Tag Archive for "Books"
I recently came across a book titled “Better: A Surgeon’s Notes On Performance” by Atul Gawande. I started reading and could not put it down. One particular idea about successful institutional reform (in this case, with hospitals), through recognition of what is referred to as “positive deviance” seems particularly worth examining - but the whole book is a fascinating read.
Khaled Hosseini’s first book The Kite Runner was a very interesting book - certainly worth reading. There were some difficult parts that dealt with extremely harsh realities. There are parts of the plot that will literally make a reader wince. Considering Afghanistan’s recent history with the Taliban, al-Qaeda, etc., a book with Afghani characters should do that.
However, there were also a few parts of the story that to me felt contrived. With that caveat, I would still suggest it to people.
The author’s second bestselling novel A Thousand Splendid Suns is excellent. I don’t really have any complaints about the story at all. There wasn’t a point in the book where I became distracted and thought to myself that the author had planned too much in advance. Instead I could allow myself to get completely submerged and interested in the characters and plot as the story unfolded.
Hossein is a writer with the soul of a poet. There are some sentences in this book that portray things so beautifully. There are points where the wording makes the reader pause a little to ponder how well the author’s imagery conveys the characters’ experiences and thoughts.
I’m being careful not to give hardly anything away, so that you can discover it for yourself. I’ll give this book one of my best possible ratings. That is, I’m going to get on the phone and tell my mother to read it.
At Disneyworld there is a ride called Splash Mountain that takes you gently through scenes from the stories of Brer Rabbit until you reach the end, at which point your car makes a fifty-foot drop into a pool of water (where you get splashed, thus the name of the ride).
As soon as we got out of the ride I went and looked in the gift store for a book of Brer Rabbit stories (which I had enjoyed very much as a child). I found them and read them again. The book is titled “The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit.”
If you haven’t ever read these stories (click on the picture above), you’ll want to give these a try. I counted 48 stories that tell you all about how Brer Rabbit fools Brer Fox, Brer Bear, Brer Wolf and others (though he doesn’t fare as well with Brer Turtle). They are entertaining and fun to read.
These stories are written up by Julius Lester and very nicely illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. The introduction by Augusta Baker and Foreward by Julius Lester also make for very interesting reading.