world's greatest books

Alice, I think

2009-02-15T07:41:00.000-08:00

I admit- I judge books sometimes on their cover. I also judge them by the reviews plastered on the front page. When I picked this book up Meg Cabot's (of "Size 12 is not fat" fame) name jumped out from the cover along with her quote "I laughed until diet soda came out of my nose". I threw it in my cart and hoped for the best.

At just under 300 pages, Susan Juby has managed to cram at least one laugh on every page. Alice, I think is the story of a teen aged girl named Alice who is painfully awkward but keenly observant on society. On her first day of grade 1 her hippie parents let her go to school dressed as a hobbit, and she never recovered. She grows up home schooled and unpopular, but with a comforting confidence in herself that makes you wonder what she will do next. Along with trying to discover her personal style, she works on completing her 'life goals list' (#2 Increase contact with people outside immediate family. Not friends necessarily, but least superficial interaction of 'hi, how are you variety'...).

The majority of the book centers around Alice when she's 16 years old. Through her story you witness her mother get in a hilarious fist-fight with Alice's (grown up now) enemy from grade 1, a fish show, some serious fashion disasters and a stunning comparison to an ex-boyfriend I dated. (Hint- Aubrey).

I almost didn't want to write a review for this book because I knew I wouldn't be able to capture just how funny it is. I understand now why it's a national best-seller, with every age group enjoying it. It's short and lighthearted but with a main character who you care about. I think the only way to illustrate the book is with this: Alice's mother, has a best friend named Geradline. Alice doesn't like her but says "the only cool thing about Geraldine is that she looks like James Woods.".

How can you not love a book that says that?
Reviewed by brandy

Minotaur by Barbara Vine

2009-02-09T08:52:00.000-08:00

It is nice to find a book that catches me off guard; one that casts a spell within the first chapter, enticing me to keep reading. the Minotaur proved to be such a book.

When I woke early Saturday morning I finished one book and reach to the stack to find the next entry on my "must read" list. It was the Minotaur. I don't remember getting this book. I didn't remember anything about the book. Based upon the book cover, I honestly wasn't sure why I picked the book as I am a bit leery of mysteries set in the English countryside. (There are some great books based in England, but there are some that I don't like as well). I will usually give each book in my stack a chance. I am very glad I did.

The Minotaur caught me off guard. I read the entire book on Saturday. I simply had to find out what happened. The twists and tangles of this book are subtle with more attention being given to the psyche of the characters than on violence (of which there is extremely little for a thriller/mystery)

Kerstin Krist travels to England to spend a year working for John Cosway at his family home, Lydstep Old Hall in rural Essex. John was diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia. IN order to "control" him, the family doctor and his mother have him kept under heavy sedation. Kerstin is brought in to the house to accompany John on his walks. She quickly finds herself in the midst of a house of cards, fragile and ready to collapse.

The story is told through Kerstin's eyes - flashing between the 1990's (now) and the 1960's, when the incidents occurred. Through Kerstin's eyes, the reader explores the varying relationships, power plays, personalities, and the shadows that play throughout the plot. As family secrets are revealed, the plot twists, and the wind blows shifting the ground upon which the house is built.

Is John truly suffering from schizophrenia? Does he commit the acts of which he is so quickly accused? What motives drive the actions of each character? Will there be a happy ending? Can there be a happy ending?

Vine did a wonderful job with this book - just enough to tell the story while leaving some out for the reader to envision. The story is well told, characters are well developed, and the plot offers enough to hold ones attention.
Reviewed by The Exception

Because of Winn-Dixie - Kate DiCamillo

2009-02-06T08:52:00.000-08:00

Are there books that take you back to your childhood? Those books that you cherished, read time and time again, and possibly saved? Those books that you would, if you want children, love to share with your children?

I have always been an avid reader. I recently shared the Ruth Chew books with my daughter. She didn't love them as I once did, but she did enjoy them. Unlike my childhood self, she doesn't truly have a favorite book, except for Because of Winn-Dixie.

Many people saw and loved the movie. At the time of its publication, many read the book. For all those who have not read it, it is worth a read. For all who have read it, it is worth reading again.

Winn-Dixie is a dog - an unattractive dog of unknown age and breed. He befriends Opal shortly after she and her father arrive in their new town. Opal can identify with Winn-Dixie, they are both motherless, friendless, and seemingly alone.

Because of Winn-Dixie, all of this changes. Winn-Dixie helps Opal learn about her family, herself, and the town. Together they open their hearts to the various characters of the book - each with a story to tell.

The book is about friendship, love, discovery, laughter, tears, and the idea that people are multidimensional. Opal learns that love is more than a list of things. It is much bigger and is about the entirety of a being, the good and the bad.

For my daughter, this is a text form of comfort food. She took it to first grade when she was asked to bring in her favorite book; she reads it on airplanes; and she has parts of it memorized. I too have read it numerous times. It has yet to lose its charm.

Because of Winn-Dixie is a book that can be red and loved by readers (and non-readers) of all ages. If my daughter were to have kids, I know that she would want to share this book with them. I know that she would want to share it with you.

And if you don't want to read it based on that review, how can you resist Winn-Dixie himself!
The movie is good, but the book is wonderful.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

2009-02-04T08:57:00.000-08:00

I somehow got sucked into Meyer's Twilight series this past Spring. I blame the captivating cover for drawing me to the book on the shelf and then with the words "I found out he was a vampire" on the back cover sealed my fate. I flew through Twilight and quickly purchased New Moon to discover that the third book, Eclipse, would be released in August. Without giving too much of the series away, the story is set in northwest Washington State where it centers on Bella Swan and her relationship with the Cullen family (vampires), friends at her high school, Jacob Black, and Jacob's tribe on the nearby reservation. Anxious to revisit these characters, I could not wait to get this third book in my hands. Unfortunately, I simply thought that this book in the series was just mediocre. While Meyer does pace her stories slowly, the build up to the climax point in the book fell flat for me as there was not enough action and too much focus on back stories in my opinion. However, Meyer did a good job at both ending Eclipse and opening a doorway for the next book in the series. In the end, despite the slower pace of this book and those complaints, I enjoyed reading this one if only just to "catch up" with the goings-on with Bella in Forks, Washington

Freakonomics

2009-02-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

Written by by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics is a cavalcade of statistical exploration of things that you'd never imagine, but make perfect sense when all is said and done; Hmmmm.

I met Levitt recently in Boston at a conference after a keynote speech and was instantly intrigued by his work. I knew after hearing him speak I'd need to read the book and was pleased, though not surprised at the four word endorsement on the cover "Prepare to be dazzled." The endorsement was written by one of my favorite non-fiction authors I've read in the last few years, Malcolm Gladwell; who interestingly enough was the keynote speaker at the same conference the previous year.

While the subject of economics for me has both interesting and boring aspects, this book isn't a traditional view of economics but rather uses economic theory to explore socio-economic phenomena. Would you ever have considered that the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion could be linked to crime rate? How about the link between popularity of names and socio-economic status? These and a number of other extremely unique studies had me constantly using the phrase, "Holy Crap!"

I'm a nut for statistics and the fact that Levitt and Dubner have the ability to not only make them interesting, but captivating make this book a hit in my eyes. If you are interested in a preview, click the picture of the book. Incidentally, I mentioned Malcolm Gladwell earlier, he's authored two fascinating books entitled, "The Tipping Point" and "Blink" both of which are amazing reads.
Reviewed by Chris

Crazy Ladies by Michael Lee West

2009-01-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

I didn't know what to expect when I picked this one up but I was pleasantly surprised. While I was being distracted quite a bit while reading this one, I was always anxious to get back to where I left off and find out what else one of these women did next.

Set in the South, this book is about three generations of "crazy" women spanning from 1932 to 1972. The story begins with Miss Gussie as a murder is committed and she works hard to conceal the truth. As the story continues, we hear from Miss Gussie's maid, Queenie, her daughters and eventually her daughter's daughters. Their lives intertwine lots of craziness ensues with tons of highs and lows, and the story wraps up with a conclusion to the murder concealment at the beginning of the book.

Since each chapter is told from a different woman's view, I wondered how well the author would be able to set each tone apart. Surprisingly, I thought the author did a remarkable job. While reading her biography online, I discovered that she hold a nursing a degree from my alma mater. Apparently, according to the alumni website, her parents didn't think English was an acceptable major. Therefore, she practiced nursing and wrote on her stories on the side. This was the first book I've read by this author and I will certainly check out some of her other books.
Reviewed by Pam

Tyrannosaurus Canyon - Douglas Preston

2009-01-20T06:43:00.000-08:00

The title intrigued me, Tyrannosaurus Canyon. Not being a fan of science fiction or dinosaurs in general, I was hesitant to pick it up. But I did based on the author and the promise of a good read.

Well written, this book asks the reader to suspend belief in reality, just a tad. It is escapism, pure and simple.

Tom Broadbent is riding his horse through the Canyons of New Mexico when he hears a gunshot. Fifteen minutes later he finds the dying prospector, is given a secret notebook filled with specific columns of numbers, and promises to give it to the man's daughter.
Nothing is ever as easy as it seems it should be.

The prospector is not one who searches for gold or gems, or even archeological artifacts. This man searches for dinosaur bones.

The book evolves into a race against time. Tom must find the daughter while the sheriff attempts to solve a murder. A paleontologist in New York needs the dinosaur and has hired someone to find it at all costs. Finally, the US Government sends a classified unit into New Mexico to ensure that nothing is located.

Despite an abundance of characters and locations, the book is well written. It moves fairly quickly, and I didn't skip too many pages!

However, if you are looking for a serious read or a "that could happen," this is not your book.

*Note - an actual tyrannosaurus bone, with soft tissue, was actually discovered

The Blood Doctor - Barbara Vine

2009-01-06T07:29:00.000-08:00

Let me first apologize. I am no longer able to post at work and my computer at home is, well, a dinosaur of sorts. Thus, if it is okay with everyone, I will not post a picture of the book until/unless I can figure out how to do it correctly via e-mail!

The Blood Doctor.
Based upon the title, my immediate thought was that this was about a vampire or something to do with a hospital. If I hadn't enjoyed the previous Vine book, I am not sure that I would have started reading this one. But I did Martin Nanther, Vine's main character, finds himself in the midst of a mystery involving his great grandfather in Victorian England. Nanther is a biographer. He has chosen, for his current subject, his great grandfather, Henry Nanther, who served as a doctor in the court of Queen Victoria and was a specialist in the field of Hemophilia. Henry appears to be an upstanding citizen in his time. Queen Victoria thought so highly of him that she gave him (and his family) a seat in the House of Lords.

As Martin performs his research - combing through letters and interviewing relatives, he discovers that there is information missing. The pieces of the puzzle that is Henry do not fit together as nicely as they should. A missing notebook, a murder, interaction with a family and marriage into that family from below his station, children dying, and his desire to learn all he can about Hemophilia - each fact leaves Martin searching for answers that may be lost in the passage of time. class="fullpost">While Martin attempts to uncover the truth about Henry, his position as a Lord is in doubt as the House of Lords evolves and his wife battles with infertility.

Martin must come to terms with his past, his present and in future as represented in the three storylines. This book was neither fast paced nor a page turner. The characters were well developed as was the primary storyline - the mystery surrounding the life of Henry Nanther. I enjoyed the plots, but also the descriptions of the House of Lords and Victorian England. The Blood Doctor is a book worth checking out!
Reviewed by The Exception

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned by Alan Alda

2008-12-29T23:52:00.000-08:00

I spotted this book several weeks ago at the used bookstore and it immediately caught my eye. I liked M*A*S*H and I love memoirs so I added it to my cart. In this book, Alda talks about his childhood and traveling with his parents who were in a burlesque troupe and latter, vaudeville acts as he watched his father perform from the stage wings and how significant of an impact this made on him. Alda, while fascinated with anything science, eventually decides to become and actor himself and the book follows his tough career of finding stage roles, scraping by with his family, and generally finding his voice. After filming a prison movie in Utah, he gets a call about doing a pilot in L.A. about a bunch of doctors in Korea. Alda actually considered turning the part down because he would be separated from his wife and kids but his wife encouraged him to go for it. While reading the section about his M*A*S*H experience, you get the sense that Alda finally found his voice. He was able to write and direct many episodes and finally felt as if he "fit in" as the cast was a huge family to him.

Overall, I thought that parts of the book were really great. However, Alda would go off on these tangents of talking way too much about acting methodology, etc. I found myself rolling my eyes quite a few times and generally wanting to skip portions of the book in order to get to the story. I was let down when reading this book because I think I had a different impression in my head of what it was going to be. It's not that I thought it was all going to be about M*A*S*H, it's just that I wish it flowed better and I didn't have to read about every single thought regarding acting methodology that passed through his mind, which I felt I was doing. It drove me crazy and I thankful when I finally read the ending.
Reviewed by Pam at

Roasting in Hell's Kitchen: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection by Gordon Ramsay

2008-12-22T21:38:00.000-08:00

As a huge fan of Hell's Kitchen (and most any cooking competitive show), I was anxious to read this one. Some people see Ramsay as extremely mean and perhaps a bit "showy" with his antics on TV. Who's really to say what's the real truth but after reading his book, I feel as if I can see where he might be coming from now. Sure, he is a perfectionist yet, I believe he is hard on his young chefs because he wants to see them succeed and be proud. As the book begins, Gordon tells of his extremely humble beginnings, damaged relationship with his father, love for football (soccer), working his way through the food industry, his family, and finally, his rise to media fame. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and could not put it down. Overall, great revealing read.

Reviewed by Pam at

The World Without Us

2008-12-02T06:55:00.000-08:00

What would happen if every single human on the face of the Earth disappeared tomorrow? What buildings would be still standing in a thousand years, what animals would become extinct, what fingerprints would be left to prove humans had once existed?

These are the questions that Alan Weisman tackles in his book, "The World Without Us". He doesn't go into the why all humans would disappear, but picks up on the moment after- what would happen next, and it's fascinating.

Two portions of the book are dedicated to New York City and to Africa, and those were the two most engaging parts of the book for me. In the New York Chapters, he clearly details how the New York subway system would be a major contributer to the collapse of the city. What buildings in New York would surive the years, which would be the first to collapse (I was left surprised by the predictions). In the Africian section, he talks extensively about which animals would survive, and why big game animals that once covered North America are extinct, but have lived on in Africa. The answers may surprise you.

There's an excellent chapter on pollution, what the world would be like without humans continuing to clutter the planet with our love of plastics and paper. It doesn't get preachy, but it clearly confirms the idea that our careless treatment of the environment has caused horrible results. While outlining what we've done, it also gives hope to the idea that we can still make a change and alter the course we are on, in regards to hurting the animals, oceans and forests. (how's that for preachy?!)

There's an entire chapter dedicated to polymers that caused my eyes to glaze, and the chapter on farming was a bit of a struggle. Over all though, the book is engaging and one that I would recommend, especially if you are a reader who can skim read over a chapter on polymers and not lose sleep.

Napoleon's Pyramids

2008-11-06T09:33:00.000-08:00

The story is set during the last days of the French Revolution. Ethan Gage is a young man who worked closely for Benjamin Franklin and is a bit of a cad. He likes whores and gambling, and it's during a card game he wins an Egyptian medallion. He doesn't know what it's worth, what it stands for or what the strange symbols on it means, but keeps it and trouble follows.

Soon he's travelling with Napoleon to Egypt, on a mission to learn more about the pyramids, and how his medallion fits into it all. Suddenly, there are people after him, who are willing to kill him for the medallion he's won. Even Napoleon asks of it and Ethan has to learn to trust a few unusual people to help keep it safe until he can figure out how to turn his medallion into a key to unlock a mystery he's sure involves the pyramids. There's huge battle scenes, a surprising love story and enough suspense to keep a reader interested. There are mathematical challenges, surprising revelations about the structure of the pyramids (all which are true), real quotes taken from Napoleon and insightful tie ins to the the Bible.

It's a bit like The Da Vinci code, and a lot like National Treasure (the movie starring Nicholas Cage). There are many people in the novel who actually lived, and Dietrich does his best to remain accurate to their life. Some parts drag, and some parts seem over the top, but it was a light, (albeit educational) read and a book I suspect has already been sold to be turned into a movie. If you love it, you will want to read his other works, move to Egypt and tour the pyramids for yourself. If you hate it, you will at least look at the Pyramids in a new (and admiring!) way.

2008-11-05T12:29:00.001-08:00

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To Be Continued ...

2008-10-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

What I liked about this book is that it's based in Ontario and more specifically in Hamilton and Toronto (it goes back and forth between the two cities and makes mention of the cities in between). Another thing I liked about this book is that it has many storylines to follow. Now this may seem confusing but it's actually quite brilliant. This would be a good story to read if you are a nosy type of person.

Basically the gist of the book is that it gives you snippets of people's lives, in the moment kind of thing. And it's cool in the sense that it moves randomly from person to person (i.e. it'll focus on my life but then go onto the life of the person I may have passed on the street). So it peaks your interest enough to see what's going on in one's life but then leaves you questioning what's going to happen next. And the beauty of it is that the author will somehow get back to the person that we were eavesdropping on earlier so that we may know how a situation was resolved.

Tony and Me: A Story of Friendship

2008-10-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

Completing the book in a single sitting isn't all that tough, it's141 pages in total, many with pictures. The text however is far more than the story of two actors who shared a very special friendship, which was interesting to me as a fan. I took with me a lesson in genuine friendship, one that truly saw no boundaries, one of true devotion. What really drove it home was to see this lesson through the eyes of two people who have achieved the level of fame that these men have.

It's so rare to take a positive message from the celebrity world. This book offers one and I am glad I read it today of all days as it is a beautiful and necessary message to take into a new year.
If you want detail read this book you can buy it…

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Second Chance

2008-10-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

This is the newest book by the author Jane Green who is a British novelist now living in the States.

The story is this: There is a group of friends from highschool that were very tight but they had lost touch for 20 years or so. There was one member of the group however, Tom, who had kept in touch with all of them individually. The group is reunited under horrible circumstances when they find out that Tom has been killed in a terrorist attack in NY. Tom's death propels them into evaluating their lives and a lot of them go through major life changes. They are reunited and help eachother through such a hard period and manage to stay close throughout the book. Each of these friends seem to go through some pretty tough ordeals after Tom's death (a divorce, an unwanted pregnancy, celebrity tabloid issues ... yes, one of the friends just so happens to be a famous actress).

I think that what made this book a little difficult to follow is that you are presented with such a huge blow (the death of Tom) and then are presented with huge blows after that (with all of Tom's friends) and it's just too much. She could have easily written 2 or 3 different stories from this one book.

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Forging the missing case for war

2008-10-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

In further chronicles of Bush government deceit, author Ron Suskind drops a bombshell: The White House ordered the CIA to fake a letter linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida.
By Louis Bayard

Diligent, linear-minded readers will have to ford through 370 pages of his alternately incisive and gauzy book, "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism," you can search at amazon to reach the accusation that has set the nation's blogs abuzz. In September 2003, according to Suskind, CIA officials -- at the direct command of then-CIA director George Tenet and at the behest of the White House -- deliberately forged a backdated letter from Iraqi security chief Tahir Jalil Habbush to Saddam Hussein. The phony letter claimed that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta had trained for his mission in Iraq and that al-Qaida had facilitated mysterious shipments from Niger to Iraq. The letter was the "slam dunk" the Bush administration had been seeking so desperately: evidence of a direct operational link between al-Qaida and Saddam's regime.

Leaked to conservative British journalist Con Coughlin, the letter was made public just as Saddam was captured in his spider hole near Tikrit. In the course of a single news cycle, the war against Saddam had been "vindicated," Saddam himself had been flushed from hiding, and the Bush administration's war had seemingly reached its triumphal and foregone conclusion. Or had it?

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To further refine the question: Did nobody think it remarkable that an intelligence chief would commit such damning information to paper and then sign it in his own hand? Well, yes, some did. Among journalists, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball were particularly skeptical, citing FBI evidence that Atta was somewhere else entirely during the period in question. But none of those opposition voices made it into the über-narrative so skillfully managed by the White House.

Since then, that narrative has unraveled thread by thread -- as has the Habbush letter. That it was a forgery can no longer be doubted; that it originated with the White House may be harder to prove. Two former CIA officials -- Rob Richer and John Maguire -- have gone on record as saying they were personally charged with carrying out the forgery, but their marching orders, if they existed, came directly from Tenet (who has fiercely denied the story). The closest thing Suskind has to a smoking gun is Richer's memory, five years later, of "looking down at the creamy White House stationery on which the assignment was written." But here, too, a skeptic's antennae begin to quiver: Why would an operation so patently illegal be printed on official stationery? It's worth placing Richer's and Maguire's charges, too, in the context of the often-rancorous relations between White House officials and CIA veterans, who have seen their sphere of influence severely curtailed in post-9/11 reorganizations.

Setting these reservations aside, let's assume for a moment that the charges are true. What then? Suskind suggests that "the White House's knowingly misusing an arm of government" would be "the sort of thing generally taken up in impeachment proceedings." Whether or not the impeachment drums start beating in earnest, it's hard to imagine anyone saying, at this stage of the game, that the White House couldn't have done what Richer and Maguire say it did. This is an administration, after all, that lost all its moorings the moment it fixed its compass on Saddam. Since then, it has selectively misread evidence, imprisoned hundreds of innocent men, and tried to stifle opposition in every quarter. How great a leap is there, finally, between quashing dissent and manufacturing support?

The irony is that if White House honchos had listened to what Habbush was really saying instead of putting (or wishing) words in his mouth, they might have avoided the war that destroyed their political fortunes. As early as January 2003, writes Suskind, Habbush told a British intelligence officer that Saddam, 12 years earlier, had both ended his nuclear program and destroyed his chemical weapon stockpile and was in no hurry to build them up again. "They're not going to like this downtown," said Tenet, referring to his Pennsylvania Avenue bosses. They didn't. The Habbush report was buried, the war was set in motion, and Habbush himself was spirited to Amman, Jordan, where he was placated with $5 million in CIA hush money (even as his picture showed up as the jack of diamonds in Bush's playing deck of Iraqi war criminals).

The Habbush episode is the most spectacular case study in Suskind's book, but it's by no means the most depressing. Consider: In September 2002, Iraqi foreign minister (and paid French spy) Naji Sibri told a Lebanese intermediary that Saddam really, truly, honestly didn't have any WMD. Somehow, in transcribing the findings, the CIA's New York station wrote up a conclusion that was directly opposite to what Sibri had said. The unsourced findings were then passed on to British intelligence and, in what Suskind calls "an amazing game of Telephone," helped undergird Tony Blair's later support for the Iraq war.

Consider, too: In the summer of 2003, Iranians suspended part of their nuclear weapons program and signaled they were ready to talk to the United States about the al-Qaida cell within Iran's borders (which was then trying to purchase Russian nukes) and U.S. anti-terror efforts in Afghanistan. British intermediaries duly set up a Geneva meeting between an Iranian delegation and the CIA. Unfortunately, operations director Jim Pavitt, failing to understand that flights from Andrews Air Force Base could get backed up, arrived hours late in Geneva -- then went to the wrong hotel. "Soon," writes Suskind, "the British were on the line, frantic, wondering, 'Where the hell is Pavitt?'" Livid at the snub, Iranians abruptly cut off talks and, from that moment, "acted with a kind of entrepreneurial zeal -- harboring al Qaeda, sending troops and weapons across the border to undermine the United States in Iraq, defying U.S. demands that they cease uranium enrichment, even sending arms to support the Taliban."

Suskind has relied heavily on the testimony of CIA officials, many of whom have since left public service (Richer became vice president of intelligence for the notorious Blackwater) and all of whom have concluded that the U.S. government is a broken institution. Suskind has, by all appearances, reached the same conclusion. And he is at pains to compensate for it, for "The Way of the World" tucks away its nuggets of bad news in a meringue of feel-good "vision" -- a look at how things could be.

The United States, Suskind argues, can no longer hope to hammer its foes into submission. It must "rediscover its original, transforming principles" by embracing and cross-fertilizing with "the other." To show how such a future would look, Suskind creates a weave of human-interest threads: an Afghan exchange student, a Pakistani émigré, a lawyer for Guantánamo detainees, a rogue U.S. bureaucrat trying to stem nuclear proliferation -- even the late Benazir Bhutto -- all of them "joining the battle to revive hope, reasonable hope, shared and generous hope; to light a path to mankind's best instincts, to the consistent and often inconvenient humility and generosity -- the beating heart of moral energy -- that has saved us in the past."

Be still that beating heart, for it turns up a bit too often for comfort. We can admire Suskind for wanting to do more than catechize political abuses while still acknowledging that utopianism is not his true idiom. His normally rigorous language grows increasingly soggy as he talks about "vast heartbeat migrations" and people who "bend toward the sunlight, like all living things" and who come "to the shores of a vast, challenging place, discovering their truest potential, and re-creating, over and over, a new world." ("A thousand points of light," I heard myself saying, uncharitably.)

Bending toward the sunlight is all well and good, but we equally need people to find the places where the sunlight doesn't reach, and no journalist has more ably explored the dark crevices of the Bush administration's foreign policy. In "The One Percent Doctrine" and, more fitfully, here, Suskind has shown that faith -- the wrong kind of faith, anyway -- can produce disaster. That Suskind should want to replace the old faiths with new ones is understandable. But we still need him to explore faith's limits. Now is not the time to go soft on us.

The Greatest Popular Science Book!

2008-09-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

During the valuable discussions we had (and are still having) over on The Greatest Physics Paper! thread, a number of people mentioned books which work better in another category (at least in my humble opinion). So I think it is of value to start such a new discussion.

Announcing Cosmic Varianceâ™s search for
The Greatest Popular Science Book!

Furthermore, since a lot of the discussion on the other thread did get a bit technical, it might have frozen out several of the non-practicing physicists, or the people not trained in physics who nevertheless have an interest in science. In my view, a large part of the point of this blog is to interest you, and so major reader-participation driven posts should have something for you.

So: Do talk about some of the non-textbook science books (e.g. popular expositions, biographies of a life and work, etc. and not neccessarily just physics, but any area of science) that you thought really did a good job. Nominate some of them as your candidate for the Greatest Popular Science Book! Such a book would have done one or more of the following: excited you, interested you, blew your mind, intrigued you, drove you into science, blew your skirt up, made you appreciate something more, turned you on to learning more about science, made you change fields, caused you to see the world differently, clarified things that you did not understand the first time around, etc,

Who should post comments on this? Everyone! Not just scientists. Everyone. We can then all use this discussion as a resource for looking for suggestions for bedtime reading.

Again: Passionate argument and discussion is expectedâ€¦but letâ€™s be polite too.
By the way, here are some relatively recent books Iâ€™ve read in recent years that fit into this genre, which I think are excellent:

Galileoâ€™s Daughter - Dava SobelLeonardo : The First Scientist - Michael WhiteRosalind Franklin : The Dark Lady of DNA - Brenda MaddoxMauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World - Simon GarfieldBig Bang: The Origin Of The Universe - Simon Singh

But if I have to start naming (modern) out-and-out great ones, then hereâ€™s a couple to start out with:
Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World - Abraham PaisSubtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein - Abraham Pais

I think these two are some of the best accounts of the high-energy physics-type area of physics activity in the 20th Century. Either should be in a top five physics category in my opinion. Any young person thinking of working in those fields should read theseâ€¦and then again, from time to time. (For the category of cosmology, Singhâ€™s book is a contender to be a great one actually. Iâ€™d be happy to hear peopleâ€™s thoughts on this.) I can talk about several others, but Iâ€™ll leave that for the comments.

Extreme Classics: The 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time

2008-08-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

What are the essential ingredients in a great adventure story? The Latin root of the word, oddly enough, means "an arrival," but adventure almost always entails a going out, and not just any going out but a bold one: Sail the Pacific on a balsa raft; pit your skills against K2; sledge to the South Pole. It is a quest whose outcome is unknown but whose risks are tangible, a challenge someone meets with courage, brains, and effort—and then survives, we hope, to tell the tale.

"Safe return doubtful," as the famous apocryphal newspaper ad soliciting Antarctica volunteers put it. No matter: There's seldom a shortage of applicants. Humans hunger for adventure, and most is voluntary—people choose to go out and explore or climb or fly alone across vast oceans. But sometimes adventure is thrust upon us: A jet crashes in the high Andes, stranding its passengers in the snows. A whale staves and sinks a ship. These, too, are tests of courage, endurance, resourcefulness. We stay up all night reading to see what happens.

Such stories are as old as civilization. The ancient Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh is an adventure story. So are the Odyssey, the Viking sagas, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. And they have mythological roots: Culture heroes go out into the unknown, endure various tests, bring back a boon—the Golden Fleece; the Holy Grail; the knowledge, at the very least, of strange new lands, strange new people.

The adventurer's rewards today are more personal but no less considerable. And those of us who stay behind still ask: What was it like? These are the books that answer that question. To help us choose and rank them, we gathered a panel of writers, critics, and other experts. We asked them to help us find the best stories of exploration, survival, and daring recreation—true stories, we should add; fiction is something else. (War stories are something else as well, and not included here.)

It might seem an impossible task to rank 100 great, but very diverse, books in terms of fine gradations of greatness. Yet anyone can tell you why they prefer one book over another. And that's what our panelists did. We asked them to assign a number of points to each book, taking several factors into account: the book's pure literary merit; its "adrenaline factor," or the level of excitement they felt reading it; and its impact on our history and culture. When we tallied the scores, we found the books that rose to the top were those that succeed on more than one front: great writing about great deeds.

In order to keep the list focused on adventure—as opposed to travel or nature writing, both of which deserve lists of their own—we excluded books that didn't involve at least a measure of physical risk or audacity. And we leaned toward first-person accounts over later retellings. Until quite recently, writing about one's adventures has been largely a luxury of men—and usually white, Western men at that. This is an unfortunate fact of history that a list like this cannot help but reflect, despite our inclusion of some neglected classics by others. Finally, for all the scientific rigor we brought to the task, our rankings reflect the personal tastes of our panelists. Readers may well disagree. So quarrel away. But read.
View the 100 Greatest >>

Key Questions to be answerred

2008-08-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

In order to read the 100 'Greatest Books' we should select a number of key questions we want to answer by reading these books in stead of just reading them as a To Do list of 100 items. The Problems of Philosophy (1912) is one of Bertrand Russell's attempts to create a brief and accessible guide to the problems of philosophy. The key questions mentioned below are these problem's. My suggestion is to take these questions, but rephrase them into in contemporary relevant questions. Please post your inputs.

Russel's Problems of Philosophy:

1 PREFACE
2 APPEARANCE AND REALITY
3 THE EXISTENCE OF MATTER
4 THE NATURE OF MATTER
5 IDEALISM
6 KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE AND KNOWLEDGE BY DESCRIPTION
7 ON INDUCTION
8 ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES
9 HOW A PRIORI KNOWLEDGE IS POSSIBLE
10 THE WORLD OF UNIVERSALS
11 ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF UNIVERSALS
12 ON INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE
13 TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD
14 KNOWLEDGE, ERROR, AND PROBABLE OPINION
15 THE LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE
16 THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY
17 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Plato, Politeia

2008-08-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

In the Netherlands, I am joining the philosophical reading club Winfried. By change, we also start this year reading the Republic of Plato. A Plato specialist guide us to the 10 books and provides us with study questions. I will post these on our blog as well to facilitate our reading.One of the best translations of the Republic is from Allen Bloom. You can buy the book on Amazon

Study questions book 1 & 2:

What is the meaning of the first word...kateben, 'I descend...'?

What is the main question of book 1?

Compare the concepts of justice of Cephalus, Polemarchus en Thrasymachus.How deals Socrates with their ideas?

Whereupon are the challenges based from Glaucon and Adeimantus on Socrates, in the beginning of book 2?

What is the origing of the second 'sick' state of the first 'pure'state? Why are guardians essential?

Enjoy reading!

Exploration questions and themes

2008-08-17T08:14:00.000-07:00

After a discussion between Thomas and I, the following are some themes which we’re interested in exploring through our study:

What is the good life?
This is an exploration about the various views on what is the life best lived by humans. It could include the following areas:

* Personal ethics
* Various conceptions as to objectives of human existence (happiness, meaning)
* Suggested means towards these ends

What is existence?
As support for, or the idea preceding, the above conception of the good life, philosophers will describe their view of existence. We will be looking into these views of existence and the way in which they serve as the foundation for the conceptions of the good life.

What is the good society?
In order to enable the good life, a number of suggestions about the ideal society will be put forward. Through exploring this, we will look into the following:

* Social ethics
* Governance and the distribution and structure of power
* Freedom and liberty
* Contribution/role of the individual vis-à-vis the society (ie – morality)

As an underlying theme, we will be exploring the dilemma between universalism and relativism as a basis for understanding – or coming to any definite conclusions around – the above questions.

The 100 Greatest Links

2008-08-17T08:13:00.000-07:00

Next to our attempt to read the greatest books, another project will be to collect the greatest links relating to futurology, philosophy, politics and other contemporary issues. It's a dynamic list, so you could post suggestions for new links. In case the links are relevant, we will post them on the blog. hereby the first links:

Philosophy
MIT Open Courseware Linguistics and PhilosophyOnline Learning Section of the Philosophy Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You could download all lecturenote and assignment of these amazing philosophy coures.

Economy
New EconomistNew economic research, data, events and analysis from a London-based macroeconomistIncludes links to blogs from other leading economists

The Republic Part 1

2008-08-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday, I had the the first meeting with my reading club Winfried, in which we discussed the first two chapters of the Republic. One of the members is writing his PhD Disertation on Plato and introduced us the Plato's life and the structure of the Republic. I'll discribe below some major findings of our discussion.

The key question in the Republic is the question wether a just life bring hapiness. Before Plato could answer this question, he needed a definition what justice actually is. In his books he describe a just State and a just Soul. By means of the analogy between soul and state his tries to answer the main question of the Republic in book IX.

Book I Deals with three definitions of justice; the definition of justice of the old generation from Cephalus, the search for just of the young generation from Polemarchus and the definition of (in)justice of the Sophists from Thrasymachus.

Cephalus argues that just people life up to their obligations. Socrates makes this argument invalid by giving the example in which someone has to return borowed weapons to a madman.Polemarchus opinion is that just people do good to friends and harm enemies.But, is this judgement concerning friends and enemies fallible?

Sophist thinks that justice is just the advantage of the strongest.

Three interesting vision on justice. Especially because all these three definitions are still relevant and present in our society. Espcially the last interests me. The 'strongest' stands for the elite class. In a way, the elite determines in a society what is good & bad, and subsequently, coerces a moral regime which keeps them in their position of power.

An answer to our question to our question about a good life do we have not yet.This will be found in book IX.An interesting discussion question could be; in which appearance do the other three definitions come back in our society, and does it indeed not lead to a happy or good life.

Recommended!

2008-08-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Next to our Plato project, I just want to update you guys on other books I am reading. Most of them did I read for my philosophical reading club Winfried, others relating to my studies or random books. There we go...

1. Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses

Theodore Dalrymple
The author is a English writer and psychiatrist, who wrote on the European culture, our society. A couple of critical, though interesting essays on the building blocks of our culture, problems in the underclass, the role of personal responsibility and inflation of cultural values. Although he work is known as conservative, his work and personality (I met him at a Winfried meeting) absolutely impressed me.

2. Atheistic Manifesto

Herman Philipse
Herman Philipse is a professor philosophy at Oxford and Utrecht university and wrote about a rational explanation the non-existence of god. A defense of atheism. Opponents are Richard Swinnburne, who 'proved' the existence of god via Bayesian statistics. A very challenging and interesting topic for further reading.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_god

3. The twenty years' crisis

E.H.Carr
Practice and study of politics require an appreciation of realism as well as utopianism, power as well as moralityCarr was a international relations professor and was important for the liberal as well as realist theoretical tradition in IR. Easy to read for non-IR student and absolutely a classic

4. America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy

Francis Fukuyama

The author of The end of history and the last man criticises in his new book the neoconservative foreign policy strategy of the Bush administration. Interesting for who are interested in contemporary politics.

Enjoy reading! I am looking forward to your top ten!

100 best novels

2008-07-04T10:52:00.000-07:00

THE BOARD’S LIST

ULYSSES by James Joyce
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
CATCH-22
DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
1984 by George Orwell
I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
KIM by Rudyard Kipling
A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
LOVING by Henry Green
MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
IRONWEED by William Kennedy
THE MAGUS by John Fowles
WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth arkington

THE READER’S LIST

ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
1984 by George Orwell
ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
ULYSSES by James Joyce
CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
DUNE by Frank Herbert
THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert Heinlein
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert Heinlein
A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
SHANE by Jack Schaefer
TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM by Nevil Shute
A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving
THE STAND by Stephen King
THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles
BELOVED by Toni Morrison
THE WORM OUROBOROS by E.R. Eddison
THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
MOONHEART by Charles de Lint
ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner
OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
WISE BLOOD by Flannery O'Connor
UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
FIFTH BUSINESS by Robertson Davies
SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING by Charles de Lint
ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
YARROW by Charles de Lint
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS by H.P. Lovecraft
ONE LONELY NIGHT by Mickey Spillane
MEMORY AND DREAM by Charles de Lint
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
TRADER by Charles de Lint
THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood
BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
GREENMANTLE by Charles de Lint
ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card
THE LITTLE COUNTRY by Charles de Lint
THE RECOGNITIONS by William Gaddis
STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson
AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
THE WOOD WIFE by Terri Windling
THE MAGUS by John Fowles
THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert Heinlein
ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert Pirsig
I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS by Flann O'Brien
FARENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis
WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams
NAKED LUNCH by William S. Burroughs
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy
GUILTY PLEASURES by Laurell K. Hamilton
THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert Heinlein
IT by Stephen King
V. by Thomas Pynchon
DOUBLE STAR by Robert Heinlein
CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY by Robert Heinlein
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION by Ken Kesey
MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather
MULENGRO by Charles de Lint
SUTTREE by Cormac McCarthy
MYTHAGO WOOD by Robert Holdstock
ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach
THE CUNNING MAN by Robertson Davies
THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie

Energy crisis supplants environment as top concern

2008-06-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

GLORIA GALLOWAY
OTTAWA -- Anger at soaring gas prices has supplanted fear about global warming as the No. 1 issue Canadians say is facing their country.
As the cost of filling the tank hits uncharted heights - and is predicted to go even higher - a wide-ranging survey conducted by the Strategic Counsel for The Globe and Mail and CTV suggests energy prices are on par with the sagging economy when it comes to Canadians' worries.
The environment, last year's top issue, has been pushed to No. 3, with just 16 per cent of Canadians surveyed saying they now consider it their primary concern.
This shift could make it more difficult for Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion to sell the carbon-tax plan he unveiled last week, a complex scheme to cut greenhouse-gas emissions that will be the cornerstone of his party's platform in the next election.
Mr. Dion also faced a counterattack yesterday from Alberta and Saskatchewan, which warned their economies would take a major hit under the Liberal plan. The two provinces account for 40 per cent of Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions.
"It's going to dramatically impact upon our economy and we're just not in favour of it in any way," Saskatchewan Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd said.
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said the province could "take a major hit" if the plan were implemented.
In British Columbia, Premier Gordon Campbell's special adviser on climate change said he fears a public backlash over that province's own carbon tax could prompt the Liberal government to back off the measure.
"I would say this is not a done deal," said Mark Jaccard, a resource economist at Simon Fraser University.
Peter Donolo, a Strategic Counsel partner, said the environment "was No. 1 up until January" among Canadians surveyed. At that time, 22 per cent said it was the most pressing matter in Canada.
"Clearly what's happening here is that people are feeling the pain in their pocketbook," Mr. Donolo said.
Gas prices that averaged $1.05 per litre across Canada in June of 2007 hit an average of $1.38 this week. Most of that increase has come in the first part of this year. And a trip to the cottage - or even the corner store - is costing Canadians much more than it did last summer.
Meanwhile, the price of consumer goods is rising as the dollars required to transport them to market increases.
The 2.2-per-cent rise in the consumer price index in May was the highest since January and, according to Statistics Canada, was mostly a result of higher prices for gasoline. This acceleration in gasoline prices occurred as crude oil prices almost doubled between May of 2007 and May of 2008.
"Gas prices weren't even on the radar screen up until this month," Mr. Donolo said. Now they beat out, not only the environment, but other hot-button issues such as health care, the Afghanistan conflict, crime, taxes and government scandals.
The findings were part of a survey that compared the thoughts of Canadians and Americans on a broad array of issues. One thousand people in each country were polled between June 12 and June 22 yielding results that are expected to accurately reflect broad public opinion within a range of 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.
The Americans surveyed were also concerned about the high cost of gas - 19 per cent said it topped their list of priorities. But gas prices were outdistanced by the economy, which was cited by 33 per cent of people south of the border.
In Canada, 18 per cent of respondents said the rising cost of gas was the most important issue. That was equal to the percentage in this country who named the economy as their No. 1 concern. In the past three years, gas prices have rarely been mentioned by people surveyed by the Strategic Counsel; the highest number was 4 per cent in July of 2006.
Critics have suggested that there will be further negative economic consequences associated with the Liberal green plan. But Mr. Dion says the shift will lead to innovation and investment.
He is proposing to impose a carbon tax worth $15.4-billion a year that would be levied on the use of fossil fuels at the industrial and consumer level, although gasoline would be exempt. It would start at $10 a tonne of carbon fuel, rising to $40 a tonne in the fourth year.
This would be offset by a cut in income and business taxes and a boost in tax breaks for those hardest hit by the increased cost of necessities, such as home-heating fuel, electricity, food and travel.

The 10 Greatest Books of All Tim

2008-06-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

The 10 Greatest Books of All Tim
By LEV GROSSMAN

Let's not mince words: literary lists are basically an obscenity. Literature is the realm of the ineffable and the unquantifiable; lists are the realm of menus and laundry and rotisserie baseball. There's something unseemly and promiscuous about all those letters and numbers jumbled together. Take it from me, a critic who has committed this particular sin many times over.
But what if—just for argument's sake—you got insanely rigorous about it. You went to all the big-name authors in the world—Franzen, Mailer, Wallace, Wolfe, Chabon, Lethem, King, 125 of them— and got each one to cough up a top-10 list of the greatest books of all time. We're talking ultimate-fighting-style here: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, modern, ancient, everything's fair game except eye-gouging and fish-hooking. Then you printed and collated all the lists, crunched the numbers together, and used them to create a definitive all-time Top Top 10 list.
Yes, it would probably still be an obscenity. But it would be a pretty interesting obscenity. And that's what we have in J. Peder Zane's The Top 10 (Norton; 352 pages).
Each individual top 10 list is like its own steeplechase through the international canon. Look at Michael Chabon's. He heads it up with Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths. (Nice: an undersung masterpiece by a writer's writer.) He follows that up with by Pale Fire by Nabokov at #2. (Hm. Does he really think it's better than Lolita? Really?) Then with number 3 he goes straight off the reservation: Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini. (What? By who?) The whole exercise is an orgy of intellectual second-guessing, which as we all know is infinitely more fun than the first round of guessing.

There's plenty of canon fodder on the lists. Zane, who's the books editor at the Raleigh News & Observer, has done a statistical breakdown of the results, so we know, for example, that Shakespeare is the most-represented author (followed by Faulkner, who ties with Henry James; they're followed by a five-way tie, which you can read about for yourself). But I'm more interested in the dark horses, the statistical outliers, which lay bare the secret fetishes and perversions of the literati. Douglas Coupland puts Capote's unfinished Answered Prayers at number one, blowing right by Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood, too. Jonathan Franzen begins straight up the middle, with The Brothers Karamazov, but turns a sharp corner at #9 with The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead, and another at #10 with Independent People by Halldor Laxness. The quintessentially American Tom Wolfe starts by reeling off four French classics in a row. Norman Mailer revives John Dos Passos's out-of-fashion U.S.A. trilogy for his #6 (and shows uncharacteristic forebearance by leaving his own works off the list). And so on. (At times one reads in the knowledge that one is being messed with. There's an outside, screwball chance that David Foster Wallace really reveres C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters above all other books, but I feel comfortable asserting—having read Infinite Jesttwice—that Wallace does not feel that way about Stephen King's The Stand (at #2) or The Sum of All Fears, by Tom Clancy (#10).)

There are several lifetimes' worth of promising literary leads here—544 books in all. An 85-page appendix providing enlightened summaries of all the works mentioned is worth the price of admission all on its own. But to get you started, here, in all its glory, is the all-time, ultimate Top Top 10 list, derived from the top 10 lists of 125 of the world's most celebrated writers combined. Read it and— well, just read it.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
Middlemarch by George Eliot

CHARITY GIRL

2008-06-28T20:58:00.000-07:00

Novel
By Michael Lowenthal

During World War I, 30,000 American women were rounded up, and half of them were detained, often for months, for the supposed purpose of preventing the spread of venereal diseases in soldiers. Some of the arrested were prostitutes, while others were so-called charity girls, young women who picked up men at dance halls simply to have a good time. That the incarceration of these women at detention camps surrounded by barbed wire did nothing to change the rate at which soldiers were contracting STDs was a piece of information that the Committee on the Prevention of Social Evils Surrounding Military Camps was not much interested in during the late summer of 1918. Nor did the committee seem to care that it was often the men who had infected the women.

The unfortunate female detainees at 43 sites around the country were subjected to hard labor, forced medical treatment, unspeakable humiliations and even rape. Their ordeal provides the inspiration for Michael Lowenthal's lively and illuminating novel Charity Girl.

Seventeen-year-old Frieda Mintz, working as a bundler at Boston's Jordan Marsh department store, makes $8 a week and lives on her own. Seeking to leaven a dull work week by stepping out for an evening at the local dance halls, Frieda allows cheerful men to pay for her drinks and her company in the form of small gifts.

One afternoon, during a Liberty Loan parade in which Frieda represents the Jordan Marsh Liberty Girls, she catches sight of Army Pvt. Felix Morse, who stares at her, smiles and waves. A week and a half later, he is waiting for her when she gets off work. Charming, seemingly kind and definitely in need of a good time himself, Felix romances Frieda, taking her to a baseball game and allowing the young woman to fall in love with him.

Shortly after her brief romance, Frieda is visited by the Dickensian Mrs. Sprague: Back at Fort Devens, Frieda's beloved Felix has tested positive for syphilis, and the young man, good soldier that he is, has given authorities Frieda's name. Sprague has Frieda fired from her job and dispatched to a detention camp in rural Fitchburg. There the true horrors begin.

" 'Come in,' says a man in a shabby white smock, the cuffs of which appear freshly spattered. Greeting her, he doesn't bother looking at her face -- just her trunk, as if assessing livestock." Dr. Slocum quickly diagnoses a number of conditions he and his cohorts consider more or less equally shameful: Jewishness, "habitual self-abuse," recent intercourse, syphilis and gonorrhea.

The cure -- blue pills at each meal, injections of urine-colored liquid, tampons and a steel probe -- rival the pain and symptoms of the disease itself. Innocently, Frieda asks how long she will be incarcerated. " 'In terms of timing,' the doctor says, 'the name of the game is patience. Some more of that, and you wouldn't be in this mess. . . . A year with no symptoms? Maybe two.' "

Lowenthal, a writing teacher at Boston College and Lesley University, has accomplished the difficult feat of marrying the facts of history with the details that make a fictional life come alive. Even more impressive, he mimics the snappy dialogue and thoughts of the characters in the novels that Frieda so admires: "Tip lit a cigarette and offered her a puff, which she took even though she didn't smoke. To chase the rough heat, she sipped her cool drink; her throat was dazzled, pleasantly haywire." The reader is catapulted back to the era of "jaunty, borrowed hats," "fake-moles" and a man's "camphor scent tart with potential."

The tone turns more urgent and angry, however, when Frieda is detained. Dance tunes give way to the sounds of squabbling girls. Flirtation yields to a lesson in anarchy. The girls labor, wait, get tested and then wait some more. There are no lawyers to advocate on their behalf, no witnesses to their degradation. That few readers of Lowenthal's deserving novel will ever have heard of the detention of the "charity girls" is astonishing. That Lowenthal has made us aware of them is nothing short of a gift. ·

Anita Shreve's new novel, "Bodysurfing," will be published in April.

The World's Gratest Books

2008-06-28T20:29:00.000-07:00

Set out below are more than 500 of the western world's greatest books, spanning the period from BC to 1954. Included are works by authors who died before 1955, and whose works are thus in the public domain in Australia. Information about the authors and details about the books can be obtained by clicking on the links to "Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia". The works themselves may be accessed by clicking the link to Project Gutenberg (PG) or Project Gutenberg Australia (PGA) as the case may be.

How does one decide which books are "great"? Wikipedia, has an article on the Western Canon which aims to address this issue. The article contains references and links to other web sites.

For a list of some of Australia's greatest books, go to the Australia's Greatest Books page.

101Real Money Questions

2008-06-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

101Real Money Questions
The African American Financial Question and Answer Book
JESSE B. BROWN

Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank especially Carole Hall, editor in chief, African American Books, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; Tony Rose, publisher and CEO, Amber Books Publishing;Yvonne Rose, senior editor, Amber Books Publishing;Lynette McMillon, the Tushe Group,my publicist, for her diligence and dedication to this project; Jan Miller,my literary agent; Tavis Smiley of the Tavis Smiley Foundation; and Denise Pines of the Tavis Smiley Foundation.

I have not attempted to cite in the text all the authorities and sources consulted in the preparation of this book. The list would include departments of the federal government, libraries, industrial institutions, periodicals, and many individuals. Scores of people have contributed information, illustrations, and inspirations toward the publishing of 101 Real Money Questions: The African American Financial Question and Answer Book.

About the Author

Jesse B. Brown is a graduate of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois,where he was named Alumnus of the Year. He is the past president of the National Association of Securities Professionals—Chicago Chapter and has earned Investment Adviser of the Year honors from one of the largest mutual fund companies in America.

Before joining the financial services industry, Brown served as Special Assistant to the President of the Joint Center for Political Studies in Washington, D.C., and as Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Jimmy Carter. He later joined Kidder Peabody as a stockbroker specializing in municipal markets.

Jesse B.Brown is known as one of the country’s most renowned financial planners. He is president/CEO and Midwest managing director of Krystal Investment Management, Inc., which oversees millions of dollars in mutual funds, stocks, and bonds for its investor clients. According to Brown:“As African Americans,we must realize the significance of paying ourselves first and investing in ourselves, our families, our children, our schools, our churches, our businesses, and our communities.We must see ourselves realistically in our society and project what we want to be and put the plan in order.Then, we, as a burgeoning and vibrant independent people, will begin to see most of our goals and commitments realized.”

Jesse B. Brown has written 101 Real Money Questions: The African American Financial Question and Answer Book as the third step in your journey toward financial independence. His first book, Investing in the Dream, was a bestseller on Essence magazine’s Black Board Best Seller’s List for hardcover nonfiction books and was selected as the 2001 Chicago Black Book Fair’s Book of the Year. His second book, Pay Yourself First: The African American Guide to Financial Success and Security, was a top 10 nonfiction Essence magazine pick, a national bestseller, and again selected as the 2002 Chicago Black Book Fair’s Book of the Year.

Foreword

For years I have been preaching to Black folk the importance of getting up and making a difference. One very significant way to make a difference is to have some money in your pocket.When you have money in your pocket, many of life’s challenges become manageable: medical insurance to cover emergency health examinations, surgeries, expensive treatments, and prescriptions becomes affordable; college tuition for your son or daughter, who despite the obstacles has worked hard to get good grades in high school, becomes fundable; retirement for you and your spouse, without the worry of income to pay the bills, becomes a realistic goal; care for your aging parents, in your home if you choose, is not a concern. Money in your pocket is one of the best defenses against anxiety and frustration, and if used positively, can most assuredly add to your sense of freedom.

When it comes to money matters, Black folk have over six hundred million dollars in disposable income, enough to be the eleventh-largest nation in the world, but almost nothing in the way of investments.We think we have all the time in the world to plan for our financial futures.We tell ourselves that we’ll take care of it tomorrow, but tomorrow becomes the next day and the next day and the next. Procrastination is the most convenient response to the challenge of paying attention to your financial affairs. Many have already determined that finance is far too difficult to understand and far too daunting to undertake.What is the stock market, anyway? What do you mean by mutual funds? How does retirement roll over? It all can sound much more difficult than it really is. Most of us would love to not get down on the field and be a player, but to stay on the sidelines and watch the game of life proceed without direct involvement, believing that things will work themselves out. It has been said that the best way to predict your future is to create it. Things don’t just happen;you claim your destiny! And that is what 101 Real Money Questions: The African American Financial Question and Answer Book is all about.With 101 Real
Money Questions, the information is put out there for you to read, absorb, and act on. Jesse Brown puts money in your pocket, answers all your questions, and gives you the know-how to create the future you want for yourself and your family.

For fiscally challenged individuals, Jesse Brown inspires hope. Managing your financial affairs is possible. Paying for the services, needs, and desires of you and your family is possible. Creating wealth for you and your family can be as real as the breath you breathe. I have tremendous admiration for Jesse because he takes our human rights movement to the next level.We have all sorts of freedoms these days, thanks to our ancestors, family members, and other loved ones who refused to accept less. Now it’s up to us to refuse to accept mediocrity, and pick up where they left off. It’s up to us to win the one freedom that remains elusive—financial freedom, financial stability. Jesse assures us that mastering the skills needed to manage money isn’t difficult.We would be remiss in our responsibility to ourselves and our families if we did not gain the upper hand over our money. Such an outcome can be more than merely expensive—it can be devastating to our lives and those of our children.

Jesse puts into print the same message he delivers to his clients: “Educate yourself, get a plan, and take charge of your financial life.” To that I would add, find yourself a knowledgeable financial adviser—one who can help you create your individual financial plan, select the appropriate investments, and stay on track, but who, in the final analysis, leaves you in full control. This book’s important message is to hold the vision of the possibility of a better life for you and yours and to make that vision a reality by securing your financial future. Take responsibility and exercise the faith and power you have within you to create a better life by investing.

In this compact volume of questions and answers, Jesse covers the principles of building wealth and discusses mutual funds, an ideal investment vehicle for achieving that end. He talks about one of the biggest mistakes many people make with their money—debt—and counsels on how to avoid missteps, or at least how to dampen their potentially negative effects. He discusses how best to use insurance to provide financial security for loved ones and to protect possessions. Through use of his advanced educational degrees and significant national leadership positions and extensive financial services experiences, Jesse brings Wall Street to the hood, so to speak, with what could be an otherwise daunting subject—personal finance. It is easy to become a victim, and oftentimes that is perceived as a comfortable position to be in. Each one of us has individual needs and wants, and our separate story to tell. In 101 Real Money Questions, Jesse Brown answers our questions about money and shows us how to take as little as 5 dollars a day and turn it into a million dollars through saving and investing.

Above all, Jesse urges immediate action, for time can be a powerful ally—or without a sound financial plan, a devastating enemy. Tavis Smiley The Smiley Group, Inc.

Introduction

You can’t get away from it. From television to the Internet to barbershops, everyone’s talking about money. They always have, but now it seems different. Everywhere you look, someone’s touting a stock tip that earned him millions, a newscaster is professing the end of Social Security, or you hear tales of a millionaire gone bankrupt. People who’ve never invested before are dabbling in stocks. The company you’ve been with for twenty years is folding. College tuition is rising. Real estate is rising. The little country home you dreamed about retiring in has tripled in cost.Your daughter had a medical emergency and you just used your retirement savings to pay for it.

Someone told you to invest in an IRA, but you don’t know what that is. Someone else said you could save money in a tax-deferred account, but you don’t know where to find one. Then there’s the pressure of looking rich. Every movie and music video you see is another reminder of what you don’t have.You just purchased a gold Lexus, not sure how you’ll make the payments and live happily. The pressure is bearing in.Your savings are diminished and your checking account never builds. Stocks and bonds are foreign to you.

What do you do? Where do you start?

A sampling of comments from listeners of my audiotape series and my appearances on radio programs across the country, as well as from readers of my articles, newsletters, and books, indicates you can start where you are.

Marc R. stated that I helped him because he is “hungry for success in the market.” Benitez M., after reading my book Investing in the Dream, is now properly motivated and educated to exceed his current level of investments.

Karen H., a wife and mother of two, stated after reading my second book, Pay Yourself First: The African American Guide to Financial Success and Security, that it was the first financial book that was easy to read and made sense, and which spoke directly to her needs and convinced her that she could retire comfortably.

My third book in the “Pay Yourself First” series, 101 Real Money Questions: The African American Financial Question and Answer Book, is your opportunity to get your questions answered.

I am a “Financial Makeover”columnist for abcnews.com and the financial expert at Tavis Smiley’s Web site, tavistalks.com, as well as a columnist for more than 240 Black newspapers through the Black Press of America, National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). I am also president and CEO of Krystal Investment Management, a national money management firm. I get questions all the time about personal finances investing, and in this book I’ll answer those questions.

It’s time to get our finances in order. Too many African American families are living paycheck to paycheck, with minimal retirement savings and too much frivolous spending. To achieve any sense of financial stability in your life, you must stop, assess what you have, budget, save, and invest.

It’s reeducation time. African Americans spend over $400 billion annually. But how much do we save? African Americans who earn more than $50,000 annually save less than their European American counterparts, yet they profess to want to retire early. You see,even those who have higher incomes haven’t achieved success if their savings and investments are minimal. So where are we?

We are on the final frontier of the civil rights movement: financial freedom. Urgings to invest and save are slowly pouring from civil rights havens and Black churches and colleges alike. Why?
Because the time is now! African Americans are among the world’s highest spenders, but we have minimal savings.Why? Because too many of us don’t understand wealth, how it is amassed, or how to keep it. Most of America’s millionaires are not entertainers or athletes, as the media would lead us to believe. Most are hardworking citizens with a knack for long-term saving and investing. Stock investments, portfolios, and financial plans are what separate the haves from the have-nots.

In this day and age, there is no excuse for lackadaisical financial planning. There is just too much information at our fingertips. But you must harness this information and stick with it. It’s not easy, but it is worth it. Do you want to go through another decade without accumulating wealth, real wealth that will ensure a comfortable retirement, pay for education for your children, and give you a freedom never before experienced? Or do you want to continue to scrape, always a dollar short and a day late, purchasing things you don’t need to feel better about your shattered finances?

The choice is yours. Financial remedies are as simple as reading a book on finances, reading financial articles—and better yet, reading this book.

This book is designed to teach African Americans how to amass the wealth they desire through saving and investing. There are no magic potions, no get-rich-quick schemes. Just time-honored methods that will guarantee financial success.

All that is required of those who desire is discipline.You must set up a plan and stick with it. In the end, your financial success depends on you.

Jesse B. Brown
Krystal Investment Management

God’s Pharmacy

2008-06-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

Author Unknown

A friend sent this to me. It’s been said that God first separated the salt
water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and
fish… all before making a human. He made and provided what we’d need
before we were born. These are best & more powerful when eaten raw. We’re
such slow learners…

God left us a great clue as to what foods help what part of our body!
God’s Pharmacy! Amazing!

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating
lines look just like the human eye… and YES, science now shows carrots
greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A Tomato has four chambers and is red The heart has four chambers and is
red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are
indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks
like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also
profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper
cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are
just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three
(3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they
look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods
specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are
23% sodium. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it
from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal
needs of the body.

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow.

Figs increase the
mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome
male sterility.

Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic
index of diabetics.

Avocadoes, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and
cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today’s research
shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds
unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is
this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to
ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of
nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and
named about 141 of them).

Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary
glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the
movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

Onions look like the body’s cells. Today’s research shows onions help clear
waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which
wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also
helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

Try Granola Delights!