Reading list - Posted by Steve Mount
I've been on a bit of a reading tear lately. Karen is often heard to say "Do you have to be reading all the time?" Well, why not? Here are my latest books:
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. This is an account of Abraham Lincoln's political life, but it also details the lives of the members of his cabinet. The account of the death of Willie Lincoln brought tears to my eyes, the anguish of Lincoln and Mary was brought to life in the words of their letters and diaries. This book took me a long time to read. It has been my "fall-back" book for a while, putting it down when I got a new novel to read.
The Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling. Of course. Is there anyone who has no read this? I haven't actually read the other books, just seen the movies and what I absorbed from popular culture. I have the others, in a box set, and I'll get around to them.
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. This is an account of a cholera outbreak in London in 1854, and how two men joined forces to discover the true source of the outbreak, defying conventional wisdom that "miasma", or bad air, caused cholera. They proved it was waterborne, and, according to the author, revolutionized the mapping of disease to a degree that makes city living possible today.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. This is a fascinating story, told in a compelling way. The narrator is Death himself. He goes about his rounds, incessantly, but one little girl caught his eye three times, and the book is his discovery of the girl's story. She is a German girl caught up in the maelstrom of Nazism and the start of the war. She does not understand why anyone would burn a book, and when she rescues one from a Nazi Party book burning rally, she finds a way to expand her horizons. As she steals more books and reads them to the Jew hiding in her basement, she comes to grips with the tragedies of her own life, preparing her for more tragedies to come.
An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. Never saw the movie, only ever perused the book in bookstores, I finally got my hands on it and read it in a day (the only part I skipped was the last half of the introduction - get on with it already, Al!). The back of the book has a great list of things individuals can do to pitch in, and I was pleased to see that we do are have done many of them, such as using compact fluorescent bulbs and using energy-efficient building techniques and appliances.
Finally, right now I'm reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirst Ali. She is a Somali woman who was "sold" into marriage and eventually got a divorce, rare in her Somali/Muslim upbringing. She eventually moved to Holland and made a film documenting the plight of Muslim women. Her collaborator on the film, Theo van Gogh, was killed for his role in the film, and a note stabbed into his body promised she would be next. I have not gotten far yet, but it promises to be fascinating.
What is everyone else reading right now?
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. This is an account of Abraham Lincoln's political life, but it also details the lives of the members of his cabinet. The account of the death of Willie Lincoln brought tears to my eyes, the anguish of Lincoln and Mary was brought to life in the words of their letters and diaries. This book took me a long time to read. It has been my "fall-back" book for a while, putting it down when I got a new novel to read.
The Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling. Of course. Is there anyone who has no read this? I haven't actually read the other books, just seen the movies and what I absorbed from popular culture. I have the others, in a box set, and I'll get around to them.
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. This is an account of a cholera outbreak in London in 1854, and how two men joined forces to discover the true source of the outbreak, defying conventional wisdom that "miasma", or bad air, caused cholera. They proved it was waterborne, and, according to the author, revolutionized the mapping of disease to a degree that makes city living possible today.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. This is a fascinating story, told in a compelling way. The narrator is Death himself. He goes about his rounds, incessantly, but one little girl caught his eye three times, and the book is his discovery of the girl's story. She is a German girl caught up in the maelstrom of Nazism and the start of the war. She does not understand why anyone would burn a book, and when she rescues one from a Nazi Party book burning rally, she finds a way to expand her horizons. As she steals more books and reads them to the Jew hiding in her basement, she comes to grips with the tragedies of her own life, preparing her for more tragedies to come.
An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. Never saw the movie, only ever perused the book in bookstores, I finally got my hands on it and read it in a day (the only part I skipped was the last half of the introduction - get on with it already, Al!). The back of the book has a great list of things individuals can do to pitch in, and I was pleased to see that we do are have done many of them, such as using compact fluorescent bulbs and using energy-efficient building techniques and appliances.
Finally, right now I'm reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirst Ali. She is a Somali woman who was "sold" into marriage and eventually got a divorce, rare in her Somali/Muslim upbringing. She eventually moved to Holland and made a film documenting the plight of Muslim women. Her collaborator on the film, Theo van Gogh, was killed for his role in the film, and a note stabbed into his body promised she would be next. I have not gotten far yet, but it promises to be fascinating.
What is everyone else reading right now?
posted by Steve Mount at
8:14 AM
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