February Book Review

Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
Clear, concise, hope-infused. Ramsey's 7-step plan is simple to understand, difficult to follow (not because of an error on his part, but because of my own sin nature), but brings great results. Even as I tackle step two (get out debt), I have been encouraged to see God provide and help me save money for future expenses (like the $1300 plane ticket I just purchased) rather than spend each pay check as it comes in. I'm already reaping the benefits of budgeting and saving. I'm sure I'll refer to this book many times over the next few years as I read the testimonies of God's provision in other people's lives and as I progress through the steps. I highly recommend this book.
Grade: A+

Culture Warrior by Bill O'Reilly
Very interesting read. I learned a lot about the key members and philosophies of the secular-progressive movement. If you want to be more well-informed about the liberal leanings of society, or want to better understand O'Reilly's show (he refers to ideas in this book all the time), read this book.
Grade: A


Wobegon Boy by Garrison Keillor
A huge disappointment. I grew up listening to Keillor's radio broadcast A Prairie Home Companion, so I expected I would enjoy this book. However, the plot meanders to nowhere in particular and even though that's typical of "Stories from Lake Wobegon," this one wasn't even interesting. Perhaps, Keillor should stick to the short story genre. In addition, Keillor's cynical descriptions of Dark Lutherans and the loose lifestyle of his central character got annoying. I almost stopped reading several times, but kept hoping it would get better, which it did not. I wish I hadn't wasted my one fiction book for the month on this one. Can I express my disappointment in any more ways?
Grade: C-/D+

Flyboysby James Bradley Powerful and moving. I cried several times while reading this book and even while just thinking about the Flyboys. Bradley gives a brief explanation of Japanese history and describes the Japanese warrior's mindset before and during the war. He explains the American justification for the atomic bomb and napalm bombings; however, he does not excuse American war atrocities during the expansion west, in the Philippines, and during the war. (And I agree. The US military did some pretty horrible things to the American Indians and other nations we were trying to establish colonies in.) He recounts the true, heroic stories of American pilots, including former president George W. Bush, during the Pacific theater in World War II. He focuses on telling the recently de-classified stories of the torture, execution, and mutilation of US pilots on Chichi Jima. The pilots' families were never told the details of their sons' horrific deaths, and some parents died without ever knowing what happened. This book is well-researched and powerfully written. I think every American should read this book. I have a much deeper appreciation for the veterans of World War II and the difficult decisions our government and military leaders had to make. I also better understand the Japanese history and worldview that led to such a grusome war. This is one of those books that will haunt your memory and affect your thinking for a long time.
Grade: A+

100 Books You Should Read (to call yourself human)

One of my friends (Alison Gray) started this list several months ago and has been slowly adding to it. (I'm happy to say, I contributed to the list. :-) Any suggestions for no. 100?

I've highlighted in bold the books I've read and I italicized the ones actually on the bookshelf by my bed waiting to be read.

I hope this inspires you to read some classics and "modern classics." You'll be a better person for it.

1. War and Peace - Tolstoy
2. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
3. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez
5. Pride and Prejudice - Austen
6. Remains of the Day - Ishiguro
7. The Lord of the Rings - Tolkein
8. Frost in May - White
9. The English Patient - Ondaatje
10. The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
11. Great Expectations - Dickens
12. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Safran-Foer
13. Lanark - Gray
14. My Antonia - Cather
15. Peace Like A River - Enger
16. Kidnapped - Stevenson
17. Middlemarch - Eliot
18. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Hurston
19. The Heart of Darkness - Conrad
20. Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
21. Howard’s End - Forster
22. To the Lighthouse - Woolf
23. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
24. A Fine Balance - Mistry
25. Midnight’s Children - Rushdie
26. Pale Fire – Nabokov
27. Blindness - Saramago
28. Saturday - McEwan
29. Lord of the Flies – Golding
30. In Cold Blood – Capote
31. To Kill a Mockingbird - Lee
32. The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
33. Housekeeping - Marilyn Robinson
34. Ulysses - Joyce
35. Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
36. Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck
37. Catcher in the Rye - Salinger
38. American Psycho - Ellis
39. Jude the Obscure - Hardy
40. Trainspotting - Welsh
41. The Adventures of Augie Marsh - Bellow
42. The Outsider - Camus
43. The Unbearable Likeness of Being - Kundera
44. The House of the Spirits - Allende
45. 1984 - Orwell
46. Animal Farm - Orwell
47. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway
48. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - McCullers
49. The Sea, The Sea – Murdoch
50. The Red and the Black - Stendhal
51. Disgrace - Coetzee
52. The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Chabon
53. A Room with a View - Forster
54. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Solzhenitsyn
55. White Noise - Dellilo
54. Cry, the Beloved Country - Paton
55. Things Fall Apart – Achebe
56. The God of Small Things – Roy
57. Soul Mountain – Xingjiang
58. On the Road – Kerouac
59. The Golden Notebook – Lessing
60. Dubliners – Joyce (I've read some of this collection)
61. Les Miserables – Hugo
62. Slaughterhouse Five – Vonnegut
63. Waiting for the Barbarians - Coetzee
64. A Christmas Carol – Dickens
65. The Scarlet Letter – Hawthorne
66. The White Guard – Bulgakov
67. Love in the time of Cholera – Marquez
68. The End of the Affair – Greene
69. A Passage to India – Forster
70. Madame Bovary – Flaubert
71. The Giver – Lowry
72. The Portrait of a Lady – James
73. Charlotte’s Web – White
74. Oscar and Lucinda – Carey
75. The Woman in White – Collins
76. Dracula - Stoker
77. Waverly – Scott
78. Treasure Island – Stephenson
79. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Stephenson
80. The Sopranos – Warner
81. Decline and Fall – Waugh
82. Jungle Book – Kipling
83. Middlesex – Eugenides
84. Fahrenheit 451 – Bradbury
85. Wild Swans – Jung Chang
86. Wide Sargasso Sea – Rhys
87. The Bell Jar – Plath (I read a large portion of this one day at Barnes and Noble)
88. Wise Blood – O’Connor
89. Out of Africa – Denisen
90. Ethan Frome – Wharton
91. Robinson Crusoe – Defoe
92. The Secret Agent – Conrad
93. Anil’s Ghost – Ondaatje (I have a student named Anil; I should read this in his honor.)
94. The Secret History – Tartt
95. Dr. Zhivago – Pasternak
96. Black Swan Green – Mitchell
97. Cancer Ward – Solzhenitzen
98. History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters - Barnes
99. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami
100.

Why I Won't Give Up Books

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo makes a case for reading paper over PDFs in 5 Reasons I Won’t Give Up Books.

Earlier Posts on Books or Poetry

I'm Back, November 1, 2006, reviewing The Man Who was Thursday, Condi: The Condoleeza Rice Story, A Light in the Window, These High, Green Hills, and Jennie Gerhardt.

Magnetic Poetry, August 28, 2007.

Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, August 30, 2007.

Introduction to Poetry, August 30, 2007.

Serious Humor, August 31, 2007.

January Book Review, February 4, 2008.

The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser

I enjoy reading books by writers about their craft (Francine Prose's Reading like a Writer, Stephen Fry's An Ode Less Travelled). The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser is another one I'm going to add to my list. For a selection from the first chapter, click here.

Valentine's Day Poetry

I liked these poems from Ted Kooser's new book Valentines. He was the Poet Laureate from 2004-2006.

A Map of the World

One of the ancient maps of the world
is heart-shaped, carefully drawn
and once washed with bright colors,
though the colors have faded
as you might expect feelings to fade
from a fragile old heart, the brown map
of a life. But feeling is indelible,
and longing infinite, a starburst compass
pointing in all the directions
two lovers might go, a fresh breeze
swelling their sails, the future uncharted,
still far from the edge
where the sea pours into the stars.

If You Feel Sorry

If you feel sorry for yourself
this Valentine's Day, think of
the dozens of little paper poppies
left in the box when the last
of the candy is gone, how they
must feel, dried out and brown
in their sad old heart-shaped box,
without so much as a single finger
to scrabble around in their
crinkled petals, not even
one pimpled nose to root and snort
through their delicate pot pourri.
So before you make too much
of being neglected, I want you
to think how they feel.

For NPR's article on Kooser's book and more poems, click here.