Holiday Titles for Your Consideration

Sorry for not posting. I’ve been so busy. Can’t manage much more than plurk-sized thoughts – might be a problem! While we hear so much about all the whiz bang hi-tech stuff at Christmas, (gee, I was kinda thinking of a Kindle myself), there is nothing so wonderful as receiving those little atoms of ideas – “books, the original laptop” – (full disclosure – I have a t-shirt that makes this assertion)…

Books are always something I like to give and receive, so here are a few possibilities this season.

Don’t miss this little gem of a book. A Guide to the Birds of East Africa is Nicholas Drayson’s tale of Mr. Malik, a widower living in Nairobi, mostly retired, but still much engaged in the business of living.

The book has much to do about people and a little less about birding. Birders and others will enjoy imagining themselves birding in Nairobi and other Kenyan settings, but our souls will delight is this examination of virtue and love, of our struggles to make our way through a world that is typically familiar and foreign simultaneously.

It is great to see paperback availability of Hazel Rowley’s, Richard Wright: The Life and Times. It is a masterful biographical work. Ms. Rowley is exceptionally adroit at crafting beautiful work in this form. I am hoping to see a copy of her bio of Jean-Paul and Simone, Tete-a-Tete under my tree.

Wright is an important American novelist, but as I studied the man and his work, I found myself newly intrigued by his later work, his travel writing. If you are not familiar with Wright’s efforts in this genre, begin with Pagan Spain. This late 1950’s piece combines RW’s terrific power of storytelling with his much developed outsider’s view of post empire, post civil war Spain: a complex and hugely contradictory culture. Though circumstantially different, Wright’s Spain offers vignettes not so unlike the then contemporary American culture. Out-of-print for decades, a renewed scholarly interest in Wright has resulted in many of these “minor” works back in print.

While I’ve yet to read, The Private Abuse of the Public Interest, by Brown and Jacobs, I have chosen to add it it to the reading list of The Political, Social and Economic Aspects of Business. Though I departed daily work in the corporate sphere some years back, it was a serendipitous day a few years back when the dean of the business school asked if I’d like to teach a liberal arts perspective on business to his graduate students. In many ways, it has become a favorite experience: we get to explore the myths necessary to maintain social momentum as we weigh our responsibilities to ourselves and others as we gain greater potential influence.

It was through Pinsky and Dietz’s most laudable An Invitation to Poetry that I discovered Szymborska. Find a book of her work and read about poetry as the asking of questions leading to some construction of meaning or perhaps, to a new level, full of new questions to ponder.

As I plurked the other day, Jim Harrison has a new novel out, The English Major. His autobiography is interesting, though you can get a quick peek at this author in this 2007 NY Times article/interview. On one level, I am thankful for Harrison because I always feel healthy and fit compared to his robust and some would argue reckless verve for life.

Teachers hopefully have a well-worn, dog-eared, heavily annotated copy of Eric Jensen’s 1995 Super Teaching. I was delighted to see a new edition appear – the 4th edition ISBN 978-1-4129-6332-9 just in time for the gifting season. Shred your old copy and pile it on the compost heap. The new volume is slimmer, and reflects new understandings of brain-based learning.

Poet Donald Hall, has published an autobiography, Unpacking the Boxes. I want to read this one over the holiday school recess.

While I love the convenience of online booksellers, I’ll make sure to go to my independent booksellers at The Toadstool this season. Be well, readers.