in violence, such as racial conflict. And this mirror of crime can take us back to the Greek authors.” 

My Take

An Event in Autumn is the first Kurt Wallander book that I have read and it was very enjoyable.  Mankell is a gifted writer and his books are much more than your standard whodunit’s.  He delves into characters and place in an original, nuanced and insightful manner that adds depth to the mystery, which is also an entertaining page turner.

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294. The First 1,000 Days: A Crucial Time for Mothers and Children—And the World

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Darla Schueth

Author:   Roger Thurow

Genre:  Non Fiction, Health, Environment, Food, Public Policy

282 pages, published March 3, 2016

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The First 1,000 Days refers to the time period of pregnancy and a child’s first two years of life.  During this crucial time, whether or not a pregnant woman and her baby receive proper nutrition, medical care and hygiene can have an enormous impact on the rest of that child’s life, and in turn the social and economic health of the nation in which the child is born.  Author Roger Thurow explores various aspects of this global issue by profiling poor women and children in Uganda, Guatemala, India and Chicago.  Great progress has been made, but as The First 1,000 Days poignantly illustrates, there is still a long way to go.

Quotes 

“The time of your pregnancy and first two years of life will determine the health of your child, the ability to learn in school, to perform a future job. This is the time the brain grows the most.”

 

“Your child can achieve great things.” 

My Take

The First 1,000 Days is a well researched, compelling read.  It is heartbreaking to read about the abject poverty suffered by many people in the world, especially women and babies.  Reading this book really made me appreciate how good we have it in the United States.  Our lives are truly golden. The encouraging news is that progress is being made on several fronts to improve the global health of children.  Access to better nutrition and health care has improved and is continuing to improve.  Hopefully, the next decade will see a dramatic reduction in infant mortality and stunting.

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