Books are choosing me

I’ve been reading more books that are not necessarily of my own selection:

Yellow Birds (2013, Kevin Powers) is a book about soldier friends in Iraq and the impact of war. Reviews rank it up there with All Quiet on the Western Front and The Things They Carried. I’m about 2/3 through the book and I just don’t see that. I think there’s a fairly powerful story in it and I think he voices emotions that I have not heard expressed or explained. However, I am having difficulty with the writing. There are long rambling sentences, which I suppose could be said to show the stream of consciousness of the main character. Other similar sentences, however, have to do with description of Iraq or his hometown. Other sentences are just plain clunky. I wonder, where was the editor? (In the spirit of full disclosure, I am alone in my assessment. If you go to the website, you'll see that this book gets rave reviews). Anyway, I’ve continued to struggle through this because I recommended Unbroken to the husband of a friend of mine and he, in turn, recommended this book.

Whistling Vivaldi is being discussed as a part of a campus book discussion. It reminds me very much of some of Malcolm Gladwell’s work. The book talks about the effect of stereotype threat on academics. For example, women are not supposed to be good at high-level mathematics. That stereotype does, in fact, affect women taking standardized tests. The book describes the series of experiments and the path of investigation that the researcher took to uncover the cause behind under performance of minority students on his campus. He has a very engaging style and I am enjoying the book. Read the NPR interview with the author Claude Steele.

My birth sister and I are trying to find something more to connect us. Recently she sent me an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that discusses the themes of Christian doctrine to be found in the Narnia books. I’m supposed to respond to this in some way. The problem is, I haven’t read any of the Narnia books. So, I recently downloaded The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to read. Wish me luck.

I did actually select a book for myself recently: Louise Erdrich’s The Round House. I had forgotten how much I like her writing. This book takes place on the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. A 13-year old boy’s mother is raped. The book is told from his perspective as he witnesses his mother’s devastation, the impact on his family, and the difficulty of bringing the perpetrator to justice. Interesting to me was the discussion of tribal law and jurisdiction and some Ojibwe lore. I liked this book a lot!