kidzdoc explores the African diaspora in 2017, Part 2

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kidzdoc explores the African diaspora in 2017, Part 2

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1kidzdoc
Modifié : Déc 29, 2017, 12:59 am

Currently reading:

    

The Impostor by Javier Cercas
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr.
Red Star Over Russia: Revolution in Visual Culture 1905-55 by Sidlina Natalia
Completed books: (TBR = book acquired prior to 1/1/16)

January:
1. Nutshell by Ian McEwan
2. A Question of Power by Bessie Head TBR
3. The Assault by Harry Mulisch
4. Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verlhurst

February:

March:
5. The Speed of Light by Javier Cercas
6. I Am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin

April:
7. The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
8. A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman
9. The Plague (after La Peste) by Albert Camus, adapted by Neil Bartlett
10. Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors
11. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
12. Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
13. Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg

May:
14. Lonely Planet Pocket Bilbao & San Sebastian (Travel Guide)
15. Hadriana in All My Dreams by René Depestre
16. A Basque Diary: Living in Hondarribia by Alex Hallatt
17. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
18. The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky

June:
19. Colchester Castle by Colchester Borough Council
20. From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
21. Human Acts by Han Kang
22. The Boy Who Stole Attila's Horse by Iván Rapila
23. The Basque Hotel by Robert Laxalt
24. The Plimsoll Line by Juan Gracia Armendáriz
25. An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
26. The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault
27. Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, in a new version by Jack Thorne
28. Rick Steves Snapshot Basque Country: France & Spain by Rick Steves
29. Rain Over Madrid by Andrés Barba

July:
30. Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa
31. Autopsy of a Father by Pascale Kramer
32. The Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht

August:
33. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

September:
34. Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
35. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
36. Autumn by Ali Smith

October:
37. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
38. Half Breed by Natasha Marshall
39. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

November:
40. The History of Catalonia by F. Xavier Hernàndez
41. Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge
42. The Lady from the Sea by Henrik Ibsen in a new version by Elinor Cook
43. Silence: In the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge
44. Poison by Lot Vekemans
45. Seeing Red by Lina Meruane
46. The White Book by Han Kang

December:
47. Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard
48. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
49. The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

2kidzdoc
Modifié : Juil 4, 2017, 7:16 pm



Classic 20th Century Novels from the African Diaspora

Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange
Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes
The Emigrants by George Lamming
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (re-read)
The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt
Maps by Nuruddin Farah
Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston
Native Son by Richard Wright
Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
A Question of Power by Bessie Head
Sozaboy by Ken Saro-Wiwa
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau

Notable 21st Century Literature from the African Diaspora

Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa
Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
Black Deutschland by Darryl Pinckney
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah
Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat
That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott
The Drift Latitudes by Jamal Mahjoub
Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis
Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Juice! by Ishmael Reed
Ladivine by Marie NDiaye
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Pym by Mat Johnson
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Nonfiction from the African Diaspora

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Beyond Black and White: From Civil Rights to Barack Obama by Manning Marable
Black in Latin America by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois
Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin
If They Come in the Morning … : Voices of Resistance, edited by Angela Y. Davis
In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture by K. Anthony Appiah
Known and Strange Things: Essays by Teju Cole
Letter to Jimmy by Alain Mabanckou
The Lights of Pointe-Noire by Alain Mabanckou
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City by William Julius Wilson
A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music by George E. Lewis
Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

Autobiographies, Biographies and Memoirs from the African Diaspora

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
Frantz Fanon: A Biography by David Macey
I Never Had it Made by Jackie Robinson
The Last Holiday: A Memoir by Gil Scott-Heron
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Mingus Speaks by John F. Goodman
Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim by Justin Gifford
Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood
Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire

3kidzdoc
Modifié : Juil 4, 2017, 7:19 pm

2017 Booker Prize longlist: To be announced on July 27th

2017 Man Booker International Prize longlist:



Mathias Énard (France), Charlotte Mandell, Compass
Wioletta Greg (Poland), Eliza Marciniak, Swallowing Mercury
David Grossman (Israel), Jessica Cohen, A Horse Walks Into a Bar
Stefan Hertmans (Belgium), David McKay, War and Turpentine
Roy Jacobsen (Norway), Don Bartlett, Don Shaw, The Unseen
Ismail Kadare (Albania), John Hodgson, The Traitor's Niche
Jon Kalman Stefansson (Iceland), Phil Roughton, Fish Have No Feet
Yan Lianke (China), Carlos Rojas, The Explosion Chronicles
Alain Mabanckou (France), Helen Stevenson, Black Moses
Clemens Meyer (Germany), Katy Derbyshire, Bricks and Mortar
Dorthe Nors (Denmark), Misha Hoekstra, Mirror, Shoulder, Signal
Amos Oz (Israel), Nicholas de Lange, Judas
Samanta Schweblin (Argentina), Megan McDowell, Fever Dream

4kidzdoc
Modifié : Juil 4, 2017, 7:21 pm



Iberian Literature and Nonfiction

A Bad End by Fernando Royuela
The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky
The Calligraphy of Dreams by Juan Marsé
Catalonia: A Cultural History by Michael Eaude
The Dolls' Room by Llorenç Villalonga
Fado Alexandrino by António Lobo Antunes
The Gray Notebook by Josep Pla
The History of Catalonia by F. Xavier Hernàndez
The Inquisitors' Manual by António Lobo Antunes
Life Embitters by Josep Pla
Monastery by Eduardo Halfon
Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga
Paris by Marcos Giralt Torrente
Private Life by Josep Maria de Sagarra
The Selected Stories of Mercé Rodoreda
The New Spaniards by John Hooper
Things Look Different in the Light by Medardo Fraile
The Yellow Rain by Julio Llamazares

6kidzdoc
Modifié : Juil 4, 2017, 7:29 pm

7kidzdoc
Modifié : Juil 4, 2017, 7:40 pm

Reading Globally

Quarter 1: Works by writers from the Benelux countries



The Assault by Harry Mulisch
The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans
Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verlhurst
Rituals by Cees Nooteboom
Roads to Santiago by Cees Nooteboom
Three Bedrooms in Manhattan by Georges Simenon

Quarter 2: Travel writing by non-European and non-North American authors



The European Tribe by Caryl Phillips
Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa
One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina

Quarter 3: Works by writers who write in what are considered minority languages within their own country



The Accordionist's Son by Bernardo Atxaga
The Gray Notebook by Josep Pla
Life Embitters by Josep Pla
Martutene by Ramón Saizarbitoria
Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga
Private Life by Josep Maria de Sagarra

Quarter 4: Writers from the Scandinavian countries and associated territories

8kidzdoc
Modifié : Juil 4, 2017, 7:43 pm



Voices of Color/Social Justice

Al' America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots by Jonathan Curiel
Breach by Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes
Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones
A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by E. Benjamin Skinner
Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America by Tiny, aka Lisa Gray-Garcia
To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War by John Gibler
Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid by Joseph Nevins
The Ethics of Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, edited by Rubén G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
For the Muslims: Islamophobia in France by Edwy Plenel
The Good Immigrant, edited by Nikesh Shukla
A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America by Óscar Martínez
The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen by Kwame Anthony Appiah
How Does it Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America by Moustafa Bayoumi
Howard Zinn on Race by Howard Zinn
Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation by Ray Suarez
Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South by Mary E. Odem
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solni
The Mosaic of Islam: A Conversation with Perry Anderson by Suleiman Mourad
The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror by Arun Kundnani
The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez
Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen L. Ishizuka
Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture by Hisham D. Aidi
Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move by Reece Jones
We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades Against Muslims and Other Minorities by Anouar Majid
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness by Alice Walker
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam by John L. Esposito
Who Are We: And Should It Matter in the Twenty-First Century? by Gary Younge

9kidzdoc
Modifié : Déc 29, 2017, 1:05 am

2017 Wellcome Book Prize longlist:



How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal (alternate title: The Heart: A Novel)
The Golden Age by Joan London
Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body by Jo Marchant
The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes by Adam Rutherford
Miss Jane by Brad Watson
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong

2016 Wellcome Book Prize shortlist:



Playthings by Alex Pheby
It's All in Your Head by Suzanne O'Sullivan
The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink
Neurotribes by Steve Silberman
Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

2015 Wellcome Book Prize shortlist:



The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being by Alice Roberts
My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

10kidzdoc
Modifié : Juil 4, 2017, 8:05 pm

Book #30: Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa

  

My rating:

Being Nigerian can be the most embarrassing of burdens. We're constantly wincing at the sight of some of our compatriots, who have committed themselves to presenting us as a nation of ruffians.

When many Westerners consider Nigeria and its people, their first thoughts are likely to be the ubiquitous e-mail and telephone scams that promise the recipients fabulous sums of money if the senders are provided with advance fees or bank account numbers so that they can transfer money into the recipients' accounts. Others think of it as a nation of seemingly unlimited natural resources, particularly oil, whose wealth has been largely stolen by its corrupt leaders and Western companies and governments, leaving its citizens largely impoverished and uneducated. Those who have met and work with Nigerians who live abroad may consider them to be arrogant, bombastic, and quick to argue, particularly in comparison to Africans from other countries.

Noo Saro-Wiwa, the author of this book, is the daughter of the author and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority within the Niger Delta of southern Nigeria. He was the president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, a nonviolent organization which criticized the Nigerian government and Shell Oil for the degradation in Ogoniland that resulted from the harvesting of oil. He and eight other activists were tried and convicted by a military tribunal under President Sani Abacha of the brutal murders of Ogoni chiefs, even though the trial was widely condemned as being a sham, and all nine members of the Ogoni Nine were hanged in 1995.

Noo was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, but lived much of her life outside of her native country, particularly in London, where she and her siblings were educated while her father remained in her homeland. She, her mother and siblings returned in 2000, for her father's official burial, and in 2005, for a proper family burial after permission to do was finally granted by a democratically elected Nigerian government, but after his death she avoided returning there until she decided to return and write a book about her country and its people, and come to terms with her father's legacy.

Saro-Wiwa spent four months in Nigeria, beginning with a visit to Lagos, the nation's overcrowded and largely lawless capital, which she unforgettably describes as a woman with a "Gucci jacket and a cheap hair weave, with a mobile phone in one hand, a second set in her back pocket, and the mother of all scowls on her face. She would usher you impatiently through her front door at an extortionate price before smacking you to the floor for taking too long about it. 'This,' she would growl while searching your back pockets for more cash, 'is Lagos.'"

Her travels extend throughout the southern Christian dominated portion of the country and its mostly Muslim north, as she meets family members, old friends, guides, and random strangers along the way. She is a fearless traveler, who takes risks that made this reader occasionally question her sanity and apparent lack of common sense, but she managed to avoid dangerous situations. Her descriptions of the cities and regions she visited were rich and evocative, so much so that I found myself eager to visit a country that I had absolutely no desire to go to prior to reading the book. Her journey most notably includes a visit to Port Harcourt, where one of her brothers has taken up residence in the family home, and Ogoniland, where her paternal relatives live, which allowed her to reconnect with them and regain her sense of belonging in Nigeria. At the end of her journey she made her peace with the country that murdered her father, and although she spent most of her life in the West she felt a strong pull to return there permanently despite the country's numerous problems and challenges.

Looking for Transwonderland was a well written book that provides a grim and unblinking yet hopeful look at one of Africa's most prominent countries, which is deserving of the numerous accolades and awards it received after its publication in 2012.

11janeajones
Juil 4, 2017, 8:12 pm

Have you read Soyinka's The Interpreters? A much earlier and still really hopeful vision for Nigerian society.

12kidzdoc
Juil 4, 2017, 8:15 pm

>11 janeajones: I own The Interpreters but I haven't read it yet, Jane. I did read his memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn, which was written around the time that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. It was very good, and I went to a lecture that he gave in Oakland shortly after it was published, which is probably the most memorable author reading I've ever attended.

13kidzdoc
Juil 8, 2017, 3:25 pm

This week I took care of three toddlers in the hospital who came close to death after they drowned in pools. My group routinely cares for at least a couple of dozen of these patients every year, and we see the lucky ones, those who aren't declared dead on the scene, in an emergency department or in our PICU, and those who don't suffer such severe anoxic damage to their brain and vital organs from lack of oxygen that they require admission to our Comprehensive Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit. Most incidents occur when an otherwise good parent stops watching the child for a few seconds or minutes, which is all the time it takes for the little one to jump into the pool and get into trouble. As a PSA here is information from the American Academy of Pediatrics that was published in May about the prevention and management of these episodes:

Drowning Prevention: Information for Parents

​Drowning is a leading cause of death among children, including infants and toddlers. Most infant drownings occur in bathtubs and buckets. Toddlers between one and four years most commonly drown in swimming pools. However, many children in this age group drown in ponds, rivers, and lakes. Children older than five years old are most likely to drown in rivers and lakes, but this varies from one area of the country to another. It is important to know that children can drown in even one inch of water.

Drowning refers to death that occurs in this way. When a child is rescued before death, the episode is called a nonfatal drowning.

What You Should Do in a Drowning Emergency:

Get your child out of the water immediately, then check to see if she is breathing on her own. If she is not, begin CPR immediately.

If someone else is present, send him or her to call for emergency medical help, but don't spend precious moments looking for someone, and don't waste time trying to drain water from your child's lungs.

Concentrate instead on giving her rescue breathing and CPR until she is breathing on her own. Vomiting of swallowed water is very likely during CPR.

Only when the child's breathing has resumed should you stop and seek emergency help. Call 911. Once the paramedics arrive, they will administer oxygen and continue CPR if necessary.

Medical Exam Needed for Any Child Close to Drowning

Any child who has come close to drowning should be given a complete medical examination, even if she seems all right. If she stopped breathing, inhaled water, or lost consciousness, she should remain under medical observation for at least twenty-four hours to be sure there is no damage to her respiratory or nervous system.

Child Recovery from a Nonfatal Downing

A child's recovery from a nonfatal drowning depends on how long she was deprived of oxygen. If she was underwater only briefly, she is likely to recover completely. Longer periods without oxygen can cause damage to the lungs, heart, or brain. A child who doesn't respond quickly to CPR may have more serious problems, but it's important to keep trying, because sustained CPR has revived children who have appeared lifeless or who have been immersed in very cold water for lengthy periods.

Drowning Prevention: Know the Warning Signs

These signs may signal that a child or adult is in danger of drowning:

*Head low in the water, mouth at water level
*Head tilted back with mouth open
*Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
*Eyes closed
*Hair over forehead or eyes
*Not using legs — vertical
*Hyperventilating or gasping
*Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
*Trying to roll over on the back
*Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder

For newborn infants and children through four years of age, parents and caregivers should never—even for a moment—leave children alone or in the care of another child, while in or near bathtubs, pools, spas, or wading pools, or near irrigation ditches or other open bodies of water. With children of this age, practice "touch supervision"; that means that a supervising adult should be within an arm's length of the child with full attention focused on the child at all times when she is in or near water. The supervising adult should not be engaged in distracting activities, such as talking on a telephone, socializing, or tending to household chores.

Home Swimming Pool Safety

Home swimming pools should be surrounded by a fence that prevents a child from getting to the pool from the house. There is no substitute for at least a four-foot-high, nonclimbable, four-sided fence with a self-closing, self-latching gate. Parents, caregivers, and pool owners should learn CPR and keep a telephone and equipment approved by the US Coast Guard (life preservers, life jackets, shepherd's crook) at poolside.

Swimming Safety for Children with Special Needs

Toddlers, youngsters with an intellectual disability, and children with seizure disorders are particularly vulnerable to drowning, but all youngsters are in danger if unsupervised in or near water. Even a child who knows how to swim may drown a few feet from safety. Remember, children should be supervised at all times. Swimming lessons should not be considered as a way to "drown-proof" your child.

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/injuries-emergencies/Pages...

14kidzdoc
Juil 17, 2017, 9:18 pm

Book #32: Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht

  

My rating:

The 16th & 17th Italian physicist and mathematician Galileo Galilei is widely considered to be the founder of modern science, due to his adoption of the scientific method in conducting experiments about gravity, motion and the movement of the planets in space, aided by the development of the telescope in the early 17th century. He also fell afoul of the Catholic Church during the Inquisition, due to his rejection of Aristotle's geocentric model in 1610, in which the earth was a fixed object around which the other planets, including the sun, revolved, in favor of the heliocentric model proposed by Nicolas Copernicus in 1543, which placed the sun at the center of the solar system. The Church opposed this pronouncement, as it apparently contradicted several Biblical passages that implied that the sun moved in space, cast doubt upon the location and existence of Heaven, and thus was a threat to Christianity and, more importantly, the authority of the Church during a period of widespread suffering and subjugation of millions of believers. Although the heliocentric model was confirmed by Jesuit astronomers who also had the benefit of using telescopes to confirm Galileo's findings the Church declared that heliocentrism was heretical in 1616, banned any publications that supported it, and Pope Paul V specifically ordered Galileo "to abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it...to abandon completely...the opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing."

Galileo kept quiet from 1616 through 1624, after Maffeo Barberini, a mathematician, became the new pope, Urban VIII, in 1623. Galileo assumed that the pope would support heliocentrism, based on prior interactions with him, but Urban VIII, under pressure exerted by members of the Inquisition and Galileo's decision to publish his work in Italian, the language of the common people, was ultimately convinced to withdraw his support and protection of the famed mathematician. In 1632 Galileo was called to Rome to testify in front of the Inquistion, and once he arrived the following year he was found guilty of heresy. Under threat of torture and death he publicly recanted his heliocentric beliefs, and he was sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. Although he was forbidden to write any works which fell afoul of the Church and despite going blind in 1638, Galileo did surreptitiously write a manuscript, Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences, which was published in the Netherlands to avoid censors, and became critical to the development of modern physics.

The German playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote Life of Galileo in 1938, while he lived in exile from Nazi Germany, which he fled in 1933 after Adolf Hitler rose to power. The play starts in 1610, as Galileo receives word of the newly invented telescope from a young Dutch man who wishes to study under him, and ends just prior to his death. At the time he was a professor at the University of Padua, whose salary did not meet his means, which forced him to take on students outside of the classroom in order to earn a decent living. Although he was well known and widely respected he, along with other modern scientists and thinkers, was viewed unfavorably by the Catholic hierarchy, but his position in the university afforded him the protection he needed to conduct his experiments. Brecht portrays Galileo as a man singularly driven to pursue Truth using the scientific method, irregardless of his daughter's future and happiness, the advice of others to avoid antagonizing the Church and members of the Inquisition, and his own health, as presumably his blindness was largely due to him repeatedly viewing the sun to study its position in space and the spots on its surface. It is not an anti-religious play, but one that contrasts science and reason with authority and dogmatism.

  

I read the script of Life of Galileo after I saw the production of it at The Young Vic in London last month, which was translated by John Willett, directed by Joe Wright, and starred Brendan Cowell as Galileo. Although the play was true to the act-less script it omitted one or two scenes, and featured several irreverent skits, including one particularly amusing one set to music. The round stage was surrounded by the audience, but several paying customers sat in the middle of the set, as actors moved around them, forcing them to move repeatedly throughout the performance.



Life of Galileo was a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable performance, and after seeing three outstanding renditions of Bertolt Brecht's plays in London in the past nine months, The Threepenny Opera, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and Life of Galileo, I am eager to see the remainder of this brilliant playwright's works.

15kidzdoc
Juil 24, 2017, 3:15 pm

I've done very little reading in the past week, as I continue to be in a major book slump, but hopefully I can finish at least two books by the weekend. I should be able to finish The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee, which is very good although very detailed, even though it is written for a general audience. I hope to complete Rotten Row by Petina Gappah as well.

This year's Booker Prize longlist will be announced on Thursday, and since I'm the administrator of the Booker Prize group on LT I just created a 2017 Booker Prize preview thread, to make members of the group aware of the upcoming longlist announcement, and to speculate on which books might be chosen for it. I chose eight books that I think stand a good chance of being included, although I haven't read any of them yet:

Autumn by Ali Smith
Dalila by Jason Donald
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
Reservoir 13 by Ian McGregor
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

I also created a thread in the LibraryThing Gatherings and Meetups group for any LTers who are going to this year's Edinburgh Festivals, especially the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and are interested in meeting up. I booked tickets for 11 author talks, and I plan to see the free performance of The Last Poets on the 22nd:

19 Aug: Zadie Smith
20 Aug: Ali Smith
20 Aug: Jason Donald & Jenny Erpenbeck
20 Aug: Margo Jefferson with Jackie Kay
21 Aug: Henry Marsh
22 Aug: Petina Gappah & Akhil Sharma
22 Aug: Visions of the Future: Equality in the USA (with Gary Younge)
22 Aug: Meet The Last Poets (free event)
23 Aug: Gary Younge
23 Aug: Karl Ove Knausgaard
23 Aug: Christine Otten & The Last Poets
24 Aug: Colm Tóibín

16labfs39
Juil 25, 2017, 5:16 pm

Hi Darryl, It's been a long time since I've done more on LT than update my books-read list. Your thread was the first I've read in ages. I have to admit that I prefer your Club Read thread over the 75ers, because it is much shorter!

>10 kidzdoc: Wonderful review of what sounds like a wonderful book.

>13 kidzdoc: Thank you for the PSA. On a related note, at what age do you think a child can be left alone in the bathtub? This came up recently with a friend, and even credible Internet sites had widely different recommendations.

>15 kidzdoc: I would love to go to the Edinburgh book festival. Someday. In the meantime, I will love forward to a full report back.

Hope your summer is going well, book slump aside. (What is it this year about book slumps?)

17kidzdoc
Juil 26, 2017, 10:27 am

>16 labfs39: Hi, Lisa! It's good to see you here. Yes, my Club Read threads move at a much slower pace than the ones in the 75 Books group do.

I thought I would like Looking for Transwonderland, but not as much as I actually did.

My knee jerk answer to your question about children being left alone in bathtubs would have been six years of age and older, which may be overly cautious on my part. However, I decided to look at Healthy Children, a web site for parents and caregivers from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), along with the AAP's own Policy Statement - Prevention of Drownings. There doesn't seem to be a strict recommendation, though. I also found a recent story on the NBC Today program, titled Tub drownings can happen in minutes. When is it safe to leave a child alone?, which included the following information:

When is it OK to leave a child alone in the tub?

There seems to be wide disagreement over when it is safe for a child to bathe alone, so parents should err on the side of caution. Some experts say age 4, others insist a mature 6 year-old may be ready.

“There is no official recommendation and no real upper limit because kids develop at different rates,” said Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Child Injury Prevention Alliance. “Their independence and ability to handle situations varies greatly, so there is no clear answer.”

“At age 4, you might be able to reach around to the other side of the bathroom, and then eventually leave them alone for brief periods,” he told TODAY. “Teens obviously need their privacy. But it is a continuum.”


Hopefully some other LTers besides the three of us will be in Edinburgh for the Book Festival. I'll definitely mention the author events I attend, although I may not get to it until early September, when I'll visit my parents in Philadelphia.

I suspect that book slumps for many of us is directly due to the horrifying reality television show that has been taking place in Washington since November. Yesterday the Senate passed a motion to begin debate on repealing the Affordable Care Act (thanks, John McCain), and today 45 announced via Twitter that transgender people would no longer be allowed to serve in the military (I have no idea what the rationale for that decision was).

18janeajones
Juil 26, 2017, 4:20 pm

Couldn't agree with you more about book slumps being due to our current reality.

19theaelizabet
Modifié : Juil 26, 2017, 6:29 pm

I've tried to counteract my slump by sticking to headlines only, most days, and burrowing deeper into my TBR. It works...to some extent.

20kidzdoc
Modifié : Juil 26, 2017, 9:33 pm

Here is the longlist for this year's Booker Prize:

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster (US) (Faber & Faber)
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (Ireland) (Faber & Faber)
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (US) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan-UK) (Hamish Hamilton)
Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (Ireland) (Canongate)
Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (UK) (4th Estate)
Elmet by Fiona Mozley (UK) (JM Originals)
The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (India) (Hamish Hamilton)
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (US) (Bloomsbury)
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (UK-Pakistan) (Bloomsbury)
Autumn by Ali Smith (UK) (Hamish Hamilton)
Swing Time by Zadie Smith (UK) (Hamish Hamilton)
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (US) (Fleet)

At a first glance I am absolutely thrilled with this longlist! Several of the books that I predicted would be chosen made the cut, namely Exit West, Reservoir 13, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Lincoln in the Bardo, Autumn, Swing Time and The Underground Railroad. Big props go to Rachael (FlossieT) for recommending Reservoir 13 to me last month, which I purchased in London. I'm eager to get started on the longlist, and I look forward to seeing Ali Smith and Zadie Smith speak about their books at the Edinburgh International Book Festival next month.

21Simone2
Juil 26, 2017, 10:58 pm

>15 kidzdoc: Wow your predictions are all on the list, impressive! I am looking forward to reading the longlist and your reviews of the Booker books.

23jessibud2
Juil 27, 2017, 11:05 am

>22 janeajones: - To answer the question posed by that link, I say, as long as LT exists, I don't think books sales are in danger. We are smarter, more curious and more educated than those so-called experts imagine... if anything, judging by what I see here, we are reading more, not less, and more widely than the narrow *dystopian* parameters the article mentions.

24RidgewayGirl
Juil 27, 2017, 12:08 pm

Catching up on your thread. I've just requested Looking for Transwonderland from my local library.

The Booker longlist looks wonderful. I'm excited to get to the books I haven't yet read.

You've reminded me of the Booker International longlist - I've only read two, so I need to get to work.

I'm looking forward to your thoughts about Autopsy of a Father - I'm thinking about what I want to say about it now.

25dchaikin
Juil 27, 2017, 1:09 pm

Just saying hi, Darryl. Enjoyed your reviews and noting the Booker list.

Also glad my kids are past this kind of worry stage. (It helped that we don't have a backyard pool). Our neighborhood trees are full of ribbons in support of a toddler who had some kind of pool related near-drowning this summer (I don't know details).

26labfs39
Juil 29, 2017, 9:47 pm

>17 kidzdoc: Thanks for the advice, Darryl, and the links. I'll pass them along to my friend.

>20 kidzdoc: I'm glad Mohsin Ahmed is on the Booker longlist. I haven't read Exit West yet, but thought The Reluctant Fundamentalist was cleverly done.

27jnwelch
Nov 30, 2017, 11:14 am

Hey buddy. Just checking in on your thread. I'll join you here in '18.

28kidzdoc
Modifié : Déc 26, 2017, 10:00 am

I have completely fallen off the Club Read wagon in the latter half of 2017, and I've been far less active in the 75 Books group as well, due to personal issues and my focus on and outrage at the regime of 44-1/2, the dangerous and unstable man-child who occupies the White House. However, I will make Club Read my main LT home in 2018, and keep a more subdued presence in 75 books.

My reading has fallen off dramatically the past two years, but I hope to do far better next year, by reading more books and, especially, writing more detailed reviews of them.

On that note:

Book #48: We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates



My rating:

(This a brief review; a more detailed one will follow later this week.)

This is an excellent compilation of the best articles from The Atlantic magazine written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of the leading black journalists and public intellectuals, whose previous book Between the World and Me won the National Book Award for Non-fiction in 2015. These hard hitting and insightful articles were written during the eight years of Barack Obama's presidency, and include an analysis of the conservatism of Bill Cosby; an examination of Michelle Obama during her first years as First Lady of the United States; a review of Manning Marable's award winning but controversial biography of Malcolm X; the most compelling case for reparations that I have ever read; the devastating effect that mass incarceration has had on the African American community; and a critical analysis of the Obama presidency. It closes with an epilogue about Donald Trump, who Coates describes as "the first white president", and the virulent racism and hatred of Obama that led to his "victory" in the 2016 presidential election. Coates's growth as a writer is evident in these articles, as his analytic ability and the sharpness of his pen increase with each subsequent article. This is essential reading for woke folks, and for anyone interested in how we arrived at this sordid and dark place in American history.

29LolaWalser
Déc 26, 2017, 1:19 pm

my focus on and outrage at the regime of 44-1/2, the dangerous and unstable man-child who occupies the White House.

Hi, Darryl, I totally sympathise. Probably best if I don't say more--I had to ban myself from visiting certain groups as it is... But I'm right here in a constant state of boiling fury and outrage at the situation and every single person who made it possible--should you ever feel alone. ;)

Speaking of Coates, I suppose you've heard of Cornel West's attack on him--I was disgusted by his article (saw it in the Guardian) and I'm glad to see people like Jelani Cobb stepping up in Coates' defence. Haven't read the book although if it's a collection of articles I suppose I must have read many; certainly I remember very well that last one about Trump the first "white" president.

Does Coates discuss the book's title anywhere? Is it ironic? I have to say it threw me, as--regardless of whether one likes Obama's politics or not--it seems to me pretty obvious that Obama/the Dems were "in power" more in symbol than reality--if that's even the "we" Coates would include himself into.

It seems West's shoddy critique started from something like a reaction to that too (I'm not in the position to judge how much Coates' atheism, which West takes the pains to reproach him with in the same breath as with "neoliberalism", as if the two were related, has antagonised West from the get go, but I suspect it may be the core problem.)

30dchaikin
Déc 26, 2017, 10:32 pm

It's been a tough year to have a working brain and a conscience and some sense of species self-preservation or dignity. Actually, it's been a hard year to have any sense of sight (hence my own thread title). Sorry Darryl. Thanks for highlighting the Coates book as I had seen the title, but didn't know what it contained.

31kidzdoc
Déc 27, 2017, 7:37 am

>29 LolaWalser: Thanks, Lola. One (of many) good things about the 75 Books group is that there has been vocal and near universal condemnation of 44-1/2 prior to and especially after Election Day, at least amongst the people whose threads I follow. A couple of people urged others to give him a chance shortly after the election, but no one I know has openly expressed support of him.

I've heard and read a very little bit about Cornel West's condemnation of Ta-Nehisi Coates, and I haven't yet read the article in The Guardian, mainly because I assumed that it was little more than sour grapes at a man who was usurping on his territory as one of the leading black public intellectuals, similar to his public takedown of Michael Eric Dyson in 2015, who he mentored when Dyson studied for his PhD at Princeton, and his harsh and, IMO, not entirely warranted criticism of Barack Obama throughout his presidency. I've definitely lost respect for West, as have many African Americans who follow black public intellectuals, as his vicious public criticisms of fellow liberal thinkers and grandstanding have now outweighed his own output and influence.

The title of We Were Eight Years in Power is taken from a quote by Thomas E. Miller, who was one of five African Americans from the Deep South who were elected into office during Reconstruction; he served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1874-1880, and in the South Carolina Senate from 1880-1882, and he made the following quote in 1895, near the end of Reconstruction:

We were eight years in power. We had built schoolhouses, established charitable institutions, built and maintained the penitentiary system, provided education for the deaf and dumb, rebuilt the ferries. In short, we had reconstructed the State and placed it on the road to prosperity.


>30 dchaikin: Right, Dan. My partners at work and I have been in a state of near constant white hot outrage and frequent despondency since Election Day (pediatricians are overwhelmingly liberal, especially in comparison to far wealthier physicians such as orthopaedic surgeons), and every few days there is a heated conversation in the office about the latest tweet or public statement from the occupant of the White House. I spent far too much time this year in a state of paralyzed anger, which has accomplished absolutely nothing, and I'm ready to assume a more constructive role as a supporter of those who wish to preserve the rights of people at risk of losing them under the current administration, particularly politicians and organizations. The recent Alabama senatorial race was a great example of what can be accomplished if private citizens put forth an effort to encourage others to vote, particularly in the African American community, whose huge turnout made it possible for Doug Jones to win the election despite overwhelming white support for his opponent. (I still can't believe that 63% of white women voted for Roy Moore, despite the credible claims of pedophilia and sexual abuse of numerous women he came in contact with earlier in his career.)

My reading in 2018 will be geared toward finding out what can be done to combat the rise of white nationalism, xenophobia and isolationism in this country, and learning more about the injustices taking place here, so that I can become a more effective activist and opponent of the current administration.

32LolaWalser
Déc 27, 2017, 8:17 am

>31 kidzdoc:

(I still can't believe that 63% of white women voted for Roy Moore, despite the credible claims of pedophilia and sexual abuse of numerous women he came in contact with earlier in his career.)

Yeah, that's something I hadn't stopped thinking about for a day since Trump's win. "We should all be feminists" because in fact we are all misogynists (men especially, regardless of race--note the constant significant disparities between male and female votes in all groups) and if we're white, also racist. I don't know how a thinking person with an ounce of decency can live with the shame of these choices.

But how does one dismantle systemic discrimination that practically IS society? Until Trump I would have preferred the incremental reformistic approach, but his ascendance and that of those similar to him in other countries has changed my mind.

Thanks for the information about Coates' title, it's not entirely clear to me what parallels to Obama's period he is drawing then, given how thoroughly Trump and his goons have dynamited whatever positive he had achieved, but no doubt reading the book would help understand that.

33kidzdoc
Déc 27, 2017, 1:31 pm

>32 LolaWalser: Interesting comments, Lola. Are you saying that all of us, women included but men more so than women, have misogynistic tendencies? I can accept that. I've read and heard comments implying that at least some women didn't vote for Hillary Clinton due to their personal dislike of her personality, her accomplishments, and because she chose to stick by her philandering and unfaithful husband, rather than a difference of opinion with her policies.

A distinction should be made between prejudice and racism, as I think you've implied. Everyone is prejudiced against some group of people, but racism involves actively discriminating against individuals of that group, to their detriment. Can African Americans be racist? Yes IMO, although one of my former medical school classmates would vehemently disagree with me on this point. However, Afr Ams are not often in positions where they can actively discriminate against members of other groups, particularly whites.

I don't know how a thinking person with an ounce of decency can live with the shame of these choices.

Agreed. I've read a number of articles that try to explain the white female vote in support of the current occupant of the White House, but I remain completely baffled by their choice of him. I'm equally, if not more, mystified that 12% of Afr Am males voted for him last year - WTF where they thinking?!

But how does one dismantle systemic discrimination that practically IS society?

Right. For most of this year I've been deeply pessimistic that this would ever take place in this country, or at least during my lifetime, and I decided that the United States was no place for me to retire as a person of color. I still think I would be better off living abroad than here, but I'm marginally more optimistic about the future, thanks to the groundswell of protest against 44-1/2 since Election Day.

I think that Coates's use of that quote is appropriate, and it makes sense to me. Thomas Miller, the Reconstruction Era politician, was saying that he and his fellow representatives helped to rebuild South Carolina in the postwar years, similar to Obama's efforts to improve the lives of average Americans during his two terms in office, but those gains, for blacks but also whites, were reversed once racist whites regained control of that state's government.

34kidzdoc
Modifié : Déc 29, 2017, 12:37 am

Favorite Books of 2017

Fiction:
The Assault by Harry Mulisch
Autumn by Ali Smith
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
The Speed of Light by Javier Cercas
The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Non-Fiction:
Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

35LolaWalser
Déc 27, 2017, 5:20 pm

>33 kidzdoc:

I'd side with your classmate's opinion for the reason you mention in the next sentence. Any one person can be prejudiced and hateful, but when it comes to systemic discrimination, society-wide long-term oppression, to the situation that results in this chronic inequality and injustice, we definitely don't all wield the same power. In fact, I think emphasis on intense individual prejudice is the best way to miss or misunderstand the picture, because few people are actually KKK and Hitler and axe-wielding womanhating murderer-minded--and yet the world is what it is, the way it is--in general, against women, against non-whites, against non-straights, against the disabled etc. So the real problem must lie within the so-called "normal" majority--the ordinary people most of whom are terribly shocked and hurt when they are told this. The real problem, I think, are ubiquitous low-level shittiness and ignorance and blind spots much more than rabid dogmatic conviction.

I don't think it's mysterious why whites in general and white women in particular have voted for Trump and Moore--American whites are still to a great degree racist and American women, no less than women anywhere else, are also misogynist. The remarkable point, however, isn't that one had to vote for these things because they positively love them and selected precisely for them on the voting list but that these things--Trump's and Moore's racism and misogyny and general horribleness--didn't PREVENT their supporters from voting for them. They should have, but they didn't. People who voted for these pigs didn't flinch at what Trump was saying about Mexicans and Muslims and Clinton and what he had done to women, or at Moore, another cartoonishly disgusting racist and sexual delinquent. There is no issue on earth that justifies tolerating what these voters have tolerated, but they will insist that some other reasons made Trump and Moore palatable and preferable.

Sorry for the lengthy tirade--if you are interested in discussing these things with people much more thoughtful and better informed than myself, do check out the group "Feminist theory" sometimes--despite the name (the creator seems to have gone after making the group), it became rather more practical and current-affairs oriented.

36RidgewayGirl
Déc 27, 2017, 7:03 pm

A very interesting conversation. The Coates book is on my wishlist although I want to wait for the paperback so I can mark the book up as I read. I'm glad you're planning to be here next year!

I understand the rage and the paralysis and the despair and all I can counter it all with is that we hope. We hope. And we call our reps, and donate, and volunteer, and stand outside in pink hats. And then we get up the next day and do all of that again and whether or not we excise this putrefying abscess on this nation's soul or fail to do so, we keep trying and fighting and resisting and hoping. But this whole mess does keep me awake at night and it's an effort to not grow cynical.

It's not a bad thing to be distracted by books now and again.

37kidzdoc
Déc 29, 2017, 8:42 am

>35 LolaWalser: Well said, Lola. It seems to me that prejudice is less on an individual belief that a societal norm, particularly in a small community in which members of the despised group are either not present, are isolated, or are otherwise looked down upon. A person has to be in some position of power to be able to engage in systematic racism, which is often not possible for members of many minority groups.

It seems to me that those white women who voted for Trump and Moore created justifications to vote for them that belied their true reasons for doing so.

Thanks for mentioning the Feminist Theory group; I'll check it out later this week.

>36 RidgewayGirl: I hope that you get to read We Were Eight Years in Power soon, Kay.

In 2017 I was mostly angry, despondent, and very cynical about the future of the United States. In 2018 I want to be more active and spend my efforts not trying to understand those people who voted for trump and Moore, but to support those who are fighting to preserve the rights and liberties of vulnerable groups, especially people of color and children, in this country.

38jnwelch
Déc 29, 2017, 11:01 am

Great "Best of" lists, Darryl. I need to read Home Fire. I'm happy to see The Gene on your NF list. What a piece of work that is.

I thought I'd commented on your excellent review of Eight Years in Power, but maybe not. I plan to read it in '18.

39kidzdoc
Modifié : Déc 29, 2017, 12:32 pm

>38 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. Kamila Shamsie is high on my list of currently active authors deserving of wider attention, particularly in the US, along with Sarah Moss, Tahmima Anam, Aminatta Forna, Amos Oz, and Javier Cercas.

Ah. For some reason I thought that you had already read We Were Eight Years in Power. I look forward to your thoughts about it.

ETA: You did comment about it, in my 75 Books thread.

40jnwelch
Déc 29, 2017, 5:57 pm

I always forget you have the two threads. So at least my mind isn't completely going.

You've given me several other authors to look into now!

41kidzdoc
Déc 29, 2017, 8:49 pm

>40 jnwelch: It's even more difficult this week, as I have four threads going, in the 2017 and 2018 versions of both Club Read and 75 Books. It's hard for me to keep abreast of my own threads, nonetheless everyone else's.

Hopefully I'll do more than post touchstones to these books in 2018. I've read only a few of them in the past two years.

42RidgewayGirl
Déc 30, 2017, 12:28 pm

All three of the books you're currently reading look amazing. I'm looking forward to having you influence my reading again next year.

43kidzdoc
Déc 30, 2017, 5:50 pm

Thanks, Kay! I'll finish Red Star Over Russia by tomorrow; it's the catalogue of the museum exhibition I saw at Tate Modern in November, which highlights the late graphic designer David King's collection of artifacts by Russian photographers and artists over a half century. The Impostor is listed as a work of fiction, but it's mostly a true account of the author's discovery of a notorious Spaniard, Enric Marco, who claimed to be a Spanish Civil War fighter (mostly true) and a Nazi concentration camp survivor (blatantly false), and gained fame and fortune until he was exposed as a liar in 2005, just prior to a 60th anniversary remembrance of the end of World War II. Locking Up Our Own was longlisted for this year's National Book Award for Non-Fiction, and was inspired by Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. My brother gave it to me for Christmas, and I hope to finish it by the first weekend of the New Year.

I look forward to getting book recommendations from you and other members of Club Read in 2018. I'll spend more time here next year than I have in past years, and do a better job in writing detailed reviews of the books I do read.

44kidzdoc
Déc 31, 2017, 5:35 pm

Speaking of reviews:

Book #50: Humanity: How Jimmy Carter Lost an Election and Transformed the Post-Presidency by Jordan Michael Smith



My rating:

This Kindle Single describes the downfall and public disgrace of President Jimmy Carter, after his resounding defeat to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election, and his resurrection and reinvention after he left the White House, which transformed and transcended the role of former US presidents, earned him the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, and assured that he would be remembered as a humanitarian, a compassionate Christian, and an influential world leader, rather than the bumbling, ineffectual and inflexible president that he was widely perceived as being.

In the aftermath of the devastating presidential defeat, in which he lost 44 of 50 states to Reagan, Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn returned to their home in Plains, Georgia both humiliated and impoverished, due to the failure of the family business. His sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, encouraged him to embrace Christ in the 1960s, when he became a born again Christian, which was influential in his moral beliefs as a politician, but also a hindrance as it led to his inability to achieve compromises and build coalitions with opponents during his presidential years. These strongly held beliefs did serve him well as a private citizen, as he decided to use his former position to accomplish good deeds and influence others. First, he dedicated the Jimmy Carter Presidential Center, located in the heart of Atlanta, to the goals of world peace, eradication of communicable illnesses in developing countries such as Guinea worm disease and river blindness, and the oversight of important elections throughout the world. He and Rosalynn were also influential in transforming Habitat for Humanity from a small organization dedicated to building homes for the poor into a multimillion dollar organization operating throughout the country.

Jordan Michael Smith does a fine job in chronicling Jimmy Carter's post-presidential activities, and his influence on the presidents who have succeeded him into using their position as former world leaders to benefit humanity, instead of enriching their own coffers, as Carter's predecessors were best known for. "Humanity" is a readable and informative introduction to this fine man, who has inspired untold public officials and private citizens to follow in his footsteps.

45kidzdoc
Déc 31, 2017, 6:54 pm

With this last review I'll say goodbye to 2017. I'll review The Gene: An Intimate History sometime next week. See y'all in 2018!