I have written about Alice Walker before. In case you don’t know, Alice is Rebecca Walker’s mother. As I read more and more by and of Alice Walker, I became more interested in her daughter, Rebecca. I then found that she is a published and well-respected author and activist in her own right. I have had her memoir, Black, White and Jewish, on my bedside table for some time but was afraid I would not have the time to finish. So I when I realized that she had edited collection of short essays from different authors writing about their own family life, I thought I could at least read one. Well, I am almost finished with One Big Happy Family. It has been a thought-provoking read. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about the great variance of family structures.
Alice also has quite an informative website these days. Rebecca has one as well. Sadly–and while both are inspiring women–Rebecca and Alice have not had very good relations. If you have read both of their works, you would understand why I add this comment. When I read Alice and Rebecca, I do not admire them so much because I relate or agree with everything they say, what keeps me reading is the privilege of witnessing a woman’s development. Both of them are very adept at showing show how they work through life’s intricacies. And I think that this is what keeps me reading One Big Happy Family–I can witness and learn from so many different types of families dealing with life.
There are lots of great reasons why independent bookstores should be supported, and the other day I read an article that reminded me of what is perhaps MY favorite part of exploring independent bookstores (and also it’s one of my favorite parts of working at one): our displays! Believe it or not, the piles of books you trip over when you walk in are actually lovingly, carefully crafted selections of what we think you should read. There’s such a great chance of stumbling upon something lovely that you never figured you’d read just by walking around and looking.
Since March is National Women’s History Month, we’ve put together an appropriate display that ranges from Grace Kelly to Joan of Arc, and which also happens to include a recently released book I’ve just begun: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It’s one of the most bizarre stories I’ve ever heard and since I’ve not read the entire book yet, I’ll just try to condense the premise here. The story itself is enough to spark anyone’s interest.
Henrietta Lacks was born in Virginia in 1920, the daughter of a tobacco farmer. She went on to marry her first cousin and move up to Maryland, where she gave birth to five children. She and her family were poor, and when Henrietta died at age 31 due to complications brought on by cervical cancer, she was buried without a tombstone in a family cemetery back in Virginia. To this day nobody knows exactly where her body is buried.
What most people – her family included – didn’t know about Henrietta when she died was that when she was being treated at Johns Hopkins for her cervical cancer, her cells were taken without her permission. In fact, she didn’t even know they were taken. Researchers took a look at them and found out they could be kept alive and grown – something scientists had been desperate to succeed in doing. The cells of this African-American woman who died poor and young and in pain were named ‘HeLa’, and it’s thanks to HeLa that a polio vaccine was developed.
HeLa has since been mass produced and used to help doctors research AIDS and cancer, study gene mapping, and realize the effects of the atom bomb, among other things. They’ve been mailed to curious scientists all over the world and here’s a neat fact: 50 million metric tons of her cells have now been grown.
Another kicker is that Henrietta’s family only found out about her still-living cells about 20 years after her death. They didn’t get any profits from her ‘immortality’, and in what feels like an unbelievably cruel twist, they couldn’t afford health insurance.
It’s an alarming story that raises confounding questions about race, class, science, and bioethics. Author Rebecca Skloot writes with authority and sensitivity, and so far I can’t put the book down. As I said, it’s on our women’s history month display, but it also goes beyond that – it’s a science book, a history book, and a civil rights book too. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything so fascinating.
The Night Fairy is the newest book from Newbery Award Winner Laura Amy Schlitz is all about Flory the night fairy. She loves her wings–until a horrid bat mistakes her for an insect and her wings are ruined. She lands in a giant’s garden and makes a home in a birdhouse. Angry at the bats, angry at the night, and angry at herself, Flory decides she won’t be a night fairy anymore–she’ll be a day fairy. She slowly learns that some things are more important than vanity. This book has beautiful illustrations and is perfect for anywhere from a first grader to third grader.
Wondrous Strange and Darklight by Lesley Livingstonare the first two books in a fairies series centering around plays of Shakespeare, and personally, I thought they were so much fun. I actually I spent my whole day yesterday reading the second book, Darklight. Lesley has definitely hit her stride with this book and I am hoping I can get the review copy for the final book in the trilogy ASAP!!! There’s not much I can give away about plot, but what I can say is that I love that main character Kelley Winslow is empowered and rash. I mean, she’s a teenager, that’s how she’s supposed to be. Yet, she doesn’t cower just because she is a girl or because she is young. I love that! Definitely a good continuation to the story and I think it makes me love this trilogy even more. Age: 12+
The Cure by Geeta Anand is one such story. It is SUCH a powerful and emotional story that it has been made into the movie, Extraordinary Measures, with Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford.
“At 15-months-old, Megan Crowley was diagnosed with Pompe disease, a rare genetic disorder that was likely to reduce her life span to five years at most. Her five-month-old brother, Patrick, shared the same disease and its crippling progression. Their father, John Crowley, a brand new Harvard MBA graduate, was determined to use his brains and connections to find a cure. He started a family foundation to fund research on Pompe disease and eventually headed a biomedical start-up company with a promising approach. Ironically, the more involved he got in efforts to find a cure, the slimmer the prospects were for his own children as hard business decisions and conflict-of-interest questions thwarted his efforts. Blocked from getting his children into clinical trials that could prolong their lives, and watching them grow weaker and weaker, Crowley concedes that he was occasionally tempted to simply steal the precious drugs. But he pressed ahead.”
Geeta Anand, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter with the Wall Street Journal, delivers a detailed and emotional rendering of a father’s exhausting efforts to save his children and find a cure for a dreadful disease. By the end, we all feel like a part of this family and their struggle.
I liked this novel! It is very unusual and mesmerizing, and I could not put it down! I had read about it in a review just before Christmas, and so when it came in the store, I was thrilled. As a finalist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize, it was released in the United States only in paperback, which is a shame, for it would have been a collector’s item in hardback (see the original British hardcover below right). A resident of Italy, Simon Mawer teaches at St. George’s British International School in Rome.
Opening in the 1920s in Czechoslovakia, this novel follows the lives of a young married couple, Viktor and Liesel Landauer, as they first hire the acclaimed modern architect Rainer von Abt to build them a house which will be an award winning showplace, a place for music gatherings with the best European composers performing, as well as a home for their two children. Seeing as money is no object Viktor, who is a Jew, and who creates the sought after Landauer automobile, informs the architect to spare no expense. Hence, as a special part of the house, a totally glass room is created which makes the house the most talked about structure in the area.
Flash forward and the reader sees the house move from Czech to Nazi to Soviet states and then back to the Czech state. As the family flees Nazi rule along with the nanny–who is “more than a nanny”–and her child, the reader experiences the ravages of a Nazi infused chaos. Therefore, the reader is taken on a wild daring ride from the beginnings of WWII until its demise. So, actually the house itself becomes like a character as the reader learns of its occupants and its purposes as the years pass.
In the “Author’s Note,” given as a preface to this remarkable book, Mawer states, “Although The Glass Room is a work of fiction, the house and its setting are not fictional. I have disguised both with name changes but that will not fool anyone who knows the building on which the Landauer House is modeled or the city that hides behind the name Mesto. However, penetrating those thin disguises will not lead to any further revelations…..A few non-fictional characters do make brief appearances. One such is the talented composer Vitezslava Kapralova, whose tragically short life seems emblematic of the brilliant but doomed First Republic of Czechoslovakia.”
A totally separate story emerges within the lives of the Landauer family and their friends. As a cosmopolitan European art form in itself, this novel requires dedication to all of the underlying currents, both political, aesthetic, social, and personal. I am richer for having read it.
See Lisa’s blog on other books shortlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize and an additional review of The Glass Room.
While reading Seth’s new book Linchpin, I’m reflecting on his earlier inspiring work.
Every marketer tells a story. And if they do it right, we believe them. That belief makes their story true. In this concept, liars are storytellers. Marketers succeed when they tell us a story we embrace and share. We become a member of the marketers tribe and then pass this story onto our own tribe (much like writing this blog). It is up to the consumer and her tribe members to interpret the authenticity of the marketing. A marketer’s performance must live up to the effort we perceive. More authenticity generally equals good work, a more creative lifestyle, and more success.
Godin’s visionary yet short book is not hard reading. Read with care, it will fire off many ideas about our world and our responsibility to connect to it through our work and the sharing of our efforts.
Godin appeals to young people growing up in the Internet Age because he is spot-on with his understanding of the changing world of instant communication. However, All Marketers Are Liars is applicable to old folks like me who want to be tuned into the vitality offered by new business techniques being generated by our resourceful, “No BS” young folks who are making a difference in this rapidly changing business world.
There seems to be an epidemic of medical books lately. (pun very much intended) Not quite the usual kind though. It seems that doctors as well as patients are dropping the veil which has shrouded the carefully guarded world of medicine. Doctors are talking about their faults and showing hospitals their failings and oversights. Additionally, patients–who because of one situation or another–are finding themselves questioning diagnoses and demanding more or different treatments for their loved ones.
Dr. Kathy Magliato is one of a smattering of female heart surgeons practicing in the world today. As a member of an even more exclusive group—she performs heart transplants—and recounts the day when she first realized she wanted to be a heart surgeon:
“When I wrapped my hand around that heart that was it for me. Love at first sight. Love at first touch. I knew this was exactly what I wanted. To touch the human heart everyday.”
In her memoir, Healing Hearts: A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon, Magliato gives us “a rare glimpse into the realities of being a cardiothoracic surgeon. Instantly pulled into her fast-paced world, we see first hand the struggle she felt to fit in as a female in the biggest boys club of them all; as well as learning operating room etiquette (the lead surgeon always stands on the patient’s right side), and see her skillfully juggling a full family life as the wife of a liver transplant surgeon and the mother of two young boys.”
We come to know many of the patients whose lives Dr. Magliato has touched. She is professional yet compassionate, treating her patients’ hearts in both the literal and figurative senses of the word. One thing that really struck me was when she said she is ALWAYS present at the autopsies of any of her patients. She does that out of respect to these people who were, to her, indeed people. She stays with them all the way to the end. I thought that was really cool.
Going beyond the personal stories of her patients, “Dr. Magliato sheds light on a medical epidemic, cardiovascular disease, which is the number one killer of women in America: 41,000,000 women are currently living with the disease; even more startling, one in every 2.4 women will die from cardiovascular illness. With these staggering statistics in mind, Dr. Magliato’s book is full of information to educate woman about heart disease, what the risk factors are, why more women than men die of the disease, and what women can do to minimize their risks. She is currently the director of women’s cardiac services at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, and an attending cardiothoracic surgeon at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in Torrance, California, where she is developing a women’s heart center to address the cardiac needs of female patients.” This is a great book.
I have written about Alice Walker before. In case you don’t know, Alice is Rebecca Walker’s mother. As I read more and more by and of Alice Walker, I became more interested in her daughter, Rebecca. I then found that she is a published and well-respected author and activist in her own right. I have had her memoir, Black, White and Jewish, on my bedside table for some time but was afraid I would not have the time to finish. So I when I realized that she had edited collection of short essays from different authors writing about their own family life, I thought I could at least read one. Well, I am almost finished with One Big Happy Family. It has been a thought-provoking read. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about the great variance of family structures.
While I knew that a new collection of essays, The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker, was coming out in April, I learned this weekend that Alice has a book of poetry coming out in September 2010: Hard Times Require Furious Dancing. 
I liked this novel! It is very unusual and mesmerizing, and I could not put it down! I had read about it in a review just before Christmas, and so when it came in the store, I was thrilled. As a finalist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize, it was released in the United States only in paperback, which is a shame, for it would have been a collector’s item in hardback (see the original British hardcover below right). A resident of Italy, Simon Mawer teaches at St. George’s British International School in Rome.
Flash forward and the reader sees the house move from Czech to Nazi to Soviet states and then back to the Czech state. As the family flees Nazi rule along with the nanny–who is “more than a nanny”–and her child, the reader experiences the ravages of a Nazi infused chaos. Therefore, the reader is taken on a wild daring ride from the beginnings of WWII until its demise. So, actually the house itself becomes like a character as the reader learns of its occupants and its purposes as the years pass.
