Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Title: Eat, Pray, Love
Call Number: E169.04 .B78 1989
Rating: 4
Summary: Elizabeth Gilbert’s book is part travel log, part memoir and part spiritual odyssey. This is the story of one woman’s attempt to find balance in her turbulent, young, upwardly mobile, chronically depressed, recently divorced life. You may have guessed that her book is quite inwardly pointed and you would be correct. Usually these self-reflective books wear me down pretty quickly, but I enjoyed Gilbert’s book. Instead of apologizing for her “self-focus” she revels in it and decides to find balance by taking a year long “I” trip. This trip starts in Italy - she’’s always wanted to learn Italian and eat a lot of Italian food. From there she goes to India - where she spends four months meditating and praying at an Ashram. Finally, she goes to Indonesia to visit a medicine man who read her palm and told her to come back to Bali to find her future. While in Bali, she falls in love with a Brazilian man.
Now, how is this book a spiritual book? About 75 pages into my reading I began to wonder if I had picked an inappropriate book for the theme. I still believe that there are many other really great spiritual books out there, but I found some themes highlighted in this book that have been important to me in my life. She focuses on gratitude and contentment as sources of happiness. While she started her journey with very little of either of these virtues, time spent in solitude and prayer enhanced her both her contentment and her ability to say thank-you.
I enjoyed the book for what it was - the story of someone’s personal spiritual journey. My journey is different but I think it is valuable to look at how other people make their way to God.
Author: Edmund Morris
Title: Theodore Rex
LSU
Rating: 5
Summary: O.K., I have a problem. I am aware that I have an unusual fascination with Theodore Roosevelt. I know that it is odd that I this is the third biography I have read about him in a year. But hopefully, if you have read my reviews, you will understand why I am so fascinated by him. In this most recent book, which I believe is the best one of the three that I have read, the author looks at Roosevelt’s eight years in office.
In many ways, T.R. was a contradiction in terms. He was a man with boundless energy and vision. He was a first class gentleman, but also an active sportsman. He was extremely well read but loved to rough it in the woods. He was a work-a-holic but also a family man that carved out special time for his five children.
After taking over as President in 1901 after McKinley’s assassination, Roosevelt did amazing things! In the Presidential office, he used that boundless energy to tackle big business by strengthening the Antitrust laws designed to break up monopolies and bust the sweetheart deals between suppliers of raw materials and manufacturers that were detrimental to the ordinary consumer. He became famous for his tough stance in foreign relations. He strengthened the federal government’s role in preserving and conserving forests and helped designate national monuments and parks. He was a naturalist, an author and a gifted athlete. He negotiated with Colombia and Panama to obtain the rights to build the Panama Canal that linked east and west.
Roosevelt was a man with a dream for what the United States could become if only we had the will and heart to do what was right. His administration concentrated on human rights issues as well as foreign affairs and parks and roads. As President soon after the Civil War, Roosevelt worked hard to make sure Black Americans were fairly treated. He also worked to assure that laborers received a “square deal” from employers and that the food supply in the United States was not tainted.
Finally, I became much more aware of the cyclical nature of our history. Many of the crises of the early 20th century are very much like the crises we are experiencing in the early 21st century. The descriptions of the wild fluctuations in the financial markets and the difficulties with balancing the role of government in labor issues and in helping to alleviate racial tensions continue to ring true today. I only hope we can find a leader of Roosevelt’s caliber to help us address these issues!
Author: Bill Bryson
Title: The Lost Continent: Travels in Small’Town America
Call Number: E169.04 .B78 1989
Rating: 5
Summary: I really love Bill Bryson’s books! Not only are they interesting travel books but he is so entertaining. I must say I laughed out loud reading this book about his attempt to recreate the family summer vacations of his youth. He travels from his mother’s home in Des Moines, Iowa (in her Chevette) all through the Midwest stopping at places his family visited on family vacations. He never fails to see the humor in American “car trips” and recalls endless meals in Howard Johnson’s restaurants as well as stops at Stuckey’s gas stations for gasoline and pecan log rolls!
So many of his references to family life and car travel from the 1960’s and ‘70’s reminded me of my own family’s adventure from California to Yellow Stone National Park in a station wagon. I remember vividly wanting to stop at all the places advertised on the billboards just like Bryson describes in his book.
If you want a trip down memory lane to all those places you went as a child (or took your children to see) then this is the book for you. I actually called my brother and read him several passages that reminded me of our trips. We laughed so hard that he bought the book and read it himself! Fortunately you can just come to the library and check this one out!
Author: Dava Sobel
Title: Galileo’s Daughter
Call Number: QB36.G2 S65 1999
Rating: 5
Summary: I am a complete sucker for books about the history of science and for memoirs. This book tells the story of Galileo and his life watching the planets and inventing technologies to better observe the universe through the eyes of his daughter Sister Marie Celeste. The author uses the still existing letters of Galileo’s daughter along with church records to explore Galileo’s relationship with family, his work as a scientist and his troubled relationship with the Catholic Church.
Both of Galileo’s daughters were nuns in a very old and respected convent in Italy. While the letters to Galileo from his daughter were preserved, his letters back to her have not been found. It is amazing how the author was able to help the reader see a very personal side to this great man of science. It is obvious that Galileo had a very loving relationship with his daughters and that he took very good care of his family - sometimes at great expense.
For me, the most interesting part of the book dealt with Galileo’s relationship to the church. In some biographical accounts I have read, Galileo comes off as quite arrogant and confrontational with the church leaders. His theories about the movement of the planets, based on the work of Copernicus were widely read by the educated church leaders and eventually, for political reasons, were considered heretical. Rather than portraying Galileo as antagonistic to the Vatican because of their reaction to his work, this book shows a more conciliatory Galileo. While not abandoning his work, he is seen as desperately trying to accommodate the church hierarchy and his pledges of faith are portrayed as more sincere than I had originally thought.
I enjoyed this book and got a very different perspective on Galileo as a person and as a father.
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Title: Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking
LSU
Rating: 5
Summary: I had heard a lot about this book before I read it and I was not disappointed with what I learned. This is a book about gut instinct - that instantaneous response we get when we perceive something. We’ve all heard it said that there is such a thing as love at first sight but sometimes we don’t believe that it is true. The author takes us on a tour of the first two seconds of human perception. He calls this critical two seconds rapid cognition and posits that it may be the most important seconds in human cognition. I was really intrigued with the idea that people can make very good decisions sometimes very rapidly and that in some areas we are much better relying on these "thin slices" of experience than decisions made with more sophisticated reasoning. The author describes this decision making process using examples from marketing, art, marriage counseling, politics, law enforcement and the music industry. The stories are fascinating and make this a delightful, easy read.
Although the author presents compelling examples of flawless decisions made quickly, he also spends a good deal of time warning that these "thin slices" of time can be influenced by deeply rooted prejudices that we might not even consciously recognize. The examples of racial and gender prejudice were disheartening. I came away from this book realizing that prejudice is unlikely to be eradicated by law. However, the law needs to support the intentions of good hearted people to prevent us from making decisions based on unconscious biases.
Cindy Parkhurst
Author: Anita Diamant
Title: The Red Tent
LSU
Rating: 4
Summary: I really enjoyed this book! One of my goals this year was to read the Bible through completely. I have been reading it every morning this year and have really enjoyed reading about things that I don’t encounter often. One of those stories I had forgotten about was in Genesis 34 where the Bible talks about Dinah, Jacob’s only named daughter. I read about her and about the trouble she got into when she visited Shechem and became engaged to the prince of the land. Her brothers were not happy with this and killed all the male residents of the city including Dinah’s betrothed.
This summer I found a book that tells the story of Dinah and of Jacob and his family from a female’s perspective. While this is a fictionalized account, it is interesting to see the Biblical story through the eyes of a young girl. This certainly is not a scholarly book and the author takes liberties with the Biblical account of events, but nonetheless it is an interesting read.
Author: David McCullough
Title: Mornings on Horseback
LSU
Rating: 5
Summary: This book combines two of my favorite elements in a book about history – David McCullough (of John Adams and Truman fame) along with Theodore Roosevelt as the topic of the book. Last summer I read a book about the last few years of T.R.’s life and his last big adventure. The book was called The River of Doubt by Candice Millard. It was an amazing look at T.R. the naturalist/explorer. He and his son along with a group of naturalists explored an uncharted tributary of the Amazon in some of the densest jungles in the world.
This summer, I read McCullough’s book about T.R.’s early years. What a contrast in views! In his adult years, T.R. was viewed as a tough, often intractable character with stamina and energy enough for several men. But, as seen through McCullough’s eyes, “little Teedie’s” early years were marked by weakness and illness. Young Teddy battled childhood asthma and spent much of his youth in bed. He did not begin the process of readying body and mind for service to his country until his father, Theodore “Greatheart” Roosevelt had a talk with him about how to toughen his constitution for life. The talk his father had with him encouraged him to begin a daily regimen of exercise, reading and journaling that would follow him into the White House.
Author: John Grisham
Title: The Appeal
LSU
Rating: 4
Summary: I love Grisham novels! I know they are not intense brain food, but they sure satisfy that craving for exciting reading. Grisham has a formula for his books that has worked very well at making best sellers. Almost all his novels have to do with the small time lawyer taking on the big giant; either a giant law firm or a big corporation, or, in the case of The Appeal, a political machine. This book is all about our justice system and how we elect and in some cases re-elect judges to the bench. The legal claim in this book centers around a big, bad company that has poisoned the ground water in several small towns in Alabama causing the residents to have a higher incidence of cancer in the affected communities. Just as the giant verdict against the company is about to be reviewed by the Supreme Court of Alabama, the company begins manipulating the political system to elect a justice that is favorable to big business.
This is a cliff hanger that kept me up way past my bedtime! Love these legal thrillers!
Author: Geraldine Brooks
Title: People of the Book
LSU
Rating: 4
Summary: People of the Book was written by Geraldine Brooks, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her 2005 novel, March. This book is a fictional account of the story of the survival of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a richly illuminated book created in medieval Spain by Jews. A remarkable book because it was created during a time when illuminating religious manuscripts with beautiful, gilt illustrations was seen as a violation of the Exodus prohibition against making graven images. That copies of these magnificent books survive is a testament to the tenacity and commitment of librarians and curators to the importance of preserving words.
This book is part history and part fiction. I enjoyed reading it because it took me on a journey through time following my favorite character, a book, through centuries from medieval Spain to Italy to modern day Sarajevo. If you love books and history this book should be on your reading list!
Author: Ian McEwan
Title: Atonement
LSU
Rating: 5
Summary: Atonement is a novel set in England during the years just preceding and during World War II. The Tallisâ’ are a well-to-do English family with two daughters, Briony and Cecilia. The family is attended by many servants and the children of the servants play with the Tallis children. As the children grow, relationships change and the children are suddenly faced with an adult world and adult relationships. Briony, the youngest daughter, struggles to understand these changes and to interpret unfamiliar signals. Her confusion and inability to come to grips with her lack of sophistication in adult matters lead to criminal accusations and ruined lives. This is a story that reminds us of how powerfully our words can influence others and how careful we must be in interpreting the actions and motives of those around us.
Written in 2002 and made into an Academy Award winning film in 2007, this is a beautifully written story that stands among McEwan’s best.