Good Reads
- Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip
- by Peter Hessler
- "In his latest feat of penetrating social reportage, Peter Hessler (Oracle Bones) again proves himself America's keenest observer of the New China. Hessler investigates the country's lurch into modernity through three engrossing narratives. In an epic road trip following the Great Wall across northern China, he surveys dilapidated frontier outposts from the imperial past while barely surviving the advent of the nation's uniquely terrifying car culture. He probes the transformation of village life through the saga of a family of peasants trying to remake themselves as middle-class entrepreneurs. Finally, he explores China's frantic industrialization, embodied by the managers and workers at a fly-by-night bra-parts factory in a Special Economic Zone." (The above Quotes from Publishers Weekly) <This book is not as exceptional as "Oracle Bones", but it is still a very good book. a little long and tedious in a few places...>
- Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China
- by Peter Hessler
- With great insights and keen observation, Hessler tells the real-life stories of ordinary Chinese people as China went through enormous changes after the economic reform. He weaves important historical lessons (modern and ancient) into the stories. It was a wonderfully involving and satisfying read!
- Outliers: The Story of Success
- by Malcolm Gladwell
- What contribute to the great success achieved by the extreme few (outliers)? Pulling the research from psychology, sociology, and anthropology, Malcolm Gladwell shows how historical timing, cultural and family legacies, are powerful factors in shaping the "fates" of outliers. A fascinating read!! (The book is good supplement to the teaching of sociology, cross-cultural psychology, and developmental psychology.)
- Cutting for Stone (a Novel)
- by Abraham Verghese
- What an amazing saga across generations and geography!! From India to Ethiopia to America, and back to Ethiopia, plus some other places in between. It is an engrossing read, rich with emotions and details (including some medical details, as main characters are all medical doctors). I found the part about the life in Ethiopia particularly interesting, as it is so rare to read about the geography and political history of Ethiopia. Superbly written, the book satisfies both the mind and the heart.
- The How of Happiness
- by Sonja Lyubomirsky
- Fourty percent (40%) of happiness is determined by intentional activities within one's control. In this book, psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky draws research on happiness and describes an easy-to-follow plan tailored to individual needs. It will work if you practice with committed effort.
- Still Alice
- by Lisa Genova
- Endorsed by the National Alzheimer's Association, this is a fiction about early-onset Alzheimer's disease from a first person's perspective. It is informative and a gripping page turner!
- Committed
- by Elizabeth Gilbert
- "Told with Gilbert’s trademark wit, intelligence and compassion, Committed attempts to “turn on all the lights” when it comes to matrimony, frankly examining questions of compatibility, infatuation, fidelity, family tradition, social expectations, divorce risks and humbling responsibilities. Gilbert’s memoir is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails."
- Lit: A Memoir
- by Mary Karr
- A deeply moving, heartrending, and yet heartwarming memoir written by a highly talented artist who shares her personal and spiritual journey.
"Lit is about getting drunk and getting sober, becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live. Written with Karr's relentless honesty, unflinching self-scrutiny, and irreverent, lacerating humor, it is a truly electrifying story of how to grow up--as only Mary Karr can tell it."
(Note: Mary Karr has an "authentic" facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mary-Karr where she personally "interacts with" her friends and fans.)
- Nothing Was the Same: A memoir
- by kay Redfield Jamison
- Written by Kay Redfield Jamison, "the clinical psychologist whose widely acclaimed 1995 memoir, "An Unquiet Mind," revealed her lifelong struggle with manic-depressive illness. "Nothing Was the Same" is the story of her marriage to the late Richard Wyatt, a man who overcame severe childhood dyslexia to become a leader in schizophrenia research." It is a story of "true love" that saw the couple through her mental illness and his cancer and ultimate death. The best writing is in the chapter "Mourning and Melancholia" that compares grief and depression. The penetrating insights, gained from first-hand experience, were written so beautifully that I could not help but sighed deeply and frequently.
- Traveling with Pomegranates
- by Sue Monk Kidd & Ann Kidd Taylor
- An intimate dual memoir by Mother (Sue Monk Kidd) and daughter (Ann Kidd Taylor) who traveled together to sacred sites throughout Greece and France between 1998 and 2000. It touches the issues of aging (for mother), career decision (for daughter), the sacred feminine, the creative process behind the writing of "The Secret Life of the Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd, and of course, the reaffirmation of mother-daughter bonding.
