Books

Book 42: Gilead – Marilynne Robinson

Gilead - Marilynne RobinsonI purchased this book with the 13 or 14 others at the Boston Book Festival last year in a bag for $20 from one of the book sellers. And although the elusive ‘they’ say never to judge a book by its cover, I would not have read Gilead If I hadn’t. From the beautiful and simplistic close up of a fading front door to the title so steeped in folkloric and mythic tradition, I never once read the synopsis until I decided to read the book and there was no turning back.

The lack of religiosity impressed me considering the book’s protagonist is a Congregationalist minister. The religion that does seep in comes across more as universal kindness and understanding than tongues and bible thumping. The protagonist, his best friend, his father, his grandfather, and various other characters are all ministers and yet they are real people–they love, they kill (in the name of abolition), they run away from the world and they live normal lives.

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Books, Professional Development

Book 39: Outward Bound USA: Crew Not Passengers – Josh Miner and Joe Boldt

“I was suddenly aware of how ignorant I was, alive with curiosity, doing academic work at a level I would not have thought possible a few years before. I did not know it yet, but I was learning the basic educational fact of life: the answers are meaningless until the questions are asked.” (17)

This quote pretty much sums up my review of this book and my beliefs in the need to be challenged in education and the push/drive for excellence. Not only was I pleasantly surprised by this book, I learned a lot more about the history of Outward Bound USA and its intricate ties to experiential education in the United States. Now this might seem like a bit of a contradiction with a title like Outward Bound USA: Crew Not Passengers, but I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. The book sat on the bookshelf in my cubicle the entire time I’ve been at my current position and one day I decided I should read it and not only did it reaffirm my decisions to work where I work, but it also further informed my belief that classroom learning is important, but it’s what you do outside of the classroom in relation that’s just as important.

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Books

Book 8: Bootlegger’s Daughter – Margaret Maron

You have to love a book with its first chapter titled “Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down.” I’m not positive but I think most of the chapters were song lyrics and most of them made me smile. Bootlegger’s Daughter takes place in a fictional rural county of North Carolina which vaguely resembles the surrounding counties where I grew up (thank you I-95).

As a part of my Junior AP Literature class we went to my local library (a link over on the right) and heard Ms. Maron speak. Afterward I remember having a brief conversation with her when I got my book signed, but remember very little of the talk or the conversation. I remember I loved Mysteries at the time, having started Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone Alphabet series (A is for Alibi, B is for Burglar, etc.). If I read the book when I got it, I didn’t remember any of the plot. I don’t think I did for two reasons, I remember most plots after a few chapters if I’ve read the book before, and I kept my books looking brand new and probably held this even higher because of Ms. Maron’s autograph.

I won’t go into the plot too much as it is a mystery, but there were two major things that struck me about this book, aside from her witty and brilliant use of colloquialisms and ability to write the dialects.

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Book Group, Books

Book 1: White Teeth – Zadie Smith

White Teeth was a much more interesting read than I thought it would be. It was originally selected as one of the book group books for our AmeriCorps book group, but that sort of fell to the wayside a few months ago and I’d already purchased it.

As I was reading the book it constantly reminded me of little things in England, from mentioning my Uni (Leeds) to some of the towns and places I’d visited to foods and colloquialisms, and I think this made it much easier to read and more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Last year I attempted to read On Beauty, also by Zadie Smith, and couldn’t get through the first chapter.

Overall, the book itself was much easier to read and much more enjoyable than I first expected it to be. I attempted to read On Beauty, also by Zadie Smith, last year and couldn’t get past the first chapter. I believe a large portion of my enjoyment of this book were the title chapters, they clearly connected the title to the rest of the book, even if sometimes I kept wondering why the book was titled such.

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Quotes

Mildred Loving Quote

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the ‘wrong kind of person’ for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry.”

– 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia (Interracial Marriage)