Hedy's Folly The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World
Richard Rhodes, 2011
Knopf Doubleday
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385534383
Summary
What do Hedy Lamarr, avant-garde composer George Antheil, and your cell phone have in common? The answer is spread-spectrum radio: a revolutionary invention based on the rapid switching of communications signals among a spread of different frequencies.
Without this technology, we would not have the digital comforts that we take for granted today. Only a writer of Richard Rhodes’s caliber could do justice to this remarkable story. Unhappily married to a Nazi arms dealer, Lamarr fled to America at the start of World War II; she brought with her not only her theatrical talent but also a gift for technical innovation. An introduction to Antheil at a Hollywood dinner table culminated in a U.S. patent for a jam- proof radio guidance system for torpedoes—the unlikely duo’s gift to the U.S. war effort.
What other book brings together 1920s Paris, player pianos, Nazi weaponry, and digital wireless into one satisfying whole? In its juxtaposition of Hollywood glamour with the reality of a brutal war, Hedy’s Folly is a riveting book about unlikely amateur inventors collaborating to change the world. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 4, 1937
• Where—Kansas City, Kansas, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize; National Book Award;
National Book Critics Circle Award
• Currently—lives in California
Richard Lee Rhodes is an American journalist, historian, and author of both fiction and non-fiction (which he prefers to call "verity"), including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), The Twilight of the Bombs (2010), and Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of the Most Beautiful Woman in the World (2011). He has been awarded grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation among others. He is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He also frequently gives lectures and talks on a broad range of subjects to various audiences, including testifying before the U.S. Senate on nuclear energy.
Rhodes was born in Kansas City, Kansas. Following his mother's suicide when he was only a year old, Rhodes, along with his older (by a year and a half) brother Stanley, was raised in and around Kansas City, Missouri, by his father, a railroad boilermaker with a third-grade education. When Rhodes was ten their father remarried a woman who starved, exploited, and abused the children. Stan, age 13, standing 5’ 4” and weighing an emaciated 98 pounds, saved both boys by walking into a police station and reporting to the authorities the conditions under which they lived. (For these details and others see Rhodes’ memoir A Hole in the World.) The boys were sent to the Andrew Drumm Institute, an institution for boys founded in 1928 in Independence, Missouri. The admission of the brothers was something of an anomaly as the institution was designed for orphaned or indigent boys and they fit neither category. The Drumm Institute is still in operation today, and now accepts both boys and girls. Rhodes became a member of the board of trustees in 1991.
Richard and Stanley lived at Drumm for the remainder of their adolescence. Both graduated from high school. Rhodes was admitted to Yale University and received a Scholarship, which awarded him full tuition, room, board, and other expenses for four years. Rhodes graduated with honors in 1959.
He went on to publish 21 books and numerous articles for national magazines; his best-known work, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, was published in 1986 and earned Rhodes the Pulitzer Prize and numerous other awards. Many of his personal documents and research materials are part of the Kansas Collection at the Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.
He is the father of two children, is a grandfather, and currently resides in California with his wife, Dr. Ginger Rhodes.
Nuclear history series
Rhodes came to national prominence with his 1986 book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, a narrative of the history of the people and events during World War II from the discoveries leading to the science of nuclear fission in the 1930s, through the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Among its many honors, the 900-page book won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction (in 1988), a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and has sold many hundreds of thousands of copies in English alone, as well as having been translated into a dozen or so other languages.
Praised by both historians and former Los Alamos weapon scientists alike, the book is considered a general authority on early nuclear weapons history, as well as the development of modern physics in general, during the first half of the 20th century. According to a citation on the first page of the book, Nobel Laureate Isidor Rabi, one of the prime participants in the dawn of the atomic age, said about the book,
An epic worthy of Milton. Nowhere else have I seen the whole story put down with such elegance and gusto and in such revealing detail and simple language which carries the reader through wonderful and profound scientific discoveries and their application.
In 1992, Rhodes followed it up by compiling, editing, and writing the introduction to an annotated version of The Los Alamos Primer, by Manhattan Project scientist Robert Serber. The Primer was a set of lectures given to new arrivals at the secret Los Alamos laboratory during wartime in order to get them up to speed about the prominent questions needing to be solved in bomb design, and had been largely declassified in 1965, but was not widely available.
In 1993, Rhodes published Nuclear Renewal: Commonsense about Energy detailing the history of the nuclear power industry in the United States, and future promises of nuclear power.
Rhodes published a sequel to The Making of the Atomic Bomb in 1995, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, which told the story of the atomic espionage during World War II (Klaus Fuchs, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, among others), the debates over whether the hydrogen bomb ought to be produced, and the eventual creation of the bomb and its consequences for the arms race.
In 2007, Rhodes published Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race, a chronicle of the arms buildups during the Cold War, especially focusing on Mikhail Gorbachev and the Reagan administration.
The Twilight of the Bombs, the fourth and final volume in his series on nuclear history, was published in 2010. The book documents, among other topics, the post-Cold War nuclear history of the world, nuclear proliferation, and nuclear terrorism.
Other works
John James Audubon, published in 2004, is a biography of the French-born American artist, John James Audubon (1785–1851). Audubon is known for his life-sized watercolor illustrations of birds and wildlife, including Birds of America, a multivolume work published through subscriptions in the mid-19th century, first in England and then in the United States. Rhodes also edited a collection of Audubon's letters and writings, The Audubon Reader.
Rhodes' 1997 book Deadly Feasts is a work of verity concerning transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE), prions, and the career of Daniel Carleton Gajdusek. It reviews the history of TSE epidemics, beginning with the infection of large numbers of the Fore people of the New Guinea Eastern Highlands during a period when they consumed their dead in mortuary feasts, and explores the link between new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nvCJD) in humans and the consumption of beef contaminated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly referred to as "mad cow disease."
Though less well known as a writer of fiction, Rhodes is also the author of four novels. Three of the four are currently out of print, but The Ungodly: A Novel of the Donner Party, his first, was reissued in a new edition in 2007 by Stanford University Press. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Rhodes’s talent is making the scientifically complex accessible to the proverbial lay reader with clarity and without dumbing down the essentials of his topics...along the way he expertly weaves social and cultural commentary into his narrative.... Behind the uniqueness of this story lie deeper themes that Rhodes touches upon: the gender biases against beautiful and intelligent women, the delicate interpersonal politics of scientific collaboration and...the neverending, implacable conflict between art and Mammon in American culture.
John Adams - New York Times Book Review
With admirable and tenacious skill, Richard Rhodes' new book on Hollywood screen legend Hedy Lamarr unveils the inquisitive brain behind the beauty.... [It] reads at turns like a romance novel, patent law primer, noir narrative and exercise in forensic psychology.... Rhodes...ends up shedding valuable insight on the Hollywood mythmaking of the era.
Adam Tschorn - Los Angeles Times
A focused glimpse into one actress’ remarkable life, and the rare mix of war, patriotism and intellect that fomented her unlikely invention.
Alexandria Witze - Dallas Morning News
If the subtitle of this book—The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World—doesn’t make you want to read, nothing we say is likely to change your mind. But we will add this much: Rhodes, who has written about everything from atomic power to sex to John James Audubon, is apparently incapable of writing a bad book and most of what he does is absolutely superior, including this tale that has Nazi weapons, Hollywood stars, 20th century classical music, and the earliest versions of digital wireless.
Daily Beast
Actresses often long to turn director, but how many of them yearn to turn inventor? Given the success that the screen siren Hedy Lamarr achieved in that realm—revealed in Richard Rhodes’s fascinating biography, Hedy’s Folly—it’s a pity more of them don’t consider it.... Rhodes’s beguiling book shows Hedy Lamarr to have been a secret weapon in more ways than one.
Newsweek
[M]ost people were reluctant to believe that the most beautiful woman in the word had an invetor's brain; but one man who came to believe in her was George Antheil.... Richard Rhodes...is the perfect historian to describe the abilities of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil as scientists and inventors. In Hedy's Folly, Rhodes is also very good on culture-rich Vienna...[and] the Hollywood of the '30s and '40s.
Larry McMurtry - Harpers
[Rhodes] once again interweaves moving biographical portraits with dramatic depictions of scientific discovery.... [He] proves adept at elucidating the science behind this invention and the subsequent development of spread-spectrum systems (which today enable the use of cell phones and Wi-Fi), but his particular genius lies in placing the invention within a tumultuous historical moment.... With crisp, unadorned prose and plentiful quotes from primary sources, [he] paints a compelling history.... [Hedy's Folly] proves a riveting narrative, propelled by the ambition and idiosyncrasies of the inventors at its core.
Nick Bascom - Science News
In symphonic control of a great wealth of fresh and stimulating material, and profoundly attuned to the complex ramifications of Lamarr’s and Antheil’s struggles and achievements (Lamarr finally received recognition as an electronic pioneer late in life), Rhodes incisively, wittily, and dramatically brings to light a singular convergence of two beyond-category artists who overtly and covertly changed the world. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
Take a silver-screen sex goddess (Hedy Lamarr), an avant-garde composer (George Antheil).... What results is a patent for spread-spectrum radio, which has impacted the development of everything from torpedoes to cell phones and GPS technologies.... Hedy Lamarr is experiencing something of a renaissance, and Rhodes's book adds another layer to the life of a beautiful woman who was so much more than the sum of her parts. It will appeal to a wide array of readers, from film, technology, and patent scholars to those looking for an unusual romp through World War II–era Hollywood. —Teri Shiel
Library Journal
[A] surprising story of a pivotal invention produced during World War II by a pair of most unlikely inventors—an avant-garde composer and the world's most glamorous movie star.... Antheil died before earning any recognition for this achievement, but Lamarr, late in her life, did receive awards. The author quotes liberally—perhaps overly so—from the memoirs of his principals. A faded blossom of a story, artfully restored to bright bloom.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Hedy's Folly:
1. Author Richard Rhodes has evoked a powerful sense of time and place for Vienna and Paris during the 1920s and '30s. What struck you most about either of those two societies? What, for instance, was Vienna like during Hedwig Kiesler's growing-up years, especially for someone of her talent and ambition? How did her childhood shape Hedy, the woman she would become?
2. What was young George Antheil attempting to express with his style of musical composition? Why did he want to distance his work from the lush Romanticism of the previous generation? Why did he refer to his pieces as "Mechanisms"? How would you have reacted had you been at a performance of his avant-garde creations? In what way could you say that Antheil's purusits prefigured his development of weapons guidance technology?
3. Discuss the increasing brutality of Germany as it headed into the Nazi era. What was the nature of Fritz Mandl's (Hedy's husband) involvement with the rising fascists?
4. What was behind Lamarr's decision to leave her husband and to run off with only a suitcase of clothes and handful of jewels?
5. Rhodes claims that Hedy was no intellectual but rather a "tinkerer." How do you explain her ability to absorb and later recall the complex, detailed information on weapons systems that she picked up while listening around the edges of conversations at parties she hosted? How did her abilities and Antheil's unusual musical interests hook up to create their torpedo guidance system?
6. Rhodes writes that "Hedy invented to challenge and amuse herself and bring order to a world she thought chaotic." Was that truly her motivation? Is it true for most inventors?
7. If you have a technical bent, describe the nature of the spread-spectrum guidance system which Lamarr and Antheil invented during World War II. Can you explain how it helped point the way toward remote controls, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and the cordless phones we take for granted today?
8. Why did the U.S. Navy dismiss Lamarr and Antheil's findings? One reviewer writes that he himself was first taken aback at the thought of Lamarr patenting a weapons system, saying it was like "being told that Ali MacGraw developed the science behind napalm." Was there (is there still) a sort of prejudice at work—or simply a set of realistic expectations as to where scientific capabilities reside? Might there be other reasons why the duo's invention was ignored for so many years?
9. A number of reviewers have remarked that, as biographies go, Rhodes's work offers little indepth character analysis of either Hedy Lamarr or George Antheil—and that the author is not really terribly interested in his two subjects. Do you agree or disagree?
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Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
Anne Lamott, 2012
Penguin Group (USA)
112 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594631290
Summary
New York Times-bestselling author Anne Lamott writes about the three simple prayers essential to coming through tough times, difficult days and the hardships of daily life.
Readers of all ages have followed and cherished Anne Lamott’s funny and perceptive writing about her own faith through decades of trial and error. And in her new book, Help, Thanks, Wow, she has coalesced everything she knows about prayer to these fundamentals.
It is these three prayers—asking for assistance from a higher power, appreciating what we have that is good, and feeling awe at the world around us—that can get us through the day and can show us the way forward. In Help, Thanks, Wow, Lamott recounts how she came to these insights, explains what they mean to her and how they have helped, and explores how others have embraced these same ideas.
Insightful and honest as only Anne Lamott can be, Help, Thanks, Wow is the everyday faith book that new Lamott readers will love and longtime Lamott fans will treasure. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1954
• WhereSan Francisco, California, USA
• Education—Goucher College (Maryland)
• Awards—Guggenheim Fellow
• Currently—lives in Northern California
Anne Lamott's recovery from alcoholism and drug abuse helped her career in two ways. First, it marked an artistic rebound for the novelist; second, she's become an inspirational figure to fans who have read her frank, funny nonfiction books covering topics from motherhood to religion to, yes, fighting for sobriety.
Early on, Lamott's hard-luck novels were impressive chronicles of family strife punctuated by bad (but often entertaining) behavior. Everyone in Lamott's books is sort of screwed up, but she stocks them with a humor and core decency that make them hard to resist. In Hard Laughter, she tells the (semi-autobiographical) story of a dysfunctional family rocked by the father's brain tumor diagnosis. In Rosie and its 1997 sequel, Crooked Little Heart, the heroines are a sassy teenage girl and her alcoholic, widowed mom. Another precocious child provides the point of view in All New People, in which a girl rides out the waves of the 1960s with her nutty parents.
Lamott's conversational, direct style and cynical humor have always been strengths, and with All New People—the first book she wrote after getting sober—she turned a corner. Reedeming herself from the disastrous reviews of her messy (too much so, even for the endearingly messy Lamott) 1985 third novel Joe Jones, Lamott's talent came back into focus. "Anne Lamott is a cause for celebrations," the New Yorker effused. "[Her] real genius lies in capturing the ineffable, describing not perfect moments, but imperfect ones...perfectly. She is nothing short of miraculous."
That said, Lamott's sensibility is not for everyone. The faith, both human and spiritual, in her books is accompanied by her unsparing irony and a distinct disregard for wholesomeness or conventionality; and God here is for sinners as much as (if not more than) for saints. Her girls are often not girls but half-adults; her adults, vice-versa. She finds the adolescent, weak spots in all her characters, making them people to root for at the same time.
Among Lamott's most messy, troubled characters is the author herself, and she began turning this to her advantage with the 1993 memoir Operating Instructions, a single mom's meditation on the big experiment—failures included—of new parenthood. It was also in this book that Lamott "came out of the closet" with her Christianity, and earned a whole new following that grew with her subsequent memoirs, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life and Traveling Mercies. However gifted Lamott was at conveying fictional stories, it was in telling her own stories that her self-deprecating humor and hard-earned wisdom really made themselves known, and loved by readers.
Extras
• Lamott's Joe Jones, which is now out of print, was so poorly received that it sent the alcoholic Lamott into a tailspin. "When Joe Jones came out I really got trashed," she told the New York Times in 1997. "I got 27 bad reviews. It was kind of exhilarating in its way. I was still drinking and I woke up every morning feeling so sick, I literally felt I was pinned to the bed by centrifugal force. I wouldn't have very many memories of what had happened the night before. I'd have to call around, and I could tell by people's reaction whether I'd pulled it off or not. I was really humiliating myself. It was bad."
• Lamott's father was a writer who instilled the belief in her that it was a privilege in life to be an artist, as opposed to having a regular job. But she stresses to students that it doesn't happen overnight; that the work has to be measured in small steps, with continual efforts to improve. She said in an NPR interivew, "I've published six books and I still worry that the phone is going to ring and [someone] is going to say, 'Okay, the jig is up, you have to get a job..."'
• In an essay accompanying Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Lamott described her decision to begin writing in earnest about Christianity:
Thirteen years ago, I first lurched—very hung over—into a little church in one of the poorest communities in California. Without this church, I do not think I would have survived the last few years of my drinking. But even so, I had written about the people there only in passing. I did, however, speak about the church whenever I could, sheepishly shoehorning in a story or two. But it wasn't really until my fifth book [Operating Instructions] that I came out of the closet as a real believer.... I started to realize that there was a great hunger and thirst for regular, cynical, ragbag people to talk about God...." (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Filled with Lamott's unique brand of humor, wisdom and profound spiritual insight… She has a gift for putting into words what it means to accept and ultimately embrace the beauty, mystery, and pain that is life.
San Antonio Express-News
[A] prayer manual for people who wouldn’t be caught dead reading prayer manuals. As such it may surprise, a bit, some of Lamott’s most secular readers. But it takes a very familiar voice in a newish direction, and may attract younger readers whose religious preference is more offbeat than orthodox. It reads like it needed longer gestation or one more rewrite to go from casual-casual to casual-polished, but anybody who gets it as a holiday gift will likely just say, “Thanks. Wow.”
Publishers Weekly
An imaginative do-it-yourself approach to spirituality…. With a stand-up comic’s snap and pop, candid and righteous Lamott tells hilarious and wrenching tales about various predicaments that have sparked her prayers and inspired her to encourage others to pray anytime, anywhere, and any way.
Booklist
A refreshingly simple approach to spiritual practice in a pint-sized reflection on prayer.... In what at first may seem like a jumbled mashup of stories and reflections, Lamott manages to deftly convey the idea that in trying to control things, we've largely lost our ability to see the good and the miraculous in everyday life. And those commodities go a long way, she writes, in terms of making a Divine connection that brings a measure of hope and peace. Though fans may be dismayed at the brevity of the book, there's more here than meets the eye.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Help, Thanks, Wow:
1. Do you consider Help, Thanks, Wow a helpful guide to prayer? Did you pray (at all? regularly?) before you read Lamott's book? Has the book changed your attitude toward prayer or altered your practice of prayer?
2. What is prayer and what is its purpose? What does Lamott suggest prayer is? What do you pray for?
3. Why does Lamott believe that powerlessness is a spiritual condition? Have you ever felt overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness in your life?
4. Is this a religious book? A spiritual book? Does it clash with or conform to your beliefs?
5. Comment on Anne Lamott's belief in gratitude:
Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always make you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means that you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.
Is practicing gratitude easy for you personally? When life is difficult, how does Lamott think we find gratitude, and why is it important? Are there times when you feel it's impossible to be grateful?
6. Do you find Lamott's irreverence toward God disturbing or refreshing? She refers to God sometimes as "She," and feels that God shouldn't mind when we say we're angry at Him/Her because things aren't going well for us.
7. What does Lamott mean when she quotes C.S. Lewis's line that says, [prayer] "doesn't change God. It changes me." Do you agree or disagree?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, on line or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost
Paul Hendrickson, 2011
Knopf Doubleday
704 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400075355
Summary
From National Book Critics Circle Award winner Paul Hendrickson, a brilliantly conceived and illuminating reconsideration of a key period in the life of Ernest Hemingway that will forever change the way he is perceived and understood.
Focusing on the years 1934 to 1961—from Hemingway’s pinnacle as the reigning monarch of American letters until his suicide—Paul Hendrickson traces the writer's exultations and despair around the one constant in his life during this time: his beloved boat, Pilar.
Drawing on previously unpublished material, including interviews with Hemingway's sons, Hendrickson shows that for all the writer's boorishness, depression and alcoholism, and despite his choleric anger, he was capable of remarkable generosity—to struggling writers, to lost souls, to the dying son of a friend.
Hemingway's Boat is both stunningly original and deeply gripping, an invaluable contribution to our understanding of this great American writer, published fifty years after his death. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—in midwestern USA
• Education—St. Louis University; Pennsylvania
State University
• Awards—National Book Critics Circle Award
• Currently—lives near Philidelphia, Pennsylvania
Paul Hendrickson’s most recent book, Hemingway's Boat, was published in 2011. He spent seven years on it. It was a national best-seller and a finalist in biography for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His book previous to this, Sons of Mississippi, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in general nonfiction and the Heartland Prize presented annually by the Chicago Tribune. The research and writing were supported by a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship.
Before joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received the Provost’s Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2005, Hendrickson worked for thirty years in daily journalism. He was a staff feature writer at the Washington Post from 1977 to 2001. Eventually, he came to understand the truth of the old saying that the legs are the first to go, and that the honorable and difficult business of writing perishable pieces on deadline belonged to younger people. He needed to try to find a place—a home—where he could continue to work on books and the occasional magazine article and to be involved with gifted, creative people. So now, luck beyond dream, fortune beyond hope, he finds himself conducting writing workshops full time at the University of Pennsylvania in advanced nonfiction.
The neophyte professor, hardly young anymore, was born in California but grew up in the Midwest and in a Catholic seminary in the Deep South, where he studied seven years for the missionary priesthood. This became the subject of his first book, published in 1983: Seminary: A Search. His other books are: Looking for the Light: The Hidden Life and Art of Marion Post Wolcott (a finalist for the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award); and The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War (finalist for the National Book Award in 1996).
Hendrickson has degrees in American literature from St. Louis University and Penn State. He is married and has two grown sons (both working in media) and lives with his wife, Cecilia, outside Philadelphia. He has entered the terror, the "long joyful sickness"—as John Updike once called it—of the next book project. It has to do with Frank Lloyd Wright and is being supported at its outset by a second National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship. (From The University of Pennsylvania faculty page.)
Book Reviews
Heartbreaking.... Hemingway’s Boat includes some of the most moving, beautiful pieces of biography I have ever read.... In the best of these streaming "other lives." ... Hendrickson’s two strongest gifts—that compassion and his research and reporting prowess—combine to masterly effect.
Arthur Phillips - New York Times Book Review
A rich book and a wandering one.... Hemingway’s Boat is about Hemingway, about what was good in him and what was bad, about what brought a man who took pleasure in so much to the point where he could take his own life. It is about the joy he spread and the infection he carried.... For Hendrickson, discovering just how unhappy and unsettled Hemingway was for so long makes him more of a hero. He states his case persuasively, which is why this book is so good.
Allan Massie - Wall Street Journal
Large-minded [and] rigorously fair.... An indispensable documen.... With this sterling summation of the entire Hemingway canon, Hendrickson shows what has eluded some very able scholars. A writer’s life can contain two conflicting existences, one of purely original genius and one of irreversible destructiveness. It’s a lucky genius who gets credit for the first and a free pass on the second. Hendrickson issues no free pass to Papa. He gives the ravaged old man something more honest: a fair summing-up of a life like no other.
Howell Raines - Washington Post
Brilliant.... Through painstaking reporting, through conscientious sifting of the evidence, and most of all, through vivid, heartfelt, luminous writing, Hendrickson gets to the heart of both Hemingway and his world.... Hendrickson writes sentences that seem lit from within—but not in a showy way. Rather, they glow with the yearning of the humble seeker, the diligent observer who understands that we’ll never get to the end of the Hemingway story—yet we have to start somewhere.
Julia Keller - Chicago Tribune -Top Picks of 2011
Writing with stylistic verve, great heart and profound insight, Paul Hendrickson gives us a fresh way to understand one of the most written-about, fascinating characters in American letters.... Hendrickson doesn’t reveal Hemingway’s life as much as he illuminates it with his characteristic passion and intelligence, in a great match of biographer and subject.
Elizabeth Taylor - Chicago Tribune
Hendrickson’s engrossing book offers a fresh slant on the rise and fall of a father figure of American literature.
San Francisco Chronicle - Best Books of 2011
Glorious.... A copious, mystical portrait.... [Pilar] proves that there just might be one more way of telling Papa’s story.... Hendrickson handles her like the relic she is, and makes of her a cunning, capable metaphor for Hemingway’s contradictory drives.... Hendrickson fills in the negative space exuberantly. He imagines each scene completely, and then imagines himself into it. The book becomes a participatory biography—the details are rendered with a hallucinatory intensity.... This big-hearted book leaves us with a litany of sorrows, but also images of grace: of heroism in Gigi’s muddled final moments; of tenderness and lucidity in Hemingway’s paranoid last days; and of Pilar and her promise of escape, renewal, and the open sea.
Parul Sehgal - Cleveland Plain-Dealer
An often lyrical mélange of biography, lit-crit meditation and straight reportage...Hendrickson delves deep into the margins, running down fascinating profiles of a handful of characters who had been treated like bit players in earlier works and searching for renewed significance in some episodes that had previously been relegated to footnotes.... Smart and lovingly crafted, a worthy addition.
Larry Lebowitz - Miami Herald
Paul Hendrickson wrote Hemingway’s Boat almost as a rebuke to the many conflicting Hemingway biographies and "daffy critical studies." If he could ground a narrative in something that existed and still exists, that Hemingway loved, if he could learn about such a treasured possession, then maybe he could learn something about Hemingway, too. He does, in spades, and so do Hendrickson’s lucky readers.... Captivating.
Roger K. Miller - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
This may be the great Hemingway book of the past twenty years. It gives us, at long last, the New Hemingway we’ve needed. We are persuaded that, at long last, we have somehow encountered Hemingway whole—apparition and monster, buffoon and barbarian, literary titan and pretender, macho man and soft-hearted benefactor, and above all, the great artist wrestling with anxieties that are secret gifts and advantages that were vicious impediments.... [Hendrickson is] so attentive to detail that he will notice the polish on a woman’s nails, but, at the same time, so intuitive that he can neutralize some of the oldest toxins flowing through the bloodstream of Hemingway’s life narrative.
Jeff Simon - Buffalo News
Engrossing.... Movingly told...Hemingway’s Boat brings a commanding personality—and all the fears and insecurities that came with it—brilliantly to life side by side with the lives of minor characters, neglected witnesses who have their own stories to tell.
J. Malcolm Garcia - Kansas City Star
The most honest and honestly excellent prose about Papa Hemingway to date.... Hendrickson’s quirky, compelling, and compassionate biography of a literary lion slants great.
Linda Elisabeth Beattie - Louisville Courier-Journal
I read [Hemingway’s Boat] without a pause.... [It’s] a biography that is at once admiring and devastating, and full of material that I wouldn’t have thought even existed and of people who knew Hemingway whom I’d never heard of—an eye opener of a book, full of unexpected riches, fascinating digressions, and leaving one at the end wishing the book were longer, and thinking long and hard about the price of fame and success in America, and the dangers of seemingly getting everything you wanted out of life—it just may be the best book I’ve read this year, and certainly the best book I’ve read about an American writer in a long, long time.
Michael Korda - Newsweek - Favorite Books 2011
Rich and enthralling.... Paul Hendrickson is a deeply informed and inspired guide. He often appears in the first person, addressing the reader and exhorting him or her to speculate, imagine, or feel. He has researched exhaustively, been to the places Hemingway frequented, and talked to whoever was part of or had a connection to the Hemingway days. His diligence and spirit are remarkable. It is like traveling with an irrepressible talker who may go off on tangents but never loses the power to amaze.... Hemingway’s Boat is a book written with the virtuosity of a novelist, hagiographic in the right way, sympathetic, assiduous, and imaginative. It does not rival the biographies but rather stands brilliantly beside them—the sea, Key West, Cuba, all the places, the life he had and gloried in. His commanding personality comes to life again in these pages, his great charm and warmth as well as his egotism and aggression.
James Salter - New York Review of Books
The author, an accomplished storyteller, interprets myriad tiny details of Ernest Hemingway’s life, and through them says something new about a writer everyone thinks they know.
The Economist - Books of the Year 2011
There’s never been a biography quite like this one.... The stories are rich with contradiction and humanity, and so raw and immediate you can smell the salt air.
Publishers Weekly - Best Books of 2011: The Top 10
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Hemingway's Boat:
1. Having read Henderson's account, what do you think of Ernest Hemingway? Many accounts portray him in a negative light—a difficult man, cruel to family and friends, with a massive ego. Hemingway's Boat, however, also offers a more generous portrait—a man who extended kindness and help to those in need. How much did you know about Ernest Hemingway prior to reading this book? Has your opinion of him changed?
2. Point out or discuss the numerous parallels to Hemingway's life that Hendrickson has found in Hemingway's novels. Do these life parallels enrich the reading experience or are they irrelevant?
3. There have been hundreds of books written about Hemingway—more than ten by family members alone. Does this book add anything new? How is Hendrickson able to uncover stories and people that other writers have overlooked?
4. Many reviewers criticize the “endless speculation” over questions that no biographer is able to answer. Do you think too much of Henderson's book is based on speculation rather than a careful collation of facts?
5. Some reviewers say Hendrickson devotes too many spages to are spent on big game fishing, overly specific jargon. Do you feel this detracts from...or slows the pace of the prose? Or does it enhance the reading experience?
6. Talk about the relationship between Hemingway and his youngest son, Gregory-Gigi. Both men led tortured lives with tragic endings. Do you agree with Henderson's suggestion that Gigi was acting out many of the same tensions that his father felt but suppressed? Do you believe that their tumultuous relationship was because Hemginway recognized parts of himself in Gigi?
7. Why does Hemingway consider Pilar his most treasured possession? Talk about the role the boat plays in his life. Do you have a Pilar in your life?
8. Hendrickson delves deep into the lives on Arnold Samuelson and Walter Hock, including large sections of their lives before meeting Hemingway? Why does he spend so much time on the two characters. Does this enhance, or distract, from the narrative?
9. What are your thoughts about the author moving in and out of the first-person narrative and repetitive mention of his research and methodology? Interesting, distracting?
10. Why did you choose this book? Are you a devoted Hemingway fan...or a new one? Has reading this book enticed you to read (or reread) any of his work?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Her: A Memoir
Christa Parravani, 2013
Henry Holt & Co.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805096538
Summary
A blazingly passionate memoir of identity and love: when a charismatic and troubled young woman dies tragically, her identical twin must struggle to survive
Christa Parravani and her identical twin, Cara, were linked by a bond that went beyond siblinghood, beyond sisterhood, beyond friendship. Raised up from poverty by a determined single mother, the gifted and beautiful twins were able to create a private haven of splendor and merriment between themselves and then earn their way to a prestigious college and to careers as artists (a photographer and a writer, respectively) and to young marriages. But, haunted by childhood experiences with father figures and further damaged by being raped as a young adult, Cara veered off the path to robust work and life and in to depression, drugs and a shocking early death.
A few years after Cara was gone, Christa read that when an identical twin dies, regardless of the cause, 50 percent of the time the surviving twin dies within two years; and this shocking statistic rang true to her. "Flip a coin," she thought," those were my chances of survival." First, Christa fought to stop her sister's downward spiral; suddenly, she was struggling to keep herself alive.
Beautifully written, mesmerizingly rich and true, Christa Parravani's account of being left, one half of a whole, and of her desperate, ultimately triumphant struggle for survival is informative, heart-wrenching and unforgettably beautiful. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1978
• Raised—Guilderland, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Bard College; M.F.A, Columbia University;
M.F.A., Rutgers University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Christa Parravani is a writer and photographer. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally, and are represented by the Michael Foley Gallery in New York City and the Kopeikin gallery in Los Angeles. She has taught photography at Dartmouth College, Columbia University and UMass, Amherst. She earned her MFA in Visual Art from Columbia University and her MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers Newark. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Anthony Swofford (Jarhead) and their daughter. (From the publihser.)
Book Reviews
Christa Parravani powerfully transforms her anguish over the traumatic death of her troubled identical sister into the astonishing Her.
Vanity Fair
A photographer and identical twin tells the intimately delineated, raw story of her beloved sister’s overdose on heroin and untimely death at age 28 in 2006. Emotionally attuned and protectively close to each other since growing up in Schenectady to parents in a rocky marriage before their strong-willed mother essentially raised them on her own, Parravani and her sister, Cara, were obsessed with the other for much of their lives: critical of their shared but subtly different looks; jealous of the other’s boyfriends, then husbands; and certain that the twins would die somehow together. In her mid-20s Cara was violently raped in the woods near her Holyoke, Mass., home, and spiraled into drug abuse (e.g., prescription drugs, heroin) from what was eventually diagnosed as “post-traumatic stress disorder with borderline features.” Her self-destruction imposed an enormous toll on the author, who felt responsible for her sister and riddled by guilt: “I feel like her life is in my hands,” Parravani said to her then-husband. In between Cara’s stays in rehab and mental hospitals, the author took numerous photographs of her sister and herself together as part of her growing artistic and teaching oeuvre, and in acutely observed passages (also alternating with Cara’s diary entries), the author describes her eerie attempts to create for the camera identical likenesses. Cara’s death sent the author into her own drug-induced death wish, before she pulled back from the brink; her memoir is a finely wrought achievement of grace, emotional honesty, and self-possession.
Publishers Weekly
There's great in-house excitement about this memoir by photographer Parravani, writing about what it's been like to have lived with and lost twin sister Cara, a talented writer sucked into a downward spiral of drugs and depression that led to an early death. Raised by a tough-minded single mother, the sisters were stung early by their father's rejection; Cara was also raped as a young adult, which magnified her pain. Christa reflects on their close bond and the struggle to survive without Cara. With a reading group guide and intensive promotion.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Concise and captivating, Parravani’s prose paints her phoenix-like transformation such that the reader feels the flames of her fire. A poignant, book-arcing metaphor illustrates Christa’s battle to accept herself with a mirror-image. Raw and unstoppable, Her illuminates the triumph of the human spirit – both individual and shared.
Booklist
In this haunting memoir, photographer Parravani deconstructs the intense bonds between identical twins, the trauma of her sister's death and her battle against similar self-destruction. Raised by a strong-willed mother, the twins, Christa and Cara, shared a magical, intense and creative world of their own making. Plagued by unstable and abusive father figures and poverty, they still managed to attend prestigious colleges, begin careers as artists and embark on marriages. But following a rape while out walking her dog, Parravani's twin began a terrifying descent into drugs and self-destruction. A year after the rape, the author began to understand that her sister's situation was serious enough to require a stay at an expensive rehab center. "I was under the impression, the diluted perspective of the desperate," she writes, "that the more money we threw at the problem of Cara's addiction and despair, the more likely it was that she'd recover." Faced with the statistic that when one identical twin perishes, the surviving twin's rate of dying within the next few years spikes, the author chronicles her battle to avoid her sister's fate. Parravani's marriage failed, and as her career as a photography professor at a small college faltered, she checked herself into a personality-disorder wing of a hospital. Delicately weaving lyrical language together with her sister's journals, her mother's correspondence and conversations with family members, Parravani's mesmerizing narrative tapestry reveals the multiple facets inherent within their tangled, complex and loving relationship. "My reflection was her and it wasn't her. I was myself but I was my sister. I was hallucinating Cara--this isn't a metaphor," writes the author, who stepped back from the brink and began life anew with her second husband, the writer Anthony Swofford. Parravani delicately probes the fragile, intimate boundaries among love, identity and loss.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Christa mixes in excerpts from Cara’s writings throughout the book. How did this help in your understanding of Cara and how did it affect the storytelling? In what ways is Christa’s memoir also Cara’s?
2. What makes the relationship between identical twins unique from that of just siblings, or even fraternal twins? Do you think that identical twins are biologically prone to think and feel the same way, or is it something that evolves from their inextricably knit experiences? In what ways is the relationship between Christa and Cara so special? As much as they were alike, how were they also very different?
3. Art is a signifi cant part of the sisters’ lives. Discuss the importance of creating art for Cara and Christa. What do you think it meant for them to be able to create works of art in the midst of their tumultuous lives?
4. After Cara’s death, there were moments when Christa tried to be exactly like her sister, and also moments when she wanted to be completely free of her. Why did she assume these confl icting states of mind? Do you think that as an identical twin you can ever have your own identity?
5. Research shows that when an identical twin dies, the chances of the surviving twin also dying within two years drastically increases. Although coming very close to death, how was Christa able to survive and start a new life without her sister?
6. What is the importance of home and location in the sisters’ lives? How did their constant displacement as children affect their idea and need for a home as adults? What does “home” mean to them? What does it mean to you?
7. The book is mostly comprised of Christa’s memories of her life with her sister. Christa says that it’s hard to tell if her memories are true without Cara; that she is “the sole historian left to record [their] lives.” Think back on the memories you have of growing up. How do we distinguish truth from mere memories? And does truth matter when it comes to your own experiences, or is it the things you take from those moments that really count?
8. Do you think the body is a mere vehicle for the person or is it a part of your whole self? Do you think it is possible to detach yourself from your body? After Cara suffered a horrifi c rape, how was she changed? What seems to have happened to her connection with her body? What happened to Christa’s connection to her body after Cara’s death, and how was she able to fi nd a new connection with her body in the end?
9. What do you make of Christa’s conversation with the psychic? Do you believe in the supernatural and that we can communicate with those who have passed? Do you think that Christa’s visions of Cara were actually visits from another world, or were they illusions of dreams and grief?
10. Christa’s connection to her husband, Anthony, was unlike any other she had with a man. They both experienced much heartache and pain throughout their lives. Why do you think Christa was so drawn to him from the start? Are the best matches the ones who are as equally broken as we are?
11. Discuss the theme of birth and death. How are the two juxtaposed within the memoir? How does the birth of her daughter signal a new beginning for Christa?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Here If You Need Me
Kate Braestrup, 2007
Little, Brown and Company
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316066310
Summary
When the oldest of Kate Braestrup's four children was ten years old, her husband, a Maine state trooper, was killed in a car accident. Stunned and grieving, she decided to pursue her husband's dream of becoming a Unitarian minister, and eventually began working with the Maine Game Warden Service, which conducts the state's search and rescue operations when people go missing in the wilderness.
Whether she is with parents whose 6-year-old daughter has wandered into the woods, or wardens as they search for a snowmobile rider gone under ice, or a man whose sister left an infant seat and a suicide note in her car by the side of the road, Braestrup provides solace, comfort, and spiritual guidance when it's needed most. And she comes to discover that giving comfort is both a high calling and a precious gift.
In her account of her own life and the events of her unusual job, sometimes joyful, sometimes heartbreaking, Braestrup is warm, unsentimental ("No one is immune to the Plucky Widow story!" she acknowledges), and generous. Here if You Need Me is a funny, frank, and deeply moving story of faith and hope. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 5, 1962
• Where—Washington, D.C.
• Education—Parsons School of Design, New School for Social
Research; Georgetown University; Bangor Theological
• Currently—Lincolnville, Maine, USA
Kate Braestrup was raised in Washington, D.C., and met her husband-to-be, James Andrew ("Drew") Griffith, when they both were students. They married in 1985 and moved to Maine when Drew was hired as a state trooper. While raising a family, Braestrup found time to do some writing, and in 1990 she published Onion, a first novel whose title derives from a nickname for their son Owen. Drew was planning to retire from police work and begin training for the Unitarian ministry when tragedy struck. En route to work one morning in 1996, he died in a car accident, leaving Braestrup a widow and single mother of four.
It was in the course of working through her grief that Braestrup found her true calling. Inspired by Drew's dream of becoming a Unitarian minister, she enrolled in Bangor Theological Seminary, was ordained in 2004, and joined the Maine Game Warden Service as a law enforcement chaplain. In this capacity, she responds to dozens of wilderness emergencies, from lost hikers and accident victims to suicides and the occasional murder, offering comfort and counsel to people in need. She recounted her remarkable odyssey in Here if You Need Me, a memoir filled with insightful observations on grief and loss, life and death, God and nature. Published in 2007, the book was a National Book Award finalist and received the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Nonfiction.
Braestrup has since happily remarried and now lives in Maine with her blended family. In between her ministerial duties, she contributes freelance articles to various publications.
Extras
From a 2008 Barnes & Noble interview:
• Braestrup comes by her writing ability honestly. Her father, Peter Braestrup, was a noted war correspondent, writer, and journalist; founded The Wilson Quarterly; and served as Senior Editor and Director of Communications for the Library of Congress.
• Braestrup's grandfather, Carl Bjorn Braestrup, worked on the Manhattan Project and co-invented a cobalt-therapy machine used for cancer treatment.
• Braestrup confesses: "I knit too much. I knit my Christmas presents, I knit leg warmers for all the children in my daughter's graduating class; I knit hats for all the editorial staff at Little Brown, I knit all the insulation in my house and am thinking of knitting a cozy for the car. My children are convinced that, if the house caught fire, I would save my knitting basket before I'd save them. (Does my knitting basket have its own perfectly good legs? I ask them.)
• When asked what book most influenced her life or career as a writer, here's what she said—
When I was about seven, my mother handed me the book she had just finished reading. "I think you'll like this," she said. "Even though it is a grownups' book." It was Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals. It was a memoir of a childhood spent on the Greek island of Corfu. Durrell, the younger brother of novelist Lawrence Durrell, was a naturalist, zookeeper, and early advocate of conservation, and he wrote about the animals he encountered and the family and friends of his childhood with equal affection, humor and enthusiasm. My friend Natasha and I went on to read all of Durrell's books. Quite recently, I wrote to Durrell to tell him that Natasha and I each considered him an inspiration for our subsequent careers, mine as a writer and hers as a wildlife biologist. Unfortunately, by the time I sent the letter, Gerald Durrell was dead. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Kate Braestrup's Here if You Need Me can be read as a superbly crafted memoir of love, loss, grief, hope and the complex subtleties of faith. Or it can be read as the journey of a strong-minded, warmhearted woman through tragedy to grace.... The meat of the book is Braestrup's description of her work as chaplain to the game wardens who conduct search-and-rescue missions for the state of Maine. And this element of the memoir alone is enough to make it fascinating, as she describes traveling with the wardens in search of murder victims, suicides, straying children and lost hikers. She accompanies the wardens to give comfort to the loved ones of those who are missing, to attend to the remains of those found dead and to minister to the wardens themselves…In Here if You Need Me, she allows us to stand with her while she ministers to those who are lucky enough to have the remarkable, steady, peaceful and wise Kate Braestrup to comfort them.
Jane Ciabattari - Washington Post
Braestrup's narration about her work as a chaplain with Maine's fish and game wardens is filled with the same comfort she offers those she ministers to. Her friendly, easygoing northeastern-accented voice is instantly soothing whether she is talking about the happy outcome of a search-and-rescue mission or her husband's tragic death, which spurred her on the road to her new job. Her reading has an often prayerful cadence, though she goes easy on Bible quotation and her discussions of theological issues are so wise and well-thought-out that even the nonreligious won't be put off. Mixed with cute stories about raising her four kids, she offers keenly observed anecdotes about what she's seen on the job, accompanying wardens as they pick up fishermen without permits or search for kids lost in the woods. "My job is so cool," Braestrup repeats often, and her enthusiasm comes through clearly in her lively narration. Whether listeners are in need of a reassuring voice, Braestrup's brief memoir embraces in a most welcome, heartwarming way.
Publishers Weekly
Braestrup understands that women aren't always allowed the luxury of solitude during the grieving process. After her husband, Drew, a Maine state trooper, was killed in a car accident, she was left to explain the loss to their four children while trying to maintain her own equilibrium. Amazed by the outpouring of kindness-which included brownies from a neighbor with whom she had only a nodding acquaintance and enough casseroles to fill the family freezer- Braestrup decides that God can be found where there is love. Drew had intended to become a Unitarian Universalist minister when the time came for him to retire, continuing to be of service to his brothers and sisters in arms. In the midst of the many changes in her life, Braestrup chose to attend divinity school with the idea of completing Drew's dream. Here if You Need Me is the story of how she makes her husband's dream her own and eventually becomes the chaplain for Maine's Wildlife and Game Service. Braestrup's strength is evident throughout the memoir, which is by turns funny, tender, and frightening, yet always reinforced by the undercurrent of great love. Here If You Need Me is recommended for public libraries.
Pam Kingsbury - Library Journal
The life-and-death experiences of the first female chaplain in the Maine Warden Service. Novelist and journalist Braestrup (Onion, 1990) became a Unitarian Universalist minister after her husband was killed in a car accident. He had planned to join the ministry after he retired from the Maine State Police, and she decided to honor his memory by achieving his goal and devoting herself to law-enforcement-related service. Her stories of search-and-rescue operations in the Maine woods make it clear that she quickly became very good at helping others. When disaster struck, she traveled with the wardens, clad in the same uniform but with a plastic clerical collar attached, sharing their jokes, their cold and discomfort and their bad meals. Though they gently taunted her with such nicknames as "Holy Mother" and "Your Holiness," the wardens seemed to enjoy having Braestrup along and to value her presence. It freed them up to do their own jobs when she reached out to provide on-the-spot comfort to the parents of a lost child, the wife of a man who disappeared while ice fishing, as well as other frightened, stressed-out and grief-stricken people. Interspersed among accounts of violent death and dismemberment in the wilderness are sweeter, sadder essays: detailed recollections of preparing her husband's body for cremation; confessions of her paranoia about their four children's safety; and surprisingly unorthodox thoughts on heaven and hell, miracles, prayer and Jesus. Braestrup's occasionally self-mocking prose conveys a warmth and humor that lighten some heartbreaking, even gruesome scenes. Her characters and story lines seem custom-made for a high-quality television series. A heartening book about applied theology by someone practicing her faith in a rough-and-tumble world.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Kate Braestrup admits that before serving as chaplain to the Maine Warden Service, she had little idea of what the position entailed, joking that people ask her "What does a warden service chaplain do? Bless the moose?" (p. 62) Did you know the role that game wardens play prior to reading Here if You Need Me? Were you in a situation that required the Warden Service, would you want the assistance of a chaplain?
2. In the Author's Note, Kate writes that her favorite definition of the Greek word Logos is "story." Of the many stories Kate tells in Here if You Need Me from her role as Warden Service chaplain, which was your favorite?
3. When Kate was a child, she believed she experienced a vision of Jesus Christ from her family's car, only to find a few days later it was a fiberglass statue placed in a memorial garden. Have you ever encountered an unexplainable situation? Like Kate, did you eventually find the explanation?
4. Early on Kate writes "I love my uniform. Quite apart from whatever unwholesome sartorial fetish this may reflect, my uniform is so useful." (p. 64) Do you share a similar feeling about an aspect of your profession? If so, what is the cause of the attachment?
5. Although Drew was employed as a Maine State Trooper, Kate writes he had planned to begin a second "career" as a minister. Have you ever considered changing professions? If so, what new occupation would you choose?
6. Upon her decision to become an ordained minister, Kate's brother writes to her expressing his skepticism about religion. How are these email interchanges important to Kate in how she regards her own faith?
7. At one point Kate writes "that's where I still feel most religious; when I'm out in the woods." (p. 186) Discuss the role nature plays in her memoir, both as it impacts her profession and her faith.
8. Kate offers several plausible definitions of the word "miracle", then asserts that "a miracle is not defined by an event. A miracle is defined by gratitude." (p. 181) Do you agree with this interpretation? Did reading Here if You Need Me alter the way in which you view miracles in any way?
9. Near the memoir's end, Kate concludes "I can't make those two realities—what I've lost and what I've found—fit together in some tidy pattern of divine causality. I just have to hold them on the one hand and on the other, just like that." Do you agree with Kate's resolution?
10. At one point Kate offers proof that God has a sense of humor, and despite the tragic events described in the memoir, there are many humorous moments as well. How does humor serve Kate and the wardens she works with in their professional capacities? What was your favorite funny moment?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Heroines of Mercy Street: The Real Nurses of the Civil War
Pamela D. Toler, 2016
Little, Brown & Company
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316392068
Summary
The true stories of the real nurses on the PBS show Mercy Street
The nurses of the Civil War ushered in a new era for medicine in the midst of tremendous hardship. While the country was at war, these women learned to advocate and care for patients in hostile settings, saved countless lives, and changed the profession forever
But they regularly fell ill with no one to nurse them in return, seethed in anger at the indifference and inefficiency that left wounded men on the battlefield without care, and all too often mourned for those they could not rescue.
Heroines of Mercy Street tells the true stories of the nurses at Mansion House, the Alexandria, Virginia, hotel turned wartime hospital and setting for the PBS show Mercy Street. Women like Dorothea Dix, Mary Phinney, Anne Reading, and more rushed to be of service to their country during the war, meeting challenges that would discourage less determined souls every step of the way. They saw casualties on a scale Americans had never seen before; diseases like typhoid and dysentery were rampant; and working conditions-both physically and emotionally—were abysmal.
Drawing on the diaries, letters, and books written by these nursing pioneers, Pamela D. Toler, PhD, has written a fascinating portrait of true heroines, shining a light on their personal contributions during one of our country's most turbulent periods. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1958
• Where—state of Missouri, USA (?)
• Education—B.A., Carlton College; Ph,D, University of Chicago
• Currently—Chicago, Illinois, USA
Pamela D. Toler is an American history writer, the author of Heroines of Mercy Street: The Real Nurses of the Civil War (2016). It is the companion book to PBS's Mercey Street, a dramatic series about the nurses during the Civil War. She is also the author of Mankind: The Story of all of Us (2012) and The Everything Guide to Socialism (2011).
Toler has loved history from the time she was a young girl, quickly swapping our histories and biographies from her school library as soon as a new one would come in. By the time she reached high school, according to Toler, she was the class nerd who "hung out at the local historical society."
From high school, she went on to Carlton College in Minnesota to earn her B.A., and then to the University of Chicago where she attained both her M.A. and Ph.D. in history. In a History News Network interview, Robin Lindley referred to Toler as a "wide-ranging historian and writer." She has tackled subjects ranging from a book on Matt Damon or on socialism to articles on mosquito-borne diseases (Time magazine) and the first European translation of "Arabian Nights."
As she told writing coach Marla Beck, she wants to show the reverse side of history:
I'm committed to telling the historical stories that let my readers see the world from a different perspective. Not just "wow, I didn’t know that," but "wow, I never thought about that."
Before turning to writing full-time, Toler spent 25 years in property management, eventually becoming vice president and part-owner of a firm. It wasn't until she realized how much her corporate work took time away from her writing that she finally decided to devote herself full-time to history and writing.
Her project with PBS began with an email: the network was searching for someone to write the companion book for Mercy Street. The series, about Civil War nurses in Union-held Alexandria, Virginia, was still in development, but Toler said the time frame was tight. She turned to secondary sources, many by the historians who had advised the producers/writers early on. She also used primary sources — letters and diaries to help her flesh out the story. (Adapted from various online sources.)
Read the complete Historian News Network interview with the author.
Book Reviews
Dr. Toler delves into the medical consequences of the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history that left 750,000 troops dead — more than twice the number of American troops killed in World War II and two percent of the population in the 1860s. If a similar number of Americans died in a war today, the toll would reach about 7.5 million. Hundreds of thousands more troops were wounded or seriously ill. As Dr. Toler writes, women stepped into the fray and at least twenty thousand volunteered to serve in capacities related to medicine from nurses to laundresses to hospital staff, including about six thousand Union Army nurses, many under the command of renowned reformer Dorothea Dix, the Superintendent of Army Nurses.
Robin Lindley - History News Network
Accessible and well researched, Toler's book coincides with the recent PBS series Mercy Street and successfully illustrates the beginnings of nursing as a designated field of medical practice. —Rebecca Hill, Zionsville, IN
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
The following questions were graciously offered to LitLovers by Angela Scott, Program Coordinator, Ligonier Library. Thanks, Angela.
1. Did the book create a new set of expectations for you in what a Civil War nurse truly was? Many might previously have the image of an older woman that comes from middle to upper class families and wish to work towards philanthropy, but in reality, they came from a diverse background. How did your expectations of these women change as you read through the book?
2. What did you think of Dorothea Dix and her attempt to create an army of nurses? Was she successful? Did you feel her own preconceived notions limited the nursing field? What did you think of the men that attempted to control her and limit her power?
3. Did you have a concept of how overwhelming the wounded would have been to doctors and nurses who had little training and no real organization to fall back on, especially at the start of the war?
4. Most men were extremely hostile to the nurses when they first working with military. How did this change by the end of the war and how did the women earn their respect?
5. The women felt their duty towards the soldiers was more than just tending wounds. How did they see their roles in relation to their patients?
6. Do you feel that the nurses finally got the recognition that they deserved? By the end of the war? Years later?
7. How did the war change the way women seen themselves? Like during many wars, women were forced to step into the roles of what had primarily been male. Did this give them more power and how did that change them later after the war ended?
8. Was there a story that stuck out for you as a reader or you identified with?
(Questions courtesy of Angela Scott, Ligoniere Library. Please feel free to use online or off, with attribution to both Angela and LitLovers. Thanks..)
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
Margot Lee Shetterly, 2016
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062363602
Summary
The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space.
Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.
Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff.
Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.
Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens.
Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes.
It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future. (From the publisher.)
See the 2017 film with Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monae.
Listen to our Movies Meet Book Club Podcast—as Hollister and O'Toole discuss the book and movie.
Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—Hampton, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Virginia
• Currently— Charlottesville, Virginia
Margot Lee Shetterly was born in Hampton, Virginia, in 1969 where she knew many of the women she later wrote about in her debut Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race.
Shetterly's father worked as a research scientist at NASA-Langley Research Center, and her mother was an English professor at Hampton University. She attended Phoebus High School and graduated from the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce.
After college, she moved to New York and worked several years in investment banking, first on the Foreign Exchange trading desk at J.P. Morgan, then on Merrill Lynch's Fixed Income Capital Markets desk. She then made the transition to the media industry, working at a variety of startup ventures including the HBO-funded website Volume.com.
In 2005, she and her husband, the writer Aran Shetterly, moved to Mexico to found an English-language magazine called Inside Mexico, for expats. The magazine operated until 2009.
From 2010 through 2013, they worked as content marketing and editorial consultants to the Mexican tourism industry.
Shetterly began researching and writing Hidden Figures in 2010. The book was published in 2016, and its 2017 film version stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, and Kevin Costner.
In 2013, Shetterly founded The Human Computer Project, an organization whose mission is to archive the work of all of the women who worked as computers and mathematicians in the early days of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 12/6/2016.)
Book Reviews
Much as Tom Wolfe did in The Right Stuff, Shetterly moves gracefully between the women’s lives and the broader sweep of history.... Shetterly, who grew up in Hampton, blends impressive research with an enormous amount of heart in telling these stories.
Boston Globe
Meticulous…. [T]he depth and detail that are the book’s strength make it an effective, fact-based rudder with which would-be scientists and their allies can stabilize their flights of fancy. This hardworking, earnest book is the perfect foil for the glamour still to come.
Seattle Times
Restoring the truth about individuals who were at once black, women and astounding mathematicians, in a world that was constructed to stymie them at every step, is no easy task. Shetterly does it with the depth and detail of a skilled historian and the narrative aplomb of a masterful storyteller.
Bookreporter.com
(Starred review.) Exploring the intimate relationships among blackness, womanhood, and 20th-century American technological development, Shetterly crafts a narrative that is crucial to understanding subsequent movements for civil rights.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Readers will learn how integral these women were to American aeronautics and be saddened by the racism and sexism that kept them from deserved recognition. Verdict: Shetterly's highly recommended work offers up a crucial history that had previously and unforgivably been lost. —Kate DiGirolomo, Library Journal
Library Journal
[A]mazing...because the women...fought for and won recognition and devotedly supported each other’s work.... They were there from the beginning, perfecting World War II planes and proving to be invaluable to the nascent space program. Much of the work will be confusing to the mathematically disinclined, but their story is inspiring and enlightening.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1.In what ways does the race for space parallel the civil rights movement? What kinds of freedoms are being explored in each?
2. In Chapter 23 we learn that some people thought that spending money on space exploration was wasteful when there were so many other problems in the United States. Do you think the U.S. achieved a balance between innovation in space exploration and advancing the civil rights of all its citizens during this time period? Would you have done things differently?
3. Would you consider NACA and NASA socially progressive institutions for their time? Why or why not?
4. In advocating for herself to work on the Mercury capsule launch, Katherine says to her bosses, “Tell me where you want the man to land, and I’ll tell you where to send him up.” How are the women in Hidden Figures able to express confidence in their work and abilities? In what ways is that confidence validated by their coworkers? Why is this emotional experience such an important part of their story?
(Questions from a teaching guide issued by the publisher.)
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
Robert Kolker, 2020
Knopf Doubleday
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385543767
Summary
The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease.
Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream.
After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965.
In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins—aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony—and they worked hard to play their parts.
But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family?
What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself.
And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations.
With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Robert Kolker is the New York Times bestselling author of Lost Girls, named one of the Times's 100 Notable Books and one of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Books of 2013. It was released as a 2020 Netflix film.
As a journalist, his work has appeared in New York Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, O Magazine,and Men's Journal.
He is a National Magazine Award finalist and a recipient of the 2011 Harry Frank Guggenheim Award for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] feat of empathy and narrative journalism, as [Kolker] coaxes out the struggles of the Galvin family, showing how they embodied the roiling debates over the science of schizophrenia—not just its causes, "but what it actually is."… Kolker recounts the Galvins' home life with such vivid specificity that it can seem as if he's working up to a suggestion that their upbringing determined the course of their mental health. But… Kolker—who skillfully corrals the disparate strands of his story and gives all of his many characters their due—knows better than to settle for pat truths.
Jennifer Szalai - New York Times
(Starred review) [P]owerful.… Kolker concludes that while "biology is destiny, to a point," everyone is a product of the people who surround us…. This is a haunting and memorable look at the impact of mental illness on multiple generations.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Kolker masterfully combines scientific intrigue with biographical sketches, allowing readers to feel as if they are right there with the Galvins as researchers examine their genes in the quest for answers.
(Starred review) A stunning, riveting chronicle crackling with intelligence and empathy…. Kolker tackles this extraordinarily complex story so brilliantly and effectively that readers will be swept away. An exceptional, unforgettable, and significant work that must not be missed.
Booklist
(Starred review) [R]iveting…. Kolker deftly follows the psychiatric, chemical, and biological theories proposed to explain schizophrenia…. Most poignantly, he portrays the impact on the unafflicted children…. A family portrait of astounding depth and empathy.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Hiding Place
Corrie ten Boom (with John Sherrill), 1971
Random House
242 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553256697
Summary
Holland is under Nazi control.... Thousands of Jewish refugees.... One extraordinary family.
An old watchmaker in Holland. His two daughters, Corrie and Betsie. Simple, ordinary people. Yet these three unlikely heroes became the center of a major underground operation: To hide Jewish refugees from the occupying Germans.
These kindly, law abiding people broke every rule in the book to save the lives of the men, women and children being hunted by the Nazis. Their home became a hiding place, but the cost of their bravery was betrayal and in the dreaded Ravensbruck concentration camp, they had to create another hiding place for those around them. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 15, 1892
• Where—Haarlem, The Netherlands
• Death—April 15, 1983
• Where—Southern California, USA
In the years since the closing chapter of this book, Corrie ten Boom has traveled ceaselessly, carrying her message of triumphant living all over the world, especially behind the Iron Curtain. The author of devotional books treasured by millions, she is also a colorful, amusing speaker with a hold on young audiences that is but one of her many intriguing personal mysteries. This is the full story behind the faith that has touched and stirred and changed so many lives everywhere. (From the publisher.)
More
Cornelia Johanna Arnolda ten Boom, generally known as Corrie ten Boom, was a Dutch Christian Holocaust survivor who helped many Jews escape the Nazis during World War II. Ten Boom co-wrote her autobiography, The Hiding Place, which was later made into a movie of the same name. In December, 1967, ten Boom was honored as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel.
Corrie ten Boom was born in the Netherlands, as the youngest of four children. Her mother died of a stroke at the age of 63. Her father Casper ten Boom was a well-liked watch repairman, and often referred to as "Haarlem's Grand Old Man." Her older sister, Elisabeth (Betsie), was born with pernicious anemia. They had two siblings—a sister, Nollie, and a brother, Willem. They lived in a house on Barteljorisstraat 19 with three of her mother's sisters. Her brother Willem graduated from a theology school and warned the Dutch that unless they took action, they would fall to the Nazis. He wrote a dissertation on racial anti-Semitism at theological college in 1927 in preparation for his ordination.
Corrie began training as a watchmaker in 1920 and in 1922 became the first female watchmaker licensed in the Netherlands. She was a devout Christian and an active member of the Dutch Reformed church. In 1923, she helped organize girls' clubs, and in the 1930s these clubs grew to become the very large Triangle club.
In 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands and banned Corrie ten Boom's club. In May 1942, a well dressed woman came to the ten Boom door with a suitcase in hand. She told the ten Booms that she was a Jew and that her husband had been arrested several months before, and her son had gone into hiding. Occupation authorities had recently visited her, and she was too fearful to return home. After hearing about how the ten Booms had helped their Jewish neighbors, the Weils, she asked if she might stay with them, and Corrie ten Boom's father readily agreed.
A devoted reader of the Old Testament, Casper ten Boom believed Jews were indeed "the chosen," and told the woman, "In this household, God's people are always welcome." Thus began "the hiding place", or "de schuilplaats", as it was known in Dutch (also known as "de Beje", with Beje being derived from the name of the street the house was in, the Barteljorisstraat).
Ten Boom and her sister began taking in refugees, some of whom were Jews, others members of the resistance movement sought by the Gestapo and its Dutch counterpart. There were several extra rooms in their house, but food was scarce due to wartime shortages. Every non-Jewish Dutch person had received a ration card with which they could procure weekly coupons to buy food.
The Jews hid in a room that the ten Boom family had built in Corrie's bedroom for them by an architect belonging to the Dutch Resistance. The room was the size of a medium wardrobe, 75 cm (30") deep, with an air vent on the outside wall. The Nazis never found this room because the only entrance was a small hatch which slid open to let the Jews in and out. Also, the room was built in a special way that could make it seem like no one was in there when the Nazi officials would bang on the walls. They would bang on the walls to find out if there were any hollow spaces that could have held Jews.
The Germans arrested the entire ten Boom family on February 28, 1944 at around 12:30 with the help of a Dutch informant. They were sent first to Scheveningen prison (where her father died ten days after his capture). Corrie's sister Nollie, brother Willem, and nephew Peter were all released. Later, Corrie and Betsie were sent to the Vught political concentration camp (both in the Netherlands), and finally to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany on December 16, 1944, where Corrie's sister Betsie died. Before she died she told Corrie, "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still." Corrie was released on New Year's Eve of December 1944. In the movie The Hiding Place, ten Boom narrates the section on her release from camp, saying that she later learned that her release had been a clerical error. The women prisoners her age in the camp were killed the week following her release. She said, "God does not have problems. Only plans."
After the war, Corrie ten Boom returned to the Netherlands to set up rehabilitation centres. This refuge house consisted of concentration camp surivors and sheltered the jobless Dutch who previously collaborated with Germans during the occupation. She returned to Germany in 1946, and traveled the world as a public speaker, appearing in over sixty countries, during which time she wrote many books.
Ten Boom told the story of her family and their work during World War II in her most famous book, The Hiding Place (1971), which was made into a film by World Wide Pictures in 1975.
In 1977, Corrie ten Boom, then 85 years old, moved to Orange, California. Successive strokes in 1978 took away her powers of speech and communication and left her an invalid for the last five years of her life. She died on her birthday, April 15, 1983, at the age of 91.
Extras
• The State of Israel honored ten Boom by naming her Righteous Among the Nations.
• Ten Boom was knighted by the Queen of the Netherlands in recognition of her work during the war, and a museum in the Dutch city of Haarlem is dedicated to her and her family.
• Her teaching focused on the Christian Gospel, with emphasis on forgiveness. In her book Tramp for the Lord (1974), she tells the story of how, after she had been teaching in Germany in 1947, she was approached by one of the cruelest former Ravensbrück camp guards. She was reluctant to forgive him, but prayed that she would be able to. She wrote that, "For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then."
• She also wrote (in the same passage) that in her post-war experience with other victims of Nazi brutality, it was those who were able to forgive who were best able to rebuild their lives.
• She was known for her rejection of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine. Her writings claim that it is without Biblical foundation, and she has claimed that the doctrine left the Christian Church ill-prepared in times of great persecution, such as in China under Mao Zedong. She appeared on many Christian television programs discussing her ordeal during the Holocaust, and the concepts of forgiveness and God's love. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Excerpts below refer to the audio version. There are no mainstream press reviews online for the print version.)
A story of hope and faith. Its conversational style makes it especially effective in audio.
Indianapolis Star
Narrator Nadia May provides an authentic and engaging vocal presentation of this fine work.
Library Journal
Nadia May does great credit to the writers of this true story.... Her emotional control makes the tension and horror of the family's plight more real and hideous.... The listener is left with a story of extraordinary humanity, goodness and overwhelming love.
AudioFile
Reader May has the right tone and accent to convey Corrie's middle-aged presentation. The soul searching and questioning that Corrie expresses comes out clearly through the reader.
KLIATT
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Hiding Place:
1. Corrie's father tells her that he pities the Nazi's: "They have touched the apple of God's eye." What does he mean by that statement. Consider the strength of character it takes to feel pity for a people and a system that means to do harm to fellow beings.
2. What are the various hiding places, real and symbolic, to which the title of this book refers? How, for instance, do fleas help lead to a "hiding place" for Corrie and Betsie while they are imprisoned?
3. In addition to the extraordinary kindess and courage of the ten Boom family, what are some of the smaller acts of kindness shown by others in this memoir? Are people inspired to greater compassion, or less, in dire situations? What motivates acts of kindness—in other words, what makes people kind? What makes some people kinder than others?
4. Talk about the kind of woman Corrire ten Boom and her sister Betsie were. What sustained them during their ordeal in the concentration camps? To what do you attribute Corrie's courage and survival in the face of so much death and hardship?
5. Stories like Corrie's always beg comparison to ourselves and our own lives. We wonder how each of us would behave under similar horrific circumstances? How would you? What inner strengths and courage and compassion would you draw on? Would you have risked your life and the lives of your family (especially, if you have children) to help the Jews or any others subjected to brutal persecution? We know what we are called upon to do, but would many of us find the courage needed to do what is right?
6. Comment on what Betsie said to Corrie: "I pray every day that we be allowed to do this! To show [the Nazis] that love is greater!" What do you find extraordinary in that statement?
7. Talk about the incident after the war in which Corrie comes across one of the former SS men at Ravensbruck. How did she respond to him at first...and how did she change? What does this say about the principle of forgiveness—its difficulty and its healing power?
8. What do you find most surprising...or inspiring in this account of the Nazi era? Did this book change you in any way? Did you come away having learned something...about history...about faith...or about yourself?
9. Watch clips from the 1975 film version with Julie Harris and compare it to the book.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Hilarious World of Depression
John Moe, 2020
St. Martin's Press
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250209283
Summary
For years John Moe, critically-acclaimed public radio personality and host of The Hilarious World of Depression podcast, struggled with depression; it plagued his family and claimed the life of his brother in 2007.
As Moe came to terms with his own illness, he began to see similar patterns of behavior and coping mechanisms surfacing in conversations with others, including high-profile comedians who’d struggled with the disease.
Moe saw that there was tremendous comfort and community in open dialogue about these shared experiences and that humor had a unique power. Thus was born the podcast The Hilarious World of Depression.
Inspired by the immediate success of the podcast, Moe has written a remarkable investigation of the disease, part memoir of his own journey, part treasure trove of laugh-out-loud stories and insights drawn from years of interviews with some of the most brilliant minds facing similar challenges.
Throughout the course of this powerful narrative, depression’s universal themes come to light, among them,
• struggles with identity
• misunderstanding of symptoms
• challenges of work-life
• self-medicating
• fallout in the lives of our loved ones
• tragedy of suicide
• hereditary aspects of the disease.
The Hilarious World of Depression illuminates depression in an entirely fresh and inspiring way. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 10, 1968
• Raised—Federal Town, Washington, USA
• Education—B.A., Whitman College
• Currently—St. Paul, Minnesota
John Moe has served as host of national public radio broadcasts such as Weekend America, Marketplace Tech Report and, from 2010- 2015, Wits.
His reporting has been heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Marketplace, Day to Day, and more.
Moe's writing appears in humor anthologies, the New York Times Magazine, McSweeney’s, and the Seattle Times. He’s a much in-demand public speaker and the author of multiple books, including The Hilarious World of Depression. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review) Moe… wryly reflects on life as a "saddie" in this stirring memoir.… [S]ide-eye commentary separates Moe’s story from the trite "70s self-help" he loathes…. Moe’s edifying, enjoyable take on the realities of living with depression will uplift any reader.
Publishers Weekly
Moe is exactly the right person to give an attentive, irreverent voice to those suffering with depression.
Booklist
The narrative gains considerable momentum when Moe shifts into his adult years…. Here, the author focuses more attention on the origins and evolution of his series…. The book would have benefited from a tighter structure, but it’s inspiring and relatable .
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE HILARIOUS WORLD OF DEPRESSION … then take off on your own:
1. This book is a personal account of John Moe's battle with depression. He says that after years of depressive thoughts, his wife urged him to find help for what he refers to as his desire "not so much to die as simply not to be alive anymore." Do you understand what Moe means? Does that comment have any resonance with you?
2. Talk about Moe's family background, especially his father's alcoholism and brother's addiction. To what degree has his family history contributed to his own depression?
3. (Follow-up to Question 2) What is known about the hereditary aspects of depression?
4. Moe says he came to recognize the signs of depression early in his life—in middle school. What particular symptoms during those adolescent years did Moe see in himself?
5. What effect does his brother's suicide have on Moe? He writes of a "salad of regret, anger, confusion, and horror."
6. Moe digs deeply into the various characteristics of depression. Talk about the problems of identifying the disorder and then acknowledging it, of self-medicating, and of the way depression affects the lives of families and loved ones.
6. If you are comfortable doing so in a group, talk about how Moe's book relates to your own life—if not to you, specifically, than perhaps to to someone you know and love, a family member or a friend.
7. Why the book's title: what is "hilarious" about depression?
8. Talk about what led up to Moe's podcast, which has the same name as his book. Have you listened to the podcast?
9. Are you surprised at some of the well-known people who suffer with depression? Do you know others?
10. What have you learned about depression after reading this book? What in particular surprised you? Do you ever think that, as a society, we have over diagnosed depression—and we are over-medicated—as some skeptics have claimed? Or do you think the disorder is actually under-diagnosed?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
J.D. Vance, 2016
HarperCollins
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062300546
Summary
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans.
The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside.
J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.
The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility.
But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history.
A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1984
• Born—Middletown, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., Ohio State Universtiy; J.D., Yale University
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California
J.D. Vance grew up in the Rust Belt city of Middletown, Ohio, and spent many summers in the Appalachian town of Jackson, Kentucky. He enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school and served in Iraq. A graduate of the Ohio State University and Yale Law School, he has contributed to the National Review and is a principal at a leading Silicon Valley investment firm. Vance lives in San Francisco with his wife and two dogs. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] compassionate, discerning sociological analysis of the white underclass that has helped drive the politics of rebellion, particularly the ascent of Donald J. Trump. Combining thoughtful inquiry with firsthand experience, Mr. Vance has inadvertently provided a civilized reference guide for an uncivilized election, and he's done so in a vocabulary intelligible to both Democrats and Republicans…. Whether you agree with Mr. Vance or not, you must admire him for his head-on confrontation with a taboo subject. And he frames his critique generously, stipulating that it isn't laziness that's destroying hillbilly culture but what the psychologist Martin Seligman calls "learned helplessness"—the fatalistic belief, born of too much adversity, that nothing can be done to change your lot.
Jennifer Senior - New York Times
[Vance’s] description of the culture he grew up in is essential reading for this moment in history.
David Brooks - New York Times
[Hillbilly Elegy] is a beautiful memoir but it is equally a work of cultural criticism about white working-class America….[Vance] offers a compelling explanation for why it’s so hard for someone who grew up the way he did to make it…a riveting book.
Wall Street Journal
[A] frank, unsentimental, harrowing memoir...a superb book.
New York Post
Vance isn’t a hillbilly at all. I ordered Vance’s book in the hope that his story would be a frank look at the lives of the less fortunate people around me who face the struggles of the hillbilly culture and Appalachian economy daily. But Vance’s story is one about how his grandparents’ sacrifices made it possible for him to be where he is today. That makes his critique of the hillbilly culture in crisis ring empty.
Brandon Kiser - Lexington Herald-Leader
[Hillbilly Elegy] couldn’t have been better timed...a harrowing portrait of much that has gone wrong in America over the past two generations...an honest look at the dysfunction that afflicts too many working-class Americans.
National Review
[A]n American classic, an extraordinary testimony to the brokenness of the white working class, but also its strengths. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read… [T]he most important book of 2016. You cannot understand what’s happening now without first reading J.D. Vance.
Rod Dreher - American Conservative
J.D. Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, offers a starkly honest look at what that shattering of faith feels like for a family who lived through it. You will not read a more important book about America this year.
Economist
The troubles of the working poor are well known to policymakers, but Vance offers an insider’s view of the problem.
Christianity Today
In this compelling hybrid of memoir and sociological analysis, Vance....observes that hillbillies like himself are helped not by government policy but by community that empowers them and extended family who encourages them to take control of their own destinies. Vance's dynamic memoir takes a serious look at class.
Publishers Weekly
Vance compellingly describes the terrible toll that alcoholism, drug abuse, and an unrelenting code of honor took on his family, neither excusing the behavior nor condemning it…The portrait that emerges is a complex one…. Unerringly forthright, remarkably insightful, and refreshingly focused, Hillbilly Elegy is the cry of a community in crisis.
Booklist
Growing up in Appalachia may leave a person open to harsh criticism and stereotype, yet Vance delves into his childhood and upbringing to make a clear distinction between perception and reality.... A quick and engaging read. —Kaitlin Malixi, formerly at Virginia Beach P.L.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A Yale Law School graduate's account of his traumatic hillbilly childhood and the plight of America's angry white working class. "Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks, or white trash," writes Vance, a biotech executive and National Review contributor. "I call them neighbors, friends, and family."... An unusually timely and deeply affecting view of a social class whose health and economic problems are making headlines in this election year.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider these LitLovers talking points for Hillbilly Elegy...then take off on your own:
1. In what way is the Appalachian culture described in HillBilly Elegy a "culture in trouble"? Do you agree with the author's description of the book's premise:
The book is about what goes on in the lives of real people when the industrial economy goes south. It’s about reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible. It’s about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.
2. Follow-up to Question 1: Vance suggests that unemployment and addiction are self-inflicted and that the Appalachian culture is one of "learned helplessness"—individuals feel they can do nothing to improve their circumstances. Do you agree with Vance's assessment? What could individuals do to improve their circumstances? Or are the problems so overwhelming they can't be surrmounted?
3. What are the positive values of the culture Vance talks about in Hillbilly Elegy?
4. The author's mother is arguably the book's most powerful figure. Describe her and her struggle with addiction. How did the violence between her own parents, Mawaw and Papaw, affect her own adulthood?
5. To What—or to whom—does Vance attribute this escape from the cycle of addiction and poverty?
6. Talk about Vance's own resentment toward his neighbors who were on welfare but owned cellphones.
7. Follow-up to Question 6: Vance writes
Political scientists have spent millions of words trying to explain how Appalachia and the South went from staunchly Democratic to staunchly Republican in less than a generation.... I could never understand why our lives felt like a struggle while those living off of government largess enjoyed trinkets that I only dreamed about.
Does his book address those two separate but related issues satisfactorily?
7. Critics of Hillbilly Elegy accuse Vance of "blaming the victim" rather than providing a sound analysis of the structural issues left unaddressed by government. What do you think?
8. What does this book bring to the national conversation about poverty—its roots and its persistence? Does Vance raise the tone of discourse or lower it?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Hollywood Park: A Memoir
Mikel Jollett, 2020
Celadon Books
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250621566
Summary
A remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life.
Mikel Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults, and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer.
We were never young. We were just too afraid of ourselves. No one told us who we were or what we were or where all our parents went.
They would arrive like ghosts, visiting us for a morning, an afternoon. They would sit with us or walk around the grounds, to laugh or cry or toss us in the air while we screamed.
Then they’d disappear again, for weeks, for months, for years, leaving us alone with our memories and dreams, our questions and confusion.
So begins Hollywood Park, Mikel Jollett’s remarkable memoir. His story opens in an experimental commune in California, which later morphed into the Church of Synanon, one of the country’s most infamous and dangerous cults.
Per the leader’s mandate, all children, including Jollett and his older brother, were separated from their parents when they were six months old, and handed over to the cult’s "School." After spending years in what was essentially an orphanage, Mikel escaped the cult one morning with his mother and older brother.
But in many ways, life outside Synanon was even harder and more erratic.
In his raw, poetic and powerful voice, Jollett portrays a childhood filled with abject poverty, trauma, emotional abuse, delinquency and the lure of drugs and alcohol.
Raised by a clinically depressed mother, tormented by his angry older brother, subjected to the unpredictability of troubled step-fathers and longing for contact with his father, a former heroin addict and ex-con, Jollett slowly, often painfully, builds a life that leads him to Stanford University and, eventually, to finding his voice as a writer and musician.
Hollywood Park is told at first through the limited perspective of a child, and then broadens as Jollett begins to understand the world around him. Although Mikel Jollett’s story is filled with heartbreak, it is ultimately an unforgettable portrayal of love at its fiercest and most loyal. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 21, 1974
• Where—Santa Monica, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Mikel Frans Jollett is an American musician and author, best known as the frontman for the Los Angeles-based indie rock band the Airborne Toxic Event. In 2020, he published his memoir, Hollywood Park, detailing his early childhood in an infamous religious cult and his eventual journey to wholeness.
Early life
Jollett's father spent three years (1963-66) in Chino State Prison. where he overcame a heroin addiction. Jollett's mother was a social worker with a master's degree from University of California Berkeley. The couple met and started a family in Synanon, an experimental commune society in Santa Monica, California. Jollett and his older brother were born and raised there, spending a large part of their time separated from their parents. Once the commune turned to violence, his mother left when he was five, taking his brother and him. They eventually made their way to Oregon.
Jollett later went to live with his father and step mother in Los Angeles. He attended Stanford University, graduating with honors in 1996. While at Stanford, Jollett was a member of Claude Steele's lab group in which he conducted research on the concept Stereotype Threat. His work focused on how negative racial stereotypes negatively affected the identity and test performance of high school students.
Writing
In the summer of 2008, McSweeney's (27) published Jollett's short story, "The Crack." He was a frequent contributor to All Things Considered on NPR, the Los Angeles Times, an editor at large for Men's Health, and the managing editor of Filter magazine. By 2005 Jollett decided to pursue music a career in music.
Music
Jollett began seriously writing songs following a week in March 2006, during which he underwent a break-up and learned his mother had been diagnosed with cancer. This quick succession of events spurred a period of intense songwriting featured on the debut album of his band, Toxic Airborne Evenet.
True to his literary roots, Jollett named the band after a section in Don DeLillo's White Noise, in which a chemical spill emits a poisonous cloud, dubbed an "airborne toxic event." The band went on to achieve a considerable following, with "Sometime Around Midnight," one of the songs on their debut album achieving certified gold status.
Personal
Jollett and his wife Lizette have a son and a daughter and live in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/28/2020.)
Book Reviews
A Gen-X This Boy’s Life…. Music and his fierce brilliance boost Jollett; a visceral urge to leave his background behind propels him to excel…. In the end, Jollett shakes off the past to become the captain of his own soul. Hollywood Park is a triumph
Oprah Magazine
Mikel Jollett, the front man of indie band Airborne Toxic Event, chronicles his tumultuous life. Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction and emotional abuse. What comes through the pages is a story of fierce love and family loyalty ("20 books we're excited for in 2020").
Good Morning America
(Starred review) [A]rresting…. Jollett engagingly narrates his story… [and] talks about turning pain into music, getting help for abandonment issues, and finding love and starting a family.… [A] shocking but contemplative memoir about the aftermath of an unhealthy upbringing.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Jollett is at his best when exploring his complicated relationship with his brother… [and] how music, and writing, became outlets for masking feelings of shame and coming to terms with the past. [An] absorbing memoir of self, discovery, and rediscovery.
Library Journal
Engaging and heartbreaking. A good choice for fans of memoirs about overcoming dysfunctional childhoods like Educated and The Glass Castle.
Booklist
A painstaking emotional accounting of a tortured youth ultimately redeemed through music, therapy, and love.… Ultimately, as he lucidly shows, music would change his life. A musician proves himself a talented, if long-winded, writer with a very good memory.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for HOLLYWOOD PARK … and then take off on your own:
1. In the opening lines to his memoir, Mikel Jollett says, "we were never young." What does he mean?
2. Why did Jollett's parents join Synanon? What were they looking for, and what did the cult promise its members?
3. (Follow-up to Question 2) Describe the practices at the commune and what eventually drove Mikel's mother to leave.
4. Talk about the aftermath of the cult and the affect it had on the family, especially on Mikel. Consider, too, his relationship with his older brother, Tony.
5. Jollett's mother, Gerry, was hardly an ideal mother. Did she love her sons? Eventually she was diagnosed with a mental disorder. Were you surprised?
6. At the age of 11, Jollett goes to live with his father, who, he had been told by his mother, was a terrible person. What did he learn about Jimmy? What role does Jimmy come to play in Mikel's life?
7. How did Jollett's upbringing affect the way he related to women—but not just to women, to many, if not most, people? What was the facade he erected, and why was he hiding behind it?
8. Jollett ponders the pain engendered by his trauma. He writes, "How long can you live with ghosts before deciding to become one?" What does he mean? How does he confront those ghosts? What mental processes does he journey through in order to overcome his past?
9. What role did music play in Jollett's journey through pain? What insights does he gain into his own emotional state which helped him understand his life?
10. (Follow-up to Question 9) Do you think painters, writers, performers, and musicians, use their creativity as a way to explore and/or express their personal pain?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Yuval Noah Harari, 2017
HarperCollins
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062464316
Summary
Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.
Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style — thorough, yet riveting — famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges.
For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.
What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda?
As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century — from overcoming death to creating artificial life.
It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.
With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 24, 1976
• Where—Israel
• Education—Ph.D., Oxford University
• Awards—Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality (twice);
Moncado Award for Military History
• Currently—lives near Jerusalem, Israel
Yuval Noah Harari is the author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. He lectures at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Harari originally specialized in medieval history and military history, completing his doctorate at the University of Oxford (Jesus College) in 2002 and publishing numerous books and articles, including Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100-1550; The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450-2000; "The Concept of 'Decisive Battles' in World History"; and "Armchairs, Coffee and Authority: Eye-witnesses and Flesh-witnesses Speak about War, 1100-2000."
He now specializes in World History and macro-historical processes. His research focuses on macro-historical questions such as:
—What is the relation between history and biology?
—What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals?
—Is there justice in history?
—Does history have a direction?
—Did people become happier as history unfolded?
His most recent book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind surveys the entire length of human history, from the evolution of Homo sapiens in the Stone Age up to the political and technological revolutions of the 21st century. It has generated much interest both in the academic community and among the general public and has turned Harari into an instant celebrity. YouTube Video clips of Harari’s Hebrew lectures on the history of the world have been viewed by tens of thousands of Israelis. He is also offers a free online course in English entitled A Brief History of Humankind. More than 100,000 people throughout the world have already taken this course.
Harari twice won the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality, in 2009 and 2012. In 2011 he won the Society for Military History’s Moncado Award for outstanding articles in military history. In 2012 he was elected to the Young Israeli Academy of Sciences.
He lives with his husband in moshav Mesilat Zion near Jerusalem. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/11/2015.)
Book Reviews
[E]ssential reading for those who think about the future. The algorithms that Harari describes are not trying to imitate humans; they are trying to become human, and possibly exceed our abilities.
Siddhartha Mukherjee - New York Times Book Review
I enjoyed reading about these topics not from another futurist but from a historian, contextualizing our current ways of thinking amid humanity’s long march — especially … with Harari’s ability to capsulize big ideas memorably and mingle them with a light, dry humor.… Harari offers not just history lessons but a meta-history lesson.
Washington Post
Thrilling to watch such a talented author trample so freely across so many disciplines … Harrari’s skill lies in the way he tilts the prism in all these fields and looks at the world in different ways, providing fresh angles on what we thought we knew … scintillating.
Financial Times (UK)
A remarkable book, full of insights and thoughtful reinterpretations of what we thought we knew about ourselves and our history
Guardian (UK)
What elevates Harari above many chroniclers of our age is his exceptional clarity and focus.
Sunday Times (UK)
[A] great book…not only alters the way you see the world after you’ve read it, it also casts the past in a different light. In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari shows us where mankind is headed in an absolutely clear-sighted & accessible manner.
Mail on Sunday (UK)
Like all great epics, Sapiens demanded a sequel. Homo Deus, in which that likely apocalyptic future is imagined in spooling detail, is that book. It is a highly seductive scenario planner for the numerous ways in which we might overreach ourselves.
Observer (UK)
Harari is an intellectual magpie who has plucked theories and data from many disciplines — including philosophy, theology, computer science and biology — to produce a brilliantly original, thought-provoking and important study of where mankind is heading.
Evening Standard (UK)
[Homo Deus]…provocatively explores what the future may have in store for humans in this deeply troubling book.… Harari paints with a very broad brush throughout, but he raises stimulating questions about both the past and the future.
Publishers Weekly
This work…leaves readers with questions about consciousness and conscience and whether unrestricted data flow will necessarily lead to wisdom. —Wade M. Lee, Univ. of Toledo Lib.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [I]ntellectually provocativel.… [Harari] smoothly tackles thorny issues and leads us through "our current predicament and our possible futures." A relentlessly fascinating book that is sure to become — and deserves to be — a bestseller.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Homo Deus … then take off on your own:
1. Yuval Noal Harari insists that human beings have never had free will. He writes provocatively that "the free individual is just a fictional tale concocted by an assembly of biochemical algorithms." Talk about what he means. Do you agree with him? Why or why not? (By the way, what do you make of the author's concession on page 399 that perhaps we aren't algorithms after all? Does that undercut everything that went before?)
2. Harari makes the case in his book that we are at a point in human history in which famine, disease, and war are no longer the existential threats they once were: we can now manage them and reduce their devastation. Is he correct? And if so, what are the implications of that?
3. Do you agree, as the author posits, that we humans "are in fact trying to upgrade [our]selves into gods." What he does mean — and how, according to the the author, might that spell our doom?
4. We now have the technical ability to select embryos with the most optimal health or to slow down our aging process. Good things … or bad?
5. What frightens you most about the future? Do you see the possibility of humanity, as Harari imagines, breaking off into securely isolated islands of perfect beings with re-engineered brains and bodies? (Have you seen Westworld?) Or perhaps you envision machines endowed with artificial intelligence taking over our lives, becoming our overlords? (How about 2001 Space Odyssey?)
6. Harari predicts that at some point it will be feasible for a machine not only to reveal a diagnosis but also to explain to us what it means. As Harari writes: "how about receiving the news from an attentive machine that tailors its words to [our] feelings and personality type." Is that appealing? Or does it bother you? Would you rather have a flesh and blood doctor tell you your medical fate, even one with a lousy bedside manner, or a computer with soothing voice and affect?
7. Do you think Harari is an alarmist? Or do his prognostications have merit? Where do you see humanity heading?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America
Thomas L. Friedman
Macmillan Picador
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312428921
Summary
Thomas L. Friedman's No. 1 bestseller The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see the world, and globalization, in a new way. With his latest book, Friedman brings a fresh and provocative outlook to another pressing issue: the interlinked crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy—both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to the 2008 presidential election—and to all of us who are concerned about the state of America and its role in the global future.
"Green is the new red, white, and blue," Friedman declares, and proposes that an ambitious national strategy—which he calls geo-greenism—is not only what we need to save the planet from overheating, it is what we need to make America healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive, and more secure in the coming E.C.E.—the Energy-Climate Era. Green-oriented practices and technologies, established at scale everywhere from Washington to Wal-Mart, are both the only way to mitigate climate change and the best way for America to "get its groove back"—to "reknit America at home, reconnect America abroad, retool America for the new century, and restore America to its natural place in the global order."
As in The World Is Flat and his previous bestseller The Lexus and the Olive Tree, he explains the future we are facing through an illuminating account of recent events. He explains how 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the flattening of the world by the Internet, which has brought three billion new consumers onto the world stage, have combined to bring the climate and energy issues to main street. But they have not really gone down main street yet. Indeed, it is Friedman's view that we are not really having the green revolution that the press keeps touting, or, if we are, "it is the only revolution in history," he says, "where no one got hurt." No, to the contrary, argues Friedman, we're actually having a "green party." We have not even begun to be serious yet about the speed and scale of change that is required.
With all that in mind, Friedman lays out his argument that if we are going to avoid the worst disruptions looming before us as we enter the Energy-Climate Era, we are going to need several disruptive breakthroughs in the clean-technology sphere—disruptive in the transformational sense. He explores what enabled the disruptive breakthroughs that created the IT (Information Technology) revolution that flattened the world in information terms and then shows how a similar set of disruptive breakthroughs could spark the ET—Energy Technology—revolution. Time and again, though, Friedman shows why it is both necessary and desirous for America to lead this revolution—with the first green president, a green New Deal, and spurred by the Greenest Generation—and why meeting the green challenge of the twenty-first century could transform America every bit as meeting the Red challenge, that of Communism, did in the twentieth century.
Hot, Flat, and Crowded is classic Thomas L. Friedman—fearless, incisive, forward-looking, and rich in surprising common sense about the world we live in today. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 20, 1953
• Where—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Education—B.A., Brandeis University; M.A., Oxford
• Awards—Pulitzer Prizes for international reporting, 1983 and
1988; National Book Award;1989; Pulitzer Prize for
commentary, 2002
• Currently—lives in the Washington, D.C. area
Thomas L. Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work at the New York Times, where he serves as the foreign affairs columnist. He is the author of three previous books, all of them bestsellers: From Beirut to Jerusalem, winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction; The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization; and Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11. In 2005 The World Is Flat was given the first Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, and Friedman was named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his family. (From the publisher.)
More
When September 11 drastically reshifted America's focus and priorities, Thomas L. Friedman was the author readers turned to as a guide to the dynamics of the Middle East. In a mediascape crowded with pundits, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist and author has emerged as the preeminent commentator in his field, informed by his 20-plus years as a journalist covering the rapidly shifting politics in the region.
The title of his first book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, describes his trajectory as New York Times bureau chief in both cities in the '80s. He interrupted his journalism career in 1988 when the Guggenheim Foundation awarded him a fellowship to write a book about his experiences. The result was a personal narrative that described not only his harrowing experiences in Lebanon and Israel but also contained exposition about the roots of his interest in the Middle East, a visit to Israel that burgeoned into a full-blown obsession. Friedman himself put it best, in the book's prelude: "It is a strange, funny, sometimes violent, and always unpredictable road, this road from Beirut to Jerusalem, and in many ways, I have been traveling it all my adult life." From Beirut to Jerusalem won the National Book Award and spent a year on the Times bestseller list.
This road analogy is one of several Friedman will make over the course of a column or book. He reduces the intimidation factor of complex subjects by offering ample (but not copious) background, plain but intelligent language, and occasional humor. On Iraq's history before Saddam: "Romper Room it was not." On globalization: "If [it] were a sport, it would be the 100-meter dash, over and over and over. And no matter how many times you win, you have to race again the next day."
Friedman again offered complex concepts in appealingly dramatic terms in 1989's The Lexus and the Olive Tree, his distillation of the new global economy. He sets up the contrast between the old, Cold War system ("sumo wrestling") and the new globalization system (the 100-meter dash). Another part of why Friedman can be so readable is that he sometimes makes it seem as if his life is one big kaffeeklatsch with the scholars and decision makers of the world. In a chapter from The Lexus and the Olive Tree, he mentions a comment made by a friend who is also "the leading political columnist in Jordan." The day after seeing this friend, Friedman writes, "I happen to go to Israel and meet with Jacob Frenkel, then governor of Israel's Central Bank and a University of Chicago-trained economist." Thus another illustrative point is made. Friedman frames the world not just as he sees it, but also includes the perspective of the many citizens he has made it a point to include in the dialogue.
In 2002, Friedman won a third Pulitzer for his writing in the New York Times, and the demand for his perspicacity post-September 11 makes the release of Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 almost a foregone conclusion. Breaking the book into before, during, and after, Friedman presents what he calls a "word album" of America's response to the tragedy. It is undeniably a changed world, and Friedman is undeniably the man to help readers make sense of it.
Extras
• Friedman lives with his wife Ann and daughters Orly and Natalie in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington.
• In high school, Friedman became "insufferable" in his obsession with Israel, he says. He wrote in From Beirut to Jersualem: "When the Syrians arrested thirteen Jews in Damascus, I wore a button for weeks that said Free the Damascus 13, which most of my high-school classmates thought referred to an underground offshoot of the Chicago 7. I recall my mother saying to me gently, 'Is that really necessary?' when I put the button on one Sunday morning to wear to our country-club brunch."
• As the chief diplomatic correspondent for the New York Times from 1989 to 1992, Friedman logged some 500,000 miles following Secretary of State James Baker and chronicling the end of the Cold War. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
The litany of dangers has been told many times before, but Mr. Friedman's voice is compelling and will be widely heard.... Heads will be nodding across airport lounges, as readers absorb Mr. Friedman's common sense about how America and the world are dangerously addicted to cheap fossil fuels while we recklessly use the atmosphere as a dumping ground for carbon dioxide.
David G. Victor - New York Times
Like it or not, we need Tom Friedman. The peripatetic columnist has made himself a major interpreter of the confusing world we inhabit. He travels to the farthest reaches, interviews everyone from peasants to chief executives and expresses big ideas in clear and memorable prose. While pettifogging academics (a select few of whom he favors) complain that his catchy phrases and anecdotes sometimes obscure deeper analysis, by and large Friedman gets the big issues right.
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. - Washington Post
No one today chronicles global shifts in simple and practical terms quite like Friedman. He plucks insights from his travels and the published press that can leave you spinning like a top.
The Christian Science Monitor
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Friedman (The World Is Flat) is still an unrepentant guru of globalism, despite the looming economic crisis attributable, in Friendman's view, to the U.S. having become a "subprime nation that thinks it can just borrow its way to prosperity." Friedman covers familiar territory (the need for alternate energy, conservation measures, recycling, energy efficiency, etc.) as a build-up to his main thesis: the U.S. market is the "most effective and prolific system for transformational innovation.... There is only one thing bigger than Mother Nature and that is Father Profit." While he remains ostensibly a proponent of the free market, he does not flinch from using the government to create conditions favorable to investment, such as setting a "floor price for crude oil or gasoline," and imposing a new gasoline tax ($5-$10 per gallon) in order to make investment in green technologies attractive to venture capitalists: "America needs an energy technology bubble just like the information technology bubble." To make such draconian measures palatable, Friedman poses a national competition to "outgreen" China, modeled on Kennedy's proposal to beat the Soviets to the moon, a race that required a country-wide mobilization comparable to the WWII war effort. Recognizing the looming threat of "petrodicatorship" and U.S. dependence on imported oil, this warning salvo presents a stirring and far-darker vision than Friedman's earlier books.
Publishers Weekly
It’s hard not to admire Thomas Friedman’s reporting, even if it sometimes feels like a sales pitch. That’s why those who agree with Friedman’s analysis were excited about this book: it may not be the best volume available on the subject, but it will encourage millions of people to think about the central role climate change should play in the national discourse.
Bookmarks Magazine
The world is flat, New York Times columnist Friedman told us in his bestselling 2005 book of that name. Now things are getting worse, and the clock is ticking. Americans have squandered most of the goodwill extended since 9/11, writes Friedman, and in the years of the Bush administration no thought has been given to what 9/12 is supposed to look like. The climate is changing, but the administration has spent most of its tenure denying it and insisting on a particularist view that we deserve to be profligate because we're Americans. Our political blindness and ignorance vis-a-vis other nations now butts up against the world's instability and, Friedman continues, "the convergence of hot, flat, and crowded is tightening energy supplies, intensifying the extinction of plants and animals, deepening energy poverty, strengthening petrodictatorship, and accelerating climate change." The way out of those tangles, he says, is for America to go green in any way possible-and to do it right away, investing in every kind of alternative and renewable energy form imaginable, setting the best of examples for the rest of the world and exporting green technologies everywhere, thus winning back allies and influencing people. Readers who have been paying attention to Fareed Zakaria, Jared Diamond or similar writers know most of this, but still the word has been slow getting out. Many others have written about these subjects, but few enjoy Friedman's audience, so it's good that he's turning to such matters, if a touch belatedly. His case studies—from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's insistence on a fleet of hybrid taxis on the street to British firm Marks & Spencer's insistence that going green is Plan A and that "there is no Plan B" —are well-selected, detailed and, in the end, quite inspiring. That inspiration is needed, along with a lot of hard work. A timely, rewarding book.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss chapter one's title, "Where Birds Don't Fly," and the story behind it. How has this bunker mentality affected America's role as an agent for positive change in the global arena?
2. In what ways did Hot, Flat, and Crowded help you understand the history of the energy crisis and high fuel prices, from Carter-era progressivism through the Reagan era and beyond? What aspects of this history surprised you the most?
3. Friedman begins by outlining three trends that capture diverse American attitudes toward energy consumption, climate change, and biodiversity: the "dumb as we wanna be" approach, found even among the political elite; the "subprime nation" mentality of borrowing our way to prosperity; and the optimism of innovators who want to do what's right. Which attitude prevails in your community?
4. Discuss the factors that have shaped the Energy-Climate Era: overcrowding due to population growth and longevity, the flattening of the world due to the rise of personal computers and the Internet, the fall of the Soviet Union, and other developments. How have these factors affected America economically, politically, and otherwise?
5. Chapter two makes the distinction between "fuels from hell" and "fuels from heaven." How is your life fueled by both categories? What would it take to transition completely to "fuels from heaven"?
6. In your community, who has the most obvious case of affluenza? How would these groups fare under Chinese capitalism? Do you agree with Friedman's prediction that Chinese capitalism will signal the death of the European welfare state? What other repercussions will rising affluence within the Chinese middle class be likely to have?
7. Friedman describes his visit to an ultra-green Wal-Mart in McKinney, Texas, and the highly unecological urban sprawl he had to ride through to get there (chapter three). In what way is this a microcosm of America's current approach to Code Green?
8. Friedman's first law of petropolitics states that as the price of oil goes up, the pace of freedom goes down. Why is this so often true? Did this principle apply to prosperity for American oil companies in the early twentieth century? What are the ramifications of Friedman's second law of petropolitics, "You cannot be either an effective foreign policy realist or an effective democracy-promoting idealist without also being an effective energy-saving environmentalist"?
9. In chapter five, Friedman describes the controversy that ensued when meteorologist Heidi Cullen tried to educate her audience about global warming. What is the best way to inform those who tune out such messages, which they believe are tantamount to "politicizing the weather"?
10. What did you discover about the importance of biodiversity by reading Hot, Flat, and Crowded? Why do the efforts of groups such as Conservation International receive less attention than climate-change studies, though Friedman asserts that they are equally crucial?
11. Discuss the proposal in chapter seven that ending "energy poverty" is a key to healing third-world populations, particularly in Africa. What is the best way to balance the need for energy in these regions with the destructive effects of power-supply emissions? What is the best way to overcome the political instability that has stymied the growth of power grids in these locales?
12. At the heart of Friedman's argument is the notion that market demands drive innovation. What would it take to transform America's perception so that the Code Green message is seen as a key to prosperity? How has the image of environmentalism changed during your lifetime?
13. Friedman decries halfhearted attempts at environmental change, comparing them to a party rather than a revolution. At your workplace, in your neighborhood, and within your circle of friends, is it fashionable to go green? Is it taken seriously enough to become a bona fide movement, and then a revolution, where you live?
14. Chapter nine probes the political hurdles that have to be surmounted in order to effect meaningful ecological change. In the book's concluding passages, Friedman even admits to admiring the efficiency with which Chinese autocrats can enact immediate change. What should the role of government be in the face of a looming ecological crisis? How much government control is too much? Could a politician get elected in America by proposing higher fuel taxes and other disincentives for energy consumption?
15. Discuss chapter ten's economic principle that REEFIGDCPEERPC is less than TTCOBCOG (Renewable Energy Ecosystem for Innovating, Generating, and Deploying Clean Power, Energy Efficiency, Resource Productivity, and Conservation is less than the True Cost of Burning Coal, Oil, and Gas). How does this apply to your world? Why has America been slow to believe that REEFIGDCPEERPC is affordable?
16. Are any of the ideas described in Friedman's "futuristic" scenario (such as the Smart Black Box, smart grids, RESUs instead of cars, and energy costs that vary according to time of day) already in the works in your state?
17. Chapter eleven includes a proposal that the alternative-energy movement needs an economic bubble, similar to the one that poured staggering amounts of venture capital into the dot-com industry. In your opinion, why hasn't this happened yet?
18. Friedman describes a number of innovators and persuaders who have made significant inroads in improving conservation efforts, including an Indonesian imam who was persuaded to acknowledge river pollution, New York taxi drivers who now praise hybrid vehicles, and the U.S. military's determination to "outgreen" the enemy. What do these agents of change have in common? What should green revolutionaries learn from these experiences?
19. One of Friedman's conclusions is that "it is much more important to change your leaders than your lightbulbs." How will this play out in upcoming elections at all levels, local, state, and federal? What will the legacy of those elected officials be? How can you help to lead the Code Green revolution?
20. How has the world changed since the publication of Friedman's earlier books? How is the world now experiencing the effects of situations he covered throughout the 1990s? What human impulses (for example, materialism, benevolence) almost form a theme throughout all his books?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood
Helene Cooper, 2008
Simon & Schuster
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743266253
Summary
Helene Cooper is "Congo," a descendant of two Liberian dynasties — traced back to the first ship of freemen that set sail from New York in 1820 to found Monrovia. Helene grew up at Sugar Beach, a twenty-two-room mansion by the sea. Her childhood was filled with servants, flashy cars, a villa in Spain, and a farmhouse up-country. It was also an African childhood, filled with knock foot games and hot pepper soup, heartmen and neegee. When Helene was eight, the Coopers took in a foster child — a common custom among the Liberian elite. Eunice, a Bassa girl, suddenly became known as "Mrs. Cooper's daughter."
For years the Cooper daughters—Helene, her sister Marlene, and Eunice — blissfully enjoyed the trappings of wealth and advantage. But Liberia was like an unwatched pot of water left boiling on the stove. And on April 12, 1980, a group of soldiers staged a coup d'etat, assassinating President William Tolbert and executing his cabinet. The Coopers and the entire Congo class were now the hunted, being imprisoned, shot, tortured, and raped. After a brutal daylight attack by a ragtag crew of soldiers, Helene, Marlene, and their mother fled Sugar Beach, and then Liberia, for America. They left Eunice behind.
A world away, Helene tried to assimilate as an American teenager. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill she found her passion in journalism, eventually becoming a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. She reported from every part of the globe—except Africa—as Liberia descended into war-torn, third-world hell.
In 2003, a near-death experience in Iraq convinced Helene that Liberia — and Eunice — could wait no longer. At once a deeply personal memoir and an examination of a violent and stratified country, The House at Sugar Beach tells of tragedy, forgiveness, and transcendence with unflinching honesty and a survivor's gentle humor. And at its heart, it is a story of Helene Cooper's long voyage home. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1966
• Where—Monrovia, Liberia
• Education—University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Currently—lives in the Washington, D.C., area
Helene Cooper is the diplomatic correspondent for the New York Times. Prior to that assignment, she was the assistant editorial page editor of the New York Times, after twelve years as a reporter and foreign correspondent at the Wall Street Journal. She was born in Monrovia, Liberia, and lives in the Washington, D.C., area. (From the publisher.)
More
Helene Cooper was born in Liberia, the descendant of Elijah Johnson and Randolph Cooper—freed American slaves who were early settlers of Liberia. She is now an American journalist who has been the diplomatic correspondent for the New York Times, based in Washington, D.C., since 2006. She joined the Times in 2004 as assistant editorial page editor.
At the Wall Street Journal, Cooper wrote about trade, politics, race and foreign policy at the Washington and Atlanta bureaus from 1992 to 1997. From 1997 to 1999, she reported on the European Monetary Union from the London bureau. From 1999 to 2002, she was a reporter focusing on international economics; then Washington bureau chief from 2002 to 2004.
Her 2008 memoir, The House at Sugar Beach, largely concerns the Liberian coup of 1980 and its effect on Cooper's family, socially and politically-elite descendants of American freed slaves who colonized the country in the 19th century. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
At its heart, The House at Sugar Beach is a coming-of-age story told with unremitting honesty. With her pedigree and her freedom from internalized racism, Cooper is liberated to enjoy a social universe that is a fluid mix of all things American and African…While Cooper's memoir is mesmerizing in its portrayal of a Liberia rarely witnessed, its description of the psychological devastation—and coping mechanisms—brought on by profound loss is equally captivating.
Caroline Elkins - New York Times
The House at Sugar Beach is her dramatic memoir of Liberia in the years preceding and after its savage revolution in 1980…a brilliant spotlight on a land too long forgotten. Through Cooper, we breathe Liberia's coal smoke and fish-tangy air; we taste its luscious palm butter on rice and hear the charming patter of Liberian English. We trot to church, to the family plantation and to Grandma's house.
Wendy Kann - Washington Post
Among Cooper's aims in becoming a journalist were to reveal the atrocities committed in her native country. With amazing forthrightness, she has done so, delivering an eloquent, if painful, history of the African migratory experience.
Ms. Magazine
This stunning memoir by journalist Helene Cooper relates her early years living at the Sugar Beach estate in Liberia until a coup d'état drove her mother, sister and her to America, where they attempted to fit in. The story is a sprawling, epic tale of struggle and survival in the face of adversity, and Cooper relates it with a genuine and emotional voice. As Cooper's tale unfolds, her intimate reading draws listeners into the family as their journey begins. Cooper may not read with a lot of frills and thrills in her somber voice, but the experience is affecting and indelible.
Publishers Weekly
Cooper, a New York Times diplomatic correspondent, writes of her life as a privileged Liberian ultimately forced to emigrate to the United States. Sometimes humorous, at other times shocking, she is always engaging and informative although not highly reflective. Cooper describes her comfortable life in an elite Liberian family, introducing her relatives, the family servants, and Liberian language, culture, and society. In 1980, when she was a teenager, Samuel Kanyon Doe's coup d'état ended it all. The horrors of those times-the televised executions (whose victims included friends and relatives), the rapes (of her mother and schoolmates), and the recruitment of children as soldiers-are all clearly rendered. The most compelling chapters in Cooper's memoir, which goes up to her revisiting Liberia in 2003, profile a Liberian named Eunice whose tribe was living in the country when Cooper's American ancestors arrived. Her parents took in Eunice as a companion for Helene, and they became lifelong friends. Eunice's life swung from poverty to wealth (with the Coopers) and back to poverty (when the Coopers moved to America); why she did not go with them is not clear. A great book discussion selection; recommended for academic and public libraries.
Tonya Briggs - Library Journal
In her warm, conversational tone, Helene Cooper vividly evokes the sights, sounds, and smells of Liberia for readers as she describes the customs, history, and culture of her native land.... Like the best nonfiction—and journalism—Cooper’s gripping coming-of-age story enlightens and inspires, often reading like a novel. In sum, it is a very personal and honest memoir from a gifted writer.
Bookmarks Magazine
A contemplative memoir of a privileged life in a poor place. The house of the title stood, and perhaps still stands, 11 miles from Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. Born there in 1966, New York Times special correspondent Cooper (whose beat is now Condoleezza Rice) had the run of that "perfect and perfectly grand paradise," with its five bedrooms and three bathrooms and baby grand piano, all "protected from the ravages of West African squalor and poverty by central air-conditioning, strategically placed coconut trees, and a private water well." Yet, though perched on a hill above the rest, the house was no fortress. As Cooper writes, it was a magnet for rogues-burglars, that is, as distinct from thieves, who "worked for the government and stole money from the public treasury." Lighter-skinned than many of her compatriots, Cooper was also an "Honorable," one of the ethnic and social elite who lorded it over the poorer "Country" people of Liberia. A Country man with a Harvard doctorate, notes the author, would still rank below an Honorable "with a two-bit degree from some community college in Memphis, Tennessee." In childhood games, it was the Honorables who got to shoot the Country people, and the Country people who got to play dead. Such are the perfect ingredients for a civil war, and civil war is what came. When it did, led by Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe, members of Cooper's family were killed, her mother raped, an adopted sister lost, her family scattered and sent into exile in America. These terrible events occur at the book's midpoint. What remains-rendered with aching nostalgia and wonderful language ("Wartime come, when they be evacuating people, you will be glad I not try into get on no helicopter in heels")—is a voyage of return, through which the author seeks to recover the past and to find that missing sister, even as the war deepens over the years to come. Elegant and eloquent, and full of news from places about which we know too little.
Kirkus Reviews
Book Club Discussion Questions
1. The first sentence of Helene Cooper's memoir is, "This is a story about rogues." Did you find this statement to be true? What sort of rogues did Helene fear she would encounter in Liberia?
2. Why do you think Helene chose to title her memoir The House at Sugar Beach even though she spent only seven years of her life there? What about the house is metaphorical for her entire childhood? Her entire life?
3. Discuss the role of religion in Helene's childhood. When did she pray? For what did she pray?
4. Throughout her childhood in Liberia Helene wishes to become a "been-to." When she moved to Knoxville in 1980 it "seemed like a place where [she] was trapped, prison far from home." How does she eventually make the States seem more like home?
5. Discuss Helene's relationship with Eunice in the house at Sugar Beach. What were some of the experiences they shared that made it clear that Eunice was more than a "live-in playmate"? How does the relationship evolve over the course of their lives?
6. Why do you think Helene and her sisters played, "when war time come"? Did Helene paint anything about the national unrest going on in Liberia? Did circumstances or events she experienced in her early life portend war?
7. Helene spends her childhood fearing seemingly harmless entities like negee and heartmen. Then we learn that her classmate Richard was indeed chased by a heartman, and only narrowly escaped. How did it change your understanding of the young Helene to learn that her fears were not unfounded? What forms have the imaginary boogiemen of your youth taken in adulthood?
8. Discuss the distinction between the native Liberiansand the "Congo people." How did you react to Helene's cousin CeRue saying, "don't call me Congo, my grandma da Vai woman"? What does the national observance of Matilda Newport Day say about the relationship between native Liberians and Congo people? When war hit Liberia how did the distinctions become even more evident? Contrarily, how were the lines further blurred?
9. How did the mixing in of Liberian history help you to contextualize Helene's story? What about her story and the way she told it was universal?
10. Discuss Lah's rape. Do you admire her for what she did to protect the girls? She reports that the last thing the soldiers said to her before they raped her was, "You think the Americans are going to come and help you? Well, they back us." As an American, how did you react to this accusation?
11. Why do you think Helene decided to intersperse her articles with those being written about Liberia in Chapter 23? What effect did this have? Do you think she felt burdened by her homeland? Or guilty about her life as a journalist in the States?
12. Discuss the role of men in Helene's life. How did the Liberian cultural view of marriage affect the Cooper family? In what ways was Helene's father an ideal father figure? How did he let her down?
13. How does Helene's reunion with Eunice in the final chapter put her life in the States into perspective? How do you think Helene might have fared had she not left Liberia when the war began?
14. How does Helene's memoir differ from others you have read? Which stories will stay with you? What do you wish she had expanded on?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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A House in the Sky
Amanda Lindhout (with Sara Corbett), 2013
Scribner
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451645613
Summary
The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most beautiful and remote places, its most imperiled and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity—an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace.
As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress in Calgary, Alberta, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan.
In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—“the most dangerous place on earth.” On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road.
Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda converts to Islam as a survival tactic, receives “wife lessons” from one of her captors, and risks a daring escape. Moved between a series of abandoned houses in the desert, she survives on memory—every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity—and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark, being tortured.
Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is the searingly intimate story of an intrepid young woman and her search for compassion in the face of unimaginable adversity. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth— June 12, 1981
• Where—Alberta, Canada
• Education—Coady International Institute at
St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia
• Currently—lives in Sylvan Lake, Alberta
Amanda Lindhout is a Canadian humanitarian and journalist. In 2008, she and members of her entourage were kidnapped by Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia. She was released 15 months later on November 25, 2009, and has since embarked on a philanthropic career.
At the age of 24, Lindhout quit her job as a cocktail waitress to become a journalist. She used her salary from the bar she worked at to finance reporting trips to various conflict zones around the world. Lindhout began her new journalism career in Afghanistan, arriving in the capital Kabul in May 2007. She later moved on to an assignment in Bagdhad, Iraq in 2008, where she worked on a freelance basis for Iran's Press TV.
While in Iraq, Lindhout was kidnapped in Sadr City. She was released several hours later, after paying a ransom to her abductors.
Somalia abduction
On August 23, 2008, two days after having arrived in Mogadishu, Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan, a 37-year-old freelance Australian photojournalist from Brisbane, were kidnapped along with their Somali translator, Abdifatah Mohammed Elmi, their driver, Mahad Isse, and a driver from the Shamo Hotel, Marwali. They were on their way to conduct interviews at an IDP camp when they were stopped by gunmen. The abductors were teenage insurgents from the Hizbul Islam fundamentalist group.
On September 17, Al Jazeera featured footage of Lindhout and Brennan in captivity surrounded by gunmen. On October 13, 2008, the kidnappers demanded a ransom of $2.5 million (US currency) by October 28. On February 23, 2009, the Canadian Association of Journalists urged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to help secure the release of Lindhout and Khadija Abdul Qahaar, a Canadian woman who was kidnapped in November.
Elmi and the two drivers were released on January 15, 2009. The kidnappers later lowered the ransom demand to $1 million.
On June 10, 2009, CTV News received a phone call from a tearful Lindhout who seemed to be reading a statement: "My name is Amanda Lindhout and I am a Canadian citizen and I've been held hostage by gunmen in Somalia for nearly 10 months. I'm in a desperate situation. I'm being kept in a dark, windowless, room in chains without any clean drinking water and little or no food. I've been very sick for months without any medicine.... I love my country and want to live to see it again. Without food or medicine, I will die here."
On November 25, 2009, after 460 days as a hostage, Lindhout was released following a ransom payment made by her family. She was hospitalized in Nairobi for two weeks and treated for acute malnourishment.
Memoir
In 2013, Lindhout published A House In The Sky, her memoir co-written with journalist Sara Corbett, recounting her experience as a hostage. She indicated in the book that her motive for traveling to Somalia in the midst of an insurgency was the dearth of competition from other journalists covering the region, as well as the possibility of documenting unique human interest stories.
Once held hostage, she alleged that she and Brennan were forcibly separated since they were not married, and that she was subsequently repeatedly tortured and raped by her teenage captors. It was also reported that Lindhout had given birth while in captivity, though she neither confirmed nor denied the allegation, only stating that she had endured grave atrocities that she would never reveal. Additionally, Lindhout asserted that she and Brennan had converted to Islam in order to both appease their abductors and make life easier for themselves.
Humanitarianism
After her release, Lindhout studied Development Leadership at the Coady International Institute at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. She has become a much sought after speaker on the topics of forgiveness, compassion, social responsibility and women's rights.
In 2009, Lindhout spoke alongside Eckhart Tolle, best-selling author of The Power of Now, in Vancouver, Canada, on the power of forgiveness.
In 2010 Lindhout addressed the United Nations Association in Ottawa, Canada, about women's rights.
In July 2010 Google Ideas had Lindhout moderate a panel of former violent extremists at the Summit Against Violent Extremism in Dublin, Ireland. The largest gathering of former violent extremists to ever take place, the event was organized by Google, the Council of Foreign Relations, and the Tribeca Film Festival.
Lindhout moderated a panel which included a former Somali militant with Al-Shabaab, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Toronto Star reporter Michelle Shepard observed the tension on stage:
The only detectable moment came during a panel moderated by Amanda Lindhout, the Canadian journalist who was held hostage in Somalia for 460 days, and Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who left Toronto to fight with Al Shabab during Ethiopia’s invasion in 2008.
Lindhout had asked Mohamed how he justified the deaths and injuries of civilians while a part of the Somali group, but instead he spoke of the political motivations as to why he went to fight with the Shabab.
The Global Enrichment Foundation
In 2010, Lindhout founded the Global Enrichment Foundation in order to create more opportunities in Somalia by offering university scholarships to women. Lindhout currently serves as the organization's executive director, with Ahmed Hussen, president of the Canadian Somali Congress, acting as the Fund's co-director. Aurala Warsame, a Somali researcher at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, supervises the program and vetted the first applicants.
In response to why—despite her ordeal—she established the Foundation, Lindhout told the CBC's The National,
You can very easily go into anger and bitterness and revenge thoughts and resentment and 'Why me?'[...] Because I had something very, very large and very painful to forgive, and by choosing to do that, I was able to put into place my vision, which was making Somalia a better place[...] I've never questioned whether or not it was the right thing to do[...] What else to do after the experience that I had, than something like this?
In conjunction with various private university institutions across Somalia, the GEF's Somali Women's Scholarship Program (SWSP) offers higher education opportunities to women in Somalia on a contribution basis. Lindhout's foundation aims to annually send 100 women in the country to university for the next four years, and is sponsoring tertiary education for 36 women, who are expected to go one to become teachers, doctors, environmentalists and engineers, among other professions. The GEF also started the SHE WILL micro-loan initiative to financially empower widows and other Somali women.
In response to the 2011 Eastern Africa drought, the GEF put into motion its Convoy for Hope program. The initiative received a $1 million USD donation from the Chobani Yoghurt company. As part of the GEF, teachers with the Memorial Composite also raised funds to sponsor the Sankaroos women's basketball team of Abaarso School in Somalia, and a group of high school students in Alberta raised over $23,000 to support the GEF's educational work.
In 2012, Lindhout was featured as the face of jewelry company Hillberg & Berk's spring/summer 2012 'Najo Rajo' Collection of Hope. The Regina, Saskatchewan based company donated $15,000 towards the Global Enrichment Foundation's Somali Women's Scholarship Program for Amanda's participation.
Return to Africa
Lindhout's work for the Global Enrichment Foundation eventually drew her back to Somalia in 2011. Accompanied by CBC's The National, who filmed a documentary about her titled Return To Africa, Lindhout visited the Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya to research a $60 million educational project for children in the camp, many of whom fled the conflict in southern Somalia. Lindhout attempted to reconcile her fear of abduction with her deep commitment to helping the asylum seekers.
Her efforts, however, were criticized by Badu Katelo, Kenya's commissioner for refugees, who suggested that the best solution to the issue was through military intervention in Somalia's conflict zones. Katelo characterized Lindhout's initiative as "small."
It's a drop in the ocean. It's not anything to rely on to bring peace to Somalia. I think if education was to bring peace in Somalia, then it should've happened a long time ago because in 1991, when refugees came here, they were all educated". Lindhout responded that "to anyone who's questioning us right now, that's fine[...] That's fair. It is an incredibly challenging environment to work in, but time will tell the story.
On August 4, 2011, Lindhout travelled back to Somalia for the first time since her captivity. Leading a large convoy carrying food aid for 14,000 people in the southern Somalia town of Dobley, she was welcomed by Somalia's Transitional Federal Government. Lindhout described the trip as also "an opportunity for me to look at that fear and maybe let it go—this fear that I have been carrying around with me for some time." Her Convoys For Hope project has continued to provided relief and expects to assist 300,000 more people.
Awards and honours
In March 2012, Lindhout accepted an invitation from former President of the United States Bill Clinton to participate on a panel at the annual Clinton Global Initiative University about her humanitarian work in the Horn of Africa with the Global Enrichment Foundation.
That same year Amanda was photographed for the book 100 Making a Difference by celebrity photographer John Russo, alongside such public figures as Sophia Loren, Prince Edward, Michelle Obama and Al Gore. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/17/2013.)
Co-author
Sara Corbett is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. Her work has also appeared in National Geographic; Elle; Outside; O, The Oprah Magazine; Esquire; and Mother Jones.
Book Reviews
[Lindhout's] tale, exquisitely told with her co-author, Sara Corbett…is much more than a gonzo adventure tale gone awry—it's a young woman's harrowing coming-of-age story and an extraordinary narrative of forgiveness and spiritual triumph…There's no self-pity or grandiosity in these pages. The rage and self-hatred born out of bad decisions and bad luck have long since burned into a clear-hearted attempt to record the cruelties Lindhout endured…In the cleanest prose, she and Corbett allow events both horrific and absurd…to unfold on their own. Lindhout's resilience transforms the story from a litany of horrors into a humbling encounter with the human spirit.
Eliza Griswold - New York Times Book Review
Canadian journalist Lindhout gives a well-honed, harrowing account of her 459-day captivity at the hands of Somali Islamist rebels.... [S]he eventually converted to Islam (“They can’t kill us if we convert,” she told Nigel), was separated from Nigel, and was raped and tortured.... She and Nigel miraculously survived.
Publishers Weekly
[W]hen she was finally released, Lindhout responded by founding the Global Enrichment Foundation to help the people of Somalia—a fact she mentions briefly in an entirely un-self-congratulatory epilog. [A] remarkably keen-eyed, honest, and radiant memoir, written with accomplished journalist Corbett.... [T]here's less anger here than thoughtful observation and the desire that readers understand. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal
With the assistance of New York Times Magazine writer Corbett, Lindhout, who was held hostage in Somalia for more than a year, chronicles her harrowing ordeal and how she found the moral strength to survive.... Her guards were young Muslim extremists, but their motive was financial...a get-rich scheme that backfired.... A vivid, gut-wrenching, beautifully written, memorable book.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Above all else, Amanda identifies herself as a traveler, an identity born out of her childhood obsession with National Geographic. Why do you think National Geographic had such a large impact on her? What led Amanda to make the leap from the legions of armchair travelers into someone whose life revolved around her journeys?
2. On page 14, Amanda discusses sneaking into an amusement park after dark, with a childhood friend. She writes, “…we allowed ourselves to relax and feel giddy, forgetting that it was dark and we were trespassing, forgetting everything that scared or haunted us…” How does this childhood memory reflect Amanda’s experience traveling to foreign countries and unknown places? Is part of the thrill of travel related to risk?
3. Amanda’s first trip, to South America, initially disappoints her because Caracas doesn’t “feel foreign”. What does this demonstrate about the different ways people travel? As she leaves Caracas and ventures into the kind of journey she’ll come to crave, what changes for her?
4. During this trip to South America, Amanda confronts the experience of venturing off the beaten path, and defines the feeling of the frontier as “a knifepoint between elation and terror” (p. 36). How will this balance come to define her travels?
5. The memory of cutting her friend Kelly’s hair will become one of the things that sustains Amanda throughout her captivity. Why do you think this memory sticks with her?
6. In Dhaka, Amanda experiences what she sees as the “beautiful” side of Islam, but also confronts the dangers inherent in being a solo female traveler in that particular place. How does this dichotomy influence her experiences in captivity?
7. On page 67, Amanda quotes Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari, “All news out of Africa is bad. It made me want to go there…” Both Nigel and Amanda understand this sentiment, and it’s partially what draws them to Somalia. What do you make of the idea that bad news would bring someone to a place?
8. Amanda’s time in captivity is spent trying to negotiate the best way to stay alive—she vacillates between trying to understand and connect with her captors, through things like converting to Islam, and resistance like trying to escape. Why do you think Amanda and Nigel have such different takes how to best manage their captivity? What do you think are some of the advantages and disadvantages of each method?
9. When Amanda overhears a report of their capture on the radio, she writes of the feeling as “crushing. It was confirmation that our troubles were both real and deep” (p. 146). Why do you think this affects her so powerfully?
10. When Amanda is given an English-language Koran, it is the beginning of her “conversion” to Islam. How does Amanda’s relationship with Islam change throughout her time in captivity? As she reads the Koran and begins to understand it, and thus her captors, better, how does her awareness of her situation change?
11. Amanda reflects throughout the book on the strangeness of the relationships with her captors—even though they were imprisoning her, she attempted to feel compassion and understanding for them. Were you surprised that this was possible? Discuss Amanda’s relationships with Jamal, Ali, Adam, and the rest.
12. Nigel and Amanda’s relationship as fellow captives is at times extremely difficult. Discuss their different ways of coping. How did you feel when Nigel told Amanda to “just take this one”? Did you blame Nigel?
13. Throughout the book, and in particular during her captivity, Amanda uses mantras to calm herself. What does she find so effective about repeating simple words and phrases? Why do you think this kind of practice can be soothing?
14. On pages 220-221, Amanda writes about what being alone does to her mind, and refers to a kind of psychic energy that seemed insane before her captivity, but became more believable. What did you make of her account in your reading? Have you ever experienced this kind of psychic energy?
15. Discuss Amanda’s “house in the sky” (p. 292). How does this dream help her maintain hope, and survive?
16. Of writing notes to Nigel, Amanda says “…writing helped me to believe it. It staked some claim on the truth (p. 226)”. How does this idea relate to Amanda’s decision to write a book about her experience? How does Amanda’s relationship with writing evolve over her time in captivity (see also p. 364)?
17. How did reading A House in the Sky change your understanding of the role fundamentalist religion can play in a war-torn society? How did it change your perception of Somalia? What surprised you most in your reading?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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How to Be a Woman
Caitlin Moran, 2012
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062124296
Summary
Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven't been burned as witches since 1727, life isn't exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get Brazilians? Why do bras hurt? Why the incessant talk about babies? And do men secretly hate them?
Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women's lives with laugh-out-loud funny scenes from her own, from the riot of adolescence to her development as a writer, wife, and mother. With rapier wit, Moran slices right to the truth—whether it's about the workplace, strip clubs, love, fat, abortion, popular entertainment, or children—to jump-start a new conversation about feminism. With humor, insight, and verve, How To Be a Woman lays bare the reasons why female rights and empowerment are essential issues not only for women today but also for society itself. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 5, 1975
• Where—Brighton, UK
• Education—N/A
• Awards—British Press Award (3), Irish Book Award
• Currently—N/A
Caitlin Moran is a British broadcaster, TV critic and columnist at The Times, where she writes three columns a week: one for the Saturday Magazine, a TV review column, and the satirical Friday column "Celebrity Watch". Moran is British Press Awards (BPA) Columnist of the Year for 2010, and both BPA Critic of the Year 2011, and Interviewer of the Year 2011.
Early Life and Career
Moran's Irish-Catholic father is a one-time "drummer and psychedelic rock pioneer" who became "confined to the sofa by osteoarthritis". She is the eldest of 8 children and has four sisters and three brothers. She was born in Brighton and then lived in a three bedroom council house in Wolverhampton with her parents and siblings. She attended Springdale Junior School and was then educated at home from the age of 11, having attended secondary school for only three weeks.
At the age of 13 in October 1988 she won a Dillons young readers' contest for an essay on Why I Like Books and was awarded £250 of book tokens. At the age of 15, she won The Observer's Young Reporter of the Year. She began her career as a journalist for Melody Maker, the weekly music publication, at the age of 16. Moran also wrote a novel called The Chronicles of Narmo at the age of 16, inspired by having been part of a home-schooled family. In 1992 she launched her television career, hosting the Channel 4 music show Naked City, which ran for two series and featured a number of then up-and-coming British bands such as Blur, Manic Street Preachers, and the Boo Radleys. Johnny Vaughan co-presented with her on Naked City.
In December 1999, Moran married The Times rock critic Peter Paphides in Coventry and the couple have two daughters born in 2001 and 2003.
In 2011, Harper Perennial published Moran's book How To Be a Woman in the UK. As of July 2012, it had sold over 400,000 copies in 16 countries.
On 13 July 2012, Moran became a Fellow of Aberystwyth University. (Adapted from Wikipeida.)
Book Reviews
...Remind[s] us, in this era of manufactured outrage, what a truly great rant should look like: rude, energetic and spinning off now and then into jubilant absurdity…None of what she says is new, and it's written in a style that, inevitably, tips here and there from larky into dashed off…But this is to miss the point. The book is so joyful, so free of the piety that has felled many a worthier title and—this is its real value—so liable to find readers who in a million years wouldn't identify with Susan Faludi, that it feels like a rare case of winning the argument…. How to Be a Woman is a glorious, timely stand against sexism so ingrained we barely even notice it.
Emma Brockes - New York Times
Moran’s frank wit is appealing.
The New Yorker
Totally brilliant.
Independent (UK)
Scathingly funny…. Moran makes us think about femininity and feminism, and whether you agree or not, she’s fascinating.
People
Bravely and brilliantly weaves personal anecdotes and cutting insight into a book that is at once instructional, confessional, and a call for change…. Moran shifts effortlessly between her own hilarious experiences and larger questions about women’s place in the modern world.
Interview Magazine
The UK’s answer to Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one.
Marie Claire
Half-memoir, half-polemic, and entirely necessary.
Elle (UK)
Part memoir, part postmodern feminist rant, this award-winning British TV critic and celebrity writer brings her ingeniously funny views to the States. Moran’s journey into womanhood begins on her 13th birthday when boys throw rocks at her 182-pound body, and her only friend, her sister Caz, hands her a homemade card reminding her to please turn 18 or die soon so Caz can inherit her bedroom. Always resourceful—as the eldest of eight children from Wolverhampton—the author embarrasses herself often enough to become an authority on how to masturbate; name one’s breasts; and forgo a Brazilian bikini wax. She doesn’t politicize feminism; she humanizes it. Everyone, she writes, is automatically an F-word if they own a vagina and want “to be in charge of it.” Empowering women is as easy as saying—without reservation—the word “fat” and filling our handbags with necessities like a safety pin, biscuit, and “something that can absorb huge amounts of liquid.” Beneath the laugh-out-loud humor is genuine insight about the blessings of having—or not having—children. With brutal honesty, she explains why she chose to have an abortion after birthing two healthy daughters with her longtime husband, Pete. Her story is as touching as it is timely. In her brilliant, original voice, Moran successfully entertains and enlightens her audience with hard-won wisdom and wit.
Publishers Weekly
A spirited memoir/manifesto that dares readers to "stand on a chair and shout ‘I AM A FEMINIST.' " With equal amounts snarky brio and righteous anger, Moran brings the discussion of contemporary women's rights down from the ivory tower and into the mainstream.... While some American readers may struggle with the British references and slang, they will find their efforts rewarded. Rapturously irreverent, this book should kick-start plenty of useful discussions.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart).
1. What do you think of the premise of How To Be a Woman—that the blacksliding of feminist principles has a negative impact on women and society as a whole? Does Moran's argument resonate with you? Or is the author exaggerating simply to make a point?
2. Talk about the specific ways in which Moran sees the current trend toward anti-feminism.
3. Why has Moran written this book? What does she envision for her daughters? If you have daughters...what do you envision for them?
4. Moran cites a poll showing that only 29% of American women consider themselves feminists. Why do contemporary women disavow feminism? Do you consider yourself a feminist? If you have daughters, do they?
5. What do today's younger women think feminism was—and is—about? Are they mistaken, or correct, in their dismissal of the movement's precepts?
6. How would you describe the book's tone—angry, snarky, funny, pious, joyful?
7. Moran asks: "Do you have a vagina? Do you want to be in charge of it?" If you say "Yes" to both, "Congratulations! You're a feminist.'" What do you think of her question...and her conclusion? Doesn't her conclusion end up supporting one of the very arguments she rejects—that strip clubs actually empower to women because they're taking charge of their sexuality?
8. What does Moran suggest about the pioneers of feminism back in the 1960s, particularly Germaine Greer?
9. Moran also takes some decidedly "unfeminist" views, particularly on abortion. Talk about her abortion stance—do you agree or disagree? Did you find the account of her abortion overly graphic?
10. Moran tells us that "when a woman says 'I have nothing to wear!' what she really means is, "There's nothing here for who I'm supposed to be today.'" She says a woman's wardrobe is more a matter of duty than personal taste. Do you agree? Or not.
11. What do you feel about women's fashion—stilletos? Why do women wear them—for themselves or for men?
12. Overall, what do you think of Moran's book? Has it altered your ideas of feminism?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
How to Be an Antiracist
Ibram X. Kendi, 2019
Random House
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525509288
Summary
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other.
At it's core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types.
Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves.
In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilites—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their posionous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.
Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 13, 1982
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Florida A & M; Ph.D., Temple University
• Awards—National Book Award
• Currently—lives in Wasihngton, D.C.
Ibram X. Kendi is a New York Times bestselling author and the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University.
A professor of history and international relations and a frequent public speaker, Kendi is a columnist at The Atlantic. He is the author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and The Black Campus Movement, which won the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize.
Kendi lives in Washington, D.C. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A]nother stunner of a book that is in some ways [Kendi's] previous work’s natural counterpart…. Kendi offers up a wrenching examination of the evolution of his [own racism]…. While acknowledging the reality of racism in contemporary life, Kendi wants to free us from using tainted ideas to stigmatize people and support policies that define others as inferior…. What emerges from these insights is the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind, a confessional of self-examination that may, in fact, be our best chance to free ourselves from our national nightmare.
New York Times Book Review
Kendi… displays an admirable independence and candor. Though he situates himself far to the left among black activist intellectuals, he is unafraid to say things likely to singe the sensibilities of many of his potential followers…. Kendi’s book suffers, alas, from major flaws.… In the most obtuse pages, Kendi condemns standardized testing, disparages the significance of what should be alarming racial patterns in academic achievement gaps…. His polemic is littered with misleading red herrings, as when he says that implicit in the idea of academic achievement gaps, as measured by statistical instruments like test scores and dropout rates, is a conviction that the qualities measured by such criteria constitute the only form of academic "achievement’'… Despite misgivings about various features of How to Be an Antiracist, we should fervently hope to see more work from Kendi in the months and years to come.
Washington Post
(Starred review) [A] boldly articulated, historically informed explanation of what exactly racist ideas and thinking are…. His prose is thoughtful, sincere, and polished. This powerful book will spark many conversations.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) [A] sharp blend of social commentary and memoir…. [Kendi offers] potent explorations of race, gender, colorism, and more… [and] his willingness to turn the lens on himself marks him as a courageous activist, leading the way to a more equitable society.
Library Journal
[S]ome terms are confusing and feel labored…. And his descriptions of his life… seem structured to set himself up as proof of his sociological declaratives…. Kendi does… inspire readers to consider whether ignorance or self-interest drives racist policies into reality.
Booklist
(Starred review) Kendi methodically examines racism through numerous lenses: power, biology, ethnicity, body, culture, and so forth…. This unsparing honesty helps readers, both white and people of color, navigate this difficult intellectual territory. Not an easy read but an essential one.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us …
Michael Pollan, 2018
Penguin Publishing
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594204227
Summary
A brilliant and brave investigation into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs—and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences
When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book.
But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third.
Thus began a singular adventure into various altered states of consciousness, along with a dive deep into both the latest brain science and the thriving underground community of psychedelic therapists.
Pollan sifts the historical record to separate the truth about these mysterious drugs from the myths that have surrounded them since the 1960s, when a handful of psychedelic evangelists inadvertently catalyzed a powerful backlash against what was then a promising field of research.
A unique and elegant blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, How to Change Your Mind is a triumph of participatory journalism. By turns dazzling and edifying, it is the gripping account of a journey to an exciting and unexpected new frontier in our understanding of the mind, the self, and our place in the world.
The true subject of Pollan's "mental travelogue" is not just psychedelic drugs but also the eternal puzzle of human consciousness and how, in a world that offers us both suffering and joy, we can do our best to be fully present and find meaning in our lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 6, 1955
• Where—Raised in Long Island, New York, USA
• Education—N/A
• Awards—California Book Award; James Beard Award, 2000 and 2006; Reuters-IUCN Global Award-Environmental Journalism.
• Currently—lives in Berkeley, California
Few writers have done more to revitalize our national conversation about food and eating than Michael Pollan, an award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose witty, offbeat nonfiction shines an illuminating spotlight on various aspects of agriculture, the food chain, and man's place in the natural world
Pollan's first book, Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (1991), was selected by the American Horticultural Society as one of the 75 best books ever written about gardening. But it was Botany of Desire, published a full decade later, that put him on the map. A fascinating look at the interconnected evolution of plants and people, Botany... was one of the surprise bestsellers of 2001. Five years later, Pollan produced The Omnivore's Dilemma, a delightful, compulsively readable "ecology of eating" that was named one the ten best books of the year by the New York Times and Washington Post. And in 2008, came In Defense of Food.
A professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, Pollan is a former executive editor for Harper's and a contributing writer for the New York Times, where he continues to examine the fascinating intersections between science and culture. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
How to Change Your Mind is a calm survey of the past, present and future. A book about a blurry subject, it is cleareyed and assured. Pollan is not the most obvious guide for such a journey. He is, to judge from his self-reporting, a giant square.… [But] Pollan's initial skepticism and general lack of hipness work wonders for the material. The problem with more enthusiastic or even hallucinatory writers on the subject is that they just compound the zaniness at the heart of the thing; it's all too much of the same tone, like having George Will walk you through the tax code. Like another best-selling Michael (Lewis), Pollan keeps you turning the pages even through his wonkiest stretches.
John Williams - New York Times
As is to be expected of a nonfiction writer of his caliber, Pollan makes the story of the rise and fall and rise of psychedelic drug research gripping and surprising. He also reminds readers that excitement around any purportedly groundbreaking substance tends to dim as studies widen.… Where Pollan truly shines is in his exploration of the mysticism and spirituality of psychedelic experiences.… Michael Pollan, somehow predictably, does the impossible: He makes losing your mind sound like the sanest thing a person could do.
Tom Bissell - New York Times Book Review
Pollan’s deeply researched chronicle will enlighten those who think of psychedelics chiefly as a kind of punchline to a joke about the Woodstock generation and hearten the growing number who view them as a potential antidote to our often stubbornly narrow minds.… [E]ngaging and informative.
Boston Globe
Sweeping and often thrilling…. It is to Pollan’s credit that, while he ranks among the best of science writers, he’s willing, when necessary, to abandon that genre’s fixation on materialist explanation as the only path to understanding. One of the book’s important messages is that the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, for the dying or seriously ill, can’t be separated from the mystical experiences to which they give rise.
Guardian
Journalist Michael Pollan explored psychoactive plants in The Botany of Desire (2001). In this bold, intriguing study, he delves further…Pollan even ‘shakes the snow globe’ himself, chemically self-experimenting in the spirit of psychologist William James, who speculated about the wilder shores of consciousness more than a century ago.
Nature, International Journal of Science
Known for his writing on plants and food, Michael Pollan… brings all the curiosity and skepticism for which he is well known to a decidedly different topic.… How to Change Your Mind beautifully updates and synthesizes the science of psychedelics, with a highly personalized touch.
Science
Amid new scientific interest in the potential healing properties of psychedelic drugs, Pollan…sets about researching their history—and giving them a (supervised!) try himself. He came away impressed by their promise in treating addiction and depression—and with his mind expanded. Yours will be too.
People
[Starred review] [A] brilliant history of psychedelics across cultures and generations…. This nuanced and sophisticated exploration, which asks big questions about meaning-making and spiritual experience, is thought-provoking and eminently readable.
Publishers Weekly
Before Timothy Leary… scientists and doctors saw… psychedelics as tremendous new tools for understanding consciousness. Now, these back-burnered drugs are proving effective in treating such disorders as PTSD and depression.
Library Journal
[Starred review] Pollan’s…elucidating and enthralling inquiry combines fascinating and significant history with daring and resonant reportage and memoir, and looks forward to a new open-mindedness toward psychedelics and the benefits of diverse forms of consciousness.
Booklist
(Starred review) The author's evenhanded but generally positive approach shoos away scaremongering while fully recognizing that we're out in the tall grass….A trip well worth taking, eye-opening and even mind-blowing.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Talking Points to help start a discussion for HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND … then take off on your own:
1. Why are so many of us intent on escaping our own consciousness? Consider Author Michael Pollan's statement that "if everyday waking consciousness [is] but one of several possible ways to construct the world, then perhaps there is value in cultivating a great amount of… neural diversity." What does Pollan mean—how does consciousness shape our views of the world around us? And what is neural diversity?
2. Follow-up to Question 1: Pollan writes that children approach reality with the wide-eyed "astonishment of an adult on psychedelics." Is he serious? What is he referring to?
3. Other than LSD or mushrooms, Pollan says we can also achieve neural diversity through meditation and prayer. Have you ever had a transcendent experience through either of those means?
4. After psychoactive drugs leave the body and users come off the trip, what kinds of residual effects do many users continue to experience?
5. Have you ever taken psychoactive drugs (LSD, mesc, "shrooms")? If not, do you have an interest in trying them now that you've read Pollan's book?
6. Prior to reading Pollan's account, what were your views on Timothy Leary and the 60s "turn on, tune in, drop out" culture. If you are, say, in your sixties or older, did you consider Leary a boundary-breaking hero … a self-promoter … a dangerous pied piper … a self-indulgent egotist … a daring experimenter?
7. How did Leary derail scientific study of LSD? Would it be fair to say that had Leary's counter-culture not turned LSD into a bad word, we might already be benefiting—right now—from the drug's ability to offer relief from suffering? Or is that leveling unfair blame at Leary?
8. In terms of LSD's medicinal benefits, what have scientists discovered? What do they see as the drug's potential?
9. Talk about how psychoactive drugs work in the brain. Are you able to grasp Pollan's explanations; is the writing lucid enough to cut through the scientific technicalities? Or were you stumped?
10. The author used himself as a guinnea pig. How did he experience the drugs?
11. Your opinion: LSD—good thing … or bad thing?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton
Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes, 2014
Crown Publishing
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780804136754
Summary
The mesmerizing story of Hillary Clinton's political rebirth, based on eyewitness accounts from deep inside her inner circle.
Hillary Clinton’s surprising defeat in the 2008 Democratic primary brought her to the nadir of her political career, vanquished by a much younger opponent whose message of change and cutting-edge tech team ran circles around her stodgy campaign. And yet, six years later, she has reemerged as an even more powerful and influential figure, a formidable stateswoman and the presumed front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, marking one of the great political comebacks in history.
The story of Hillary’s phoenixlike rise is at the heart of HRC, a riveting political biography that journeys into the heart of “Hillaryland” to discover a brilliant strategist at work. Masterfully unfolded by Politico’s Jonathan Allen and The Hill’s Amie Parnes from more than two hundred top-access interviews with Hillary’s intimates, colleagues, supporters, and enemies, HRC portrays a seasoned operator who negotiates political and diplomatic worlds with equal savvy.
Loathed by the Obama team in the wake of the primary, Hillary worked to become the president’s greatest ally, their fates intertwined in the work of reestablishing America on the world stage. HRC puts readers in the room with Hillary during the most intense and pivotal moments of this era, as she mulls the president-elect’s offer to join the administration, pulls the strings to build a coalition for his war against Libya, and scrambles to deal with the fallout from the terrible events in Benghazi—all while keeping one eye focused on 2016.
HRC offers a rare look inside the merciless Clinton political machine, as Bill Clinton handled the messy business of avenging Hillary’s primary loss while she tried to remain above the partisan fray. Exploring her friendships and alliances with Robert Gates, David Petraeus, Leon Panetta, Joe Biden, and the president himself, Allen and Parnes show how Hillary fundamentally transformed the State Department through the force of her celebrity and her unparalleled knowledge of how power works in Washington.
Filled with deep reporting and immersive storytelling, this remarkable portrait of the most important female politician in American history is an essential inside look at the woman who may be our next president. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
JONATHAN ALLEN covers the White House and the 2016 presidential campaign for Bloomberg News. An award-winning reporter, he has also written extensively about Congress and national politics, and he appears frequently as a political analyst on national television news programs. He lives on Capitol Hill with his wife, Stephanie, and their children, Asher and Emma. (From the publisher.)
AMIE PARNES is the White House correspondent for The Hill newspaper in Washington, where she covers the Obama Administration. A ten-year veteran of political journalism, she traveled with the Clinton, Obama and McCain campaigns while covering the 2008 presidential race for Politico. She appears frequently on MSNBC and has also been featured on CNN, Fox News and other networks. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
H R C begins with a chapter about what the authors call “Hillary’s Hit List,” which seems meant to play into dark-side narratives from the Whitewater days that emphasized what reporters saw as her penchant for blaming enemies for her travails and those of her husband. But the book gradually builds into a largely sympathetic portrait of Mrs. Clinton as a smart and tireless A student, supportive of her teammates, loyal to President Obama and skilled at navigating the political and bureaucratic minefields of Washington.... [HRC] provides useful context and intelligent analysis, and a highly readable account of her tenure at Foggy Bottom... pumped full of colorful you-are-there details.
Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Deeply reported and ably written by journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, the book is a step-by-step recounting of Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, but it’s also a revealing window into the le Carre-like layers of intrigue that develop when a celebrity politician who is married to another celebrity politician loses to yet another celebrity politician, and goes on to serve the politician who defeated her.... Hillary’s personality does not emerge vividly in the book, possibly because she does not appear to have given the authors much access. But the assessment of her tenure feels fair, and after finishing HRC I understood, in a way I had not before, how and why the Clinton union has evolved into a juggernaut with such formidable “power to reward and punish.
Liza Mundi - Washington Post
An entertaining, illuminating look at Hillary Rodham Clinton's time as secretary of State. The book shows her as dogged, but also salty, bawdy and funny.... A character-driven psychodrama, chockablock with sweaty descriptions of its players… It's no easy feat to wring page-turning narrative juice from four years of state craft, but Allen and Parnes have relied on 200 sources…to get them the gossipy goods.
Los Angeles Times
A thoroughly reported and well-written chronicle of Clinton’s comeback and her tenure at the State Department.
Christian Science Monitor
HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton manages the rare feat of being both important and entertaining. It opens with a juicy chapter detailing the punishment and reward of Bill and Hillary’s political enemies and friends. But the meat of HRC is its narration of her role in tackling crises in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Libya—an amazingly tumultuous period that provides the best preview of what a Hillary Clinton presidency might look like, at least for foreign policy.
New York Magazine
Written by two authors intimately familiar with the political process—Allen is the senior Washington correspondent for Politico and Parnes the White House correspondent for The Hill newspaper in Washington, DC—this book surveys the landscape from Hillary Clinton's primary defeat to her successes as secretary of state
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Allen and Parnes write that many of the individuals who worked with Hillary Rodham Clinton—at all levels, even President Obama himself—"found themselves liking her more with each interaction, even if they had been worked over.” To what do you attribute this change of heart on the part of so many Clinton associates? Were you, as a reader of HRC affected by what one member of Robert Gates's inner circle called "the stages of Hillary"? In other words, did you experience a change of heart?
2. Follow-up to Question 1: Did this book alter your view of Hillary Rodham Clinton? Have you come away from HRC with a greater appreciation of her talents and / or inner character? Or has the book confirmed how you've always seen Clinton—whether it's positively or negatively?
3. Would Hillary make a good president?
4. HRC opens with what the authors call "Hillary's Hit List." How do you feel about the list, about the act of making the list, about the insistence of loyalty on the part of both of the Clintons?
5. Talk about what the authors refer to as Hillary Clinton's attempts at "rebranding" herself. What does that term mean? Why did she undertake such a challenge? Has she been successful—in the authors' views and in your own view?
6. One of the authors' sources said that Clinton is a woman with "a bias for action." What does that mean? Can you give instances of this trait during her sojourn at the State Department?
7. How do the authors treat the tragic killings in Benghazi, Libya, and Clinton's role in it? Does this book's account jibe with or differ from other accounts in the media?
8. How did Hillary Clinton's earlier life prepare her for her role at State...and her role as what the book refers to as "superstaffer" to President Obama?
9. Allen and Parnes point out that rather than delivering big successes (like a Middle East peace accord), Mrs. Clinton's successes were less glamorous, less encompassing achievements. She concentrated on restoring American's international image following the Iraq war. She also worked to improve the relationship between the State and Defense Departments. The authors write:
To the disappointment of even some of her most ardent supporters, Hillary’s legacy is not one of negotiating marquee peace deals or a new doctrine defining American foreign policy. Instead, it is in the workmanlike enhancement of diplomacy and development, alongside defense, in the exertion of American power, and it is in competent leadership of a massive government bureaucracy.
Is that observation a fair assessment of Hillary Clinton's legacy?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Humankind: A Hopeful History
Rutger Bregman, 2020
Little Brown & Company
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316418539
Summary
If there is one belief that has united the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it is the tacit assumption that humans are bad.
It's a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought.
Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest.
But what if it isn't true?
International bestseller Rutger Bregman provides new perspective on the past 200,000 years of human history, setting out to prove that we are hardwired for kindness, geared toward cooperation rather than competition, and more inclined to trust rather than distrust one another. In fact this instinct has a firm evolutionary basis going back to the beginning of Homo sapiens.
From the real-life Lord of the Flies to the solidarity in the aftermath of the Blitz, the hidden flaws in the Stanford prison experiment to the true story of twin brothers on opposite sides who helped Mandela end apartheid, Bregman shows us that believing in human generosity and collaboration isn't merely optimistic—it's realistic.
Moreover, it has huge implications for how society functions. When we think the worst of people, it brings out the worst in our politics and economics.
But if we believe in the reality of humanity's kindness and altruism, it will form the foundation for achieving true change in society, a case that Bregman makes convincingly with his signature wit, refreshing frankness, and memorable storytelling. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1988
• Where—Renesse, Netherlands
• Education—B.A., Utrecht University; M.A., Utrecht and University of California-Berkeley
• Awards—Liberales Book Award
• Currently—Netherlands
Rutger C. Bregman is a Dutch popular historian and author. He has published four books on history, philosophy, and economics, including
Bregman earned his BA in history at Utrecht University and his MA in history in, partly at Utrecht and partly at the University of California, Los Angeles. As a student, he was a member of Christian student association SSR-NU.
Career
After school, Bregman considered a career as an academic historian, but instead he began working as a journalist. He wrote regularly for the online journal De Correspondent and was twice nominated for the European Press Prize for his work there.
Bregman is the author of Humankind: A History of Hope (2020); Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World (2017), which has been translated into thirty-two languages; and The History of Progress (2013), for which he received the annual book award from the think tank Liberales for the most remarkable Dutch-language non-fiction book.
His work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Guardian and the BBC. He has been described by The Guardian as the "Dutch wunderkind of new ideas" and by TED Talks as "one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers." His 2017 TED Talk, "Poverty Isn't a Lack of Character; It's a Lack of Cash," was chosen by TED curator Chris Anderson as one of the year's top 10. (Adapted from Wikippedia. Retrieved 6/9/2020.)
Book Reviews
Bregman's argument is simple but radical: Most people are good, and we do ourselves a disservice by thinking the worst of others. Bregman argues that believing in human kindness is a foundation for lasting social change.
USA Today
Bregman never loses sight of his central thesis, that at root humans are "friendly, peaceful, and healthy."… There's a great deal of reassuring human decency to be taken from this bold and thought-provoking book and a wealth of evidence in support of the contention that the sense of who we are as a species has been deleteriously distorted.… It makes a welcome change to read such a sustained and enjoyable tribute to our better natures.
Guardian (UK)
Fascinating…. I enjoyed Humankind immensely. It's entertaining, uplifting, and very likely to reach the broad audience it courts…. This book might just make the world a kinder place.
Daily Telegraph (UK)
Bregman's book is an intervention in a centuries-old argument about the moral nature of human beings…. Humankind is filled with compelling tales of human goodness. The book will challenge what you thought you knew…. Bregman's book is a thrilling read and it represents a necessary correction to the idea that we are all barely disguised savages.
Times (UK)
Bregman's assertion that you and I (and everyone else) is basically a good and moral being is the breakthrough thinking we've been looking for…. [During this pandemic] despite the news reports of those breaking the rules, the vast majority of us (over 80 percent) are doing the right thing…. But we've done it because it's the right thing to do. It's impossible to underestimate what this means for our collective sense of self. We're ready to stretch our do-gooder muscles.
Forbes
[An] intriguing survey of politics, literature, psychology, sociology, and philosophy.… This intelligent and reassuring chronicle disproves much received wisdom about the dark side of human nature. Readers looking for solace in uncertain times will find it here.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Fascinating…. Convincing…. Bregman turns to solutions… schools in which teachers assume that students want to learn, and local governments in which citizens exert genuine power wisely…. A powerful argument in favor of human virtue.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for HUMANKIND: A HISTORY OF HOPE … then take off on your own:
1. Does Rutger Bregman's premise resonate with you? Are humans better people than history has made us out to be? Or given history, do you find Bregman's viewpoint naive?
2. Talk about Bregman's argument in support of his thesis. Of the evidence he presents, what do you find most persuasive? Least persuasive?
3. Humankind presents an alternative version, the true version, behind the 1954 novel by William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Have you read Golding's classic story? What does Bregman learn, through interviews with the rescuer and one of the boys, that differs from the novel?
4. Discuss Bregman's solutions. Do you find them plausible? Is there one you think deserves priority? Can you think of other solutions that are not mentioned in Humankind?
5. Consider watching Bregman's 2017 TED Talk presentation, "Poverty Isn't a Lack of Character; It's a Lack of Cash," which the forum considered one of it's top 10 talks of the year.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Roxane Gay, 2017
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062747891
Summary
A searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.
"I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere.… I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe."
New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health.
As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care.
In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life.
With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn’t yet been told but needs to be. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 26, 1974
• Where—Omaha, Nebraska, USA
• Education—Ph.D., Michigan Technicalogical University
• Currently—lives in Layfayette, Indiana, and Los Angeles, California
Roxane Gay is an American feminist writer, professor, editor and commentator. She is an associate professor of English at Purdue University, contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, founder of Tiny Hardcore Press, essays editor for The Rumpus, and co-editor of PANK, a nonprofit literary arts collective.
Early life and education
Gay was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to a family of Haitian descent. She attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.
Gay holds a doctoral degree in rhetoric and technical communication from Michigan Technological University. The title of her dissertation was, "Subverting the subject position: toward a new discourse about students as writers and engineering students as technical communicators."
Career
After completing her Ph.D., Gay began her academic teaching career in Fall 2010 at Eastern Illinois University, where she was assistant professor of English. While at EIU, in addition to her teaching duties she was a contributing editor for Bluestem magazine, and she also founded Tiny Hardcore Press. Gay worked at Eastern Illinois University until the end of the 2013-2014 academic year, taking a job in August 2014 at Purdue University as associate professor of creative writing.
Much of Gay's written work deals with the analysis and deconstruction of feminist and racial issues through the lens of her personal experiences with race, gender identity, and sexuality. She is the author of the short story collection Ayiti (2011), the novel An Untamed State (2014), the essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), the short story collection Difficult Women (2017), and Hunger (2017).
She also edited the book Girl Crush: Women's Erotic Fantasies. In addition to her regular contributions to Salon and the now defunct HTMLGiant, her writing has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, West Branch, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, Bookforum, Time, Los Angeles Times, The Nation and New York Times Book Review.
In July 2016, Gay and poet Yona Harvey were announced as writers for Marvel Comics' World of Wakanda, a spin-off from the company's Black Panther title, making her the first black woman to be a lead writer for Marvel.
Reception
Gay's publication of the novel An Untamed State and essay collection Bad Feminist in the summer of 2014 led Time Magazine to declare, "Let this be the year of Roxane Gay." The magazine noted of her inclusive style: "Gay’s writing is simple and direct, but never cold or sterile. She directly confronts complex issues of identity and privilege, but it’s always accessible and insightful."
In the United Kingdom's The Guardian, critic Kira Cochrane offered a similar assessment:
While online discourse is often characterised by extreme, polarised opinions, her writing is distinct for being subtle and discursive, with an ability to see around corners, to recognise other points of view while carefully advancing her own. In print, on Twitter and in person, Gay has the voice of the friend you call first for advice, calm and sane as well as funny, someone who has seen a lot and takes no prisoners.
A group of feminist scholars and activists analyzed Gay's Bad Feminist for "Short Takes: Provocations on Public Feminism," an initiative of the feminist journal Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.
Personal
Gay began writing essays as a teenager; her work has been greatly influenced by a sexual assault she experienced at age 12. She is also a competitive Scrabble player in the U.S. Gay is bisexual. (From Wkipedia. Retrieved 2/2/2017 .)
Book Reviews
Gay turns to memoir in this powerful reflection on her childhood traumas.… Timely and resonant, you can be sure that Hunger will touch a nerve, as so much of Roxane Gay’s writing does.
Newsday
Wrenching, deeply moving…a memoir that’s so brave, so raw, it feels as if [Gay]’s entrusting you with her soul.
Seattle Times
(Starred review.) This raw and graceful memoir digs deeply into what it means to be comfortable in one’s body. Gay denies that hers is a story of “triumph,” but readers will be hard pressed to find a better word.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Displays bravery, resilience, and naked honesty from the first to last page.… Stunning…essential reading.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A heart-rending debut memoir from the outspoken feminist and essayist.… An intense, unsparingly honest portrait of childhood crisis and its enduring aftermath.
Booklist
(Starred review.) A heart-rending debut memoir from the outspoken feminist and essayist.… An intense, unsparingly honest portrait of childhood crisis and its enduring aftermath.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Hunger…then take off on your own:
1. Probably the best place to begin a discussion for Roxane Gay's Hunger is to talk about your own battle with body image: weight gains and losses, sense of shame, and whatever other emotional rollercoasters you've found yourself on.
2. Next up: In what ways does this book resonate with you? Think back to your early life, your upbringing, and how those years might have set you on the path you're on today.
3. Gay was the victim of rape when she was younger. How does that tramua play into her overeating?
4. Consider the views of other people. As Gay writes, "People see bodies like mine and make their assumptions. They think they know the why of my body. They do not."
What assumptions do you make of overweight peoople? What assumptions do you think people make (or might make) of you?
5. Talk about the paradox Gay points to: wanting acceptance for her body shape…yet wanting to change it. Can that tension ever be resolved — not just for overweight people but for anyone who doesn't fit the image of physical perfection our society worships?
6. Speaking of society: in what way does our cultural obsession with body shape contribute to Gay's (or, really, almost anyone's) sense of shame regarding the body?
7. Gay writes: "I do not know why I turned to food. Or I do" and "I do not have an answer to that question, or I do." What does Gay know…or not know about why she eats? What about you? Do you have answers for your own body weight?
8. Why does Gay denounce shows like The Biggest Loser and Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition?
9. Care to tackle this passage from the book?
When you’re overweight, your body becomes a matter of public record in many respects. Your body is constantly and prominently on display.… Fat, much like skin color, is something you cannot hide, no matter how dark the clothing you wear, or how diligently you avoid horizontal stripes.… People are quick to offer statistics and information about the dangers of obesity, as if you are not only fat but incredibly stupid, unaware, and delusional about your body and a world that is vigorously inhospitable to that body.… You are your body, nothing more, and your body should damn well become less.
10. How familiar are you with the latest science regarding body weight, particularly the part that genetics and "hunger hormones" (Ghrelin and Leptin) play? If some bodies are hard-wired to gain weight …well, then what?
11. If Roxane Gay were sitting with you right now, what you you say to her?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Summary | Author | Book Reviews | Discussion Questions
Hurry Down Sunshine: A Father's Story of Love and Madness
Michael Greenberg, 2008
Knopf Doubleday
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307473547
In Brief
A Time Best Book of the Year
Hurry Down Sunshine is an extraordinary family story and a memoir of exceptional power. In it, Michael Greenberg recounts in vivid detail the remarkable summer when, at the age of fifteen, his daughter was struck mad. It begins with Sally's sudden visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city's most sweltering months. It is a tale of a family broken open, then painstakingly, movingly stitched together again.
Among Greenberg's unforgettable cast of characters are an unconventional psychiatrist, an Orthodox Jewish patient, a manic Classics professor, a movie producer, and a landlord with literary aspirations. Unsentimental, nuanced, and deeply humane, Hurry Down Sunshine is essential reading in the literature of affliction alongside classics such as Girl, Interrupted and An Unquiet Mind. (From the publisher.)
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About the Author
A native New Yorker, Michael Greenberg is a columnist for the Times Literary Supplement (London), where his wide-ranging essays have been appearing since 2003. His fiction, criticism, and travel pieces have been published in such varied places as The Oprah Magazine, Bomb, Village Voice, and New York Review of Books. He lives in New York with his wife and son. (From the publisher.)
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Critics Say . . .
What sets Hurry Down Sunshine apart from the great horde of mediocre memoirs, with their sitcom emotions and too neatly resolved fights and reconciliations, is Greenberg's frank pessimism, dark humor and fundamental incapacity to make sense of his daughter's ordeal, let alone to derive an uplifting moral from it…beyond family drama, Hurry Down Sunshine is a very New York book, filled with the kind of characters increasingly rare in a city where real kooks can no longer afford to live.
Rachel Donadio - New York Times
Greenberg renders the details of his daughter's breakdown with lyrical precision. He ably describes the heightened sense of being that is often a component of madness—and the way it beckons to outsiders.
Nell Casey - Washington Post
Lucid, realistic, compassionate, and illuminating... In its detail, depth, richness and sheer intelligence, Hurry Down Sunshine will be recognized as a classic of its kind.
Oliver Sacks - The New York Review of Books
There is a dancing, dazzling siren seductress at the heart of this book and...[it is] madness itself.... The startling associative imagery that gives Greenberg's writing its power is like a domesticated version of the madness that nearly carried away his daughter's life.
Time
[A]bout tenacity and tenderness, feeling helpless but being present, about cracking up, then finding the wherewithal to glue the jagged pieces of your mind back together again. But mostly it's about love.
Oprah Winfrey - O, The Oprah Magazine
This is a harrowing, brutally honest, and extremely well written account of the mental breakdown of a loved one. The author's descriptions of his daughter's behavior offer a much more meaningful lesson for readers about what constitutes mania than could ever be gleaned by reading a textbook. Anyone who has been through a similar experience, or simply wants to read afirst-person account of mental illness and its effects, will find this book a good read. —William Miles, MD, Rush University Medical Center
Doody Review Services
(Audio version.) Columnist and author Greenberg's heartbreaking and inspiring memoir details his daughter's downfall into insanity one hot summer in New York City. Greenberg writes with a raw passion and intensity, capturing the essence of every detail and event as if they were occurring in real time as he types. His reading is a heartfelt and honest attempt to relate the experiences with as much restrained emotion as possible, offering it as part headline news story, part editorial. With perfect pitch, tone and pacing, Greenberg is a talented narrator, who will surely capture and hold listeners' attention.
Publishers Weekly
Times Literary Supplement (UK) columnist Greenberg's elegiac, beautifully crafted memoir chronicles the summer his teenaged daughter, Sally, lost her mind to madness. In it, Greenberg observes the experience and its effect on everyone involved with meticulous care. At times acutely painful, at times painfully funny, his story alternates between the progression of Sally's bewildering, frightening decline and Greenberg's own at times comically absurd experience as he simultaneously deals with a dependent brother suffering from his own demons; a difficult, obtuse wife; and a New Age ex-wife who, after each visit, offers cosmic explanations for her daughter's condition before retreating to her home in the country. Characters from the psychiatric ward where Sally spends nearly a month are often indistinguishable in their strangeness from the doctors themselves, giving the atmosphere of the hospital a hauntingly surrealistic air. The whole effect is one of a wrathful storm passing through Greenberg's life, turning every relationship upside down as it shattered any semblance of inner peace in both father and daughter and destroyed their ability to communicate at the time. Sure to become a new classic in the literature of mental illness; highly recommended for all public libraries
Library Journal
Greenberg chronicles his 15-year-old daughter Sally's manic breakdown in vivid yet surprisingly detached prose. In July 1996, the author awoke to find a furiously annotated copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets and loose pages of Sally's poetry strewn about their Greenwich Village apartment. That night, the police escorted his daughter home for "acting crazy" in the streets. Greenberg and second wife Pat pieced the story together from Sally's breathless, incoherent account. She had been struck by a vision: We are all born geniuses, but society robs us of the gift. When the police pulled up, she was on a mission to communicate this to anyone who would listen-even people in the speeding cars she was convinced she could thwart with her hand. Michael and Pat took the "feral, glitter-eyed" Sally to the nearest emergency room, where a psychiatrist gave a preliminary diagnosis of bipolar 1 and admitted her to the psych ward. In his text, her father deals with the shock of Sally's condition by portraying it in the context of literary madness. Greenberg quotes Lowell's descriptions of his own manic episodes, cites Spinoza and alludes to Plato, Byron, Hemingway and Woolf. This might seem aggrandizing, but the author is trying to demonstrate that Sally's insights are sometimes justified, while at the same time avoiding James Joyce's fatal error of enabling his daughter's madness by participating in her visions. Sally spent 24 days in the ward, flanked by her quirky family and a tableau of other colorful characters, before she returned home, highly medicated and bravely determined to believe her therapist's assertion that psychosis is not an identity. Greenberg's talent for description occasionally runs away from him in a narrative that could be slightly tighter, but his erudite portrait of bipolar disease as experienced from both inside and out is dazzling. Sally's own precocious descriptions of her mania serve as no small aid. Bears enlightening and articulate witness to the sheer force of an oft-misunderstood disease.
Kirkus Reviews
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Book Club Discussion Questions
1. Why does the author doubt Sally's psychosis? How does each family member deal with the crisis differently, and what do their reactions tell you about them?
2. The author refers to the illness of James Joyce's daughter and how Joyce copes with Lucia's madness. Discuss the differences and similarities between Greenberg's and Joyce's reactions to their daughters' illnesses.
3. Consider the author's grief over Sally's illness in relation to his mother's guilt over her troubled son, Steven. In what ways are parental guilt intensified in times of crisis?
4. Before her psychotic episode, Sally refuses to believe Pat's devotion to her is sincere. How does their relationship change as Sally battles to overcome the psychosis? How does Pat's revelation about her close friend after the fight with Michael shed light on her devotion to Sally as a mother?
5. How does the Hasidic family respond to Noah's psychosis? How was it different from Sally's family? Were there any similarities? Why do you think Noah and Sally were drawn to each other?
6. Throughout the story, the author interjects scenes that reflect current events happening in the world. How does Greenberg use these events to give the reader a better understanding of what he is going through?
7. Greenberg's mother arrives at the hospital dressed in a new outfit each day. Similarly, when Greenberg returns to his studio to write for the first time since Sally has come home, he removes all references to chaos and crisis from his book. Greenberg writes, “the harder the blow, the more polish is required”. Do you think a mutual need to restore order is an effort to fix Sally or simply a defense mechanism?
8. When Greenberg takes a dose of Sally's medication to try and see the world as she does, the reader also gets a glimpse of that world. What is your reaction? Does it change Greenberg's perception of her illness? How does Greenberg's medicated state influence his meeting with Jean-Paul?
9. How is the narrator's relationship with his brother, Steven, both a responsibility he enjoys as well as a source of burden for him? Cite examples.
10. Greenberg describes infant Sally, as distinctly fiery: “a thrasher, a gripper, a grasper, a yanker of fingers and ears”. In what ways does Sally's madness inform the way the author reflects on her infancy and childhood?
11. Compare Sally's use of the name “Father” to Greenberg's own description of himself as her “touchstone of sanity”. How does this change after his fight with Pat?
12. In the midst of a crisis, families either pull together or are torn apart. How did Sally's illness change the dynamics between family members?
13. How is psychosis understood and misunderstood in society, and how has this changed over time? If Steven were raised in Sally's generation, do you think he would have turned out differently?
14. Do you feel that Greenberg and Pat and Robin did a good job in caring for Sally during her time of crisis? Would you have responded differently?
15. Would you describe the relationship between Sally's biological mother Robin and her stepmother Pat as tense? Harmonious? What do you think of the position of a stepmother in such a situation?
16. Do you think Dr. Lensing was an effective therapist to Sally?
17. James Joyce called psychosis “the most elusive disease known to man and unknown to medicine.” Do you think mental illness is a medical disease or an extreme aspect of who we are as human beings?
18. Throughout Hurry Down Sunshine we see glimpses of Sally's unusual verbal brilliance. Do you think these flashes of brilliance are symptoms of Sally's psychosis or an expression of who she really is? Do you think it is possible to separate Sally's behavior while psychotic from her personality and way of being when she is not psychotic or do they seem to be aspects of a single person?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Husband Hunters: American Heiresses Who Married into the British Aristocracy
Anne de Courcy, 2018
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250164599
Summary
A deliciously told group biography of the young, rich, American heiresses who married into the impoverished British aristocracy at the turn of the twentieth century—The real women who inspired Downton Abbey.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century and for the first few years of the twentieth, a strange invasion took place in Britain.
The citadel of power, privilege and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, fifty years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world—the New World, to be precise.
From 1874—the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known "Dollar Princess," married Randolph Churchill—to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage, bringing with them all the fabulous wealth, glamour and sophistication of the Gilded Age.
Anne de Courcy sets the stories of these young women and their families in the context of their times. Based on extensive first-hand research, drawing on diaries, memoirs and letters, this richly entertaining group biography reveals what they thought of their new lives in England—and what England thought of them. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Anne de Courcy is the author of several widely acclaimed works of social history and biography, including The Husband Hunters: American: American Heiresses Who Married into the British Aristocracy (2018), Margot at War (2014), The Fishing Fleet (2012), Debs at War (2005), and The Viceroy's Daughters (2000). She lives in London and Gloucestershire. (From the publisher.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
[A] diverting new study…[the American heiresses] were brave. They were venturesome…they were just what was needed to shake the cocktail and bring some pizazz to the party. De Courcy conjures it all with skill.
Tina Brown - New York Times Book Review
Anglophiles fascinated by the intricate tribal codes of the British upper classes will find plenty to feed their interest in this narrative...if we’re looking to history to better understand our own time, The Husband Hunters has something to say about how we got here.
Boston Globe
Anne de Courcy has written the definitive account of the real-life buccaneers . . . de Courcy argues with conviction that it wasn't simply about money. Englishmen found the dollar princesses irresistible and were drawn to their vitality, social ease and lack of stuffiness . . . de Courcy is excellent on the cultural clashes between the Americans and British.
Times (UK)
Cleverly researched, sparkling with diamonds and wickedly funny (a Book of the Year).
Jane Ridley - Spectator (UK)
A true account of the women who inspired Downton Abbey.… [de Courcy] gets in their heads and in their homes, exploring what life was like for them after their moves and the clash of cultures that ensued.
Vanity Fair
[F]ascinating but surface-skimming.… De Courcy is best at describing upper-class life on both sides of the Atlantic, but the personalities of the young women never completely shine through.… Yet there’s enough glitz and glamour to enthrall those who [loved] the recent royal nuptials.
Publishers Weekly
Vanderbilts, Astors, Churchills, Marlboroughs; diamonds, tiaras, yachts, mansions; all are documented in glorious detail and should satisfy those readers with insatiable thirst for all things peerage.
Booklist
[Anne] de Courcy brings the Victorian and Edwardian eras vibrantly to life with her meticulously well-researched book, conveyed in an approachable prose style.… A highly readable social history that contains all of the juicy drama of a prime-time soap opera.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Talking Points to help start a discussion for THE HUSBAND HUNTERS ... then take off on your own:
1. What were the downsides of wealthy young American women marrying into families of the English aristocracy with their cold, crumbling manses? Could you ever have seen yourself doing so?
2. Anne de Courcy posits that the reason these women opted for English marriages was to escape the competitiveness of New York society in the Gilded Age. Take some time to discuss what that culture was like—and the ways in which New York and British social hierarchies differed. Consider that in Britain, money was no match for title: a duchess, no matter how little money she possessed, would always pull rank, even against a wealthy earl's wife? Is that social ranking any better (or worse) than New York society?
3. What, in fact, were the differences between a gilded American woman and her English cohort? Consider the degree of female power and independence in both countries.
4. Talk about the American "bling"—the number of dresses required for the Newport (Rhode Island) season and the outlandish jewels worn, some of which (necklaces) hung to the floor.
5. What is the history of the 400 families of New York? How and when did it crop up, and who ruled the roost?
6. The Husband Hunters also treats us to a study of monstrous mothers. Talk about some of the most egregious, including (and especially) Mrs. Bradley-Martin.
7. What was life like for the doyenne of a large English estate? How did that country life differ from the sparkling urban social seasons?
8. Which heiress's marital story do you find most interesting …or appalling?
9. How did the invasion of American heiresses change English culture? Do you end up admiring these women and their energies?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Summary | Author | Book Reviews | Discussion Questions
I Am Hutterite: The Fascinating True Story of a Young Woman's Journey to Reclaim her Heritige
Mary-Anne Kirby, 2010
Thomas Nelson, Inc.
244 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780849948107
In Brief
A fascinating journey into the heart and culture of a reclusive religious community.
I Am Hutterite takes readers into the hidden heart of the little-known Hutterite colony where author Mary-Ann Kirkby spent her childhood. When she was ten, her parents packed up their seven children and a handful of possessions and left the colony to start a new life. Overnight they were thrust into a world they didn't understand, a world that did not understand them.
With great humor, Kirkby describes how she adapted to popular culture, and with raw honesty she describes her family's deep sense of loss for their community. More than a history lesson, I Am Hutterite is a powerful tale of retracing steps and understanding how our beginnings often define us. (From the publisher.)
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About the Author
• Birth—ca. 1959
• Where—Manitoba, Canada
• Awards—Sask Book Awards (Nonfiction); 2 Can-Pro Awards
(tv journalism)
• Currently—lives in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada
Mary-Ann Kirkby spent the first ten years of her life in a Hutterite Colony in Manitoba, Canada. In 1969 her parents did the unthinkable. They uprooted their 7 children and left the only life they had ever known, thrusting them into a society they did not understand and which did not understand them.
Mary-Ann's transition into popular culture is both heartbreaking and hilarious. An award-winning television journalist, Mary-Ann learned the fine art of storytelling at the knees of her gifted Hutterite teachers.
Mary-Ann began her career as a news anchor and reporter in Dauphin, Manitoba. Later, she became senior reporter at CTV in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. From 1993-1996, she worked in Ottawa as a freelance journalist and served as Media Relations Consultant for the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
She lives in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. (From the publisher.)
Critics Say . . .
This sweeping prairie memoir, self-published in Canada in 2007, rapidly garnered both commercial and literary applause. Recounting the author's journey from a Hutterite girlhood to an adolescence of desperate striving to catch up with fashions of the time, the book manages to pack information about Hutterite life into a coming-of-age narrative without slowing it down. Kirkby's family moved away from their Manitoba colony when she was 10 years old, after what she calls a “near idyllic childhood” in the cradle of a communal society. Once a reader commits the many characters and their relationships to each other to memory, the book becomes as riveting and well-paced as a novel. Kirkby captures the complex cadences of Hutterite life—the bawdy humor and knack for storytelling that stands beside austere ritual, the poverty of personal possession and freedom that exists beside the security of community life—with pitch-perfect writing. She also manages to avoid either vilifying or romanticizing a culture that has been subjected to both. Readers will find themselves hoping that Kirkby follows the popular trend in memoir writing: producing a sequel.
Publishers Weekly
The Hutterite faith was founded in the 16th century by Jacob Hutter, an Austrian hatmaker who believed in shared property and people working together for the common good. Their practices of adult baptism, staunch pacifism, and community life led to persecution that drove them from Europe to North America. Those prejudices continue to this day: Kirkby details the misunderstandings faced when her family attempted to integrate into Canadian society. She tells the story of several generations of both sides of her family, their immigration to Canada, their becoming part of the Hutterite community, and what drove her parents to leave to join the "English" world of outside society. Kirkby describes her journey from burying her past to fit in as a child with her peers to finding acceptance of her heritage as an adult while writing this book. Interlaced throughout are descriptions of Hutterite cuisine and fashion, and explanations of religious practices and politics within these groups. Verdict: Kirkby's prose weaves a poignant tapestry of life in a Hutterite colony, both the joys and the hardships, a story that is at times heartbreaking. But readers won't be able to put the book down as they're drawn into her world. Those who grew up in "English" society will get to enjoy not only a well-researched family history but also a wonderfully detailed cultural and religious history of these societies as shown through the eyes of the author. Highly recommended. —Crystal Goldman, San José State Univ. Lib., CA
Library Journal
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Book Club Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for I Am Hutterite:
1. Begin with a discussion of the history of the Hutterites: their martyred founder, Jacob Hutter, and his beliefs; their fleeing persecution and eventual diaspora in the U.S. and Canada. How different are the Hutterites' beliefs from mainstream Christianity...and what are the similarities? How similar are the Hutterites to Amish and Mennonite communities?
2. What was it like for Mary-Ann, as a child, to live in the Hutterite colony? In what ways did her childhood differ from your own? Do you feel Mary-Ann idealized her childhood years in the colony by glossing over troubles...or did she paint a fairly realistic picture?
3. What inferences can you draw from Mary-Ann's description of life in a tightly controlled, highly structured religious community? What are the benefits, what are the drawbacks?
4. Talk about the disagreement between Mary-Ann's father and uncle that drove the family from the colony. How important was the role of forgiveness to her parents and how did they find a way to forgive?
5. Discuss the hardships the family—parents and children— struggled to adapt to the "English" world. What struck you most about their trials—what was most difficult for them...what did you find particularly heart-rending...surprising...or even funny?
6. Talk about the prejudices the family faced in the English world?
7. Does the Hutterite way of life—its simplicity and interdepen-dence—cause you to reflect upon our own culture with its consumerism and emphasis on the individual? Does our modern way of life come across as better or worse? Are there things we could learn from the Hutterites?
8. How does Mary-Ann eventually carve out her own identity? What does she learn from her past? Why does she choose to embrace her heritage rather than ignore—or, worse, reject—it? In what ways does she believe her past has enriched her life?
9. Would you like to see a sequel to this memoir?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb, 2013
Little, Brown & Co.
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316322423
Summary
When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.
On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive.
Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize.
I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.
I Am Malala will make you believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire change in the world. (From the publisher.)
See the 2015 film—He Named Me Malala—with Malala Yousafzai as herself.
Listen to our Movies Meet Book Club Podcast as Hollister and O'Toole discuss the movie and book.
Author Bio
• Birth—July 12, 1997
• Where—Mingora, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
• Education—local public school
• Awards—Pakistan's National Youth Peace Prize; Sakharov Prize
• Currently—lives in Birmingham, England, UK
Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani school pupil and education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is known for her education and women's rights activism in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school.
In early 2009, at the age of 11–12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. The following summer, a New York Times documentary was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat. Yousafzai rose in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by South African activist Desmond Tutu.
On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK for intensive rehabilitation. On October 12, 2012, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwa against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father.
The assassination attempt sparked a national and international outpouring of support for Yousafzai. Deutsche Welle wrote in January, 2013, that Malala may have become "the most famous teenager in the world." United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown launched a UN petition in Yousafzai's name, using the slogan "I am Malala" and demanding that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015—a petition which helped lead to the ratification of Pakistan's first Right to Education Bill.
In the April 29, 2013, issue of Time magazine, Yousafzai was featured on the magazine's front cover and as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World." She was the winner of Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize and is currently nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. On 12 July 2013, Yousafzai spoke at the UN to call for worldwide access to education, and in September 2013 she officially opened the Library of Birmingham.
Yousafzai was into a Sunni Muslim family of Pashtun ethnicity. She was given her first name Malala (meaning "grief stricken" after Malalai of Maiwand, a famous Pashtun poet and warrior woman from southern Afghanistan. Her last name, Yousafzai, is that of a large Pashtun tribal confederation that is predominant in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where she grew up. At her house in Mingora, she lived with her two younger brothers, her parents, and two pet chickens.
Yousafzai was educated in large part by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who is a poet, school owner, and an educational activist himself, running a chain of schools known as the Khushal Public School. She once stated to an interviewer that she would like to become a doctor, though later her father encouraged her to become a politician instead. Ziauddin referred to his daughter as something entirely special, permitting her to stay up at night and talk about politics after her two brothers had been sent to bed.
Yousafzai started speaking about education rights as early as September 2008, when her father took her to Peshawar to speak at the local press club. "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?" Yousafzai asked her audience in a speech covered by newspapers and television channels throughout the region. (From Wikiipedia. Retrieved 10/10/2013.)
Book Reviews
The touching story will not only inform you of changing conditions in Pakistan, but inspire your rebellious spirit.
Matthew Love - Time Out New York
Ms. Yousafzai has single-handedly turned the issue of the right of girls--and all children--to be educated into headline news. And she is a figure worth hearing.
Isabel Berwick - Financial Times
On October 9, 2012, the teenaged Yousafzai was very nearly assassinated by members of the Taliban who objected to her education and women's rights activism in Pakistan. Currently, she lives in England, under threat of execution by the Taliban if she returns home. Lamb, who has been reporting from Pakistan for 26 years and was named Foreign Correspondent of the Year five times, helps Yousafzai tell her hugely significant story.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for I Am Malala:
1. Would you have had the bravery that Malala exhibited and continues to exhibit?
2. Talk about the role of Malala's parents, especially her father, Ziauddin. If you were her parents, would you have encouraged her to write and speak out?
3. How does Malala describe the affect of the growing Taliban presence in her region? Talk about the rules they imposed on the citizens in the Swat valley. What was life like?
4. Mala has said that despite the Taliban's restrictions against girls/women, she remains a proud believer. Would you—could you—maintain your faith given those same restrictions? *
5. Talk about the reaction of the international community after Malala's shooting. Has the outrage made a difference...has it had any effect?
6. What can be done about female education in the Middle East and places like Pakistan? What are the prospects? Can one girl, despite her worldwide fame, make a difference? Why does the Taliban want to prevent girls from acquiring an education—how do they see the female role? *
7. This is as good a time as any to talk about the Taliban's power in the Muslim world. Why does it continue to grow and attract followers...or is it gaining new followers? What attraction does it have for Muslim men? Can it ever be defeated?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
* We received an email sharing the following perspective, which draws a clear distinction between the Muslim faith and Taliban practices. The email relates to Questions 4 and 6, respectively:
There is no "overt" Muslim prejudice against women. Although there are some customs in Islam specifically intended for women, these customs are for a reason. Everything has a reason. The Taliban, however, take things to a far new level. They overtly shed women of certain rights they deserve. There is a distinction between Islamic rules and customs and Taliban discrimination.
Muslims do not prevent women from acquiring an education. It is the Taliban that does so. Educating women is encouraged in Islam. One of the biggest Muslim scholars was in fact a woman.... Like Malala, I am sad the Taliban carry out their activities in the name of Islam. And I am glad her story is being heard... —Sarah, a student.
I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced
Nujood Ali, 2009 (Eng. trans., 2010)
Crown Publishing
192 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307589675
Summary
I’m a simple village girl who has always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today I have decided to say no.
Forced by her father to marry a man three times her age, young Nujood Ali was sent away from her parents and beloved sisters and made to live with her husband and his family in an isolated village in rural Yemen. There she suffered daily from physical and emotional abuse by her mother-in-law and nightly at the rough hands of her spouse. Flouting his oath to wait to have sexual relations with Nujood until she was no longer a child, he took her virginity on their wedding night. She was only ten years old.
Unable to endure the pain and distress any longer, Nujood fled—not for home, but to the courthouse of the capital, paying for a taxi ride with a few precious coins of bread money. When a renowned Yemeni lawyer heard about the young victim, she took on Nujood’s case and fought the archaic system in a country where almost half the girls are married while still under the legal age. Since their unprecedented victory in April 2008, Nujood’s courageous defiance of both Yemeni customs and her own family has attracted a storm of international attention. Her story even incited change in Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries, where underage marriage laws are being increasingly enforced and other child brides have been granted divorces.
Recently honored alongside Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice as one of Glamour magazine’s women of the year, Nujood now tells her full story for the first time. As she guides us from the magical, fragrant streets of the Old City of Sana’a to the cement-block slums and rural villages of this ancient land, her unflinching look at an injustice suffered by all too many girls around the world is at once shocking, inspiring, and utterly unforgettable. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Nujood Ali, born in 1998, is a figure of Yemen's fight against forced marriage. At the age of 10, she obtained a divorce, breaking with the tribal tradition.
In November 2008, U.S. women's magazine Glamour designated Nujood Ali and her lawyer Shada Nasser as Women of the Year. Nujood's courage was praised by prominent women including Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice. Nujood's lawyer and fellow recipient Nasser, born in 1964, is herself a feminist and specialist in human rights, whose involvement in Nujood's case received much acclaim.
Nujood Ali was only 10 years of age when her parents arranged a marriage to a man in his 30s. Regularly beaten by her in-laws, raped by her husband, she escaped on April 2, 2008, only two months after the wedding. On the advice of the second wife of her father, she went directly to court to seek a divorce. After one half a day of waiting, she was finally noticed by the judge, Mohammed al-għadha who took it upon himself to host her temporarily and had her father and husband taken into custody.
Shada Nasser agreed to defend Nujood. For the lawyer, it was the continuation of a struggle begun with the installation of her practice in Sana'a, which she opened in the 1990s and the first female law office where she built a customer base by offering services to women prisoners.
Yemeni law allows girls of any age to wed, but it forbids sex with them until the indefinite time they’re "suitable for sexual intercourse." In court, Nasser argued that Nujood’s marriage violated law, since she was raped. Nujood rejected the judge's proposal to resume living together with her husband after a break of three to five years. On April 15, 2008, the court granted her a divorce.
After the trial, Nujood rejoined her family in a suburb of Sana'a. She returned to school in the fall of 2008 with plans to become a lawyer. After the 2009 publication of her memoir, I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced, revenues from international sales of the book were supposed to help pay for her schooling, but she didn't attend on a regular basis. Due to subsequent negative press coverage about Yemen, Nujood's passport was confiscated in March 2009 and she was prevented from attending the Women's World Award in Vienna, Austria. Media reports also questioned whether proceeds from the book were making it to the family.
However, as of 2010 the family is living in a new two-story home bought with the help of her French publisher, and running a grocery store on the first floor. Nujood and her younger sister are attending private school full time.
The English language version of the memoir was published in March 2010. Introducing the work, New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof praised the work done to raise awareness regarding the societal problems associated with polygamy and child marriage, saying, "little girls like Nujood may prove more effective than missiles at defeating terrorists." Indeed, publicity surrounding Nujood's case is said to have inspired efforts to annul other child marriages, including that of an 8 year old Saudi girl. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
A powerful new autobiography.... It’s hard to imagine that there have been many younger divorcees — or braver ones — than a pint-size third grader named Nujood Ali.
Nicholas Kristof - New York Times
A shocking book that captures the social challenges facing
Yemen better than any scholarly work could hope to do.
Isobel Coleman - Washington Post
One of 16 children living in squalor in Yemen, Nujood was married off at about age 10. Though her husband vowed he'd wait for sex until she reached puberty, he rapes her on their first night together. After months of abuse, Nujood goes to the courthouse, where with heartbreaking naivete, she tells a judge she wants a divorce. Supported by the legal system, Nujood gets her wish. A dividend: Her case has brought international exposure to the archaic practice of robbing girls of their youth half the girls in Yemen are married before age 18. Nujood's story ends with her back in school, given a rare second chance to start her childhood over.
People
Headlines traveled around the globe in the spring of 2008 when the barely 10-year-old Nujood Ali “found the courage to knock on the [Yemen] courtroom door”; she had come seeking a divorce from the sexually abusive and violent 30-ish man, a marriage arranged by her father. French journalist Minoui renders Ali's life from the young child's perspective without sensationalism, as respectful of Ali's faith as affected by her courage. Through her unwavering focus on Ali's young life and her big victory, on her pre-pubescent innocence and ignorance, the reader is taken inside one poor, recently rural Yemeni household. As Ali's life (“I have always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers”) moves into the public sphere, she discovers (fortunately) the compassionate judges and the dedicated lawyer of a more urbane Yemen. Simple and straightforward in its telling, this is an informative and thoroughly engaging narrative—making more painful a disquieting sense as the book ends that Ali's big victory offers the promise of change to other young girls but no true restoration of her girlhood; she's about 12 now [in 2010, at the time of U.S. publication].
Publishers Weekly
This slim book tells the story of a Yemeni girl married off at a young age (her exact age is unknown, but she was by all accounts still a child) who dared to resist. Raped and beaten by her husband, she did the unheard of: she found her way to a courthouse and insisted on a divorce. Luckily, she was brought to the right people who chose to protect and defend her. Her story is told in simple prose without excess exposition or cultural color. Aspects of her family's difficult social situation are touched on without elaboration, perhaps to protect their honor or perhaps because these were matters that the little girl herself did not understand. The result is heartfelt, as naive as one would expect of an illiterate child relying only on her own drive for self-preservation. VERDICT This will be a favorite book club read. It is too slight to serve most college-level women's studies classes, however, unless paired with more substantial interpretations of the social conditions in Yemen. —Lisa Klopfer, Eastern Michigan Univ. Lib., Ypsilanti
Library Journal
With the assistance of Middle East journalist Minoui, Ali tells the disturbing story of her marriage and subsequent divorce-all by the age of ten. The narrative will be shocking to many Westerners-a young Yemeni girl from a poor family, married off at the age of ten to a man three times her age. Even though the marriage contract stipulated that the husband not consummate the marriage until Ali had reached puberty, the young girl was repeatedly raped and beaten. Steadfastly refusing to accept her horrible fate, a fate that many others had suffered before her, Ali took advantage of a visit to her family in the city to bring her situation before a judge. It's illegal in Yemen to marry off a child before the age of 15, but the young girl still faced an uphill battle, defying not just her husband and father but her society. The unimaginably awful story is told in the voice of the girl, simply and clearly. To read of such distressing events described with the language and understanding of a ten-year-old heightens the impact of the story, but some readers will notice the lack of perspective, since the storyteller is not yet old enough to have it. However, this does nothing to undermine the extraordinary bravery of such a young child in the face of exceedingly adult circumstances. Despite the stylistic simplicity, this memoir will move readers.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Honor is obviously very important to the men of Nujood’s family. What does the notion of honor mean in rural Yemeni culture, and how does it differ from Western ideas of honor? When Nujood, Shada, and their allies go to court to seek a divorce for Nujood, what conception of honor are they defending?
2. Nujood mentions a tribal proverb that says “To guarantee a happy marriage, marry a nine-year-old girl.” How does this traditional view of a “happy marriage” differ from the Western view? Are there any ways in which they might be similar?
3. Nujood says that when her family was driven from Khardji, they lost “a small corner of paradise.” How do the injustices endured by Nujood’s father and brother, Fares, show that life in a patriarchal society can be hard not just for women, but for male Yemenis, too? Consider how the actions of Omma, Mona, Nujood’s mother-in-law, Dowla, and Shada reflect differences in their life experiences, personalities, backgrounds, and relationships with Nujood. For example:
4. What do you think Omma was thinking when Nujood told her about the abuse? Can you understand her lack of action?
5. Conversely, why was Dowla willing and able to give Nujood the help and advice that no one else was willing to provide?
6. Were you surprised when one of Nujood’s primary oppressors turned out to be a woman? Nujood’s mother-in-law is a strong personality who treats the young girl harshly and fails to come to her defense on her wedding night. How does this play, paradoxically, into the idea of Yemen as a highly patriarchal society? Do you see any similarity, for example, between the mother- in- law’s behavior and the fact that in some African societies, it is the women who enforce the practice of female circumcision?
7. How do you interpret the behavior of Mona, not only in her attempts to protect Nujood, but in her difficult relationship with her older sister, Jamila?
8. What enables Shada to take up Nujood’s cause so quickly and effectively? How does Shada, whom Nujood calls her “second mother,” open up Nujood’s world? Who else teaches Nujood about what a “real” family can be like?
9. The urban elites Nujood encounters in the courtroom and at the Yemen Times lead very different lives from those of Nujood and the country people of Yemen. How are these “enlightened” people actually disconnected from the rest of their society? For example, Nujood tells us several times that child marriage is common in Yemen, so why did the judges seem so shocked by Nujood’s tender age? Do you think they were unaware of their society’s problem with early marriage, or were they simply blind to the real-life consequences for girls like Nujood? Was there something special about Nujood that prompted the judges to help her, or was she simply the first girl who had come to them asking for a divorce?
10. Shada and Nujood chose the less “elitist” option for Nujood’s schooling. Do you think Nujood made the right decision—to stay in Yemen for her education? Do you think she will become a lawyer and help other girls like herself, as she says she hopes to do? Closer to home, Nujood talks about her protective feelings toward her sisters Mona and Haïfa, and even toward her big brother Fares. Do you think Nujood will be able to protect her siblings? What might stand in her way?
11. How has the international publicity surrounding the divorce affected Nujood’s family and community? Has it enlightened her relatives and neighbors? Or do you think it may have caused dissension within the family and alienated them from their own society?
12. Khat plays a small but sinister role in Nujood’s story. Khat is illegal in the United States, but some people in immigrant communities compare it to coffee and support its important traditional role in social situations. U.S. authorities counter that it is more like cocaine than coffee. After reading this book, what effect do you think khat has on its users and on Yemen in general? Do you feel that it contributed to Nujood’s father’s problems? If so, how? How do you think its use and effects might compare to social drugs in the United States? And most important, what does it tell us about any society that devotes so much of its valuable resources to tuning out from itself, so to speak?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death
Maggie O'Farrell, 2018
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525520221
Summary
An extraordinary memoir—told entirely in near-death experiences—from one of Britain's best-selling novelists, for fans of Wild, When Breath Becomes Air, and The Year of Magical Thinking.
We are never closer to life than when we brush up against the possibility of death.
I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's astonishing memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life.
The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter—for whom this book was written—from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life's myriad dangers.
Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots.
In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O'Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Where—Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK
• Raised—Wales and Scotland, UK
• Education—Cambridge University
• Awards—Costa Award; Betty Trask Award; Somerset Maugham Award
• Currently—lives in London, England
Maggie O'Farrell is a British author of contemporary fiction, who was once featured in Waterstones' 25 Authors for the Future. It is possible to identify several common themes in her novels—the relationship between sisters is one, another is loss and the psychological impact of those losses on the lives of her characters.
The Vanishing Act Esme Lennox was published in 2007. In 2010 O'Farrell won the Costa novel award for The Hand That First Held Mine. Her 2013 novel, Instructions for a Heatwave, also received wide acclaim.
Maggie was born in Ireland and grew up in Wales and Scotland. At the age of eight she missed a year of school due to a viral infection, an event that is echoed in The Distance Between Us. Maggie worked as a journalist, both in Hong Kong and as the Deputy Literary Editor of The Independent on Sunday. She has also taught creative writing.
She is married to the novelist William Sutcliffe, whom she met at Cambridge. They live in Hampstead Heath, London, with their two children. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Where other writers may be playing with paper, O’Farrell takes up a bow and arrow and aims at the human heart.
Times (UK)
Extraordinary… uncomfortable and compelling—a page turner.… Fluent, poised, packed with colourful details. Her prose seems invulnerable. It has the sheen of fiction.
Guardian (UK)
O’Farrell emerges as determined, loyal, fierce and stoic; not to be messed with.… The message is that we must live in the moment, finding joy and freedom where we can, but O’Farrell writes so convincingly about the peril that each episode just serves as another detailed, technicolour reminder that we, and more terrifyingly, our loved ones, are only ever one bad decision, faulty choice or sliver of ill-fortune away from catastrophe. This is a mesmerising read.
Sunday Times (UK)
O’Farrell has a compelling and arresting writing style that fills in a scene quickly and engagingly, to great dramatic and narrative effect.… It is heady, engaging stuff—a bristling, rollercoaster of a read.
New Statesman (UK)
Electric.… Astonishing.… Should be read by everyone.… Affecting: wise, terrifying, vital and important… I can count on one hand the books that made me cry and still have two fingers spare. I Am, I Am, I Am is one of them.
Irish Times (UK)
[A] stunning collection of vignettes about near-death experiences in her life.… Her most dramatic examination of the precipice between life and death is when she writes about her children.… [F]ascinating and thought-provoking.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Astounding…awe-inspiring…a tour de force
Booklist
Throughout, the narrative is compelling and visceral; O'Farrell knows how to draw in readers.… An intriguing and mostly engaging collection of life-threatening stories.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The title of the book comes from a passage in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, in which a character seems to be reminding herself she’s still alive. Why is this an apt title for this memoir?
2. O’Farrell skips around in time rather than telling her stories chronologically. Why do you think she does this? What effect does it have on the reader?
3. Why has O’Farrell had so many near-death experiences—is she merely unlucky, or does something else explain it?
4. In "Neck," O’Farrell describes her job at a retreat: "I clear away human traces, erasing all evidence that they have eaten, slept, made love, argued, washed, worn clothes, read newspapers, shed hair and skin and bristle and blood and toenails" (page 5). Why does she view her work this way? What does it tell us about her?
5. We learn about O’Farrell’s neurological condition in "Lungs" (2000), when she seems to be on her way to drowning. What drives her to risk her life like this, when she knows her own limitations?
6. The chapter in which O’Farrell narrowly avoids being hit by a car is called "Spine, Legs, Pelvis, Abdomen, Head." What does this refer to?
7. When she fails to secure postgraduate funding, O’Farrell abandons her fascination with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: "I must shut the door on it—and her. I liked my connection with her, through the words of the story. I relied on it. I felt as though I had reached back through time, down through the pages of the book, and taken hold of her hand. But I must give her up. I won’t read the book again for many years" (page 53). Why does she feel this way?
8. In various places throughout the book, O’Farrell paints herself in a negative light—for instance, says, "I am too volatile, too skittish, too impatient" (page 54). What do you, the reader, think of her self-portrait?
9. How does the incident on the plane propel O’Farrell into writing?
10. Several of O’Farrell’s near-death experiences relate to the fact that she’s female. What role does gender play here?
11. At O'Farrell’s near-catastrophic childbirth, a mysterious man in beige steps in with an unexpected kindness. She writes, "When he took my hand he taught me something about the value of touch, the communicative power of the human hand" (page 92). Why does this have such an impact on her?
12. After her "missed miscarriage," what makes O’Farrell so reluctant to have the operation?
13. In the chapter entitled "Lungs" (2010), O’Farrell discusses her childhood fascination with the myth of the selkie (page 120). Why does she think of this when she’s caught in a riptide? How does the memory help her?
14. What do we learn about O’Farrell from the story about the knife thrower?
15. In "Cranium" and again in "Bloodstream," two chapters dealing with infidelity, O’Farrell switches to third-person narration. Why? How does this change your reading experience?
16. On page 206, O’Farrell recalls her father’s admonition, "Stay in your depth!" Aside from the drowning connotations, where else could this apply in her life?
17. In "Cerebellum," we learn that many of O’Farrell’s behaviors may be a result of her childhood bout with encephalitis. How does this change your opinion of her?
18. O’Farrell describes the period during which she was sick as one of the key points in her life: "The hinge on which my childhood swung. Until that morning I woke up with a headache, I was one person, and after it, I was quite another" (page 226). Looking beyond the physical and neurological effects of encephalitis, what does she mean?
19. Several times in "Daughter," O’Farrell wonders what she did to cause her daughter’s condition. Why does she seek to blame herself?
20. O’Farrell ends her memoir with an echo to the title: "She is, she is, she is." Why does this phrase resonate with her?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
Ed Yong, 2016
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062368591
Summary
Joining the ranks of popular science classics like The Botany of Desire and The Selfish Gene, a groundbreaking, wondrously informative, and vastly entertaining examination of the most significant revolution in biology since Darwin—a "microbe’s-eye view" of the world that reveals a marvelous, radically reconceived picture of life on earth.
Every animal, whether human, squid, or wasp, is home to millions of bacteria and other microbes. Ed Yong, whose humor is as evident as his erudition, prompts us to look at ourselves and our animal companions in a new light—less as individuals and more as the interconnected, interdependent multitudes we assuredly are.
The microbes in our bodies are part of our immune systems and protect us from disease. In the deep oceans, mysterious creatures without mouths or guts depend on microbes for all their energy. Bacteria provide squid with invisibility cloaks, help beetles to bring down forests, and allow worms to cause diseases that afflict millions of people.
Many people think of microbes as germs to be eradicated, but those that live with us—the microbiome—build our bodies, protect our health, shape our identities, and grant us incredible abilities.
In this astonishing book, Ed Yong takes us on a grand tour through our microbial partners, and introduces us to the scientists on the front lines of discovery. It will change both our view of nature and our sense of where we belong in it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December, 1981
• Where—England, UK
• Education—B.A., M.A., Cambridge University; M.Phil., University College of London
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in London, England, and Washington, D.C., USA
Edmund Soon-Weng Yong is a British science journalist. As of 2016 his blog Not Exactly Rocket Science, is published as part of the National Geographic Phenomena blog network. Previously his work has been published by Nature, Scientific American, the BBC, Slate, The Guardian, The Times of London, New Scientist, Wired, The New York Times and The New Yorker. He has been a permanent staff member of The Atlantic since 2015.
Education
Yong was awarded Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in Natural Sciences (Zoology) from the University of Cambridge in 2002. He completed postgraduate study at University College London where he was awarded a Master of Philosophy degree on the biochemistry of resolvases, a group of enzymes that repress transposases.
Awards
Yong's approach to popular science writing has been described as "the future of science news," and he has received numerous awards for his work. Yong received the National Academies Communication Award from the National Academy of Sciences of the United States in 2010 in recognition of his online journalism, then part of Discover's blog group.
In the same year he received three awards from ResearchBlogging.org, which supports online science journalism focused on covering research that has already been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals which can be adapted for a wider public audience. In 2012 he received the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Stephen White Award. His blog received the first Best Science Blog award from the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW) in 2014.
Yong's interactions with other science bloggers and engagement with commenters on his own blog have served as case studies for academic work in media studies. (From Wikoipedia. Retrieved 8/9/2016.)
Read the author's newsletter.
Book Reviews
This compelling and beautifully written book will change the way people look at the world around, and within, them. Certainly among the best books in an increasingly crowded field and written with a true passion for and understanding of the microbiome.
Professor Rob Knight, University of California, San Diego, author of Follow Your Gut
Yong has captured the essence of this exciting field, expressing the enthusiasm and wonder that the scientific community feels when working with the microbiome.
Professor Jack Gilbert, University of Chicago
(Starred revicew.) British science journalist Yong succeeds in encouraging readers to recognize the critical importance of biological microorganisms. He argues that humans must move past the belief that bacteria are bad.... and reveals "how ubiquitous and vital microbes are" on scales large and small.
Publishers Weekly
Yong's readable and entertaining style is appropriate for the nonspecialist, though occasionally the author gets carried away with the use of metaphor and other figurative language. Verdict: Highly recommended for general science readers interested in the complicated relationships between microbes and their hosts. —Cynthia Lee Knight, Hunterdon Cty. Historical Soc., Flemington, NJ
Library Journal
(Starred revicew.) Bottom line: don’t hate or fear the microbial world within you. Appreciate its wonders. After all, they are more than half of you.
Booklist
(Starred revicew.) The author excels at objectively navigating the large body of research related to the microbiome..., and he delivers some of the finest science writing out there.... An exceptionally informative, beautifully written book that will profoundly shift one's sense of self to that of symbiotic multitudes.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for I Contain Multitudes...then take of on your own:
1. What specifically are microbes, and where do they live within the bodies of animals?
2. Talk about the wide-ranging roles that microbes play in the health of their hosts, particularly we humans. Consider how microbes facilitate digestion and reproduction, or affect immunity and inflammation.
3. Trace the history of the microbe, going back to when they were the planet's only inhabitants, swimming in Earth's early oceans. Explain the sigificance of those early bacteria merging with archaea?
4. Microbes have long had a poor reputation. What are some of the misconceptions Ed Yong dispels?
5. What was the book's greatest "ick" factor for you? What most surprised, even astonished you?
6. Yong paints a vibrant canvas of the characters who played important roles in the discovery and understanding (or misunderstanding) of microbes. Whom did you find most interesting?
7. Yong raises an important question: Are we too clean? What are the implications of our sanitized life? Why do some believe our obsession with cleanliness is unhealthy? If so, what is the solution?
8. Discuss some of the new therapies that are being explored regarding the use of microbes in, say, the treatment of irritable bowel disorder or allergies.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Summary | Author | Book Reviews | Discussion Questions
I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage
Susan Squire, 2008
Bloomsbury USA
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781582341194
In Brief
A provocative survey of marriage and what it has meant for society, politics, religion, and the home.
For ten thousand years, marriage—and the idea of marriage—has been at the very foundation of human society. In this provocative and ambitious book, Susan Squire unravels the turbulent history and many implications of our most basic institution. Starting with the discovery, long before recorded time, that sex leads to paternity (and hence to couplehood), and leading up to the dawn of the modern “love marriage,” Squire delves into the many ways men and women have come together and what the state of their unions has meant for history, society, and politics – especially the politics of the home.
This book is the product of thirteen years of intense research, but even more than the intellectual scope, what sets it apart is Squire’s voice and contrarian boldness. Learned, acerbic, opinionated, and funny, she draws on everything from Sumerian mythology to Renaissance theater to Victorian housewives’ manuals (sometimes all at the same time) to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic view of the many things marriage has been and meant. The result is a book to provoke and fascinate readers of all ideological stripes: feminists, traditionalists, conservatives, and progressives alike. (From the publisher.)
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About the Author
Susan Squire is the author of The Slender Balance, For Better, For Worse: A Candid Chronicle of Five Couples Adjusting to Parenthood and the best-selling essay collection, The Bitch in the House. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Playboy, New York magazine, and the Washington Post, among many others. She lives in New York City with her husband of nineteen years. (From the publisher.)
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Critics Say . . .
It's not always easy to follow the hops and skips of Squire's logical structure, and at times her penchant for one-linery gets in the way of her argument as opposed to helping it along. But I Don't is a charming book and a wonderful resource for those who think they have a bead on why the church and everyone purporting to speak for the church got themselves so firmly entrenched in the marriage business in the first place.
Dahlia Lithwick - New York Times
Fascinating.... Valuable insight into an institution that has recently been transformed yet again.
Boston Globe
Squire archly reconsiders the disobedient Biblical helpmeet Eve (‘Shouldn’t the buck stop with the senior officer, not the assistant?’), as well as witches, bitches, nymphomaniacs, concubines, clerics, cuckolds, and others.... Take this potent, hugely entertaining book to bed.
O - Oprah Magazine
In breezy, irreverent prose, Squire (The Slender Balance) catalogues the history and religious significance of the institution of marriage from Adam and Eve to the Renaissance and beyond. Writing as if gossiping with a girlfriend, Squire argues that marriage was developed to establish paternity by controlling the sex life of women. We learn that the men of Athens had hetaera (courtesans) to entertain them, concubines for their daily "need" and wives with whom to breed legitimate children; the women of Rome, on the other hand, learned how to use their power to threaten male rule of society. The New Testament offers equality to husband and wife, at least in the marriage bed; the association of lust with Eve's original sin can be attributed to Augustine. Squire explores sixth-century penitentials on sexual sins, adultery in the Middle Ages and the intersection of wife and witch during the Renaissance inquisitions. Readers are left questioning whether our modern idea of love matches might end up as a chapter in a future book about the incarnations of marriage. "Love may not be the answer, but for now, it is the story."
Publishers Weekly
Squire (The Slender Balance) begins with Genesis and works through biblical and secular history through Martin Luther, deconstructing marriage with a vengeance. Like Fox-Genovese, Squire does not pretend to be unbiased in her negative view of historical marriage, especially in terms of Christian history. The subtitle describes the book as "contrarian," but that is almost too mild a term to describe Squire's sarcastic yet breezy style, which while very amusing, is sure to offend many readers as she gleefully surveys Western history. Squire is mainly concerned with the subjugation of women within the strictures of marriage as a social and religious convention. Both works are passionate intellectual manifestos, with completely different tones and aims, and both are recommended for sociology and women's history collections.
Elizabeth Morris - Library Journal
The roots of Western ideas about getting hitched, from early humans up to Martin Luther. That's right, Martin Luther, who used sermons on the "godliness" of marriage as an opportunity to stick yet another finger in the Pope's eye and in 1525 gave up a lifetime of celibacy to get married himself. Squire (For Better or for Worse: A Candid Chronicle of Five Couples Adjusting to Parenthood, 1993, etc.) halts her history of marriage there, contending that "as the Protestant influence spreads across Europe...so does its marital vision, which is essentially Luther's." Well, maybe, but surely the last 500 years of marital theories could stand a bit more scrutiny. For the millennia she does cover, Squire pores over classical and medieval diaries, treatises on marriage and religious tracts on why women are inferior, and her narrative moves at a brisk pace. She argues that marriage was basically designed to protect fragile male egos so they could retain the sense of power they needed to project in society. It had no such positive aspects for women, who were constantly accused either of being insatiably intent on sexual variety or of being needling shrews; marriage was an instrument to control them. Despite the subtitle, readers with any knowledge of the subject will find little new information or "contrarian" analysis here; the less well-informed will probably find their worst suspicions confirmed. Squire detracts from her argument with a jarringly jocular tone-giving historical figures silly nicknames, for example. Cutting off the story in 1546 (the year of Luther's death) makes her claim to be revealing something about modern marriage nothing short of ridiculous. Lively and a pleasure to read, but falls well short of what it promises.
Kirkus Reviews
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Book Club Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for I Don't:
1. Can you sum up how Squire presents the history of the church's involvement in marriage? If you accept her approach, what are the implications for today's society? (Right, this is a huge question—it's, like, the whole book. Still...give it a try.)
2. What about Adam and Eve? Who took the fall, so to speak, and why? Who should have taken the fall?
3. What did Martin Luther's believe about marriage, and how did his views differ from the Pope's?
4. What does Squire suggest was the purpose of marriage in the first place? Has that purpose changed over the millennia?
5. Talk about the role of women, historically, in marriage and how it has changed. For better, for worse? Or, honestly?...not at all?
6. What have you learned, if anything, about the history of marriage. Does this book change your ideas of marriage...as a sacred or secular institution?
7. Consider the title: "A Contrarian History of Marriage." Did some of Squire's contrarian views offend you? Do you think she is too contrarian, too politically oriented to offer an objective view of marriage? Or is she simply laying out historical evidence—and allowing readers to judge for themselves?
8. Squire ends her history in 1546. Would you like to have seen her history extended to the present day...or at least for a couple of hundred more years?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
Nora Ephron, 2006
Knopf Doubleday
160 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307276827
Summary
With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself.
Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age.
Utterly courageous, uproariously funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book, full of truths, laugh out loud moments that will appeal to readers of all ages. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 19, 1941
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Raised—Beverly Hills, California
• Death—June 26, 2012
• Where—New York City
• Education—Wellesley College
Nora Ephron was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, journalist, author, and blogger.
She was best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay—for Silkwood...When Harry Met Sally...and Sleepless in Seattle. Her film Julie & Julia came out in 2010. She sometimes wrote with her sister Delia Ephron.
Personal life
Ephron was born in New York City, eldest of four daughters in a Jewish family, and grew up in Beverly Hills; her parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, were both East Coast-born and raised screenwriters. Her sisters Delia and Amy are also screenwriters. Her sister Hallie Ephron is a journalist, book reviewer, and novelist who writes crime fiction.
Ephron's parents based Sandra Dee's character in the play and 1963 film Take Her, She's Mine (with Jimmy Stewart) on their 22-year-old daughter Nora and her letters to them from college. Both became alcoholics during their declining years. Ephron graduated from Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California, in 1958, and from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1962.
She was married three times. Her first marriage, to writer Dan Greenburg, ended in divorce after nine years. Her second was to journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame in 1976. Ephron had an infant son, Jacob, and was pregnant with her second son, Max, in 1979 when she found out the news of Bernstein's affair with their mutual friend, married British politician Margaret Jay.
Ephron was inspired by the events to write the 1983 novel Heartburn, which was made into a 1986 film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. In the book, Ephron wrote of a husband named Mark, who was “capable of having sex with a Venetian blind.” She also said that the character Thelma (based on Margaret Jay) looked like a giraffe with "big feet." Bernstein threatened to sue over the book and film, but he never did.
Ephron's third marriage was to screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi.
Although Jewish by birth, Ephron was not religious. "Because you can never have too much butter — that is my belief. If I have a religion, that's it," she told NPR in an interview about her 2009 movie, Julie & Julia.
Career
Ephron graduated from Wellesley College in 1962 and worked briefly as an intern in the White House of President John F. Kennedy.
After a satire she wrote lampooning the New Post caught the editor's eye, Ephron landed a job at the Post, where she stayed as a reporter for five years. In 1966, she broke the news in the Post that Bob Dylan had married Sara Lownds in a private ceremony three and a half months before.
Upon becoming a successful writer, she wrote a column on women's issues for Esquire. In this position, Ephron made a name for herself by taking on subjects as wide-ranging as Dorothy Schiff, her former boss and owner of the Post; Betty Friedan, whom she chastised for pursuing a feud with Gloria Steinem; and her alma mater Wellesley, which she said had turned out a generation of "docile" women." A 1968 send-up of Women's Wear Daily in Cosmopolitan resulted in threats of a lawsuit from WWD.
While married to Bernstein in the mid-1970s, at her husband and Bob Woodward's request, she helped Bernstein re-write William Goldman's script for All the President's Men, because the two journalists were not happy with it. The Ephron-Bernstein script was not used in the end, but was seen by someone who offered Ephron her first screenwriting job, for a television movie.
Ephron's 2002 play Imaginary Friends explores the rivalry between writers Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy.
Ephron and Deep Throat
For many years, Ephron was among only a handful of people in the world claiming to know the identity of Deep Throat, the source for news articles written by her husband Carl Bernstein during the Watergate scandal. Ephron claims to have guessed the identity of Deep Throat through clues left by Bernstein. Among them was the fact that Bernstein referred to the source as "My Friend", the same initials as "Mark Felt," whom some suspected to be Bernstein's source.
Ephron's marriage with Bernstein ended acrimoniously, and Ephron was loose-lipped about the identity of Deep Throat. She told her son Jacob and has said that she told anyone who asked...
I would give speeches to 500 people and someone would say, "Do you know who Deep Throat is?" And I would say, "It’s Mark Felt."
Classmates of Jacob Bernstein at the Dalton School and Vassar College recall Jacob revealing to numerous people that Felt was Deep Throat. Curiously, the claims did not garner attention from the media during the many years that the identity of Deep Throat was a mystery. Ephron was invited by Arianna Huffington to write about the experience in the Huffington Post and now regularly blogs for the site.
Death
On June 26, 2012, Ephron died from pneumonia, a complication resulting from acute myeloid leukemia, a condition with which she was diagnosed in 2006. In her final book, I Remember Nothing (2010), Ephron left clues that something was wrong with her or that she was ill, particularly in a list at the end of the book citing "things I won't miss/things I'll miss."
There was widespread and somewhat shocked reaction to her death (as she had kept her illness secret from most people), with celebrities such as Meryl Streep, Matthew Broderick, Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks, Albert Brooks, and Ron Howard commenting on her brilliance, warmth, generosity, and wit.
At the Karlovy Vary Film Festival of that year, actresses Helen Mirren and Susan Sarandon, who were honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award, paid tribute to her during their speeches.
Nora Ephron Prize
The Nora Ephron Prize is a $25,000 award by the Tribeca film festival for a female writer or filmmaker "with a distinctive voice." The first Nora Ephron Prize was awarded in 2013 to Meera Menon for her film Farah Goes Bang. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/1/2014.)
Listen to a terrific audio tribute to Ephron by bloggers Hollister & O'Toole.
Book Reviews
This brief, long-overdue book is for readers still willing to buy into Ms. Ephron's familiar writing persona: that of a sharp, funny, theatrically domesticated New Yorker who can throw both arrows and good money at the petty things that plague her. When she says that she can trace the history of the last 40 years through changing trends in lettuce, she isn't kidding.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Despite the elegiac tone of this collection, it would be nice to think that we'll have Nora Ephron around for a long time. She's always good for an amusing line, a wry smile, and sometimes an abashed grin of recognition as she homes in on one of our own dubious obsessions.
Bunny Crumpacker - Washington Post
The honest truth is that it's sad to be over sixty," concludes Nora Ephron in her sparkling new book about aging. With 15 essays in 160 pages, this collection is short, a thoughtful concession to pre- and post-menopausal women (who else is there?), like herself, who "can't read a word on the pill bottle," follow a thought to a conclusion, or remember the thought after not being able to read the pill bottle. Ephron drives the truth home like a nail in your soon-to-be-bought coffin
Toni Bentley - Publishers Weekly
Though humorously self-deprecating and poignant, critics agree that the essays, some published previously,are uneven.... Despite the collection's lightweight feel, Ephron still writes [according to L.A. Times critic] "like someone who has something useful and important to tell her readers."
Bookmarks Magazine
A disparate assortment of sharp and funny pieces revealing the private anguishes, quirks and passions of a woman on the brink of senior citizenhood.... One doesn't need to be a post-menopausal New Yorker with a liberal outlook and comfortable income to enjoy Ephron's take on life, but those who fit the profile will surely relish it most.
Kirkus Reviews
Book Club Discussion Questions
1. In “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” Ephron writes that she avoids making truthful comments on how her friends look, even when they ask her directly [pp. 3–4]. Why is this a wise decision? She says, “the neck is a dead giveaway” [p. 5]. When women seek each other's opinions about how their necks, and other features, really look, do they want the truth, or do they want to be reassured?
2. According to Ephron, most authors who write about aging say “it great to be old. It's great to be wise and sage and mellow” [p. 7]. What, for her, is wrong with this approach? How would you compare I Feel Bad About My Neck with other books you have read about aging or menopause? Is it more useful?
3. In “I Hate My Purse,” Ephron sees her purse as a microcosm of her life—it is the symbol of her inability to be organized. Given the current obsession with expensive purses in American fashion, why is her choice of a plastic MetroCard bag amusing [pp. 15–16]?
4. What do the foods we cook, the cookbook authors we seek to emulate, and the way we entertain guests, say about how we want life to be? Why does Ephron give up her attachment to Craig Claiborne and begin “to make a study of Lee Bailey” [p. 26], and then later move on to Martha Stewart and Nigella Lawson?
5. Heartburn was a “thinly disguised novel about the end of my marriage” [p. 28]. If you have read Heartburn or seen the film, think about how Ephron presents her current stage in life, and what has changed for her. What is her attitude as she reflects on earlier and more difficult periods of her life?
6. Ephron writes, “I sometimes think that not having to worry about your hair anymore is the secret upside of death” [p. 32]. She also says that going to a hair salon twice a week and having her hair blown dry is “cheaper by far than psychoanalysis, and much more uplifting” [p. 34]. For Ephron, “maintenance” has larger implications than just taking care of one's appearance. What are the larger meanings of these annoying, repetitive actions, for her—and by implication, for women in general?
7. What would this book be like if written by a man? Do men have similar issues about growing older, and do they talk or think about them in similar ways? Think about and share ideas about what well-known man—a writer or a celebrity, perhaps—might be capable of writing the male version of I Feel Bad About My Neck.
8. In “Parenting in Three Stages,” Ephron revises some commonly held notions. Adolescence, for instance, is a period that helps parents separate from their children, and there is “almost nothing you can do to make life easier for yourself except wait until it's over” [p. 62]. Later in the book she says, “the empty nest is underrated” [p. 125]. How does being in her sixties, with her children out of the house, change Ephron's perspective on motherhood?
9. In “Moving On,” Ephron writes about an important and prolonged episode in her past: a love affair with an apartment building. How does she eventually “move on”? Does this essay suggest that she has become more pragmatic with time? How does she change her mind about what makes sense for her, as she gets older?
10. Why is “The Story of My Life in 3,500 Words or Less” such an effective way of telling one's life story? What does Ephron focus on as the most important issues in this miniaturized autobiography? What lessons has she learned?
11. While this is undoubtedly a funny and enjoyable book, in what ways is it also a serious book? What are Ephron's most important insights in “Considering the Alternative”?
12. What, if anything, does I Feel Bad About My Neck have to say about the benefits of growing older?
13. Certain small pieces in this collection might provoke you and members of your group to try writing your own version. What would you include, for instance, in your own list of “What I Wish I'd Known”?
14. What is the funniest moment in this collection, and why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia
Su Meck and Daniel de Vise, 2014
Simon & Schuster
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451685817
Summary
What would you do if you lost your past?
In 1988 Su Meck was twenty-two and married with two children when a ceiling fan in her kitchen fell and struck her on the head, leaving her with a traumatic brain injury that erased all her memories of her life up to that point. Although her body healed rapidly, her memories never returned. Yet after just three weeks in the hospital, Su was released and once again charged with the care of two toddlers and a busy household.
Adrift in a world about which she understood almost nothing, Su became an adept mimic, gradually creating routines and rituals that sheltered her and her family, however narrowly, from the near-daily threat of disaster—or so she thought. Though Su would eventually relearn to tie her shoes, cook a meal, and read and write, nearly twenty years would pass before a series of personally devastating events shattered the “normal” life she had worked so hard to build, and she realized that she would have to grow up all over again.
In her own indelible voice, Su offers us a view from the inside of a terrible injury, with the hope that her story will help give other brain injury sufferers and their families the resolve and courage to build their lives anew. Piercing, heartbreaking, but finally uplifting, this book is the true story of a woman determined to live life on her own terms. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1965
• Raised—near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—A.A. Montgomery College
• Currently—lives in North Hampton, Massachusetts
Su Meck is pursuing degrees in music and book studies from Smith College. I Forgot to Remember is her first book; her work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine. She and her husband, Jim, have three grown children and live in Northampton, Massachusetts, with their two Lab Rescue dogs, Fern and Farley, and their two tuxedo cats, Apollo and Athena.
Daniel de Vise is a journalist and author who has worked at the Washington Post, Miami Herald, and five other newspapers in a twenty-three-year career. He shared a 2001 Pulitzer Prize and has garnered many other national and regional journalism awards; his investigative reporting has twice led to the release of wrongly convicted men from life terms in prison. A graduate of Wesleyan and Northwestern universities, he lives with his wife and children in Maryland. He is working on his second book. (From .)
Book Reviews
[Meck's] understated book, I Forgot to Remember, is more an account than a memoir. The matter-of-fact delivery makes the harrowing details of her ordeal stand out all the more.... Meck expressly wrote the book to show what traumatic brain injury is like. Her message to families is to be patient and to maintain realistic expectations, and never to accuse the injured person of faking symptoms or being intentionally difficult, as she was by her husband and, appallingly, her doctors.... [A] tale of triumph in the search for identity....which succeeds impressively.
Salley Satel - New York Times Book Review
The author recounts her grueling climb back to normalcy after an accident robs her of her memory and sense of self in this heartwrenching true story.
Oprah Magazine
A remarkable memoir....unnervingly honest, straightforward to a degree that makes every other memoir I’ve read seem evasive, self-conscious, and preening.... Unlike that of everyone else around her, [Su Meck’s] adult life wasn’t the result of imagining a happy future, pursuing it with a sense of purpose and then figuring out whether or not her dreams have been fulfilled, betrayed, or misbegotten. Her life was simply ‘the way things were’—until, that is, she realized she was in a position to have some say about that. And seeing her seize that opportunity makes for a happier ending than any fairy tale can offer.
Salon.com
[S]trangely compelling.... [Meck]re-creates the freak accident in her Fort Worth kitchen that ...left her with a...devastating memory loss.... Meck went through the motions of being a wife and mother...without there being any substance behind her facade of normalcy. [She] relates with excruciating honesty her journey out of oblivion.
Publishers Weekly
In this remarkable memoir, Meck chronicles her experiences as she learned to live in ‘a house full of strangers'.... Compelling and inspirational and, one hopes, an important impetus for ongoing brain research.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. A memoir by a woman with no memories is a strange concept, but how different is it from other memoirs, which tend to be pulled together from long-ago memories? Do you trust Su’s story more—as it’s been pieced together from many sources—or less than you would a memoir by another writer? What does your answer say about the nature of the genre?
2. Su talks about the difficulties of parenting with no memories of being parented. In what ways are we all reliant on the parenting skills we’ve been taught? Do the roles her children take on in reaction to her needs support your answer?
3. After the accident, Su relies on routines to make her days make sense. How much do you rely on routines to structure your life? If your routines were taken away, would you be as confused as Su? Why or why not?
4. One of the more frustrating experiences for Su was when people believed her memory loss stemmed from psychological, not physical, sources. Do you think it matters what caused it? How might its cause change your perception of Su’s injuries and the difficulties she faces?
5. “I think I was probably trying to prove how genuine I really was, somehow. Because inside I felt so much like a fraud.” Do you think all of us do this on some level? Why or why not?
6. How reliable of a narrator do you think Su is? Do you find it problematic that Jim gets so many basic facts about her accident wrong? What about the memories of the other people, such as her kids? How much do you trust their memories? How does it affect your reading?
7. In what ways do the various settings—the tract house in Texas, the homes in suburban Maryland, the deluxe but stifling hotel in Egypt—shape the events that took place there and how we understand them?
8. Su has no memories of her life before the accident and very few of the years that immediately followed. She is dependent on other people’s memories of what happened to understand her own life. How different is this from the way the rest of us live? Are we all, in some way, a reflection of other people’s ideas about us? Why or why not?
9. Jim is one of the more complicated people in the book. In some ways, he comes off as a saint, helping and teaching and loving Su. On the other hand, he is largely absent, is verbally and physically abusive, and cheats on her. Do you ultimately see more good than bad in Jim? Why or why not? What do you make of the fact that Su loves him anyway?
10. “I have always loved Jim, and I have never loved Jim. In a way, Jim was assigned to me. I never really had a say.” How much do we choose who we love? How much of it do you think is circumstance?
11. After Su finds out Jim has had multiple affairs and spent tens of thousands of dollars on other women, things are rough between them, but she ultimately forgives him. Why do you think she did? Did she have any other choice? Do you think it shows weakness or strength on her part? Would you have forgiven Jim?
12. Toward the end of the book, Su finds out that she had an old boyfriend named Neal, a man her friends and family assure her was her first love. She has no memory of him, but then she remembers that there was a time when she didn’t remember or love her husband or children either. “And yet the expectation, and eventually the reality, was that I loved all of these people.” What does this say about the nature of love? Do you believe love must be immediate, or can it grow over time? Is romantic love different than maternal love? Do we choose love, or does it choose us?
13. “If I didn’t have Jim, I wouldn’t have me.” In light of all Jim has put Su through, and in light of all he did for her, do you agree? Is Su who she is largely because of Jim? Do you think she would have become a different person if she had married Neal? How do the people we surround ourselves with shape who we become?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou, 1969
Random House
289 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345514400
Summary
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age–and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime.
Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns about love for herself and the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a modern American classic that will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka— Margeurite Johnson
• Birth—April 04, 1928
• Where—St. Louis, Missouri, USA
• Education—High school in Atlanta and San Francisco
• Awards—Langston Hughes Award 1991; Grammy Award for
Spoken Word Recording, 1993 and 1995; Quill Award, 2006
• Currently—Winston-Salem, North Carolina
An author whose series of autobiographies is as admired for its lyricism as its politics, Maya Angelou is a writer who’s done it all. Angelou's poetry and prose—and her refusal to shy away from writing about the difficult times in her past—have made her an inspiration to her readers. (From the publisher.)
More
As a chronicler of her own story and the larger civil rights movement in which she took part, Maya Angelou is remarkable in equal measure for her lyrical gifts as well as her distinct sense of justice, both politically and personally.
Angelou was among the first, if not the first, to create a literary franchise based on autobiographical writings. In the series’ six titles—beginning with the classic I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and followed by Gather Together in My Name, Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas, Heart of a Woman, All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes, A Song Flung Up to Heaven, and Mom and Me and Mom—Angelou tells her story in language both no-nonsense and intensely spiritual.
Angelou’s facility with language, both on paper and as a suede-voiced speaker, have made her a populist poet. Her 1995 poem “Phenomenal Woman” is still passed along the Web among women as inspiration:
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips
The stride of my steps
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.
Her 1993 poem “On the Pulse of the Morning,” written for Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration, was later released as a Grammy-winning album.
Angelou often cites other writers (from Kenzaburo Oe to James Baldwin) both in text and name. But as often as not, her major mentors were not writers—she had been set to work with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. before each was assassinated, stories she recounts in A Song Flung Up to Heaven.
Given her rollercoaster existence—from poverty in Arkansas to journalism in Egypt and Ghana and ultimately, to her destiny as a successful writer and professor in the States—it’s no surprise that Angelou hasn’t limited herself to one or two genres. Angelou has also written for stage and screen, acted, and directed. She is the rare author from whom inspiration can be derived both from her approach to life as from her talent in writing about it. Reading her books is like taking counsel from your wisest, favorite aunt.
Extras
• Angelou was nominated for an Emmy for her performance as Nyo Boto in the 1977 miniseries Roots. She has also appeared in films such as How to Make an American Quilt and Poetic Justice, and she directed 1998’s Down in the Delta.
• Angelou speaks six languages, including West African Fanti.
• She taught modern dance at the Rome Opera House and the Hambina Theatre in Tel Aviv.
• Before she became famous as a writer, Maya Angelou was a singer. Miss Calypso is a CD of her singing calypso songs. (From Barnes and Noble.)
Book Reviews
The wisdom, rue and humor of her storytelling are borne on a lilting rhythm completely her own, the product of a born writer's senses nourished on black church singing and preaching, soft mother talk and salty street talk, and on literature: James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Shakespeare and Gorki.
New York Times Book Review
Maya Angelou's autobiography was the first book I ever read that made me feel my life as a colored girl growing up in Mississippi deserved validation. I loved it from the opening lines.
Oprah Winfrey - Oprah Magazine
This testimony from a black sister marks the beginning of a new error in the minds and hearts of all black men and women...I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity. I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood when the poeple in books were more real than the people one saw everyday, had I found myself so moved...Her portrait is a biblical study of life in the midst of death.
James Baldwin (author)
I know why the caged bird sings: this statement as much as any other defines the uniquely expansive and knowing vision of Maya Angelou. In her works of poetry, drama, and memoir, she describes the imperfections and perversions of humanity_men, women, black, white_with an unrelenting and sometimes jarring candor. But that candor is leavened by an unusually strong desire to comprehend the worst acts of the people around her and find a way for hope and love to survive in spite of it all. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the beautifully written and brutally honest chronicle of Angelou's life from her arrival in Stamp, Arkansas, at age three to the birth of her only child in San Francisco, at age sixteen. In between those two events, Angelou provides an unfbrgettable memoir of growing up black in the 1930s and 1940s in a tiny southern town in Arkansas.
Angelou vividly describes the everyday indignities pressed on blacks in her small town, whether by the condescending white women who shortened her name to Mary because her real name, Marguerite, took too long to say, or by the cruel white dentist who refused to treat her because ... . my policy is I'd rather stick my hand in a dog's mouth than a nigger's. She also faced horror and brutality at the hands of her own people_she was raped by her mother's boyfriend when she was eight years old and later witnessed his murder at the hands of her uncles, a trauma that sent her into a shell of silence for years. Nevertheless, she emphasizes the positive things she learned from the "rainbows" in the black community of her youth that helped her survive and keep her hopes alive: her grandmother, Momma, who owned a general store and remained a pillar despite the struggles of being a black woman in a segregated and racist southern town; the Holy Rollers of the revivalist black church, who used coded language to attack the racist system they lived under; and Mrs.Bertha Flowers, the aristocratic black woman who brought her back from her shell of silence by introducing her to a love of literature, language, and recitation.
Her mastery of language and storytelling allows Angelou to record the incidents that shaped and troubled her, while also giving insight into the larger social and political tensions of the 1930s. She explains both the worst aspects of her youth and the frequent moments of exhilaration with drama and vigor; it's in the carefully described details and minor incidents that her childhood world is brought to life. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was nominated for the National Book Award in 1970 and remains an immensely popular book among people worldwide to this day for its honest and hopeful portrait of a woman finding the strength to overcome any adversity, of a caged bird who found the means to fly. Angelou has written four follow-up autobiographical works: Gather Together in My Name, Singin Swinginand Getting Merry Like Christmas, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes, and Heart of a Woman.
Sacred Fire
Discussion Questions
1. The memoir opens with a provocative refrain: "What you looking at me for? I didn't come to stay ... " What do you think this passage says about Ritie's sense of herself? How does she feel about her place in the world? How does she keep her identity intact?
2. Upon seeing her mother for the first time after years of separation, Ritie describes her as "a hurricane in its perfect power." What do you think about Ritie's relationship with her mother? How does it compare to her relationship with her grandmother, "Momma"?
3. The author writes, "If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat." What do you make of the author's portrayal of race? How do Ritie and her family cope with the racial tension that permeates their lives?
4. Throughout the book, Ritie struggles with feelings that she is "bad" and "sinful, " as her thoughts echo the admonitions of her strict religious upbringing. What does she learn at the end of the memoir about right and wrong?
5. What is the significance of the title as it relates to Ritie's self-imposed muteness?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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I Miss You When I Blink: Essays
Mary Laura Philpott, 2019
Atria Books
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781982102807
Summary
Acclaimed essayist and bookseller Mary Laura Philpott presents a charmingly relatable and wise memoir-in-essays about what happened after she checked off all the boxes on her successful life’s to-do list and realized she might need to reinvent the list—and herself.
Mary Laura Philpott thought she’d cracked the code: Always be right, and you’ll always be happy.
But once she’d completed her life’s to-do list (job, spouse, house, babies—check!), she found that instead of feeling content and successful, she felt anxious.
Lost. Stuck in a daily grind of overflowing calendars, grueling small talk, and sprawling traffic.
She’d done everything "right," but she felt all wrong. What’s the worse failure, she wondered: smiling and staying the course, or blowing it all up and running away? And are those the only options?
In this memoir-in-essays full of spot-on observations about home, work, and creative life, Philpott takes on the conflicting pressures of modern adulthood with wit and heart.
She offers up her own stories to show that identity crises don’t happen just once or only at midlife; reassures us that small, recurring personal re-inventions are both normal and necessary; and advises that if you’re going to faint, you should get low to the ground first.
Most of all, Philpott shows that when you stop feeling satisfied with your life, you don’t have to burn it all down and set off on a transcontinental hike (unless you want to, of course). You can call upon your many selves to figure out who you are, who you’re not, and where you belong. Who among us isn’t trying to do that?
Like a pep talk from a sister, I Miss You When I Blink is the funny, poignant, and deeply affecting book you’ll want to share with all your friends, as you learn what Philpott has figured out along the way: that multiple things can be true of us at once—and that sometimes doing things wrong is the way to do life right. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Mary Laura Philpott writes essays that examine the overlap of the absurd and the profound in everyday life. In 2015, she wrote and illustrated the humor book Penguins with People Problems, a quirky look at the embarrassments of being human. Her next book, I Miss You When I Blink came out in 2019.
Philpott's writing has been featured in print or online by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and other publications. She is the founding editor of Musing, the online magazine of Parnassus Books, as well as an Emmy-winning cohost of the show A Word on Words on Nashville Public Television.
Mary Laura lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her family. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
I've spent my adult life prowling bookshelves for the modern day reincarnation of my favorite authors—Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck, Jean Kerr, and Lawrie Colwin—all rolled into one.… Good news: I have finally found their successor.… [R]efreshingly honest and funny… [Philpott's] real gift lies in making the connection between the small moments and the big ones, so you feel you've walked into a complicated, glittering web.… [D]elicious.
Elisabeth Egan - Washington Post
Be forewarned that you'll laugh out loud and cry, probably in the same essay. Philpott has a wonderful way of finding humor, even in darker moments. This is a book you'll want to buy for yourself and every other woman you know.
Real Simple
This wonderful memoir-in-essays from Nashville writer Mary Laura Philpott is a frank and funny look at what happens when, in the midst of a tidy life, there occur impossible-to-ignore tugs toward creativity, meaning, and the possibility of something more.
Southern Living
In her memoir-in-essays, acclaimed writer Mary Laura Philpott addresses the conflicting pressures of modern adulthood and that inevitable "stuck" feeling so many of us become familiar with. Part confessional, part pep talk, I Miss You When I Blink is a reassuring read about learning how to accept that doing things wrong can be the way to do life right.
Bustle
[H]eartwarming if occasionally self-indulgent…. Readers who worry their type-A personalities have led them to be unsatisfied with their successes, or those who yearn for change but can’t pinpoint exactly why, will find this book comforting and reassuring.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Laugh-out-loud funny…. Mary Laura Philpott's hilarious and comforting essay collection will reassure women questioning their abilities and choices.
Shelf Awareness
A mosaic of a life changing in subtle rather than radical ways…. Readers with their own sets of anxieties should be charmed by the author's friendly tone, warm sense of humor, and relatable experiences.
Booklist
[I]nviting autobiographical essays.…Warm, candid, and wise, Philpott's book is both an extended reflection on the pressures of being female and a survivor's tale about finding contentment by looking within and learning to be herself. Delightfully bighearted reading.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. "It’s the perfect sentence, but I didn’t write it. My six-year-old did (1)." What did you initially think the phrase "I miss you when I blink" meant and what you do you think of it after reading the book? Do you think it was a good choice of title for this collection?
2. "We all keep certain phrases handy in our minds—hanging on hooks just inside the door where we can grab them like a raincoat, for easy access. Not mantras exactly, but go-to choruses that state how things are, that give structure to the chaos and help life make a little more sense (2)." Do you have one of these? What is it and where did it come from?
3. "For so many people I know, there is no one big midlife smashup; there’s a recurring sense of having met an impasse, a need to turn around and not only change course, but change the way you are (3)." Have you ever felt this way? How did you get yourself out of it?
4. Mary Laura mentions finding her brilliant college notes about Virginia Woolf and feeling detached from that person. What is the version of yourself that you miss most? [Technically, that was a hypothetical "she" who found those notes, but as long as that tiny distinction doesn’t bother you all, it’s fine with me if saying it this way in the question makes it simpler.]
5. Are you a perfectionist like Mary Laura? Why do you think so many women define themselves as perfectionists?
6. Have you ever thought of your life as an endless to-do list? Mary Laura finds herself checking things off, getting to the end of her "successful adulthood" list, but feeling more disoriented than ever, like she hasn't arrived anywhere (12). How can we remain goal-oriented without finding ourselves at this impasse? Is being goal-oriented even something to strive for? Is the impasse inevitable? [just slightly reworded bc "nearing the end of hers" initially made me think it meant "nearing the end of her life" lol]
7. "It wouldn’t be fair for me to say, 'I’m just an average person,' or 'an ordinary' person, because I am also a lucky person. I was raised in a loving home and grew up to have another loving home, and I do not suffer from dire physical, financial, or situational disadvantages that so many people struggle under. But being fortunate doesn’t mean you won’t reach a certain point in life—many points actually—and panic (13)." How can we recognize the privileges we have while still treating our own struggles and feelings with respect?
8. "All of us have one prevalent personality trait, no matter what other qualities we possess. There’s always one ingredient that flavors everything else about us. The cilantro, if you will (16)." Do you think this is true? And if so, what’s yours?
9. Mary Laura writes about the trope of blaming your parents for your flaws: "So there you have it. When I was growing up, my mother was a hard-ass, and she turned me compulsive. It’s all my mother’s fault. Or: When I was growing up, my mother was my cheerleader, and she made me successful. It’s all to my mother’s credit (26)." How do you view the effects your parents had on you? Is there another way to look at this?
10. "In school we’re taught to do our best, but we’re limited by the bounds of what we understand to be right—and ‘right’ looks different to everyone (35)." Do people ever fully learn that lesson? How do you teach kids what’s right and wrong while also teaching them that right and wrong look different to everyone?
11. Have you ever dated a person who was "totally wrong but really fun for a little while (49)"? Spill.
12. Do you believe that the potential selves you could’ve been "exist as surely as my past selves do and as truly as the real, right-now self does, too (85)"? How did reading that make you feel?
13. Have you ever found yourself in a conversation about the weather or traffic and wondered, "Have conversations always been like this (122)?" How do we get into conversational ruts (with our friends or our partners) and how can we get out of them? What do you do to break through the small talk?
14. At the end of Mary Laura’s solo retreat in Nashville, she writes in her journal, "I am too smart to go back to being miserable (172)." How do you feel about this sentiment?
15. Mary Laura believes you can always start over. Do you? Have you? Will you?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections
Nora Ephron, 2010
Random House
160 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307742803
Summary
Nora Ephron returns with her first book since the astounding success of I Feel Bad About My Neck, taking a hilarious look at the past, the present, and the future, bemoaning the vicissitudes of modern life, and recalling with her signature clarity and wisdom everything she hasn’t (yet) forgotten.
Filled with insights and observations that instantly ring true—and could have come only from Nora Ephron—I Remember Nothing is pure joy. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 19, 1941
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Raised—Beverly Hills, California
• Death—June 26, 2012
• Where—New York City
• Education—Wellesley College
Nora Ephron was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, journalist, author, and blogger.
She was best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay—for Silkwood...When Harry Met Sally...and Sleepless in Seattle. Her film Julie & Julia came out in 2010. She sometimes wrote with her sister Delia Ephron.
Personal life
Ephron was born in New York City, eldest of four daughters in a Jewish family, and grew up in Beverly Hills; her parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, were both East Coast-born and raised screenwriters. Her sisters Delia and Amy are also screenwriters. Her sister Hallie Ephron is a journalist, book reviewer, and novelist who writes crime fiction.
Ephron's parents based Sandra Dee's character in the play and 1963 film Take Her, She's Mine (with Jimmy Stewart) on their 22-year-old daughter Nora and her letters to them from college. Both became alcoholics during their declining years. Ephron graduated from Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California, in 1958, and from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1962.
She was married three times. Her first marriage, to writer Dan Greenburg, ended in divorce after nine years. Her second was to journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame in 1976. Ephron had an infant son, Jacob, and was pregnant with her second son, Max, in 1979 when she found out the news of Bernstein's affair with their mutual friend, married British politician Margaret Jay.
Ephron was inspired by the events to write the 1983 novel Heartburn, which was made into a 1986 film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. In the book, Ephron wrote of a husband named Mark, who was “capable of having sex with a Venetian blind.” She also said that the character Thelma (based on Margaret Jay) looked like a giraffe with "big feet." Bernstein threatened to sue over the book and film, but he never did.
Ephron's third marriage was to screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi.
Although Jewish by birth, Ephron was not religious. "Because you can never have too much butter — that is my belief. If I have a religion, that's it," she told NPR in an interview about her 2009 movie, Julie & Julia.
Career
Ephron graduated from Wellesley College in 1962 and worked briefly as an intern in the White House of President John F. Kennedy.
After a satire she wrote lampooning the New Post caught the editor's eye, Ephron landed a job at the Post, where she stayed as a reporter for five years. In 1966, she broke the news in the Post that Bob Dylan had married Sara Lownds in a private ceremony three and a half months before.
Upon becoming a successful writer, she wrote a column on women's issues for Esquire. In this position, Ephron made a name for herself by taking on subjects as wide-ranging as Dorothy Schiff, her former boss and owner of the Post; Betty Friedan, whom she chastised for pursuing a feud with Gloria Steinem; and her alma mater Wellesley, which she said had turned out a generation of "docile" women." A 1968 send-up of Women's Wear Daily in Cosmopolitan resulted in threats of a lawsuit from WWD.
While married to Bernstein in the mid-1970s, at her husband and Bob Woodward's request, she helped Bernstein re-write William Goldman's script for All the President's Men, because the two journalists were not happy with it. The Ephron-Bernstein script was not used in the end, but was seen by someone who offered Ephron her first screenwriting job, for a television movie.
Ephron's 2002 play Imaginary Friends explores the rivalry between writers Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy.
Ephron and Deep Throat
For many years, Ephron was among only a handful of people in the world claiming to know the identity of Deep Throat, the source for news articles written by her husband Carl Bernstein during the Watergate scandal. Ephron claims to have guessed the identity of Deep Throat through clues left by Bernstein. Among them was the fact that Bernstein referred to the source as "My Friend", the same initials as "Mark Felt," whom some suspected to be Bernstein's source.
Ephron's marriage with Bernstein ended acrimoniously, and Ephron was loose-lipped about the identity of Deep Throat. She told her son Jacob and has said that she told anyone who asked...
I would give speeches to 500 people and someone would say, "Do you know who Deep Throat is?" And I would say, "It’s Mark Felt."
Classmates of Jacob Bernstein at the Dalton School and Vassar College recall Jacob revealing to numerous people that Felt was Deep Throat. Curiously, the claims did not garner attention from the media during the many years that the identity of Deep Throat was a mystery. Ephron was invited by Arianna Huffington to write about the experience in the Huffington Post and now regularly blogs for the site.
Death
On June 26, 2012, Ephron died from pneumonia, a complication resulting from acute myeloid leukemia, a condition with which she was diagnosed in 2006. In her final book, I Remember Nothing (2010), Ephron left clues that something was wrong with her or that she was ill, particularly in a list at the end of the book citing "things I won't miss/things I'll miss."
There was widespread and somewhat shocked reaction to her death (as she had kept her illness secret from most people), with celebrities such as Meryl Streep, Matthew Broderick, Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks, Albert Brooks, and Ron Howard commenting on her brilliance, warmth, generosity, and wit.
At the Karlovy Vary Film Festival of that year, actresses Helen Mirren and Susan Sarandon, who were honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award, paid tribute to her during their speeches.
Nora Ephron Prize
The Nora Ephron Prize is a $25,000 award by the Tribeca film festival for a female writer or filmmaker "with a distinctive voice." The first Nora Ephron Prize was awarded in 2013 to Meera Menon for her film Farah Goes Bang. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/1/2014.)
Listen to a terrific audio tribute to Ephron by bloggers Hollister & O'Toole.
Book Reviews
Nora Ephron's new book of essays is titled I Remember Nothing, but that's a sop. She remembers everything, and while some of the material in this book is tantalizingly fresh and forthright, some of it we've seen before. Which doesn't mean it's not just as entertaining the second or even third time around, offered in each new iteration with a few more spicy details…[Ephron]'s familiar but funny, boldly outspoken yet simultaneously reassuring.
Alex Kuczynski - New York Times Book Review
What you can finally say about Ephron is that she's a tremendously talented woman from a significant American period. Yes, she has some trouble making up her mind. She'll come horrifyingly close to self-denigration (in the divorce essay, for example), but then, just in case you might go along with that gag, she'll dazzle you in the next pages with strings of perfect prose. Luck, hard work, privilege, yes, yes, yes. But tremendous talent is her forte, her strong suit, her fiendish trump card.
Carolyn See - Washington Post
Vivid.... [An] entertaining collection of stories about her life so far. . . . She remains the neighbor we all wish we had. Someone to share a cup of coffee with. Or better yet, a glass of wine. Maybe two.
USA Today
Classic Ephron: gloriously opinionated—and on target.... Ephron sure does know how to tell a story and entertain.
Heller McAlpin - NPR
When you start to read her work, you can’t stop. You don’t want to stop. Her writer’s voice is remarkably engaging and fresh.
Buffalo News
Breathlessly funny.... Chatty, witty, self-effacing and candid.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Breezily funny prose.... As candid and hilarious as before.
Kansas City Star
Nora Ephron is, in essence, one of the original bloggers—and if everyone could write like her, what a lovely place the Internet would be.... If this is Nora Ephron’s last word, it’s a stylish one—but here’s hoping she’s got a few more up her cashmere sleeve
Seattle Times
She’s never been more real than in this collection—a full pleasure to read.
New York Journal of Books
The power of these essays often comes from a voice clearly looking back at a riveting life with a clear-eyed wisdom and, at times, twinges of regret.
Salon
A slim, candid, and always witty package of Ephron’s insights, written and bound before they slip her mind forever.
Elle
(Audio version.) Ephron's voice has a nice grain to it, but where it should skip and flow to mimic the conversational patter of her prose, it stumbles and drags.... Stripped of the author's light touch and self-deprecation, the jokes fall flat, and [some of] Ephron's quips on...are likely to elicits more cringes than chuckles.
Publishers Weekly
[F]unny, relatable, and sometimes touching stories. The chapters on email and journalism are particularly amusing, while the accounts of Ephron's divorce and her mother's alcoholism show a different side to the author/director best known for her comedy.... One doesn't have to be on the other side of 50 to appreciate her wit. —Theresa Horn, St. Joseph Cty. P.L., South Bend, IN
Library Journal
Candid, self-deprecating, laser-smart, and hilarious.... A master of the jujitsu essay, Ephron leaves us breathless with rueful laughter.
Booklist
Bland, often rambling anecdotes from the acclaimed director and screenwriter. Ephron returns to the literary scene with a collection of essays that thematically hover around the issue of aging.... Only occasionally reaches emotional depth—seems like a tardy attempt to capitalize on the success of I Feel Bad About My Neck.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the title essay, Ephron writes," ... I have been forgetting things for years, but now I forget in a new way” [p.5]. How do the examples she uses capture the difference between her past and present ways of forgetting?
2. Does Ephron’s list of the symptoms of old age mirror your own experiences or things you have observed in older friends or relatives [p.6]? What other common signs of aging can you think of? How much of what we remember—or forget—is shaped by its relevance to our personal lives and history? What does Ephron’s inability to identify the celebrities in People magazine, for example, reflect about the different interests that naturally develop as we get older? How does this relate to Ephron’s list of what she “refuses to know anything about” [p. 10]?
3. Ephron writes about the start of her career as a writer in “Journalism: A Love Story.” Does the essay explain the rather unusual subtitle she has chosen? What does the atmosphere she encountered at Newsweek show about the times? How does Ephron respond to the limitations automatically imposed on her and the “institutionalism of sexism . . . at Newsweek” [p. 23]? To what extent do lucky breaks and useful connections play a role in the careers of most young people, including Ephron herself? How significant is her background—and her mother’s example—to Ephron’s confidence and drive?
4. “The Legend” offers a colorful portrait of Ephron’s childhood surrounded by Hollywood and literary celebrities, including her mother, a highly successful screenwriter, and the noted New Yorker writer, Lillian Ross. Discuss the various implications of the title. What does the anecdote at the heart of the essay, as well as the vignette about her graduation, convey about Ephron’s feelings for her mother? How does she capture the ambivalence experienced by a child of an alcoholic?
5. “My Life as an Heiress” provides more glimpses into the dynamics of Ephron’s family. How does she use humor and exaggeration to explore the relationships among her siblings—and the unexpected and less-than-admirable qualities triggered by the anticipation of an unexpected financial boon?
6. What does “Twenty-five Things People Have a Shocking Capacity to Be Surprised by Over and Over Again” reveal about human nature and our tendency to accept conventional beliefs despite lots of evidence to the contrary? What particular needs, emotions, or prejudices perpetuate our “capacity to be surprised”? Which entries resonated with you? What would you add to her list?
7. “Pentimento” chronicles the rise and fall of Ephron’s relationship with the controversial playwright Lillian Hellman. What qualities, personal and professional, initially make Hellman attractive to Ephron? What does Ephron’s description of their relationship— “‘Friends’ is probably not the right word—I became one of the young people in her life” [p.85]—convey about the way Hellman perceived herself and her importance in the literary community? Why does Ephron search for reasons to explain her ultimate rejection of Hellman [p. 89]? What do Ephron’s regrets show about how the passage of time alters our views of the infatuations and disappointments, as well as the missed opportunities, of the past?
8. “The Six Stages of E-Mail” is a very funny chronicle of Ephron’s evolving reactions to e-mail. Do you share her mixed feelings about e-mail and more recent (and, perhaps, more intrusive) technological advances like Facebook and other social networks? Have these new forms of communication made life easier or more complicated? To what extent have they become a less-than-satisfactory substitute for old-fashioned phone calls and face-to-face conversations?
9. In one of the most moving pieces in the collection, Ephron describes the traditional Christmas dinners she shared with friends for twenty-two years and the changes that occur when Ruthie, one of the participants, dies. How does the grief the others feel manifest itself? Discuss the repercussions of their attempts to move beyond (or compensate for) her absence, including its affect on the tone of their conversations as they plan the meal; Ephron’s resentment of losing her usual role of providing desserts; the group’s impatience and annoyance with the couple invited as replacements for Ruthie and her husband; and even the inclusion of Ruthie’s recipe for bread and butter pudding. What does “Christmas Dinner” reveal about the particular pain of losing friends as you get older?
10. Ephron turned her 1980s divorce from Carl Bernstein into the hilarious bestseller Heartburn. In “The D Word” she revisits that break-up and also recounts her divorce from her first husband in the 1970s. What do her accounts of each divorce illustrate about the issues she—and other women of her generation—faced? What light does she shed on the difficult challenges parents face when contemplating divorce [p. 120]? Which of her points do you find the most and the least convincing? She describes her second divorce as “the worse kind of divorce” [p. 123]. How do the details she offers provide a sense of the emotional toll of her husband’s deceptions and her reactions to them?
11. Ephron writes, “The realization that I may only have a few good years remaining has hit me with a real force...” [p. 129]. How do her memories of her younger years inform her feelings of loss and how do they shape her approach to the years to come?
12. Several essays are entitled “I Just Want to Say” and go on to explore a specific topic. What do these pieces have in common? What do they and her short, funny, and to-the-point personal revelations like “My Aruba,” “Going to the Movies,” “Addicted to L-U-V,” and “My Life as a Meatloaf” contribute to the shape and impact of the collection?
13. Reread the lists (“What I Won’t Miss” and “What I Will Miss”) at the end of I Remember Nothing and create your own versions highlighting what you cherish—as well as you’d gladly give up.
14. If you have read I Feel Bad about My Neck, what changes do you see in Ephron’s outlook and perceptions over the course of time between the two books?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
I Should Have Honor: A Memoir of Hope and Pride in Pakistan
Khalida Brohi, 2018
Random House
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399588013
Summary
A fearless memoir about tribal life in Pakistan—and the act of violence that inspired one ambitious young woman to pursue a life of activism and female empowerment
From a young age, Khalida Brohi was raised to believe in the sanctity of arranged marriage.
Her mother was forced to marry a thirteen-year-old boy when she was only nine; Khalida herself was promised as a bride before she was even born.
But her father refused to let her become a child bride. He was a man who believed in education, not just for himself but for his daughters, and Khalida grew up thinking she would become the first female doctor in her small village. Khalida thought her life was proceeding on an unusual track for a woman of her circumstances, but one whose path was orderly and straightforward.
Everything shifted for Khalida when she found out that her beloved cousin had been murdered by her uncle in a tradition known as “honor killing.”
Her cousin’s crime? She had fallen in love with a man who was not her betrothed.
This moment ignited the spark in Khalida Brohi that inspired a globe-spanning career as an activist, beginning at the age of sixteen. From a tiny cement-roofed room in Karachi where she was allowed ten minutes of computer use per day, Brohi started a Facebook campaign that went viral.
From there, she created a foundation focused on empowering the lives of women in rural communities through education and employment opportunities, while crucially working to change the minds of their male partners, fathers, and brothers.
This book is the story of how Brohi, while only a girl herself, shone her light on the women and girls of Pakistan, despite the hurdles and threats she faced along the way. And ultimately, she learned that the only way to eradicate the parts of a culture she despised was to fully embrace the parts of it that she loved. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 10, 1988
• Raised—Balochistan Province, Pakistan
• Education—Karachi University
• Currently—lives in Pakistan and Sedona, Arizona, USA
Khalida Brohi is a Pakistani activist for women's rights and a social entrepreneur. She is also the author of I Should Have Honor: A Memoir of Hope and Pride in Pakistan, published in 2018.
The first girl in her village to go to school, Brohi was educated in Karachi. When she was 16, and still in Karachi, her 14-year-old cousin became a victim of an honor killing: her cousin's only crime was to fall in love with a young man other than the one her parents had betrothed her to.
Brohi began to publicly protest the cultural tradition of honor killings—a protest that went viral, attracting international attention and angering tribal leaders. In 2008, Khalida left Karachi.
In the process, Brohi founded the Sughar Empowerment Society to help women in Pakistan learn skills related to economic and personal growth. (Sughar is Urdu for a skilled, confident woman.) The Society challenges perceptions of women from within the culture it seeks to change.
By 2013, there were 23 Sughar centers, serving hundreds of women in small Pakistani villages. The women make their own money by selling hand-made embroidery work to the fashion industry. At the same time, they learn about preventing domestic violence, the importance of educating girls, and expanding women's rights.
The year 2014 proved a banner year for Brohi. Forbes included her in its "30 under 30" list, she was invited to join a cohort of fellows with the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was also the subject of a documentary, Seeds of Change, and in October of that same year Brohi gave a TED talk at TED Global discussing her activism.
Although she has received worldwide praise for her work, Brohi has been the subject of violent threats on her life, including shooting and bombing.
Brohi is married to David Barron, and the two spend their time between Pakistan and Sedona, Arizona, in the U.S., where the couple runs The Chai Spot. Fifty percent of their profits go toward micro grants and scholarships for children. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/14/2018.)
Listen to the author's interview by Terry Gross.
Book Reviews
Khalida Brohi’s powerful storytelling exposes the little-known world of tribal Pakistan and the injustices facing women there. With insight and determination, she explores the most entrenched social customs facing women today and shares her secrets for innovation, impact, and success. This story is timely not just for those who care about women’s rights but for anyone involved in activism, community mobilization, and social entrepreneurship.
Ariana Huffington - Founder, HuffPost
Khalida Brohi is a force of nature. Her story, in many ways, is beyond belief. It’s incredible that someone so young could achieve this much through passion and ingenuity.
Chris Anderson - TED
Writing in compelling, page-turning prose, Brohi shares a deeply felt, intimate portrait of what it means to be a global activist. There’s even a love story—one with a happy ending. Don’t miss I Should Have Honor, which deserves a legion of caring, activist readers.
BookPage
One woman's efforts to save women in Pakistan from outdated tribal traditions.… The author illuminates the importance of education for both women and men and the global need for women to be recognized as equals to men. The heartfelt story of a woman's ardent dedication to stopping the senseless "honor" killings in Pakistan.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives
Caitlin Alifirenka, Martin Ganda, 2015
Little, Brown for Young Readers
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316241335
Summary
The bestselling true story of an all-American girl and a boy from Zimbabwe and the letter that changed both of their lives forever.
It started as an assignment. Everyone in Caitlin's class wrote to an unknown student somewhere in a distant place.
Martin was lucky to even receive a pen-pal letter. There were only ten letters, and fifty kids in his class. But he was the top student, so he got the first one.
That letter was the beginning of a correspondence that spanned six years and changed two lives.
In this compelling dual memoir, Caitlin and Martin recount how they became best friends—and better people—through their long-distance exchange. Their story will inspire you to look beyond your own life and wonder about the world at large and your place in it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda met as pen pals in 1997 and are still best friends today. Caitlin, an ER nurse, lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and young daughters. Martin currently lives in New York. He has dual degrees in mathematics and economics from Villanova University and an MBA in finance from Duke University. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The remarkable tenacity of these two souls pulled like magnets across the world by their opposite polarities—one committed to helping, the other to surviving—is deeply affecting.… It's quite a little miracle of unexpected genuineness.
New York Times Book Review
(Starred review.) Sensitively and candidly demonstrating how small actions can result in enormous change, this memoir of two families' transformation through the commitment and affection of long-distance friends will humble and inspire.
Publishers Weekly
A well-written, accessible story that will open Western adolescents' eyes to life in developing countries.… [A] strong and inspiring story...and an eye-opening look at life in another culture (Gr 6 & up). —Michelle Anderson, Tauranga City Libraries, New Zealand
School Library Journal
A pen-pal correspondence between an American girl and a Zimbabwean boy blossoms into a lifelong friendship.…. A feel-good, message-driven book that may appeal to adults more than teens (with photographs–Age 12 & up).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for I'LL ALWAYS WRITE BACK … then take off on your own:
1. Talk about the wide gap between Martin's hardscrabble life in Zimbabwe and Caitlin's privileged one in the U.S. How did two 12-year-olds from such vastly different backgrounds and expriences bridge the gap between them?
2. What do each of the two pen pals reveal about themselves as they write to one another? What dreams do each have, especially Martin?
3. How does her growing awareness of Martin's poverty affect her? In what way does the correspondence change Caitlin with regard to her American classmates?
4. What do you make of Caitlin sending a portion of her babysitting money to Martin? Was her act naive, condescending, or a genuinely inspired act of kindness?
5. What moved you most about his book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life
Anne Bogel, 2018
Baker Publishing Group
160 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780801072925
Summary
For so many people, reading isn't just a hobby or a way to pass the time—it's a lifestyle.
Our books shape us, define us, enchant us, and even sometimes infuriate us. Our books are a part of who we are as people, and we can't imagine life without them.
I'd Rather Be Reading is the perfect literary companion for everyone who feels that way.
In this collection of charming and relatable reflections on the reading life, beloved blogger and author Anne Bogel leads readers to remember the book that first hooked them, the place where they first fell in love with reading, and all of the moments afterward that helped make them the reader they are today.
Known as a reading tastemaker through her popular podcast What Should I Read Next?, Bogel invites book lovers into a community of like-minded people to discover new ways to approach literature, learn fascinating new things about books and publishing, and reflect on the role reading plays in their lives.
The perfect gift for the bibliophile in everyone's life, I'd Rather Be Reading will command an honored place on the overstuffed bookshelves of any book lover. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Anne Bogel is the creator of the popular blog Modern Mrs Darcy and the podcast What Should I Read Next? Her popular book lists and reading guides have established Bogel as a tastemaker among readers, authors, and publishers.
The author of Reading People, Bogel lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
As of the time of this posting, there are no mainstream media reviews, only author blurbs (below). For helpful reviews see Amazon's and Barnes and Noble's many customer reviews.
Anne Bogel's beguiling latest is a love letter to the reading life, infused with all the warmth, charm, and brilliance her fans have come to expect. I found myself--and my reading community--inside its pages, and you will too.
Joshilyn Jackson, author of The Almost Sisters
"Personal and fun, Anne Bogel's essay collection is a self-portrait in books--weaving together all the readers she has been. I'd Rather Be Reading is her winsome musings on books, not just as a way to enjoy a good story, but as a way to become a whole person."-
Kathleen Grissom, author of The Kitchen House
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for I'D RATHER BE READING ... then take off on your own:
1. Start out by discussing whether or not Anne Bogel's book spoke to you and your love (we hope it's love) of reading. Do her observations hit home for you? Did you find yourself nodding in agreement? How did you experience the book?
2. What particular passages struck you as insightful, meaningful, funny, or especially personal to you?
3. Do you enjoy or do you love to read (and what's the difference)? Is reading a hobby, a way to pass the time, or a deep-seated passion? Why?
4. Follow-up to Question 3: If you answered the question above with "a deep-seated passion," what does reading bring to your life?
5. Have you ever thought of canceling plans you've made so you could dive into the book you have waiting for you? Have you ever actually canceled plans?
6. How has reading shaped and/or defined the person you are? What books in particular have strongly affected you …and in what way?
7. Can you recall any books that have infuriated you?
8. Talk about the book that first hooked you on reading—or the place and time when you knew you were in love with reading.
9. Which of the essays in I'd Rather Be Reading was your favorite?
10. In her book, Anne Bogel exclaims, "How good it is to be among people who are reading!" Why? Isn't reading a solitary passion (we do it alone). Then why is it important to be "among" others who read? This question, perhaps, gets to the root of our penchant for book clubs.
11. Are you book bossy?
12. Does this book make you think any differently about the act of reading? Did it bring insights entirely new to you, or make you see reading in a new way? Or not.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
Michelle McNamara, 2018
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062319784
Summary
A masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer—the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade—from Michelle McNamara, the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case.
"You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark."
For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders.
Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.
Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.
At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask.
After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind.
It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth.
Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by the author's husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by Michelle’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may at last unmask the Golden State Killer. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 14, 1970
• Where—Oak Park, Illinois, USA
• Death—April 21, 2016
• Where—Los Angeles, California
• Education—B.A., University of Notre Dame; M.F.A., University of Minnesota
Michelle Eileen McNamara was an American freelance writer and crime blogger. She was the author of I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, a true crime book about the Golden State Killer. The book was released posthumously in February 2018 and is being adapted as an HBO documentary series.
Early life and education
McNamara grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, the daughter of Thomas W. McNamara, a trial lawyer, and, Rita McNamara (nee Rigney), a stay-at-home mother. Her parents were Irish American. McNamara was the youngest of the couple's five daughters and one son. They grew up Irish Catholic.
In 1988, she graduated from Oak Park and River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois, where her senior year she was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, "The Trapeze." In 1992, McNamara graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor's degree in English.[9] She earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota.[10]
Career
After graduate school, in 1997 McNamara moved to Los Angeles to write in the film and TV industry. In 2006, she launched her website TrueCrimeDiary. McNamara had a long-standing fascination with true crime originating from the unsolved murder of Kathleen Lombardo that happened two blocks from where she lived when she was young.
She became interested in the Golden State Killer case and penned articles for Los Angeles magazine about the serial killer in 2013 and 2014. In 2014, McNamara and true crime investigative journalist Billy Jensen were on a SXSW Interactive panel called "Citizen Dicks: Solving Murders With Social Media." McNamara and Jensen had a long-term friendship based on their shared passion for researching and writing about true crime.
It was McNamara who coined the term "Golden State Killer," after authorities linked DNA evidence that connected the Original Night Stalker and East Area Rapist. She then signed a book deal with HarperCollins and began to work on a book about the case.
She died before the book could be finished; it was posthumously updated and finalized by true crime writer Paul Haynes and her husband Patton Oswalt. The book, released almost two years after her death, reached No. 2 on the New York Times Best Seller list for nonfiction and No. 1 for combined print and e-book nonfiction.
In April 2018, HBO announced it had purchased the rights for I'll Be Gone in the Dark and were developing it into a documentary series. Filming began in April, 2018.
On April 25, 2018, two months after the book's release, Californian authorities arrested Joseph James DeAngelo as the alleged Golden State Killer. Oswalt believes that authorities' use of the appellation, "Golden State Killer," indicates the "impact" of McNamara's book.
Personal life
McNamara married actor Patton Oswalt on September 24, 2005. The couple's daughter Alice was born in 2009.
Death
McNamara died in her bed on April 21, 2016, in her family's Los Angeles, California, home. According to the autopsy report, her death was attributed to the effects of multiple drugs, including Adderall, Xanax, Fentanyl and amphetamines. Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease was a contributing factor. The coroner ruled it an accidental overdose. She is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/23/2018.)
Book Reviews
The definitive crime study of one of the most elusive offenders to come out of California—or anywhere, really.… Because sections of McNamara’s manuscript were pieced together from her notes, there’s a disjointed quality to some of the chapters. But the facts remain the facts.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review
Both a vivid and meticulous investigation of a twisted predator who terrorized quiet, upper middle-class communities in California for nearly a decade, and a wrenching personal account from a writer who became consumed by her subject.
Alexandra Alter - New York Times
A powerful portrait of the scale of the Golden State Killer’s crimes, of the mechanics of criminal investigations, of the strange particular dread and paranoia in the California in the 1970s, and of McNamara’s own obsession with violent men, and this one violent man.
San Francisco Chronicle
Michelle McNamara was an obsessive. She was also a damn good writer. That combustive mix has produced I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, a dark page-turner.… Scintillating.
USA Today
(Starred review) This posthumous debut recounts the chilling crimes of a serial murderer in California in the 1970s and ’80s…. With its exemplary mix of memoir and reportage, this remarkable book is a modern true crime classic.
Publishers Weekly
[C]hillingly addictive.… A haunting, if somewhat patchy, read for fans of true crime. —Della Farrell
School Library Journal
(Starred review) Impressive.
Booklist
(Starred review) The last section of the book is written in exactly the style one would expect from an investigative journalist: no nonsense and loaded with facts and relevant observations.… An exemplary true-crime book, and with an HBO adaptation in the works.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The book’s epigraph is the poem "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees. How does this poem set the tone for the story that follows?
2. Early in the book, Michelle McNamara writes, "I need to see his face. He loses his power when we know his face." What is the Golden State Killer’s power, and how would he lose this if he was identified?
3. Michelle writes about an incident in her own neighborhood in Los Angeles, when her neighbor’s house was robbed. "We make well-intentioned promises of protection we can’t always keep. I’ll look out for you." Do you think we, as a society, have lost a sense of neighborliness? What factors do you attribute to this loss? How have changes in technology, economics, architecture—house and planned community designs—impacted you, your neighborhood, and society? Is there a remedy to bring us closer together?
4. While I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is a true crime story—a chronicle of the Golden State Killer—it is also a memoir. Why do you think she included the story of her childhood and relationship with her mother in this story? In the book Michelle confesses, "Writing this now, I’m struck by two incompatible truths that pain me. No one would have taken more joy from this book than my mother. And I probably wouldn’t have felt the freedom to write it until she was gone." Why couldn’t she write this book if her mother had still been alive? Why is it difficult for many people to reconcile parental expectations and disappointments with their own pursuits?
5. In following Michelle’s search to unmask the GSK, what did you learn about her and the kind of person she is? How does getting to know her shape the story and your understanding of the case as it unfolds? Meeting Michelle in these pages, does she fit with your "profile"of a true crime obsessive? How would you characterize Michelle if you were introducing her to a friend?
6. Novelist Gillian Flynn wrote the introduction to the book. How are crime novelists and true crime writers alike, and how do they differ? Do you read crime novels? If so, what draws you to them? How does the experience of reading a crime novel compare to reading a true crime account? What emotions do each elicit?
7. Michelle writes, "Sacramento’s was not an isolated problem. US crime rates show a steady rise in violent crime throughout the 1960s and ’70s, peaking in 1980." The term "serial killer" was coined in the 1970s. Why do you think so many of these serial offenders surfaced at this time?
8. What does Michelle tell us about the way crimes are investigated? What did you learn about the professionals who investigate them? What, if anything,might have helped them in their search for the GSK? How has technology improved their ability to share information? Has it in any way made solving crime more difficult?
9. In the book, Michelle reflects on the similarity between criminals like GSK and the people hunting them. "What I don’t mention is the uneasy realization I’ve had about how much our frenetic searching mirrors the compulsive behavior—the trampled flowerbeds, scratch marks on window screens, crank calls—of the one we seek." Are there other shared characteristics between these two different kinds of hunters?
10. Many of GSK’s victims were men. How did the crimes impact the surviving men and the women? Why do you think men might have a more difficult time coping with the aftermath of the kind of crime GSK perpetrated?
11. With so many attacks taking place in such a small area in Sacramento, do you think the East Area Rapist lived in one of those neighborhoods? Why do you think he chose the houses he targeted? How do you think the geography of those subdivisions contributed to the effectiveness of his attacks?
12. With the proliferation of genetic testing services, people can find out about their heritage and links to others who share their DNA. Currently, genetic testing services like 23andMe cannot upload the DNA of criminals for possible familial matches. The colleagues who finished the book after Michelle’s death use a quote from Jurassic Park to highlight the issue: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." Why can’t law enforcement use these services as a tool? Should an exception be made in cases like GSK?
13. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is a living testament not only to Michelle McNamara and her unwavering commitment to this story, but to the law enforcement professionals who have pursued him. What are your impressions of the detectives? Did you find yourself judging them for failing to capture GSK?
14. Many people have investigated this case, from police detectives to amateurs. What made the GSK case so difficult to solve? His crime spree seems to have stopped in 1986. Do you have a theory that explains why he suddenly disappeared?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Summary | Author | Book Reviews | Discussion Questions
I'm Down: A Memoir
Misha Wolff, 2009
St. Martin's Press
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312378554
In Brief
Mishna Wolff grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who truly believed he was black. “He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esqe sweater, gold chains and a Kangol—telling jokes like Redd Fox, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson. You couldn’t tell my father he was white. Believe me, I tried,” writes Wolff. And so from early childhood on, her father began his crusade to make his white daughter Down.
Unfortunately, Mishna didn’t quite fit in with the neighborhood kids: she couldn’t dance, she couldn’t sing, she couldn’t double dutch and she was the worst player on her all-black basketball team. She was shy, uncool and painfully white. And yet when she was suddenly sent to a rich white school, she found she was too “black” to fit in with her white classmates.
I’m Down is a hip, hysterical and at the same time beautiful memoir that will have you howling with laughter, recommending it to friends and questioning what it means to be black and white in America. (From the publisher.)
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About the Author
Mishna Wolff is a comedian and former model who grew up in Seattle. She divides her time between New York City and Los Angeles. (From the publisher.)
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Critics Say . . .
It is that complicated human dynamic—of being white in a black world—that Mishna Wolff describes in her memoir I'm Down, a tale of coming of age in south Seattle under the tutelage of John Wolff, her father. John hung around black people, had black girlfriends and married a black woman. "He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esque sweater, gold chains, and a Kangol—telling jokes like Redd Foxx, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson," Wolff writes. One admires any child who gets through a difficult childhood; the reading of such a chronicle, if told well, can be arresting. But, unfortunately, little of dramatic interest happens in the life of young Mishna.... In her effort to explain what it was like living around blacks, Wolff too often comes close to mimicking a tired TV sitcom. Even though she writes, "I claim none of this as gospel. That being said, most of this stuff is totally true," long riffs of quoted dialogue beg suspicion and begin to grate.
Wil Haygood - Washington Post
As she tells you at the outset of I’m Down, Mishna Wolff is all white—nothing remarkable, except that her way cool father, “Wolfy,” thinks he’s black (he’s not). What follows is a funny-melancholy coming of age memoir [in which] Mishna searches for identity in her broken home, her snobby, mostly white prep school, and—most restrictive of all—her longing heart.
O, Oprah's Magazine
An authentically funny, truly transcendent work that makes other, sorry-voiced memoirs by a certain more privileged class of writer pale—pun intended—by comparison...Wolff’s focus, and the sweet soul of this terrific book, was on being accepted by her streetwise, wiseass dad, whom she knew loved her—and whom she loved—unequivocally.
Elle Magazine
This buoyant memoir is rich in detail but never feels over embellished…I’m Down certainly has serious thoughts on its mind (Wolff actually grew up quite poor and hungry), but the tone manages to be light and triumphant because of the hilarious child-goggles Wolff wears while spinning her tales. Rating: A
Entertainment Weekly
Humorist and former model Wolff details her childhood growing up in an all-black Seattle neighborhood with a white father who wanted to be black in this amusing memoir. Wolff never quite fit in with the neighborhood kids, despite her father's urgings that she make friends with the "sisters" on the block. Her father was raised in a similar neighborhood and-after a brief stint as a hippie in Vermont-returned to Seattle and settled into life as a self-proclaimed black man. Wolff and her younger, more outgoing sister, Anora, are taught to embrace all things black, just like their father and his string of black girlfriends. Just as Wolff finds her footing in the local elementary school (after having mastered the art of "capping": think "yo mama" jokes), her mother, recently divorced from her father and living as a Buddhist, decides to enroll Wolff in the Individual Progress Program, a school for gifted children. Once again, Wolff finds herself the outcast among the wealthy white kids who own horses and take lavish vacations. While Wolff is adept at balancing humorous memories with more poignant moments of a daughter trying to earn her father's admiration, the result is more a series of vignettes than a cohesive memoir.
Publishers Weekly
In a memoir that is frequently hilarious, occasionally terrifying, and ultimately bittersweet, Wolff forces readers to consider whether racial identity is the result of nature, derived through nurture, or constructed and reconstructed throughout life. The author was born to white parents and raised into early adolescence mostly by her father, a man who worked harder to remake his own and his children's identities as black than he did at earning a living. From early childhood she tried hard to sort through evidence of her own sense of self and belonging: rougher kids in their working-class black Seattle neighborhood rejected her while adoring her younger (equally white) sister; other black kids accepted her as an equal or pitied her confusion; her father's second wife (black) rejected her cruelly; and her mother was willing to take her in but not to confront her former husband's careless child rearing. When her mother enrolled her in a public school program for intellectually gifted children, Wolff had to accommodate her worldview to take into account her classmates' relative wealth and mindless racism. Father and daughter eventually found a bridge through sports, but this rapprochement was made possible as much by the author's maturing emotional health as by her father's realization that he risked losing her. Wolff writes fluidly and offers moments of great insight through story rather than through explanation, making it easy for readers to engage with the child's questions and growing frustrations. An excellent choice for discussion in ethnic identity curricula, but absorbing reading, too. —Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia
School Library Journal
A humorist and former model recalls growing up gifted and white in a poor, predominantly black neighborhood. In the early 1970s, Wolff and her parents, all Caucasian, moved back to her father's childhood neighborhood, Rainier Valley in south Seattle. The neighborhood had changed from white to black, and her father decided that the family should be black too. "He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esque sweater, gold chains, and a Kangol," writes the author, "telling jokes like Redd Fox and giving advice like Jesse Jackson." Wolff's mother soon tired of the project and divorced her father. At age seven or eight, Wolff says, she was terrible at acting black, and she became a source of constant irritation and disappointment to her father. She could not dance, sing or even jump rope, and she displayed weakness in a tough neighborhood. Just as she discovered she was good at something black-rapid-fire insults along the lines of "Your mama's so fat ... " or "You're so ugly ... "—her mother transferred her to a school for gifted children (all of them white and rich). So started Wolff's perilous journey of self-identity. The blackness of her neighborhood only made her feel out of place at school, and the whiteness of her school only alienated her from her father and the black woman he married, to the point where she moved out to live with her mother. By age 12 she was a mess, suffering from insomnia, migraines and a deep anxiety that she would always be poor and never have "a lucrative anesthesia practice like all my friends." Over time, Wolff found some balance. Even her father, in a lovingly told final episode, gave her what she most wanted—his acceptance. Deftly and hilariously delineates the American drama of race and class for one little girl.
Kirkus Reviews
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Book Club Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for I'm Down:
1. What makes John Wolff, a white man, so desirous of living in a black world that he adopts its lingo, dress, and philosophy? What did his black friends make of him?
2. Mishna describes her father as "strutt[ing] around with a short perm, a Cosby-esque sweater, gold chains, and a Kangol—telling jokes like Redd Foxx, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson." Do you find Wolff's stereotyping of African-American culture degrading—or a naive attempt to adopt a culture he admires? What about his accusation that Mishna felt better than others because she was considered intellectually gifted—is that playing into both class and race stereotypes?
2. Overall, what do you think of John Wolff? Do you find him admirable, funny, endearing, or irritating? What would it be like, for you personally, to be his child...or his wife?
3. Why is Mishna so desperate for her father's approval? What do you think of his parenting style? What part does her stepmother play in the family dynamics?
4. Talk about the ways in which Mishna struggled to find acceptance—in her black neighborhood and in the all-white school her mother sent her to. Which was more difficult—in which place did she find more bullying or taunting? Was her mother right to pluck her out of her environment and sending her to the school?
5. Overall, did you find this book "hilarious" as its promotional blurbs proclaim? If so, which parts were particularly funny? Or did you find the book more bitter-sweet, even painful at times?
6. This book is a struggle for identity. In what way, does Mishna finally come to accept who she is?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Imagine: How Creativity Works
Jonah Lehrer, 2012
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547386072
Summary
Did you know that the most creative companies have centralized bathrooms? That brainstorming meetings are a terrible idea? That the color blue can help you double your creative output?
From the New York Times best-selling author of How We Decide comes a sparkling and revelatory look at the new science of creativity. Shattering the myth of muses, higher powers, even creative “types,” Jonah Lehrer demonstrates that creativity is not a single gift possessed by the lucky few. It’s a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively.
Lehrer reveals the importance of embracing the rut, thinking like a child, daydreaming productively, and adopting an outsider’s perspective (travel helps). He unveils the optimal mix of old and new partners in any creative collaboration, and explains why criticism is essential to the process. Then he zooms out to show how we can make our neighborhoods more vibrant, our companies more productive, and our schools more effective.
You’ll learn about Bob Dylan’s writing habits and the drug addictions of poets. You’ll meet a Manhattan bartender who thinks like a chemist, and an autistic surfer who invented an entirely new surfing move. You’ll see why Elizabethan England experienced a creative explosion, and how Pixar’s office space is designed to spark the next big leap in animation.
Collapsing the layers separating the neuron from the finished symphony, Imagine reveals the deep inventiveness of the human mind, and its essential role in our increasingly complex world. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1981
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.S., Columbia University; Oxford
University as a Rhodes Scholar
• Currently—N/A
Jonah Lehrer is an American author and journalist who writes on the topics of psychology, neuroscience, and the relationship between science and the humanities. Simon Ings has written, "Lehrer fancies himself—and not without reason—as a sort of one-man third culture, healing the rift between sciences and humanities by communicating and contrasting their values in a way that renders them comprehensible to partisans of either camp.
Lehrer graduated from Columbia University in 2003 with a major in neuroscience; while an undergraduate, he examined the biological process of memory in Professor Eric Kandel's Lab. He was also editor of the Columbia Review for two years. He then studied 20th century literature and philosophy at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
He is a contributing editor at Wired, Scientific American Mind, National Public Radio's Radiolab, and has written for the New Yorker, Nature, Seed, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Boston Globe. Jonah Lehrer is also featured in brief informational sessions on the television show Brink, on the science channel. He currently writes the "Head Case" column for the Wall Street Journal.
Jonah Lehrer is the author of three books: Proust Was a Neuroscientist (2007), How We Decide (2010), and Imagine: How Creativity Works (2012).
Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer's debut book, is a collection of biographical essays on creative figures such as Paul Cezanne, Walt Whitman, Auguste Escoffier, and Marcel Proust. Lehrer argues for an intimate relationship with science and the humanities, and he holds that many discoveries of neuroscience are actually rediscoveries of insights made much earlier by various artists.
In How We Decide, Lehrer argues there are two main parts of the brain involved in decision-making, the rational and the emotional. His thesis has been called into question based on current understanding of neuroscience. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Imagine argues that modern science allows us to identify and harness the many different thought processes from which creativity emerges.... The book’s strength lies in specific examples—detailed stories about 3M, Pixar, Bob Dylan and Don Lee, the computer programmer who became a master mixer of quirky cocktails. These insightful tales make Imagine well worth the read.
Scientific American
Flummoxed by an intractable problem? You probably just need to work harder, right? Actually, try taking a walk instead. Thanks to how we’re hardwired, insight tends to strike suddenly—after we’ve stopped looking. In this entertaining Gladwell-esque plunge into the science of creativity, Jonah Lehrer mingles with a wide cast of characters—inventors, educators, scientists, a Pixar cofounder, an autistic surfing savant—to deconstruct how we accomplish our great feats of imagination. Notable themes emerge: Failure is necessary. The more people you casually rub shoulders with—on and off the job—the more good ideas you’ll have. And societies that unduly restrict citizens’ ability to borrow from the ideas of others—see our broken patent system—do so at their peril.
Mother Jones
Imagine is a great introduction for anyone curious about the nature and dynamics of creativity.
Booklist
In his new book on creativity, Lehrer (How We Decide) presents captivating case studies of innovative minds, companies, and cities while tying in the latest in scientific research. He recounts the sometimes surprising origins of hugely successful inventions, brands, and ideas (e.g., the Swiffer mop, Barbie doll, Pixar animation) and reveals unexpected commonalities in the creative experiences (e.g., the color blue, distractedness, living abroad). The book combines individual case studies with broader psychology to provide new insights into creativity, much like Sheena Iyengar's The Art of Choosing. Many of Lehrer's insights are based on emerging scientific practices and are thus fresh and especially applicable to modern life. He emphasizes innovative companies and experimental approaches to education and includes historical factoids that reveal the backstories of everyday items. Verdict: Lehrer's findings can be used to inform the design of innovative programs or to structure a productive work environment at home or at the office. This book will appeal to educators, business administrators, and readers interested in applied psychology. —Ryan Nayler, Univ. of Toronto Lib., Ont.
Library Journal
Lehrer argues for policy changes to enhance our nation's creativity: immigration reform because immigrants account for a disproportionate number of patent applications in the United States, and patent reform, in order to reward and thereby promote innovation. Lehrer writes with verve, creating an informative, readable book that sparkles with ideas.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What does every creative journey begin with according to Lehrer? What phase, which precedes a breakthrough, do we tend to overlook when we speak of the creative process? 2. What is the major function of each hemisphere of the brain? What role does each side play in the creative process? Which hemisphere is a “connection machine”? What are the three general phases of the creative process?
3. The first chapter of Imagine is entitled “Bob Dylan’s Brain,” but what is so significant about Bob Dylan’s brain? What is important about Dylan’s composition of his hit “Like a Rolling Stone” in particular? What does it reveal about creative blocks and the role of the right hemisphere?
4. What lessons can we learn about creativity from Dick Drew’s invention of masking tape? What does it tell us about the impact of interrupting one’s thought process or having a relaxed state of mind? How do these relaxed conditions affect the activity of the right hemisphere and the rhythm of alpha waves in our brain, and how does this ultimately influence our creative output?
5. How does mood affect our ability to have insights? Why does there seem to be a link between major depressive orders and artistic achievement? What scientific explanation does Lehrer give for the close association of bipolar disorder and creativity?
6. What is horizontal sharing and conceptual blending? How does the latter correspond with philosopher David Hume’s thoughts on the essence of imagination? How can we get better at conceptual blending?
7. Discuss the varied effects of alcohol, stimulants, and amphetamines on the creative process, and, more specifically, their impact with respect to our ability to generate insights. What are the effects of color? Of light or time of day? Of architecture? What effect does daydreaming have on our creative process?
8. What is “working memory” and how large of a role does it play in our creative process? What is the major function of the prefrontal cortex? What other parts of the brain does the prefrontal cortex work with most closely? What does Earl Miller’s experiment reveal, however, about the importance of the primitive mid-brain?
9. What are the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s two archetypes of creativity? What does Lehrer say they are called in modern science?
10. The artist Milton Glaser says that “we’re always looking, but we never really see.” What does he mean by this? What does the slogan of Glaser’s studio tell us about creativity? What does he mean when he says that “creativity is a verb”? What does Glaser’s most famous design project reveal about creativity, perseverance, and the refinement of ideas?
11. What is “the unconcealing”? Why is this such an important part of the creative process?
12. What is Lehrer speaking about when he references “letting go”? Which part of our brain is responsible for hindering this? What does this tell us about the constraints that we place on our own creativity? Can these restraints be overcome? What can we learn about this concept from the musician Yo Yo Ma, jazz improvisation, the surfer Clay Marzo, or comedy powerhouse Second City?
13. Are we “biologically destined” to get less creative as we age? What practical advice does mathematician Paul Erdos offer to maximize our creativity? What effect does being an outsider or thinking like an outsider have on our creative development? How can travel influence our creative output? Why does Lehrer say that we “must constantly forget what [we] already know”?
14. What do Professor Ben Jones’s analyses reveal about trends in scientific teamwork? How should we work together, and what are the ideal strategies for group creativity? What does sociologist Brian Uzzi’s study of musicals tell us about teamwork and group creativity?
15. What is the power of Q? How do levels of “social intimacy” affect levels of creative success?
16. What lessons can we learn from Pixar? Consider their refusal to form an independent production company, the architecture of their workspace, and their creative methods. What accounts for their unlikely, repeated success?
17. Although advertising firm partner Alex Osborn’s technique of positive brainstorming is perhaps the most popular creative method, is it the most effective means of fostering creativity? What problems are associated with this method? What does the research of psychologists Keith Sawyer and Charlan Nemeth reveal about the effectiveness of brainstorming? What does it tell us about the effects of debate and criticism on innovation, imagination, and the generation of ideas? What is “plussing,” and why should this be incorporated in critical discussions?
18. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third places.” What are “third places,” and what role have they played in the history of new ideas?
19. What is urban friction and how does it affect our creativity? What can we learn from the research of author and urban activist Jane Jacobs and her ideas about “knowledge spill-overs”? What does physicist Geoffrey West’s research reveal about urban patterns of productivity? What does West say is “the single most important invention in human history”?
20. Lehrer speaks about the development of the Route 128 area in Massachusetts versus the development of Silicon Valley in California. What can be learned about creativity, exchange, and innovation from a comparison of the two?
21. What accounts for the Israeli technology boom? What does this example tell us about the importance of social circles, information sharing, and face-to-face interaction?
22. According to the research presented in Lehrer’s book, how important is physical proximity between collaborators? What does Lehrer say, then, is the job of the internet and technology?
23. Statistician David Banks says that geniuses arrive in tight, local clusters, but why is this the case?
24. What is the Shakespeare paradox? What can we learn about genius from a consideration of Shakespeare’s background? What cultural factors played the biggest role in facilitating his success, and what can we conclude about the role of culture and external factors in determining creative output?
25. Lehrer says, “For Shakespeare, the act of creation was inseparable from the act of connection.” There are many other examples, however, of this concept of the link between creation and connection provided in the text. Discuss this concept. What kinds of connections are useful or necessary in fostering our creativity?
26. Discuss economist Paul Romer’s claim that ideas are an inexhaustible resource—a “nonrival good.” While ideas may be an inexhaustible resource, Lehrer calls for us to consider how we can “create a multiplier culture.” Is a dense population or geographic area sufficient to multiply our creative output? If not, what else is required?
27. What are meta-ideas and what role do they play in influencing creativity? Discuss some of the examples of important meta-ideas offered in Lehrer’s book. What were the most important meta-ideas of sixteenth-century England, for instance, and how did they influence levels of creative or artistic achievement? What four meta-ideas does Lehrer say we need to embrace today? In the Coda to his book, what does Lehrer claim is the most important meta-idea of all?
28. What does Lehrer’s book reveal about traditional methods of education and their effect on creativity? What lessons are offered through a consideration of schools like the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and High Tech High? Can creativity be taught? If so, what tactics or methods can schools implement in order to cultivate and support the creativity of their students?
29. Lehrer says that “[w]e need to innovate innovation.” Considering the many lessons and observations offered in this book, what are some of the steps that we can take to accomplish this?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot, 2010
Crown Publishing
381 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400052189
Summary
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine.
The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the "colored" ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta's small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.
Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.
Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta's daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother's cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn't her children afford health insurance?
Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Rebecca Skloot is a science writer whose articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, O-The Oprah Magazine, Discover, Prevention, Glamour, and others.
She has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s Radio Lab and PBS’s NOVA ScienceNow, and is a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine. Her work has been anthologized in several collections, including The Best Food Writing and The Best Creative Nonfiction.
She is a former vice president of the National Book Critics Circle, and has taught nonfiction in the creative writing programs at the University of Memphis and the University of Pittsburgh, and science journalism at New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program. She blogs about science, life, and writing at Culture Dish, hosted by Seed magazine. This is her first book. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
One of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I've read in a very long time. A thorny and provocative book about cancer, racism, scientific ethics and crippling poverty, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks also floods over you like a narrative dam break, as if someone had managed to distill and purify the more addictive qualities of "Erin Brockovich," Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The Andromeda Strain. More than 10 years in the making, it feels like the book Ms. Skloot was born to write. It signals the arrival of a raw but quite real talent.... [The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks] has brains and pacing and nerve and heart, and it is uncommonly endearing.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
Rebecca Skloot introduces us to the "real live woman," the children who survived her, and the interplay of race, poverty, science and one of the most important medical discoveries of the last 100 years. Skloot narrates the science lucidly, tracks the racial politics of medicine thoughtfully and tells the Lacks family's often painful history with grace. She also confronts the spookiness of the cells themselves, intrepidly crossing into the spiritual plane on which the family has come to understand their mother's continued presence in the world. Science writing is often just about "the facts." Skloot's book, her first, is far deeper, braver and more wonderful.
Lisa Margonelli - New York Times Book Review
Skloot's vivid account...reads like a novel. The prose is unadorned, crisp and transparent.... This book, labeled "science--cultural studies," should be treated as a work of American history. It's a deftly crafted investigation of a social wrong committed by the medical establishment, as well as the scientific and medical miracles to which it led. Skloot's compassionate account can be the first step toward recognition, justice and healing.
Eric Roston - Washington Post
Science journalist Skloot makes a remarkable debut with this multilayered story about “faith, science, journalism, and grace.” It is also a tale of medical wonders and medical arrogance, racism, poverty and the bond that grows, sometimes painfully, between two very different women—Skloot and Deborah Lacks—sharing an obsession to learn about Deborah’s mother, Henrietta, and her magical, immortal cells. Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black mother of five in Baltimore when she died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her knowledge, doctors treating her at Johns Hopkins took tissue samples from her cervix for research. They spawned the first viable, indeed miraculously productive, cell line—known as HeLa. These cells have aided in medical discoveries from the polio vaccine to AIDS treatments. What Skloot so poignantly portrays is the devastating impact Henrietta’s death and the eventual importance of her cells had on her husband and children. Skloot’s portraits of Deborah, her father and brothers are so vibrant and immediate they recall Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family. Writing in plain, clear prose, Skloot avoids melodrama and makes no judgments. Letting people and events speak for themselves, Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society’s most vulnerable people.
Publishers Weekly
This distinctive work skillfully puts a human face on the bioethical questions surrounding the HeLa cell line. Henrietta Lacks, an African American mother of five, was undergoing treatment for cancer at Johns Hopkins University in 1951 when tissue samples were removed without her knowledge or permission and used to create HeLa, the first "immortal" cell line. HeLa has been sold around the world and used in countless medical research applications, including the development of the polio vaccine. Science writer Skloot, who worked on this book for ten years, entwines Lacks's biography, the development of the HeLa cell line, and her own story of building a relationship with Lacks's children. Full of dialog and vivid detail, this reads like a novel, but the science behind the story is also deftly handled. Verdict: While there are other titles on this controversy (e.g., Michael Gold's A Conspiracy of Cells: One Woman's Immortal Legacy—and the Medical Scandal It Caused), this is the most compelling account for general readers, especially those interested in questions of medical research ethics. Highly recommended. —Carla Lee, Univ. of Virginia Lib., Charlottesville
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Writing with a novelist's artistry, a biologist's expertise, and the zeal of an investigative reporter, Skloot tells a truly astonishing story of racism and poverty, science and conscience, spirituality and family driven by a galvanizing inquiry into the sanctity of the body and the very nature of the life force.
Booklist
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later. In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre-civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field. Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture, and Petri dish politics.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks:
1. Start by unraveling the complicated history of Henrietta Lacks's tissue cells. Who did what with the cells, when, where and for what purpose? Who benefited, scientifically, medically, and monetarily?
2. What are the specific issues raised in the book—legally and ethically? Talk about the 1980s John Moore case: the appeal court decision and its reversal by the California Supreme Court.
3. Follow-up to Question #2: Should patient consent be required to store and distribute their tissue for research? Should doctors disclose their financial interests? Would this make any difference in achieving fairness? Or is this not a matter of fairness or an ethical issue to begin with?
4. What are the legal ramifications regarding payment for tissue samples? Consider the the RAND corporation estimation that 304 million tissue samples, from 178 million are people, are held by labs.
5. What are the spiritual and religious issues surrounding the living tissue of people who have died? How do Henrietta's descendants deal with her continued "presence" in the world...and even the cosmos (in space)?
6. Were you bothered when researcher Robert Stevenson tells author Skloot that "scientists don’t like to think of HeLa cells as being little bits of Henrietta because it’s much easier to do science when you dissociate your materials from the people they come from"? Is that an ugly outfall of scientific resarch...or is it normal, perhaps necessary, for a scientist to distance him/herself? If "yes" to the last part of that question, what about research on animals...especially for research on cosmetics?
7. What do you think of the incident in which Henrietta's children "see" their mother in the Johns Hopkins lab? How would you have felt? Would you have sensed a spiritual connection to the life that once created those cells...or is the idea of cells simply too remote to relate to?
8. Is race an issue in this story? Would things have been different had Henrietta been a middle class white woman rather than a poor African American woman? Consider both the taking of the cell sample without her knowledge, let alone consent... and the questions it is raising 60 years later when society is more open about racial injustice?
9. Author Rebecca Skloot is a veteran science writer. Did you find it enjoyable to follow her through the ins-and-outs of the laboratory and scientific research? Or was this a little too "petri-dishish" for you?
10. What did you learn from reading The Immortal Life? What surprised you the most? What disturbed you the most?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War
James Bradley, 2009
Little, Brown & Co.
387 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316014007
Summary
On the success of his two bestselling books about World War II, James Bradley began to wonder what the real catalyst was for the Pacific War. What he discovered shocked him.
In 2005, James Bradley retraced that epic voyage and discovered the remarkable truth about America's vast imperial past. Full of fascinating characters brought brilliantly to life, The Imperial Cruise will powerfully revise the way we understand U.S. history. (From the publisher.)
About the Author
• Birth—1954
• Where—Wisconsin, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Wisconsin
• Currently—N/A
In his words
I was born in Wisconsin surrounded by a loving family of ten and loved swimming in cold lakes. When I was a boy I read an article by former president Harry Truman recommending that young people read historical biographies. He said it was easy to follow the storyline of a historical figure's life, and you'll learn the surrounding history on the journey.
When I was thirteen years old I read an article by James Michener in Reader's Digest which I paraphrase: "When you're twenty-two and graduate from college, people will ask you, 'What do you want to do?' It's a good question, but you should answer it when you're thirty-five." Michener explained that his experiences wandering the globe as a young man later inspired his books on Afghanistan, Spain, Japan and other places.
When I was nineteen years old, I lived and studied in Tokyo for one year. I later brought my Japanese friends home to Wisconsin. My father, John Bradley, had helped raise an American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima and had shot a Japanese soldier dead. John Bradley welcomed my friends to our home.
I traveled around the world when I was twenty-one, from the U.S. to Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, France, Germany, Italy, England and back to the United States.
At twenty-three I graduated with a degree in East Asian history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
For the next twenty years I worked in the corporate communications industry in the United States, Japan, England and South Africa.
In my late thirties I took a year off to go around the world again. On this trip I made it to base camp on Mt. Everest and walked among lions in Africa.
My father died when I was forty years old. My search to find out why he didn't speak about Iwo Jima led me to write Flags of Our Fathers and establish the James Bradley Peace Foundation. (From the author's website.)
More
In 2000, Bradley published Flags of Our Fathers, written with the author Ron Powers, which tells the story of five U.S. Marines and a Navy corpsman, his dad Navy corpsman , John Bradley, raising the American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima. In that book, which spent 46 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was made into a film directed by Clint Eastwood, Bradley took infinite care to locate and speak with family and friends who actually knew the men depicted. In doing this, he received great praise for his realistic portrayals and bringing the men involved to life.
The book and the film is an in-depth look at those involved and their war-time service. Of the six men, Bradley's father John, PFC Ira Hayes, and PFC Rene Gagnon were the only ones to survive the battle. SGT Michael Strank, CPL Harlon Block, and PFC Franklin Sousley were all killed in action later on in the battle. Bradley tells the story in a before, during, and after format, and both book and film were well received upon their release. An impromptu speech Bradley gave at the Iwo Jima memorial was transcribed by Michael T. Powers in October 2000, and widely circulated on the Internet.
In 2003 he published Flyboys: A True Story of Courage. That book tells the story of an air raid that took place during the Battle of Iwo Jima, some 150 miles away, when U.S. warplanes bombed the small communications outpost on Chichi Jima. While Iwo Jima had Japanese forces numbering 22,000, Chichi Jima's forces numbered 25,000.
Nine crewmen survived after being shot down in the raid. One was picked up by the American submarine USS Finback. That one man was then-Lieutenant George H. W. Bush, who later went on to become the forty-first President of the United States. The other eight were captured as POWs by the Japanese and were executed and eaten, a fact that remained hidden until much later. Like Flags of Our Fathers, Flyboys also topped the New York Times Bestseller list when it came out.
In 2009, he published his third New York Times best selling book, The Imperial Cruise. The book concerns the 1905 diplomatic mission led by then-Secretary of War William Howard Taft and Alice Roosevelt, as well as the larger implications of President Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy, particularly with regard to Japan. The New York Times wrote that "The Imperial Cruise is startling enough to reshape conventional wisdom about Roosevelt’s presidency."
The book exposes the blatantly racist and exploitative policy of the United States in its attempt to extend its influence into the Pacific rim, acquiring Hawaii by conquest and the Philippines by purchase from the Spanish after ostensibly having entered the conflict to aid the Filipino freedom fighters. The American occupation was marked by torture and repression of the very people they had come to help. ("More" from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Mr. Bradley favors broad strokes and may at times be overly eager to connect historical dots, but he also produces graphic, shocking evidence of the attitudes that his book describes…if he brings a reckless passion to The Imperial Cruise, there is at least one extenuating fact behind his thinking. In Flags of Our Fathers he wrote about how his father helped plant the American flag on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II. In The Imperial Cruise he asks why American servicemen like his father had to be fighting in the Pacific at all.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
In the decades since his death Theodore Roosevelt has suffered many detractors, and with considerable justification. Yet he was also a great domestic reformer, a trust-buster and a conservationist. What is fascinating about Bradley's reconstruction of a largely neglected aspect of Roosevelt's legacy is the impact that his racial theories and his obsession with personal and national virility had on his diplomacy. Engrossing and revelatory, The Imperial Cruise is revisionist history at its best.
Ronald Steel - New York Times Book Review
Engaging...this is a book to admire and, it must be said, to enjoy.
Boston Globe
For readers under the impression that history is the story of good guys and bad guys, and that Americans are always the former, this book could be useful medicine.
Rick Hampson - USA Today
[Bradley's] ingenious narrative thread is to track an across-the-pacific 1905 goodwill voyage by Roosevelt's emissaries....[his indictment of Roosevelt] raises tantalizing questions.
Gene Santoro - American History
Theodore Roosevelt steers America onto the shoals of imperialism in this stridently disapproving study of early 20th-century U.S. policy in Asia. Bestselling author of Flags of Our Fathers, Bradley traces a 1905 voyage to Asia by Roosevelt’s emissary William Howard Taft, who negotiated a secret agreement in which America and Japan recognized each other’s conquests of the Philippines and Korea. (Roosevelt’s flamboyant, pistol-packing daughter Alice went along to generate publicity, and Bradley highlights her antics.) Each port of call prompts a case study of American misdeeds: the brutal counterinsurgency in the Philippines; the takeover of Hawaii by American sugar barons; Roosevelt’s betrayal of promises to protect Korea, which “greenlighted” Japanese expansionism and thus makes him responsible for Pearl Harbor. Bradley explores the racist underpinnings of Roosevelt’s policies and paradoxical embrace of the Japanese as “Honorary Aryans.” Bradley’s critique of Rooseveltian imperialism is compelling but unbalanced. He doesn’t explain how Roosevelt could have evicted the Japanese from Korea, and insinuates that the Japanese imperial project was the brainstorm of American advisers. Ironically, his view of Asian history, like Roosevelt’s, denies agency to the Asians themselves.
Publishers Weekly
Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers) has written a compelling book on a forgotten diplomatic mission. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt sent Secretary of War William Howard Taft on a cruise to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea, a diplomatic mission that also included Roosevelt's daughter, Alice. The mission was to solidify a secret U.S.-Japanese agreement to allow Japan to expand into Korea and China, with the irrepressible Alice distracting reporters. This agreement, resulting in the Treaty of Portsmouth, ultimately helped spark not only World War II in the Pacific but the 1949 Chinese Revolution and the Korean War. Bradley describes Taft and Roosevelt as firm believers in the White Man's Burden: since Japan embraced Western culture, Roosevelt wanted it to spread that culture to the rest of Asia. However, their policies backfired because anti-American feelings grew in China, the Philippines, and Korea as America turned its back on these countries, while America and Europe did not check Japanese aggression. Ultimately, Bradley reminds readers in well-cited detail of Roosevelt's often overlooked racist attitudes. Bradley's writing style will appeal to the general reader, with its good mix of letters, newspapers, and sound secondary sources. —Bryan Craig, MLS, Nellysford, VA
Library Journal
The story of a forgotten diplomatic excursion inspired by Theodore Roosevelt's bigotry. Bradley (Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, 2003, etc.)—who wrote about his father's experience at Iwo Jima in Flags of Our Fathers (2000)—examines a little-known effort by Roosevelt to manipulate the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War and extend the Monroe Doctrine to Asia by encouraging Japan to act as a proxy for the West. In the summer of 1905, a party that included Secretary of War William Taft and Roosevelt's rebellious daughter Alice set sail on the ocean liner Manchuria to their Pacific destinations of Hawaii, Korea, Japan, China and the Philippines. At the time, the voyage captured the public imagination. However, Taft was charged with an agenda that included maintaining dominance over American territories-the protests of America's Hawaiian and Filipino "wards" notwithstanding-and promoting Roosevelt's dream of an "Open Door" in Asia. Bradley argues that the mission was a result of the president's adherence to a crackpot philosophy of "Aryan" racial superiority. "Like many Americans," he writes, "Roosevelt held dearly to a powerful myth that proclaimed the White Christian as the highest rung on the evolutionary ladder." In Roosevelt's mind, this excused American brutality in subduing Filipino insurgents, and it furthered his public image as a wise Western warrior. However, the president made a major intellectual blunder when he decided the Japanese could be considered "Honorary Aryans," due to "the Japanese eagerness to emulate White Christian ways." This, coupled with his contempt for the Chinese, Filipino and Hawaiian peoples, inspired him to play nation-builder, with disastrous consequences. Bradley asserts that Taft and Roosevelt violated the Constitution by offering Japan a secret deal, characterized as a "Monroe Doctrine for Asia." Arguably, Japanese pique over America's unwillingness to acknowledge this subterfuge fueled their expansionist dreams and pointed the way toward the Pearl Harbor attack. A rueful, disturbing account of a regrettable period of American imperialism.
Kirkus Reviews
Book Club Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Imperial Cruise:
1. Racism is a central theme in Bradley's book. In what way did racist perceptions on the part of President Roosevelt distort his foreign policy?
2. What were some of the academic and philosophical influences on Roosevelt's attitudes toward race?
3. Bradley writes, "One after another, white Christian males in America’s finest universities 'discovered’ that the Aryan was God’s highest creation, that the Negro was designed for servitude and that the Indian was doomed to extinction." In your opinion, does the fact that this thinking was common for the time exculpate Roosevelt and his contemporaries' belief in white supremacy?
4. Discuss the "Japanese Monroe Doctrine." For whose benefit was it proposed, and what was the rationale behind it?
5. What was Roosevelt's purpose in encouraging a Japanese takeover of Korea?
6. Ultimately, what were the consequences of the Japanese Monroe Doctrine? Over time, according to Bradley, how did it drive Japan's foreign policy goals?
7. Referring to the Russo-Japanese war, Roosevelt wrote to his son in February, 1904, that "I was thoroughly well pleased with the Japanese victory, playing our game." What did he mean?
8. Why did Roosevelt push for Japan to forgo indemnity after the war? What precipitated the Tokyo riots When the Treaty of Portsmouth was announced?
9. Talk about the ways in which Bradley presents America as an imperialist power, particularly with regards to Hawaii and the Philippines. Is The Imperial Cruise persuasive in its vision of history repeating itself later in the 20th and 21st centuries?
10. Contrast Roosevelt's differing attitudes toward the Russian people and the Japanese. Why did he consider the latter "natural leaders"? What, in particular, did he admire in the Japanese culture? And why would Japan have been so eager to adopt Western values?
11. In your opinion, was Roosevelt deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize?
12. Were you surprised to learn that what we now refer to as "waterboarding" was used during Roosevelt's time? Does its long-term practice lend it legitimacy in your view...or not?
13. What if anything have you learned by reading The Imperial Cruise? Has it altered your view of Theodore Roosevelt or the history of American foreign policy?
14. Does Bradley make a convincing case for the long reach of Roosevelt's actions? Can Roosevelt be held responsible for the long-term unintended consequences of his foreign policy? Why...or why not?
15. The book has sometimes been criticized for its at times casual, almost flippant, and sarcastic tone. For you, does that style and tone detract grom Bradley's overall message? Or does it make his work more readable and engaging?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life
Mark Synnott, 2019
Penguin Publishing
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101986646
Summary
In Mark Synnott’s unique window on the ethos of climbing, his friend Alex Honnold’s astonishing "free solo" ascent of El Capitan’s 3,000 feet of sheer granite, is the central act. ''
When Honnold topped out at 9:28 A.M. on June 3, 2017, having spent fewer than four hours on his historic ascent, the world gave a collective gasp.
The New York Times described it as "one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever."
Synnott’s personal history of his own obsession with climbing since he was a teenager—through professional climbing triumphs and defeats, and the dilemmas they render—makes this a deeply reported, enchanting revelation about living life to the fullest. What are we doing if not an impossible climb?
Synnott delves into a raggedy culture that emerged decades earlier during Yosemite’s Golden Age, when pioneering climbers like Royal Robbins and Warren Harding invented the sport that Honnold would turn on its ear.
Painting an authentic, wry portrait of climbing history and profiling Yosemite heroes and the harlequin tribes of climbers known as the Stonemasters and the Stone Monkeys, Synnott weaves in his own experiences with poignant insight and wit: tensions burst on the mile-high northwest face of Pakistan’s Great Trango Tower; fellow climber Jimmy Chin miraculously persuades an official in the Borneo jungle to allow Honnold’s first foreign expedition, led by Synnott, to continue; armed bandits accost the same trio at the foot of a tower in the Chad desert . . .
The Impossible Climb is an emotional drama driven by people exploring the limits of human potential and seeking a perfect, choreographed dance with nature.
Honnold dared far beyond the ordinary, beyond any climber in history. But this story of sublime heights is really about all of us. Who doesn’t need to face down fear and make the most of the time we have? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Mark Synnott is a twenty-year member of the North Face Global Athlete team. He is a frequent contributor to National Geographic magazine and has written for Outside, Men’s Journal, Rock and Ice, and Climbing. He is also an internationally certified mountain guide and a trainer for the Pararescuemen of the United States Air Force. He lives in the Mt. Washington Valley of New Hampshire. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The Impossible Climb is an accomplished portrait of two remarkable lives—but its major weakness, of both style and imagination, lies in Synnott’s depictions of women. Professional climbing is largely a man’s world, but rather than examine this dynamic as he does countless others, Synnott uses descriptions that further diminish and objectify the women he encounters.… Like a jazz record or a dog-eared book by Dostoyevsky, the women here are simply another tool for characterizing the men around them—as well as vehicles for Synnott’s fascination with the younger Honnold’s sex life. This fascination is shameless and enduring, fitting into themes of aging that build throughout the book.
Blair Braverman - New York Times Book Review
Readers will pick this up for Honnold but will be equally engrossed by Synnott's own adventures and writing. A worthy companion to Honnold's memoir Alone on the Wall and Tommy Caldwell's The Push.
Library Journal
[A] lot of plodding backstory between the climbs themselves; the book works best when exploring the psychological challenges of such harrowing endeavors. The 2018 documentary Free Solo captures Honnold’s story… in a more concise and visceral way.
Booklist
A thrills-and-chills—and occasional spills—view of the mad heroes of free climbing, scaling mountain faces without ropes. You'd have to be out of your mind to head up the 3,000-foot-high cliff face of Yosemite's El Capitan…. Fans of mountaineering will find this a winner.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE IMPOSSIBLE CLIMB … then take off on your own:
1. You could spend the entire discussion session attempting to answer this question: what motivates Alex Honnold desire to climb El Capitan? What drives his—or any extreme sports participant's—need for risk?
2. Follow-up to Question 1: Discuss the role of brain chemistry/structure, especially what studies have revealed about Honnold's amygdala. Does the fact that his brain is different make his climbing feats less remarkable? Or not? Is it the risk-taking that is impressive … or the finesse and skill involved? Actually, what most impressed you about the Honnold's climb: the detailed preparation, the in depth know-how, the ability to see fissures and cracks?
3. What do you think of Alex Honnold as a person: why does he describe himself as a "total loser"? Clearly he has the right stuff for climbing, but does he have the right stuff for ordinary living: the messiness and give-and-take of relationships; the dull routine of daily existence? A friend calls him selfish, obsessive? How would you describe him?
4. What do you think of Mark Synnott, the author? He talks about having been away frequently from his family and putting aside the "responsibilities of being a husband and father." Is his drive to climb self-indulgent to the point of selfish? Do you think his children will come to understand as they mature?
5. How would you describe the relationship between Mark and Alex?
6. Consider the tension between climbing as a solo art and the fact that it attracts a fair amount of media attention and corporate sponsors. How does Synnott see the juxtaposition?
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
Truman Capote, 1965
Knopf Doubleday
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780679745587
Summary
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.
With the publication of this book, Capote permanently ripped through the barrier separating crime reportage from serious literature. As he reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, Capote generates suspense and empathy. (From the publisher.)
The novel was the basis for Capote, a 2005 movied starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, who won both an Oscar and the Golden Globe Award for his performance as Truman Capote.
Author Bio
• Aka—Truman Streckfus Persons
• Birth—September 30, 1924
• Where—New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
• Death—August 25, 1984
• Where—Los Angeles, California
• Education—Trinity School and St. John's Academy in New
York City and Greenwich High School in Connecticut
• Awards—O.Henry Memorial Short Story Prize, twice;
member, National Institute of Arts and Letters.
When Truman Capote debuted on the New York literary scene in 1948, no one had seen anything quite like him. Capote soon became famous for his intensely readable and nuanced short stories, novels, and novellas, but he was equally famous as a personality, gadfly, and bon vivant — not to mention as a crime writer. Capote’s much-imitated 1965 book, In Cold Blood, all but invented the narrative true-crime genre. (From Barnes and Noble.)
Capote is also credited with the development of what is now referred to as "literary non-fiction."
More (than you need to know)
Truman Capote was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, the son of 17-year-old Lillie Mae (nee Faulk) and Archelaus Persons, who was a salesman.When he was four, his parents divorced, and he was sent to Monroeville, Alabama, where he was raised by his mother's relatives. He formed a fast bond with his mother's distant relative, Nanny Rumbley Faulk, whom Truman called 'Sook'. "Her face is remarkable—not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind," is how Capote described Sook in "A Christmas Memory." In Monroeville, he was a neighbor and friend of Harper Lee, who grew up to write To Kill a Mockingbird.
As a lonely child, Capote taught himself to read and write before he entered the first grade in school. Capote was often seen at age five carrying his dictionary and notepad, and he began writing when he was ten. At this time, he was given the nickname Bulldog, possibly a pun reference of "Bulldog Truman" to the fictional detective Bulldog Drummond popular in films of the mid-1930s.
On Saturdays, he made trips from Monroeville to Mobile, and when he was ten, he submitted his short story, "Old Mr. Busybody," to a children's writing contest sponsored by the Mobile Press Register.
In 1933, he moved to New York City to live with his mother and her second husband, Joseph Capote, a Cuban-born textile broker, who adopted his stepson and renamed him Truman García Capote. When he was 11, he began writing seriously in daily three-hour sessions. Of his early days Capote related, "I began writing really sort of seriously when I was about eleven. I say seriously in the sense that like other kids go home and practice the violin or the piano or whatever, I used to go home from school every day and I would write for about three hours. I was obsessed by it."
When he was 17, Capote ended his formal education and began a two-year job at The New Yorker. Years later, he wrote...
Not a very grand job, for all it really involved was sorting cartoons and clipping newspapers. Still, I was fortunate to have it, especially since I was determined never to set a studious foot inside a college classroom. I felt that either one was or wasn't a writer, and no combination of professors could influence the outcome. I still think I was correct, at least in my own case.
Between 1943 and 1946, Capote wrote a continual flow of short fiction, for which he won the O. Henry Award. His stories were published in both literary quarterlies and well-known magazines, including Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Bazaar, Harper's Magazine, Mademoiselle, The New Yorker, Prairie Schooner and Story. Interviewed in 1957 for the the Paris Review, Capote was asked about his short story technique, answering:
Since each story presents its own technical problems, obviously one can't generalize about them on a two-times-two-equals-four basis. Finding the right form for your story is simply to realize the most natural way of telling the story. The test of whether or not a writer has defined the natural shape of his story is just this: After reading it, can you imagine it differently, or does it silence your imagination and seem to you absolute and final? As an orange is final. As an orange is something nature has made just right.
In 1943 Capote wrote his first novel, Summer Crossing about the summer romance of Fifth Avenue socialite Grady O'Neil with a parking lot attendant. Capote later claimed to have destroyed it, and it was regarded as a lost work. However, it was stolen in 1966 by a housesitter Capote hired to watch his Brooklyn apartment, resurfaced in 2004 and was published by Random House in 2005.
In June 1946, one of his short stories, "Miriam" (which won an O. Henry Award) attracted the attention of publisher Bennett Cerf, resulting in a contract with Random House to write a novel. With an advance of $1,500, Capote described the symbolic tale as "a poetic explosion in highly suppressed emotion." The novel is a semi-autobiographical refraction of Capote's Alabama childhood.
Fame
When Other Voices, Other Rooms was published in 1948, it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks, selling more than 26,000 copies, catapulting Capote to fame.
Random House followed the success of Other Voices, Other Rooms with A Tree of Night and Other Stories in 1949. In addition to "Miriam," this collection also includes "Shut a Final Door." First published in Atlantic Monthly (August, 1947), "Shut a Final Door" won a second O. Henry Award in 1948.
Capote remained a lifelong friend of his Monroeville neighbor Harper Lee, and he based the character of Idabel in Other Voices, Other Rooms on her. He in turn was the inspiration for the character Dill, in Lee's 1960 bestselling, Pulitzer prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird. Like Capote, Dill is creative, bold and had an unsatisfactory family history. In an interview with Lawrence Grobel, Capote recalled his childhood, "Mr. and Mrs. Lee, Harper Lee's mother and father, lived very near. Harper Lee was my best friend. Did you ever read her book, To Kill a Mockingbird? I'm a character in that book, which takes place in the same small town in Alabama where we both lived."
Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories brought together the title novella and three shorter tales: "House of Flowers," "A Diamond Guitar" and "A Christmas Memory." The heroine of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly Golightly, became one of Capote's best-known creations, and the book's prose style prompted Norman Mailer to call Capote "the most perfect writer of my generation." A first edition of this book might sell for from $500 to more than $3000, depending upon condition.
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences, was inspired by a 300-word article that ran on page 39 of New York Times on Monday, November 16, 1959. The story described the unexplained murder of the Clutter family in rural Holcomb, Kansas. In Cold Blood was serialized in The New Yorker in 1965 and published in hardcover by Random House in 1966. The "non-fiction novel," as Capote labeled it, brought him literary acclaim and became an international bestseller.
A feud between Capote and British arts critic Kenneth Tynan erupted in the pages of The Observer after Tynan's review of In Cold Blood implied that Capote wanted an execution so the book would have an effective ending. (An issue suggested by the 2005 movie, Capote, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.)
In Cold Blood brought Capote much praise from the literary community, but there were some who questioned certain events as reported in the book. Writing in Esquire in 1966, Phillip K. Tompkins noted factual discrepancies after he traveled to Kansas and talked to some of the same people interviewed by Capote. In his article, Tompkins concluded:
Capote has, in short, achieved a work of art. He has told exceedingly well a tale of high terror in his own way. But, despite the brilliance of his self-publicizing efforts, he has made both a tactical and a moral error that will hurt him in the short run. By insisting that “every word” of his book is true he has made himself vulnerable to those readers who are prepared to examine seriously such a sweeping claim.
True Crime writer Jack Olsen also commented on the fabrications: "I recognized it as a work of art, but I know fakery when I see it," Olsen says. "Capote completely fabricated quotes and whole scenes."
The book made something like $6 million in 1960s money, and nobody wanted to discuss anything wrong with a money-maker like that in the publishing business."
Later Years
After the success of In Cold Blood, Capote's publisher re-released his earlier works. Now more sought-after than ever, Capote wrote occasional brief articles for magazines, and also entrenched himself more deeply in the world of the jet set.
By the late 1970s, Capote was in and out of rehab clinics, and news of his various breakdowns frequently reached the public. In 1978, talk show host Stanley Siegal did a live on-air interview with Capote, who, in an extraordinarily intoxicated state, confessed that he might kill himself.
Capote died in Los Angeles, California, on August 25, 1984, aged 59. According to the coroner's report the cause of death was "liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication." He died at the home of his old friend Joanne Carson, ex-wife of late-night TV host Johnny Carson, on whose program Capote had been a frequent guest. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, leaving behind his longtime companion, author Jack Dunphy. Dunphy died in 1992, and in 1994 both his and Capote's ashes were scattered at Crooked Pond, between Bridgehampton, New York and Sag Harbor, New York on Long Island, close to where the two had maintained a property with individual houses for many years. (Bio excerpted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
There are two Truman Capotes. One is the artful charmer, prone to the gossamer and the exquisite, of the The Grass Harp and Holly Golightly. The other, darker and stronger, is the discoverer of death. He has traveled far from the misty, moss-hung, Southern-Gothic landscapes of youth. He now broods with the austerity of a Greek or an Elizabethan.
Conrad Knickerbocker - New York Times (1/1966)
The best documentary account of an American crime ever written.... The book chills the blood and exercises the intelligence...harrowing.
New York Review of Books
Capote has, in short, achieved a work of art. He has told exceedingly well a tale of high terror in his own way. But, despite the brilliance of his self-publicizing efforts, he has made both a tactical and a moral error that will hurt him in the short run. By insisting that “every word” of his book is true he has made himself vulnerable to those readers who are prepared to examine seriously such a sweeping claim.
Philip K. Thompkins - Esquire (1966)
(Audio version.) In the wake of the award-winning film Capote, interest in the author's 1965 true crime masterpiece has spiked. Capote's spellbinding narrative plumbs the psychological and emotional depths of a senseless quadruple murder in America's heartland. In the audio version, narrator Brick keeps up with the master storyteller every step of the way. In fact, Brick's surefooted performance is nothing short of stunning. He settles comfortably into every character on this huge stage-male and female, lawman and murderer, teen and spinster-and moves fluidly between them, generating the feel of a full-cast production. He assigns varying degrees of drawl to the citizens of Finney County, Kans., where the crimes take place, and supplements with an arsenal of tension-building cadences, hard and soft tones, regional and foreign accents, and subtle inflections, even embedding a quiver of grief in the voice of one character. This facile audio actor delivers an award-worthy performance, well-suited for a tale of such power that moves not only around the country but around the territory of the human psyche and heart.
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for In Cold Blood:
1. Start with the victims. What kind of family is the Clutter household? In what way does Capote create sympathy for them? Do you feel they represented the American Dream?
2. How does Capote, as a writer, handle the actual murder of the Clutter family. Or is it too gruesome, too heartbreaking to discuss?
3. Discuss the killers, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock. What kind of men were they? What were their motives in committing murder? Talk about their backgrounds and psychological make-ups? Think, for instance, about Perry Smith's chilling comment: "I thought he was a very nice gentleman.... I thought so right up to the moment I cut this throat."
4. In many ways, In Cold Blood is about the murderers. Do you feel they deserve such attention? Do you think that Capote pulls off the near impossible—does he build sympathy, in your mind, for the killers? Does he endow them—Perry Smith, in particular—with any kind of humanity? Or does he depict them as savage animals, devoid of human redemption?
5. What was the impact of the murders on the Holcomb community? How did it alter the residents' perceptions of the natural order of things, of life?
6. With this book, Truman has been credited with developing a new genre of writing: "literary non-fiction." What might that term mean, and how does In Cold Blood differ from straight crime reporting? Why did Capote create the kind of story he did, and what is its impact on the reader of this new approach?
7. Suggestion: Watch the 2005 film, Capote, with Philip Seymour Hoffman in the role of Truman Capote. Does the film affect your view of Capote and his motives in writing his book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Michael Pollan, 2008
Penguin Group USA
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143114963
Summary
The companion volume to the New York Times bestseller The Omnivore's Dilemma.
Michael Pollan's lastbook, The Omnivore's Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time. Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 6, 1955
• Where—Raised in Long Island, New York, USA
• Education—N/A
• Awards—California Book Award; James Beard Award, 2000
and 2006; Reuters-IUCN Global Award-Environmental
Journalism.
• Currently—lives in Berkeley, California
Few writers have done more to revitalize our national conversation about food and eating than Michael Pollan, an award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose witty, offbeat nonfiction shines an illuminating spotlight on various aspects of agriculture, the food chain, and man's place in the natural world
Pollan's first book, Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (1991), was selected by the American Horticultural Society as one of the 75 best books ever written about gardening. But it was Botany of Desire, published a full decade later, that put him on the map. A fascinating look at the interconnected evolution of plants and people, Botany... was one of the surprise bestsellers of 2001. Five years later, Pollan produced The Omnivore's Dilemma, a delightful, compulsively readable "ecology of eating" that was named one the ten best books of the year by the New York Times and Washington Post. And in 2008, came In Defense of Food.
A professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, Pollan is a former executive editor for Harper's and a contributing writer for the New York Times, where he continues to examine the fascinating intersections between science and culture. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
A tough, witty, cogent rebuttal to the proposition that food can be reduced to its nutritional components without the loss of something essential…In this lively, invaluable book—which grew out of an essay Mr. Pollan wrote for the New York Times Magazine, for which he is a contributing writer—he assails some of the most fundamental tenets of nutritionism: that food is simply the sum of its parts, that the effects of individual nutrients can be scientifically measured, that the primary purpose of eating is to maintain health, and that eating requires expert advice.... Some of this reasoning turned up in Mr. Pollan's best-selling The Omnivore's Dilemma. But In Defense of Food is a simpler, blunter and more pragmatic book, one that really lives up to the "manifesto" in its subtitle.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
In this slim, remarkable volume, Pollan builds a convincing case not only against that steak dinner but against the entire Western diet. Over the last half-century, Pollan argues, real food has started to disappear, replaced by processed foods designed to include nutrients. Those component parts, he says, are understood only by scientists and exploited by food marketers who thrive on introducing new products that hawk fiber, omega-3 fatty acids or whatever else happens to be in vogue...what makes Pollan's latest so engrossing is his tone: curious and patient as he explains the flaws in epidemiological studies that have buttressed nutritionism for 30 years, and entirely without condescension as he offers those prescriptions Americans so desperately crave. That's no easy feat in a book of this kind.
Jane Black - Washington Post
Written with Pollan’s customary bite, ringing clarity and brilliance at connecting the dots.
Seattle Times
In his hugely influential treatise The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan traced a direct line between the industrialization of our food supply and the degradation of the environment. His new book takes up where the previous work left off. Examining the question of what to eat from the perspective of health, this powerfully argued, thoroughly researched and elegant manifesto cuts straight to the chase with a maxim that is deceptively simple: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." But as Pollan explains, "food" in a country that is driven by "a thirty-two billion-dollar marketing machine" is both a loaded term and, in its purest sense, a holy grail. The first section of his three-part essay refutes the authority of the diet bullies, pointing up the confluence of interests among manufacturers of processed foods, marketers and nutritional scientists-a cabal whose nutritional advice has given rise to "a notably unhealthy preoccupation with nutrition and diet and the idea of eating healthily." The second portion vivisects the Western diet, questioning, among other sacred cows, the idea that dietary fat leads to chronic illness. A writer of great subtlety, Pollan doesn't preach to the choir; in fact, rarely does he preach at all, preferring to lets the facts speak for themselves.
Publishers Weekly
Berkeley, California-based journalism professor and New York Times Magazine contributing writer Michael Pollan, whose previous work on the subject includes The Botany of Desire and the best-selling The Omnivore’s Dilemma, has placed himself at the forefront of food writing. He preaches a back-to-basics approach and a close questioning of the avalanche of information that has come out of our diet-obsessed society. Despite the accusations of a few critics as being a little alarmist, a little elitist, and a little obvious (not everyone has the access to or the resources to eat the food Pollan suggests), the book encourages a simple approach to eating that will strike a chord with readers weary of conflicting information and unrealistic weight-loss and wellness programs. So the message of the book and its well-written delivery can’t be faulted. The question is, do we need to hear it all again?
Bookmarks Magazine
Expanding on a theme from his popular The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2007), Pollan mounts an assault on a reigning theory of the relationship between food and health. For Pollan, “nutritionism” offers too narrow a view of the role of eating, confining its benefits solely to food’s chemical constituents.... Given the continuing fascination with Pollan’s earlier work, this smaller tome will surely generate heavy demand.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for In Defense of Food:
1. Okay, first things first: doesn't it just kill you to think that Krispy Kremes aren't a natural food? What other food is Pollan pointing his finger at? How painful would it be for you to give those foods up?
2. So...given Krispy Kremes and other goodies, what does Pollan mean when he says we eat foodlike substances? What does Pollan think we should be eating? How much of your own diet is made up of "foodlike substances" vs. "real food"?
3. Pollan claims that the Western diet has been replaced by nutrients. What does he mean by that? When he uses the term "nutritionalism," to what is he referring?
4. Pollan also says that after 30-years of nutritional advice from health experts, we're actually sicker than before. Do you agree? What kind of evidence does he use to support that claim?
5. Whom does Pollan blame for our dietary landscape? Again, what is the evidence? Does he make a good case?
6. If you've read Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, does this book make new claims—expand your knoweldge ? Do the two books complement one another? Or is this one simply a repetition of Omnivore?
7. What solutions does Pollan offer to help us make thoughtful choices, both in our own eating habits and in protecting the natural food supply?
8. Are you up for it?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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In One Era and Out the Other: Essays on Contemporary Life
Patricia Prattis Jennings, 2013
CreateSpace
302 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780615849904
Summary
From former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette contributor turned essayist comes this wide-ranging collection in which the author shares her views on the way life is now, sprinkled with reminiscences about the last several decades. Few other writers can glide so easily from fashion to football to fiction without missing a beat.
Covering a wide range of topics including culture, technology, politics, books, and music, Jennings expresses her views on everything from what's happened to air travel to the search for a perfect hairstylist.
Not afraid to tackle more serious topics, Jennings weighs in on racial attitudes in America and the election of Barack Obama. And when talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger lectures a black woman not to date outside her race if she can't "take the heat," Jennings shares her thoughts, as an African American woman married to a white man, not only with Dr. Laura but also with her readers.
Jennings's book will especially delight readers over thirty-five who have shared many of her experiences. Part memoir, part commentary, In One Era and Out the Other is a sophisticated and amusing chronology of anecdotes and opinions about events of the second half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century and the new millennium.
Author Bio
• Birth—July 16, 1941
• Where—Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—M.A., Carnegie Mellon University
• Currently—Rosslyn Farms (Carnegie), Pennsylvania
Retired keyboardist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Jennings' writing career began with a four-part series for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Symphony Diary," while on tour with the orchestra in Europe in 1994.
That experience has evolved into nearly two decades of essays in which she shares her observations on everything from fashion to how the Internet impacts the American family. Her essays have appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Symphony magazine, and various Western Pennsylvania-based publications. From 1988 to 1994 she was the publisher/editor of Symphonium, a newsletter for and about the professional African-American symphony musician. (From the author.)
Book Reviews
The following comments come from Amazon customer reviews:
A delightful read which I will read again and again.
You bring together so many different elements, all very interestingly explored, commented upon and philosophized about!
I don't know when I have laughed so much—your book is great! Can't wait for the next one.
What I, and probably many others, like so much about your writing is that you could have been writing about me.
Discussion Questions
1. How well does the author chronicle the changes in our culture that have taken place in your lifetime?
2. What did you learn that you didn’t know before?
3. Does the author strike a proper balance between serious and less serious topics?
4. What about this book do you think men might enjoy?
5. Does the author describe situations that ring true to your life but that you’ve never quite put into words?
6. Do the topics strike a proper balance considering that the author is a woman but also an African-American woman?
7. Has anything in the book encouraged you to make positive changes in your life?
8. Would you trust the author’s book and movie recommendations?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)
In the Dream House
Carmen Maria Machado, 2019
Graywolf Press
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781644450031
Summary
A revolutionary memoir about domestic abuse by the award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties,
In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse.
Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.
And it’s that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope—the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman—through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles.
She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships.
Machado’s dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction.
The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1986
• Where—Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., American University; M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Awards—Gpuggenheim Fellowshi
• Currently—lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the story collection, Her Body and Other Parties (2017), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. She lives with her wife in Philadelphia, Penna., where she is the Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Each chapter hews to the conventions of a different genre: road trip, romance novel, creature feature, lesbian pulp novel, stoner comedy.… What could seem gimmicky… quickly feels like the only natural way to tell the story of a couple. What relationship exists in purely one genre? What life?…There is something anxious, and very intriguing…. The flurry—the excess—feels deliberate, and summons up the image of the writer holding a ring of keys, trying each of them in turn to unlock a resistant story, to open a door she might be hesitant to enter.
New York Times - Parul Sehgal
A stunning book, both deeply felt and elegantly written.
Boston Globe
[In the Dream House] is a genre-bending, formally inventive, generous memoir that adds both documentation to the archive as well as a work of art to be admired…. Machado’s memoir adds something vital to the canon of queer history…. Above everything else, this book is a gift to the reader, to anyone suffering in violence that is hard to prove or name, and people looking for ways to tell their stories that have few or no precedents.
San Francisco Chronicle
Piercing…. In the Dream House makes for uneasy but powerful reading.
USA Today
Breathtakingly inventive…. Machado’s writing, with its heat and precise command of tone, has always had a sentient quality. But what makes In the Dream House a particularly self-aware structure—which is to say, a true haunted house—is the intimation that it is critiquing itself in real time.… Here and in her short stories, Machado subjects the contemporary world to the logic of dreaming.
New Yorker
In the Dream House is the kind of book that burrows under the reader's skin while simultaneously forcing her to inhabit the body of the writer.
NPR.org
In the Dream House—a book that manages to break open nearly everything we think we know about abuse memoirs… The result is a gorgeously kaleidoscopic feat—not just of literature but of pure, uncut humanity.
Entertainment Weekly
A tour-de-force meditation on trauma, survival and the language we use to talk about it all (Best Books of 2019).
Time
[A] dizzying, dazzling amalgamation of memoir and criticism.
Vanity Fair
Carmen Maria Machado is as much alchemist as author.… In this brainy, playful, shattering account, Machado ultimately tells her own singular tale.
Oprah Magazine
(Starred review) [H]aunting…. Machado interestingly weaves in cultural references… as she considers portrayals of abuse.… The author eventually leaves her toxic relationship behind, but scars remain.… [A]n affecting, chilling memoir about domestic abuse.
Publishers Weekly
In this open examination of abuse—how it starts, how it hides, how it tears at the victim’s sense of self—Machado reimagines and plays with the memoir form, bridging the gap between reader and author in a way that is original and haunting. —Gricel Dominguez, Florida International Univ. Lib., Miami
Library Journal
(Starred review) [Machado’s] writing exhibits all of the formal precision of her fiction, and the book draws the reader deep into the varied rooms of the haunted house of the past. Highly recommended.a
Booklist
(Starred review) [A] daringly structured and ruthlessly inquisitive memoir…. [Machado] applies the astonishing force of her imagination and narrative skill to her own life…. A fiercely honest, imaginatively written, and necessary memoir from one of our great young writers.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
Erik Larson, 2011
Crown Publishing
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307408846
Summary
Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, the bestselling author of Devil in the White City turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power.
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.
A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels.
But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition.
Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming—yet wholly sinister—Goebbels, In the Garden of Beastslends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 3, 1954
• Where—Brooklyn, New York, USA
• Raised—Freeport (Long Island), New York
• Education—B.A., University of Pennsylvania; M.S., Columbia University
• Awards—Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, 2004
• Currently—lives in New York City and Seattle, Washington
Erik Larson is an American journalist and nonfiction author. Although he has written several books, he is particularly well-know for three: The Devil in the White City (2003), a history of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and serial killer H. H. Holmes, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and An American Family in Hitler's Berlin (2011), a portrayal of William E. Dodd, the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany, and his daughter Martha, and Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (2015).
Early life
Born in Brooklyn, Larson grew up in Freeport, Long Island, New York. He studied Russian history at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated summa cum laude in 1976. After a year off, he attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, graduating in 1978.
Journalism
Larson's first newspaper job was with the Bucks County Courier Times in Levittown, Pennsylvania, where he wrote about murder, witches, environmental poisons, and other "equally pleasant" things. He later became a features writer for the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, where he is still a contributing writer. His magazine stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, and other publications.
Books
Larson has also written a number of books, beginning with The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities (1992), followed by Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun (1995). Larson's next books were Isaac's Storm (1999), about the experiences of Isaac Cline during the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, and The Devil in the White City (2003), about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and a series of murders by H. H. Holmes that were committed in the city around the time of the Fair.
The Devil in the White City won the 2004 Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category. Next, Larson published Thunderstruck (2006), which intersperses the story of Hawley Harvey Crippen with that of Guglielmo Marconi and the invention of radio. His next book, In the Garden of Beasts (2011), concerns William E. Dodd, the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany and his daughter. Dead Wake, published in 2015, is an account of the sinking of the Lusitania, which led to America's intervention in World War I.
Teaching and public speaking
Larson has taught non-fiction writing at San Francisco State University, the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and the University of Oregon, and he has spoken to audiences from coast to coast.
Personal
Larson and his wife have three daughters. They reside in New York City, but maintain a home in Seattle, Washington. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/17/2015.)
Book Reviews
In this mesmerizing portrait of the Nazi capital, Larson plumbs a far more diabolical urban cauldron than in his bestselling The Devil in the White City. He surveys Berlin, circa 1933 1934, from the perspective of two American naïfs: Roosevelt's ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, an academic historian and Jeffersonian liberal who hoped Nazism would de-fang itself (he urged Hitler to adopt America's milder conventions of anti-Jewish discrimination), and Dodd's daughter Martha, a sexual free spirit who loved Nazism's vigor and ebullience. At first dazzled by the glamorous world of the Nazi ruling elite, they soon started noticing signs of its true nature: the beatings meted out to Americans who failed to salute passing storm troopers; the oppressive surveillance; the incessant propaganda; the intimidation and persecution of friends; the fanaticism lurking beneath the surface charm of its officialdom. Although the narrative sometimes bogs down in Dodd's wranglings with the State Department and Martha's soap opera, Larson offers a vivid, atmospheric panorama of the Third Reich and its leaders, including murderous Nazi factional infighting, through the accretion of small crimes and petty thuggery. Photos.
Publishers Weekly
Best-selling author Larson (The Devil in the White City) turns his considerable literary nonfiction skills to the experiences of U.S. ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd and his family in Berlin in the early years of Hitler's rule. Dodd had been teaching history at the University of Chicago when he was summoned by FDR to the German ambassadorship. Larson, using lots of archival as well as secondary-source research, focuses on Dodd's first year in Berlin and, using Dodd's diary, chillingly portrays the terror and oppression that slowly settled over Germany in 1933. Dodd quickly realized the Nazis' evil intentions; his daughter Martha, in her mid-20s, was initially smitten by the courteous SS soldiers surrounding her family, but over time she, too, became disenchanted with the brutality of the regime. Along the way Larson provides portraits based on primary-source impressions of Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, and Hitler himself. He also traces the Dodds' lives after their time in Germany. Verdict: Larson captures the nuances of this terrible period. This is a grim read but a necessary one for the present generation. Those who wish to study Dodd further can read Robert Dallek's Democrat & Diplomat. —Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for In the Garden of Beasts:
1. William Dodd went to Germany believing that Hitler would have a positive influence on Germany. Why were so many at first enamored of Nazism and willing "to give Hitler everything he wants"?
2. How would you describe German society at the time of the Dodd Family's arrival in Berlin? Talk about the ways in which Germany appeared to be a modern, civilized society...and, of course, the way in which that appearance was at odds with reality.
3. What was it that made Dodd begin to suspect the rumors he had been hearing about Nazi brutality were true?
4. Why did Dodd's—and numerous others'—warnings about Hitler fall on indifferent ears in the US? What was the primary concern of the US in its relationship with Germany? Was the US stance one of purposeful ignorance...or of sheer disbelief?
5. Did America's own anti-semitism play any role in dismissing the growing chorus of concern ?
6. What do you think of William Dodd? What about him do you find admirable? Were you mildly amused or impressed by his sense of frugality?
7. What was Dodd's reputation among the "old hands" at the State Department? What role does class play in how he was viewed by his diplomatic peers?
8. What about Martha? What do you find in her character to admire...or not? Did she purposely allow herself to be blinded by Udet and Rudolf Diels...or was she truly dazzled by their charms? Her promiscuity could have made her a serious liability. Were you surprised that her parents seemed untroubled by her multiple love affairs, or that they didn't try to reign in her behavior?
9. How does Erik Larson portray Hitler in his book? Does he humanize him...or present him as a monster? How does he depict Goebbels and Goering...and other higher-ups in the Nazi party?
10. How does the fact that you know the eventual outcome of Nazi Germany affect the way you experience the book? Does foreknowledge heighten...or lessen the story's suspense. Either way...why?
11. What were events/episodes you find most chilling in Larson's account of the rise of Nazism?
12. What have learned about the period leading up the World War II that you hadn't known? What surprised you? What confirmed things you already knew?
13. Is this a good read? If you've read other books by Larson, how does this compare?
(Questions issued by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
Hampton Sides, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385535373
Summary
A white-knuckle tale of polar exploration and survival in the Gilded Age.
In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: the North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans, although theories abounded.
The foremost cartographer in the world, a German named August Petermann, believed that warm currents sustained a verdant island at the top of the world. National glory would fall to whoever could plant his flag upon its shores.
James Gordon Bennett, the eccentric and stupendously wealthy owner of the New York Herald, had recently captured the world's attention by dispatching Stanley to Africa to find Dr. Livingstone. Now he was keen to re-create that sensation on an even more epic scale.
So he funded an official U.S. naval expedition to reach the Pole, choosing as its captain a young officer named George Washington De Long, who had gained fame for a rescue operation off the coast of Greenland. De Long led a team of 32 men deep into uncharted Arctic waters, carrying the aspirations of a young country burning to become a world power. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of "Arctic Fever."
The ship sailed into uncharted seas, but soon was trapped in pack ice. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the hull was breached. Amid the rush of water and the shrieks of breaking wooden boards, the crew abandoned the ship. Less than an hour later, the Jeannette sank to the bottom, and the men found themselves marooned a thousand miles north of Siberia with only the barest supplies.
Thus began their long march across the endless ice—a frozen hell in the most lonesome corner of the world. Facing everything from snow blindness and polar bears to ferocious storms and frosty labyrinths, the expedition battled madness and starvation as they desperately strove for survival.
With twists and turns worthy of a thriller, In The Kingdom of Ice is a spellbinding tale of heroism and determination in the most unforgiving territory on Earth. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Where—Memphis, Tennessee, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Awards—PEN USA Award
• Currently—lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Hampton Sides is an American historian and journalist—author of several bestselling works of narrative history and literary non-fiction.
In addition to being a book author, Sides is editor-at-large for Outside magazine and has written for such periodicals as National Geographic, The New Yorker, Esquire, Men's Journal, and the Washington Post. His magazine work, collected in numerous published anthologies, has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing.
Sides has appeared as a guest on such national broadcasts as American Experience, the Today show, Book TV, History Channel, Fresh Air, All Things Considered, CNN, CBS Sunday Morning, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The Colbert Report, and Imus in the Morning.
Books
His Ghost Soldiers (2001), a World War II narrative about the rescue of Bataan Death March survivors, has sold slightly over a million copies worldwide and been translated into a dozen foreign languages. Esquire called it "the greatest World War II story never told." The book was the subject of documentaries on PBS and The History Channel, and was partially the basis for the 2005 Miramax film, The Great Raid (along with William Breuer's The Great Raid on Cabanatuan). Ghost Soldiers won the 2002 PEN USA Award for non-fiction. The book's success led Sides to create The Ghost Soldiers Endowment Fund, a non-profit foundation dedicated to preserving the memory of the sacrifices made by Bataan and Corregidor veterans by funding relevant archives, museums, and memorials.
Blood and Thunder (2006) focuses on controversial frontiersman Kit Carson and his role in the conquest of the American West. It was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2006 by Time magazine, and selected as that year's best history title by the History Book Club and the Western Writers of America. The book was the subject of a major documentary on the PBS program American Experience and is currently under development for the screen.
Hellhound on His Trail (2010) is about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the largest manhunt in American history to capture James Earl Ray. Ray pled guilty in 1969 and served the rest of his life in prison. Sides, a native of Memphis, is the first historian to make use of a new digital archive in that city (the B. Venson Hughes Collection), which contains more than 20,000 documents and photos, many of them rare or never before published. Sides’ research forms much of the basis for PBS’s documentary episode "Roads to Memphis", which originally aired May 3, 2010, on American Experience.
Personal
A native of Memphis with a BA in history from Yale, Sides lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife Anne Goodwin Sides, a journalist and former NPR editor, and their three boys, all soccer players. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/3/2014.)
Book Reviews
This first-rate polar history and adventure narrative…is a harrowing story well told, but it is more than just that. Sides illuminates Gilded Age society, offering droll anecdotes of [James Gordon] Bennett's escapades in New York, Newport and Europe. The author also convincingly portrays what it was like to survive in northern Siberia and provides an engaging account of the voyage of the Corwin, a kind of mail and police steamer that searched for the Jeannette and carried John Muir as a supernumerary.
Robert R. Harris - New York Times Book Review
As our knowledge of the world increases, it must be difficult for audacious explorers to find terra incognita to match their passion. Surely the same frustration holds true for writers in that worthy genre, exploration literature: Haven’t all great stories been told? Never underestimate the ingenuity of a first-rate author. Hampton Sides’s In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette, which recounts the astonishing tribulations of a group of seafarers determined to be the first men to reach and reconnoiter the North Pole, is a splendid book in every way… It would be malicious to ruin the suspense about the fate of the Jeannette’s crew… The book is a marvelous nonfiction thriller.
Wall Street Journal
America’s own brush with epic polar tragedy, the subject of Hampton Sides’ phenomenally gripping new book, is a less well-known affair…What ensued—a struggle to survive and a nearly 1,000-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean and into the vastness of Siberia—stands as one of the most perilous journeys ever. Sides works story-telling magic as he evokes the pathos and suffering of what unfolded: De Long and his crew endured hardships that boggle the mind. But there is also beauty here… [Sides] writes superbly on the geography of Siberia and the Arctic, and the abundant bird and animal life the explorers encountered on their travels, which took them across ice, storm-tossed seas, treacherous tundra, rocky seacoasts, and volcanic islands.
Boston Globe
Unforgettable…a pulse-racing epic of endurance set against an exceedingly bizarre Arctic backdrop…[Sides’] descriptions of the physical challenges the men face and the eerie landscape that surrounds them are masterful. As De Long and his crew attempt to save themselves, the story grows in suspense and psychological complexity…More strange and fantastic turns follow, involving uncharted and uninhabited lands, and it pains me that I cannot describe them without spoiling the pleasure of those who have not yet read In the Kingdom of Ice. Sides’ book is a masterful work of history and storytelling.
Los Angeles Times
There is enough humor, wonder, scandal and romance in these pages to make for good reading even if the ship never sets sail. It is well to be buoyed up by the first act because the Jeannette’s voyage is a disastrous one…The book’s final act is a stunning story of courage, loyalty and determination, at times horrifying, but not without moments of wonder… Exhaustively researched and brilliantly written, In the Kingdom of the Ice is the work of a top-notch historian and storyteller. Readers braced for its hardships are in for a great read.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Compelling....Sides spins a propulsive narrative from obscure documents, journals and his own firsthand visits to the Arctic regions visited by the Jeannette and its crew. In the Kingdom of Ice makes for harrowing reading as it recounts the grim aspects of the explorers' battle for survival: illness, crippling frostbite, snow-blindness and the prospect of starvation. As grisly as the details are, you keep turning pages to find out how DeLong and his men pull themselves past each setback—even though there's always another one looming ahead.
USA Today
[Sides] brings vividness to In the Kingdom of Ice, and in the tragedy of the Jeannette he’s found a story that epitomizes both the heroism and the ghastly expense of life that characterized the entire Arctic enterprise…With an eye for the telling detail, he sketches the crew members as individuals…The bare facts of what happened to the Jeannette’s crew are easily Googleable, but if you don’t already know the story, In the Kingdom of Ice reads like a first-class epic thriller. De Long and his companions became explorers of not only unknown geographical territory but also extremes of suffering and despair. In his stoic endurance of disappointment and pain, De Long rivals Louis Zamperini, the hero of Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken.
Lev Grossman - Time Magazine
(Starred review.) In a masterful retelling, Sides chronicles American naval officer George Washington De Long’s harrowing 1879 expedition to the North Pole, an account as frightening as it is fascinating.... Impeccable writing, a vivid re-creation of the expedition and the Victorian era, and a taut conclusion make this an exciting gem.
Publishers Weekly
[A] lengthy, gripping, and well-written account.... Suspenseful and well grounded with biographical and historical context, Sides's work skillfully captures the passionate essence of determined explorer De Long, his indomitable compatriots, and the public's fascination with his quest .—Ingrid Levin, Salve Regina Univ. Lib., Newport, RI
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Another crackling tale of adventure from journalist/explorer Sides, this one focusing on a frigid disaster nearly 150 years ago.... A grand and grim narrative of thrilling exploration for fans of Into Thin Air, Mountains of the Moon and the like.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(The following questions were submitted by Conrad Beattie and developed for the Men's Reading Group of Douglasville, Georgia. Many thanks, Conrad.)
1. What conditions in America and Europe had developed to set the stage for the “heroic age of exploration”? Is this the typical flow of history?
2. Had the British found the elusive Northwest Passage with their numerous Arctic expeditions, how might that have impacted the economies of America and Europe?
3. What was the allure of the Arctic to men like DeLong?
4. Aboard the Little Juanita, while searching for the Polaris crew, DeLong wrote that he felt a responsibility for his crew that “I do not desire to have again.” What caused him to change his mind?
5. How would you describe the character of James Gordon Bennett? Which of his antics seems the most bizarre?
6. What, do you think, was foremost in Bennett’s mind when he decided to underwrite the expedition?
7. In spite of the previous experience of all Arctic adventurers who had been thwarted by the ice and of the skepticism of men like Sir Clements R. Markham, the secretary of the Royal Geographical Society who scoffed at the idea of the Open Polar Sea and called it a “mischievous” idea whose arguments in favor of it were “all so obviously fabulous that it is astonishing how any sane man could be found to give credit to them”, the notion of the Open Polar Sea was a collective obsession. Why do you think that was the case?
8. Silas Bent (who had conducted extensive hydrographic surveys in the Pacific for the U.S. Navy) based many of his assumptions about the Kuro Siwo current in the Pacific Ocean on the work of Matthew Maury of the U.S. Naval Observatory who was a well-respected oceanographer, astronomer and meteorologist. Maury, in turn, based much of his belief in the Open Polar Sea on anecdotal evidence. What can be learned about the process of investigation and discovery from the experience of these two men?
9. Ancient legends of the Vikings spoke of Ultima Thule in the far north and the Greeks of Hyperboria. How much and in what way do you think these ancient legends affected the thinking of the proponents of the Open Polar Sea?
10. August Petermann, the eccentric German mapmaker, held stubbornly to his opinions in the face of contrary evidence provided by men who had actually been to the Arctic. In what way did his opinions and ideas negatively affect Arctic exploration?
11. As DeLong selected his crew for the Jeannette, did you have any misgivings about any particular crew members? If so, what and why?
12. Shortly before the Jeannette’s departure for the Bering Straits, the U.S. Coast Guard and Geodetic Survey schooner made its way out of the Arctic with findings that refuted the previously held assumptions regarding the Kuro Siwo current. Why do you suppose that raw data wasn’t shared with DeLong, knowing that he was about to embark for the Arctic? Note—the final report wasn’t issued until four years later!
13. Once entrapped in the ice they soon found that Bell’s telephones and Edison’s arc lights didn’t work and the chemicals for developing photographs hadn’t made it aboard the ship. The blame for all of this seemed to fall on Collins, the Jeannette’s scientist. How do you think that affected his disposition towards DeLong?
14. There seems to have been a sense of relief among the crew when the ship’s hull was finally breached by ice and it sank, casting them onto the ice. How would one account for such optimism in the face of disaster?
15. The rescue ship Corwin landed on St. Lawrence Island and discovered frightful conditions among the surviving populace of the Yupiks. Several explanations are given for the conditions they found on the island. Do you think the fault lay predominantly with the white man’s incursion into their world and if so, why? What can be learned from that episode?
16. As DeLong and his party made their way across the ice he gives fascinating insights into the nature of the ice itself. How did his insights differ from your own perceptions of the ice?
17. Once the party finally reached open waters, it became clear that the three boats differed significantly in their ocean going abilities. Was that an oversight on DeLong’s part when equipping the Jeannette for her journey? If so, what might he have done differently?
18. Once the crews of the boats (that survived the crossing) made it to the Siberian mainland progress seemed to slow almost to a standstill. What, in your opinion, was the most frustrating part of that section of the narrative?
19. It seemed, time and again, that Providence was on their side at the worst possible moments of their journey and that they were bound to make it to safety, yet DeLong and his boat crew ultimately perished. How do you reconcile that?
20. What, ultimately, was the legacy of the Jeannette? Did their ordeal and sacrifice contribute much to the understanding of the Arctic or was it a fool’s errand?
(Questions courtesy of Conrad Beattie. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)