[stylist] what I've been reading

Tue Feb 28 02:33:06 UTC 2012

And here all I've read is Jane Eyre, a few books about Paul Bunyan and First 
Course in ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis).
And I read through the dictionary of poetic terms that Bridget sent.
Barbara

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. -- Carl Sandburg
-----Original Message----- 
From: Jacobson, Shawn D
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 1:27 PM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] what I've been reading

Kris

Thanks for sharing.

Walter Moseley was featured recently in an issue of The Writer, I've been 
meaning to read some of his stuff when I get a chance.

Recently, I've mostly been reading magazines 9when I've had time to read at 
all), but I've read a couple of books.

Magnificent Desolation by Buzz Aldren--Buzz goes to the moon, comes back to 
Earth where he has a ten-year midlife crisis, then gets his life together. 
It's hard to have a midlife crisis after going to the moon, but it's better 
to have it on Earth than on the moon.  Actually a good book; the part about 
going to the moon is best.  I am thinking about getting it for my son who is 
into space.

The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie--a well written book about a boy who runs away 
from his home in Kentucky and goes out West to be a Mountain man. 
Unfortunately, the introduction goes through how the book ends, so I wish 
they had stuck it at the end of the book.

I am currently reading "Science Under Siege" a collection of articles from 
the skeptical inquirer.  Thus far it is a bit dry, but I look forward to it 
getting interesting when they start going after creationists, climate change 
deniers, moon landing deniers, and other such characters.

Anyway, wishing you all good reading.

Shawn

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
Behalf Of Chris Kuell
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 1:47 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] what I've been reading

Here is a list of the books I've read in the last 6 weeks or so, if anyone 
is interested.

chris
The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley  (2004)

A somewhat interesting novel about an unemployed, drunken, loser black guy 
who has a wealthy white man rent his basement for a few months at an 
exorbitant rate. Mosley's African American protagonists are always 
'players', and I find this aspect of his work overly stereotypical.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (2010)

A novel about an Italian kid in California who becomes an Olympic runner, 
then joins the Air force in WWII, gets shot down and is a Japanese POW for 2 
years. The POW scenes are one worse than the next, and in the end, with 
God's help, he forgives all. Yeah, right.

Double Shot: A Culinary Mystery by Diane Mott Davidson  (2004)

Murder she wrote with a catering backdrop.

Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg  (1986, 2005)

Goldberg is a practicing Buddhist, and this book is about how she uses 
journal writing as a daily meditative practice. It's interesting, and 
probably a good way to open the unconscious to see what spills out.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks  (2001)

An excellent historical novel about a town in England that walls itself off 
from the rest of the world to contain the plague for a year in the 17th 
century. A novel based on real events.

The Social Animal: Hidden sources of Love, Character and Achievement by 
David Brooks  (2011)

Brooks is a journalist/anthropologist/psychologist, and he used a fictional 
couple's lives, from birth to death, to detail some of the plethora of 
knowledge he has gathered over the years. He's a good writer, and makes what 
could be very dry quite fascinating.

The House on Olive Street by Robyn Carr  (1999)

An entertaining novel about 5 women writer friends, one of whom dies in 
chapter 1. The other 4 spend a summer screwing up and fixing their own 
personal lives.

The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell  (1949)

An interesting, if a little boring, discussion of the basic aspects of the 
hero myth, and how many different myths from all continents and cultures 
contain the same elements. These include popular religions, and Campbell 
proposes the myths are part of our psychological makeup. The book is dated 
and he relies a little too much on dream research by Sigmund Freud for my 
taste.

The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly  (2011)

A mediocre legal thriller, I wish Connelly had stuck to the Harry Bosch 
novels.

Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship by Martin Gilbert (2007)

Gilbert is an all-around Churchill expert, and this book details how from 
Childhood Churchill had Jewish friends and always pushed for an independent 
Zionist state, as early as 1920, despite anti-Semitism in England and 
throughout Europe. .

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (1974)

This book won the Pulitzer prize for non-fiction in 1975. Dillard spends a 
year at a cabin in the woods of Virginia, basically studying and reading 
about nature. She is a fabulous writer and a few sentences can't do this 
work justice, but she goes through all the wonders of all the seasons and 
discreetly points out that this massively complex eco system we live in has 
to be the product of a God. As she wrote--the agnostic asks 'who turned on 
the lights?' while the person of faith asks 'why did they turn them on?'

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