gods behaving badly by marie phillips

O.K., this book was pretty good. Phillips ability to put Greek Gods in current times was very entertaining.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Oh, man, a thinker. I'm normally a person who likes order; I want some thoughtful action and an ending that fits with the action - so this book would not normally fit the bill.

However, these stories were fascinating in their realistic simplicity.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers is a paper on what is required to become very successful at something - it makes no difference what the something is, the requirements for succes are the same.

At first I thought I'd read the book before, but it's 2008 original publication tells me different. The book is really a culmination of other peoples research as evidenced by the copious Notes in the back of the book - perhaps that's why I thought I'd already read it, because I'd already read the primary material.

At any rate this book summarizes the requirments for being very successful. Guess what, the primary requirement is hard work.

O.K., next story.

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

This was an interesting read because Dr. K. is a hero of mine and one of whom I hope will live long enough for me to visit - I know Cameron has this plan in mind.

At any rate, I thought Vonnegut is brilliant in his absolute simplicity.

A great read, perhaps too short, but probably not.

The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway

"Ernest Hemingway did more to change the style of English prose than any other writer in the twentieth century..." according to the cover of the book. His style is certainly straight forward.

The book was a winding biography of a very interesting person. It's a good read and I look forward to other Hemingway work.

Gang Leader For A Day

This fellow spent six years visiting within a community of thousands of poor blacks. What is amazing is that the culture, while destitute, mirrors normal society.

The sub culture created their own form of currency, handle their own transportation, protection and policing. It’s rudimentary, but seems fair and equitable – the strong take advantage of the weak – up to a point, sometimes the strong protect the weak when it is most beneficial to the strong. It’s so basic that the constant is that everyone takes care of themselves, because they can hardly afford anything else.

The Associate by John Grisham

Finally, a great book – 373 double spaced 12 pica pages of easy thoughtless reading, what a joy.

Typical Grisham, I was looking for an ending with a little more thought. But, hey, a two day read was helpful.

Where're those Bob books Drew used to read.

Mr. T vs Chuck Norris

Ask not for whom Mr. T. pities; he pities thee.

O.K., I didn’t really read this book; however, in the interest of trying to keep up I gave it some thought.

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Good read; light, but maybe relatively truthful. It’s just a period in the life of some creative marketing folks who run through normal business happenings. However, in Mr. Ferris’ first book he’s funny in a true manner about how people interact; at least I found it interesting because their life style does not parallel mine.

Dreams From My Father

We have a very angry black man with a specific black agenda as our president and he’s very smart. So smart, in fact, that I believe his desire to bootstrap the blacks into equality will benefit all.

However, here’s his problem:

“They understand business, what it means to cooperate. They pool their money. Make each other loans. We don’t do that, see. The black merchants around here, we’re all like crabs in a bucket.” Further from Foster, former president of a local Chicago area Chamber of Commerce. “Maybe you can’t blame us for being the way we are. All those years without opportunity, you have to figure it took something out of us.”

“It’s a losing battle unless you do like the Koreans – work your family sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. As a people, we’re not willing to do that anymore. I guess we worked for so long for nothing, we feel we shouldn’t have to break our backs to survive. That’s what we tell our children anyway.”

Certainly an interesting take on the plight of the black culture - to know the answer and deny it, well, you reap what you sow.

In Africa Obama finds a familial culture, poor as dirt, but prideful. The destitution is unbelievable; the comparison to the poor blacks of America is startling. Yet, the familial pride of the African is perhaps necessary for existence. The pride seems to be a deep core factor – they certainly appear to have nothing of a tangible nature to be proud of, perhaps they’re proud of the fact that they remain proud even in the life of destitution.

This is an important book because it’s clear that Obama has an agenda. His book chronicles an amazing life of travel and learning. He’s a phenomenal person; I believe he may well have the basic decency to help us all by helping his heritage. Although it is interesting that he champions the black man at the disadvantage of the white when he’s half white. It’s also interesting that his father carried such a high level of impact when his actual time spent with the boy was only weeks.

At any rate, he does write well and it was a good read; although, I found his African experience to be a bit slow.