Kay's Bookshelf

I picked up this book knowing that whatever else happens in it at least it would have a happy ending (today the author is in perfectly good shape). It is nevertheless a very moving story, the harrowing account of the thoughts of a mother that knows she might have to leave her children before long, the story of a woman all too aware of the emptiness she would leave in the lives of her loved ones — her husband, her parents, her kids, her friends. Ms. Host has chosen a very honest approach, not hesitating to bare her soul and exposing her innermost thoughts during that trying time. Reading this made me cry more than once, although, as I said, I knew it was all just a phase, I knew it was going to pass, I knew it was going to end well.

The first word that comes to my mind when I think of Carrie after reading this book is (predictably enough perhaps) “strong”. She managed to find within herself the resources she needed in order to battle cancer, in order to keep her sanity, in order to keep being there for her loved ones. Even now, years after what she went through, she keeps fighting the fight: she is on board of directors of an organization (Caring for Carcinoid) that is dedicated to discovering a cure for that particular condition. She is also a public speaker (and now a published author) trying to motivate people not to give up, wanting to show them that there may be life after carcinoids, and I deeply admire and respect her for that.

And yet, while Carrie’s strength is a defining trait for her, it is not the one I have liked most. That mention goes to a most likely less useful one but the one I very much enjoyed reading about: her artistic side. The fact that, even when she is down, she imagines her life and (possible) future events as short stories or even paintings. The fact that she is the kind that notices the minute details of life, the fact that she encourages her kids to go out there and make life beautiful for themselves. An unexpected trait that one doesn’t often see in books and that I delighted in because of that.

It was also interesting to get to know some of the cast of characters in Carrie’s life. Amory is simply perfect, with the way he devised a plan to find someone who could help Carrie, with the way he never stopped being there for her and helping her with the small things and the big ones, always showering her with love. Carrie’s mother, an ex-nurse, is also a mountain of strength, never leaving her daughter’s side. Carrie’s sister Marisa and Carrie’s sister-in-law Trina are other two relatives very supporting in time of need. At first I thought that well, Carrie is incredibly lucky to have only positive people in her life. But then I realized, reading between the lines, that the truth is that she has chosen to focus on the positive only, on the encouraging experiences — there are also negatives, friends who leave, people who try to impose their believes on her, doctors not paying enough attention, there have to have been moments of discouragement, of anger, of tensions now and then (how can there not be when one has to live with such a threat), but all this is mentioned only in passing, if at all, enforcing my opinion that Carrie is, above all, a positive person and has written this book to encourage others not to complain of her fate.

A few quotes that I have liked:

“I am a poet. As such, I am a hopeless romantic about life. For me, details are worth noticing. I believe that a bath can cure practically anything that ails you, and what the bath can’t cure, hot tea and music will.” (Carrie about her pre-cancer self)

“You want to hit delete and go back to the old description of yourself, the one without the medical terms mixed in. You can’t.”

“Anger is unnatural. Like holding our breath, it becomes more debilitating the longer we do it. Love comes naturally, like the urge to breathe. Forgiveness is the extension of that urge. It’s taking that breath. It’s that satisfying.”

“Buy yourselves flowers, kids. Fill your lives with the things you love, don’t wait for someone else to do it.”

“Sometimes our lifelines are thrown to us by angels — not the ones in paintings, but the ones right here in our lives.”

What I liked most: The way Carrie relates to words. Ever since she was a child, when she has received a letter from Nixon himself, she has been impressed by the power words have. At that moment she has decided she wanted to become a writer, she wanted to help words take particular shapes. Later on though, after her diagnose, there are a few moments when she feels the opposite: words, as the medium which brought her the bad news, became the enemy. For some reason I find this an interesting way of looking at something as widely used as words :)

What I liked least: How can I even dare criticize someone who’s been through that kind of ordeal? Not that there’s actually anything to criticize. Nevertheless even if it were I wouldn’t dare mention it ’cause I am very much aware that (lucky for me) I don’t know the first thing about having to deal with all that.

Recommend it to? It’s a honest memoir that relates having to deal with cancer. As such I would recommend it to people who like reading real life stories, cancer survivors and — and anyone else actually. A fast read filled with the simple truths one discovers when one’s life is on the line.

See also
The author’s site
Carrie’s account of how she first met Amory (scroll down to the last)

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Popularity: 13% [?]

To tell the truth I am not sure whether I liked Chris Gardner or not. He is being brutally honest in his book, revealing even the things that put him in a bad light, such as planning to kill his step-father (perhaps understandably enough, as the guy viciously beat up everyone in his family), trying to steal a few times, and not giving a damn about the women in his life (with the exception of his mother, who seemed to be a special person indeed). Chris also has redeeming qualities though, such as his willingness to do his very best at every job he ever had, even when the said job consisted in changing adult diapers. He seemed to really care for his patients when he was a doctor or a nurse, and I admired him for that. To be honest there are a lot of things about him I don’t quite get — but then again I have never been a black male in a said to be racist society either. I don’t even get his attachment to his son: he says he loves him and cannot part with him, yet keeps Chris Jr. with him when he’s living on the street and gives him back to his mother when he starts making good money. Either way, I couldn’t help but admire his ambition and hard work and was glad all the while reading the book knowing that he will overcome all his adversities.

I have seen the movie with the same title a while ago and have found the story absolutely touching. Finding out it was made after a true story impressed me even more so for me this was a must read book. And yet, I couldn’t help being a disappointed as there are very few common things between the movie and the book: mostly the fact that Chris has a son and one day Chris sees a guy with a red Ferrari, a thing that has been the root of his trying his hand at becoming a broker. But the Chris in the movie was a lot more humble and a lot more likable than the one in the book. While neither of them is perfect, the one in the book is perhaps a tad too imperfect for my taste.

I couldn’t help thinking that, while Chris was blaming white people of being racists (which I have no doubt that some of them actually were), he was actually kind of a racist himself, only on the reverse. I’m not going to say here how he mostly dated black women as each person has his own tastes, but I was a bit annoyed at the niche he had found for himself. Oh I will make a company to serve black people. Not a company to help people in need of good services, but black people. This didn’t ring very well with me — although it seemed to have done wonders for him.

As a bit of trivia, Quincy Troupe, the guy who helped Chris Gardner write his autobiography, has previously worked with Miles Davis. A coincidence since Chris seems to cannot stress enough how much Miles Davis means to him — I bet he was really thrilled to work with Quincy after reading his credentials. :)

What I liked most: I think the title was extremely well chosen. There is a particular day-care where Chris wants to enlist Chris Jr., only it is kinds expensive and they only accept potty trained children. A note on the wall proclaims it to be a place of “happyness”. In a way, this becomes the most tangible thing Chris has come to want: to earn enough money to get Chris Jr. accepted at that particular day care. When Chris is working his butt off, calling hundreds of people mostly uninterested in what he has to say, this is the very thing he is dreaming about: sure, he would like a red Ferrari, a million bucks, a home (not particularly in that order), he would like happiness on the long term; but on the short term is the place of “happyness” that Chris is pursuing, a way for him to make sure his son got the attention and care he deserved.

What I liked least: The fact that the book was written sort of “slang-style”. The thing that annoyed me most was that he kept using the word “cat” instead of guy (while I was aware of this meaning of the word, it kept confusing me nevertheless). On a close second it’s the way he called every black woman she met a “sister”. While I have nothing whatsoever with black people or the way they talk I didn’t enjoy those bits nevertheless. Perhaps because I was expected the language to be a bit more educate as opposed to the usual ghetto talk.

Recommend it to? Let me think. First of all, I saw lots of people complaining about the language (I sort of ignored it because I was caught up in the book), so if you don’t like bad language, you might not want to read this one. The book shows a different Gardner than the movie did; it all boils down to whether you want to get to know the real Chris Gardner or not.

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Popularity: 68% [?]

The book has lots of characters, mostly people Ms. Nafisi has met at the University, students or colleagues. There are so many of them that I occasionally lost track of one or the other (a thing that doesn’t happen to me very often). To my deep chagrin, I cannot say I got an accurate image not even of the author’s private students, “her girls” as she uses to call them. I can of course say their names and I do remember a thing or two on most of them (especially Nassrin, she was my favorite for some reason), but on the whole I cannot present an accurate characterization on any of them, not even a sketchy one. There are very few characters I can actually venture to write about. I have liked of course the author herself (although we see her mostly in the lights of her experiences, naturally enough she does not talk very much about herself), her husband Bijan also seemed a nice enough chap, and, my favorite of them all, the one the author calls “my magician”, an ex-teacher to a Tehran university too, a guy that seems to always have the ability to say the very thing that needs saying at any given moment.

This is probably a very shallow thing to say, but I was amazed at how unfair life was for women in Tehran in that particular period. They could face imprisonment for one year if they were caught painting their nails! Every single day was filled with little (or less so) nagging things, ranging from having to wear the veil, to being given an inferior room in a restaurant when unaccompanied by men, to being imprisoned for the slightest offenses and being given forced virginity tests. I have a hard time even trying to imagine such a life and I cannot help feeling sorry for the life the poor girls had to endure back then (some of it even now actually, from what I have understood the morals are being more lax now but not nearly the way they are in the US or Europe, the way I think they should be).
Here is a quote I have thought to be representative of the situation:

I wonder if right now, at this moment, I were to turn to the people sitting next to me in this café in a country that is not Iran and talk to them about life in Tehran, how they would react. Would they condemn the tortures, the executions and the extreme acts of aggression? I think they would. But what about the acts of transgression on our ordinary lives, like the desire to wear pink socks?

What I liked most:  All the parallels made (or the contrasts evidenced) between life in Iran and the books the author chose to talk about. Actually, every single bit that spoke about books was very interested for me, opening up new vistas and perspectives, even on books I (used to think I) knew quite well. Speaking of which, I am fairly certain Ms. Nafisi’s students are very lucky to have her as their teacher, she seems to love books, and open them up to interpretation very well also.

As an example of the parallels previously, mentioned, here’s something about the very Lolita:

Take Lolita. This was the story of a twelve-year-old girl who had nowhere to go. Humbert had tried to turn her into his fantasy, into his dead love, and he had destroyed her. The desperate truth of Lolita’s story is not the rape of a twelve-year-old by a dirty old man but the confiscation of one individual’s life by another. We don’t know what Lolita would have become if Humbert had not engulfed her. Yet the novel, the finished work, is hopeful, beautiful even, a defense not just of beauty but of life, ordinary everyday life, all the normal pleasures that Lolita, like Yassi, was deprived of.

a comparison made even more pregnant later, by saying about “her [the author's] girls”:

Throughout, from start to finish, I observe that they have no clear image of themselves; they can only see and shape themselves through other people’s eyes-ironically, the very people they despise.

Just like Lolita is only seen through the eyes of the narrator only. We don’t know her absolutely, only reflected in Humbert’s eye. As the author put it:

“Lolita belongs to a category of victims who have no defense and are never given a chance to articulate their own story. As such, she becomes a double victim: not only her life but also her life story is taken from her. We told ourselves we were in that class to prevent ourselves from falling victim to this second crime.”

It’s this kind of passages that were my absolute favorites, making me discover new angles when it came to both books and life in Tehran.

Also, there are two other quotes that I have absolutely loved and agreed with:

We in ancient countries have our past-we obsess over the past. They, the Americans, have a dream: they feel nostalgia about the promise of the future.

While this is an absolutely novel thought for me, having never crossed my head, I can nevertheless see its truth (especially as I am not an American so I have first-hand experience of this “obsessing over the past” the author talks about).
And the one, this time about reading:

A novel is not an allegory [...]. It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don’t enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won’t be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience.

I think its pretty obvious why I like it so much :)

What I liked least: Something that is not necessarily a fault of the book’s but my own. Each of the four parts of the book takes place in a different time, without respect to the chronology. Every now and then the author recounted scenes that happened before or were to happen later, between the moment of recollection and the book being published. All this going back and forth had me confused every now and then, especially as I had no idea about the history of Iran and the order of the actual events.

Recommend it? All throughout reading it (despite my occasional getting lost in characters and events) I had the feeling it was a very well written book. A reason enough for me to recommend it :)


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Popularity: 20% [?]

Genre: Memoir Main characters: Kopek the dog and his owners Phil and Ronnie Time and place: contemporary UK Summary: Both Phil and his wife have always been animals lovers and owners. When they move into a new house they decide it’s pretty empty without a dog so they get one, despite their already having two rabbits. They don’t stop here either, later on they get another rabit, a cat and a Guinea pig. In the author’s own words, “It was starting to feel like the ark“. Unfortunately their dog died of old age and, missing a dog in their lives, they get another one, this time a puppy. Enters Kopek, and the couple’s quiet life will never be the same again. The book narrates the joys and troubles of living with a boundlessly energetic paper-lowing pillow-chewing dog (up until he’s about 18 months old, his age at the time the book has been written).

Kopek is a British Inuit, quite a large dog, playful and, despite his antics, with quite a friendly temperament. I was amused by him, of course, but I was even more interested in his “parents”. What can I say, I love animals, so I am kinda subjective when it comes to them. Which means I was bound to like the couple in the book — the author and his wife, Ronnie. I have absolutely loved them actually. They were both dedicated animals lovers and could hardly say no to an animal in need of a home (and lucky for them they did have a home large enough for that). They both appreciated all their pets and felt gratitude for the time they got to spend together — their feelings for their dog Tim after he passed away almost made me cry. Another thing I liked very much about them was that their love for animals was unbounded, completely disregarding the race (given that they had rabits, a guinea pig, a cat, a dog, almost ended up buying a goat once) — just my kind of people, as I never could understand the whole “I’m a dog person but I hate cats” thing, in my mind one either cares about all furry creatures or doesn’t, nothing in between. Oh, and they love to read! Need I say more? :)

Speaking of the author, the moment when he went to the pet store and bought a rabbit simply because it “was all on his own, with no friends to play with or keep him company” melted my heart (I know just the feeling, I have it too every now and then when I see a sad-looking pet at a pet store). Same goes for the way he got his cat, Gucci. So “aaaaaaw” :)

The book is subtitled “Causes of Indigestion for a Wolfy Puppy“, and once I started it it drew me in and had a hard time putting it down. I actually read the first a hundred-odd pages in one sitting. Here and there there are a few pictures of Kopek in various stages of his life, plus lots of events I was amused by and related to at once. Such as, for example, the first nights spent by Kopek in his new house, his howling and his owners’ desperation (but also their not wanting to give in and go to him because he might get the idea that howling will get him things). That is precisely what happened with me and my cat, and still happens every now and then actually — of course my cat is not howling but meowing loudly. Also, I was amused to find out that Kopek’s name means “dog” in Turkish — I was always fond of this quirky way of naming animals (to this day I own an old plush horse whose name is “Horse” :P )

What I liked most: I absolutely loved Ronnie’s imagination :)

Ronnie has made up for her rabbits’ lack of personality by inventing a fantasy life along with a language for her rodents. [...] In her mind, when she was out at work, she could quite happily picture her rabbits playing poker, watching the television and getting up to all sorts of mischievous things.

Not to mention the Rodent Council (“an imaginary group of animals that looked after the interests of all rodents, and according to Ronnie, they also enforced rodent law“), plus all the references to animal personalities all throughout the book (such as when Tim the dog chewed off the years of Joey the wooden rabbit the author muses that perhaps “Joey was a better poker player than him [Tim], and after losing a whole week supply of Bonios, he [Tim] took it out on his years“), and more.
There are no words to say how charmed I was by all this :)

What I liked least: The book is self published and at times it shows in the odd turns of phrase (i.e. “The other dog was fairly large, which we since learned was called Missy“), sort of understandable since the author did not have the privilege of an experienced editor. Nevertheless, these bits do not detract very much from the overall funny (and at times fuzzy) feeling of the book.

Recommend it? If you are a dog lover then it’s a must read. Even if you’re not the book is pretty funny at times plus a fast read, and I have enjoyed it despite my being a cat person (which isn’t to say I don’t like dogs, I just like cats more :) ).

See also
The author’s site (including a blog and publishing advice)
Flickr set with more pictures of Kopek (including his 1-year birthday cake I was a bit curious about :) )

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Popularity: 6% [?]

What can I say about Randy Pausch? Nothing comes to mind other than “I would so much like to be just like him”. He was a great teacher and a loving husband and father. However what I admire most about him (other than his smarts) is his optimist and his zest for life. After reading the book I watched the lecture video online and (although I knew by then what to expect) I was once again impressed (on the verge of shocked) by his words, his laughter and his jokes. As he called it himself, a huge “cognitive dissonance”: I knew him to be dying, I knew he had less than a year to live since that particular moment, and yet he was smiling, and joking, and acting like he had no care in the world (although I can only imagine how hard his situation must have been). I applaud him for that. If there’s be only one thing I’d love to learn from Randy, that would absolutely be his courage and optimism in the face of the unavoidable.

For me, this was, besides an inspirational book, also one of the coolest books ever, because I enjoyed reading about (what were for me) some really cool experiences that Randy had — at one point I was in full OMG mode: OMG, he has written an article for an actual (printed!) Encyclopedia!!! How cool, he thinks Wikipedia is as believable a source as any! And, OMG!!! He has actually met William Shatner!!!!! etc. What can I say, the guy not only had cool dreams (at least in my geeky book), but he also got to achieve most of them, which makes them doubly so (understandably enough — perhaps — this is one of my favorite parts of the book).

Not everything is OMG-ish though. Most parts are the kind that make the reader stop and reflect. Such as at the very beginning, when Randy tells us about how he thinks of his death in a practical way: he and his wife have bought a house and moved to Virginia, in order for her to have her family near after Randy will die. I can only imagine how hard it must be to go through something like that. Randy, the eternal optimist, the eternal Tigger, has jokingly managed to find at least a happy thing in his situation: at least he won’t have to go to the dentist’s anymore.

A large part of the book is filled with words of advice (what I called life lessons): in Randy’s words, things that he has done and have proven useful. The chapters are short, and usually also describe a situation in the author’s life where it (the advice in that chapter) has been useful and how/why. Perhaps this overabundance of personal details and events have made some people criticize this book for being egotistic, saying that the author is talking too much about himself (some even say he doesn’t talk at all about anything else). What these people seem to miss is that there is no better way to learn things other than first hand, through your own experiences — which is what Randy did, and now tries to share with the rest of us. In my opinion the book would be a lot drier, a lot less interesting and a lot less useful without Randy showing the practical (as opposed to the theoretical) part of his experience too.

Speaking of which, there’s another feeling I get when I read Randy’s account of his life (although he rarely mentions it, if at all): gratitude. He had wise parents that taught him to work hard, that taught him to search for his own answers rather than just waiting for them to be offered, that let him paint his room the way he saw fit. He’s been lucky to meet and work with wonderful people. He has had wonderful experiences, has met his other half, married her and fathered three beautiful children. He knows that he has been absolutely blessed in some areas and appreciates them, despite his illness. I have once read that gratitude and optimism go hand in hand — this book is a perfect example of that. And you know what? After achieving his own dreams Randy’s next step was, as he puts it, “enabling others to achieve their childhood dreams”, so that he could share that joy to as many people as possible.

Two of my (many) favorite quotes:

“Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier.”

“It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you. “

What I liked most: My most-liked moment was, by far, the one where the young Randy went to Disneyland for the first time and thought “one day I want to make something like this too!”. Why? Because I can SO relate to that. Years ago, when I was more or less the same age as Randy at Disneyland, I have “met” a computer for the very first time. My thought that evening? “Wow, I want to make something like this!” (meaning the software not the hardware, of course, as I was fascinated by the way the computer does whatever one wants it to do at the touch of a button). So you see, I can totally feel for little Randy (and rejoice for big Randy when his dream has finally come true, as I too know how important such a dream can be to a person). In a way it was like reading about myself :)

What I liked least: Understandably enough the fact that the author died. I do realize that no man lives forever and that this book wouldn’t have been written if the author wasn’t dying. And yet Mr. Pausch has been such an extraordinary man and I am very sorry that his life was cut short like that :( He made the world a better place (one word: Alice) and who knows what his living at least a few more years could have brought. Not to mention the difference it would have made for his wife and kids.

Recommend it? Well, given that I think it one of the coolest books I’ve ever read (while also filled with most useful advice), I absolutely do. Especially if you are an IT geek as I am.

Links:
Watch Randy’s last lecture
Randy Pausch’s (sort of) blog — confirming the fact that he was a complete optimist until the end; looking at his posts one sees a guy focusing a lot more of the tiny details that went right other than the rest of them, the many that went wrong
An extra chapter that didn’t make it into the book

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Popularity: 15% [?]

In my opinion, the very idea of publishing the two parts together was a great one. I know that it might have been born out of necessity, as neither of them alone could have made an actual book, being so very short, but I find it very lucky that these two were brought together and nothing more, because I think they fit very well. The first part starts with narrating the first steps of the sisters on their road to becoming published authors, including the bad reception their first books met with, moving on to the thing that seemed to sadden Charlotte the most: the fact that almost everyone (critics and readers alike) was certain that the author of Wuthering Heights was the same as Jane Eyre, namely Charlotte herself (despite Wuthering Heights being more criticized than praised, Charlotte felt this misattribution to be detracting from her sister’s own merits). Which is why I think she gladly welcome the chance to write the preface to her sister’s book, taking advantage of the situation to make things right once and for all.

I think it’s a great thing that, by reading this book, we get to find out more about the Bronte sisters. While all their works are classical pieces now, unanimously acclaimed by critics worldwide, not much is known by the average reader (such as I) about the sisters themselves. Which makes this book a little gem, as not give us a few details about the three sisters, how their lives were, how they thought, but it also has the enormous quality (in my eyes at least) of having been written back then, by one of them even (back then when they had yet to become the quaint authors we consider them today).

It is interesting to notice that none of the three sisters was learned, they never studied the art of writing. They had only their imaginations and their observations of the (limited, as they lived quite isolated) human nature around them. Speaking of which, I think it’s worth noting Charlotte’s opinion of how Wuthering Heights and its characters came to be:

Though her feeling for the people round was benevolent, intercourse with them she never sought; nor, with very few exceptions, ever experienced. And yet she know them: knew their ways, their language, their family histories; she could hear of them with interest, and talk of them with detail, minute, graphic, and accurate; but WITH them, she rarely exchanged a word. Hence it ensued that what her mind had gathered of the real concerning them, was too exclusively confined to those tragic and terrible traits of which, in listening to the secret annals of every rude vicinage, the memory is sometimes compelled to receive the impress. Her imagination, which was a spirit more sombre than sunny, more powerful than sportive, found in such traits material whence it wrought creations like Heathcliff, like Earnshaw, like Catherine.

What I liked most:
The way Charlotte talked about her sisters, making the reader feel the warmth of her sisterly love for them even though she’s not only pointing out their qualities but their faults as well.
She said about Emily:

In Emily’s nature the extremes of vigour and simplicity seemed to meet. Under an unsophisticated culture, inartificial tastes, and an unpretending outside, lay a secret power and fire that might have informed the brain and kindled the veins of a hero; but she had no worldly wisdom; her powers were unadapted to the practical business of life; she would fail to defend her most manifest rights, to consult her most legitimate advantage. An interpreter ought always to have stood between her and the world. Her will was not very flexible, and it generally opposed her interest. Her temper was magnanimous, but warm and sudden; her spirit altogether unbending.

and of Anne:

Anne’s character was milder and more subdued; she wanted the power, the fire, the originality of her sister, but was well endowed with quiet virtues of her own. Long-suffering, self-denying, reflective, and intelligent, a constitutional reserve and taciturnity placed and kept her in the shade, and covered her mind, and especially her feelings, with a sort of nun-like veil, which was rarely lifted.

And the best quote about them both:

I may sum up all by saying, that for strangers they were nothing, for superficial observers less than nothing; but for those who had known them all their lives in the intimacy of close relationship, they were genuinely good and truly great.

What I liked least:
This is not an actual fault of the book, but I was sorry to see that it was more about Emily and Anne, Charlotte ignoring to write much about herself. A natural thing given the fact that she was the author and her natural modesty, but she is my favorite of the three (quite to be expected given that she has written more books by far than her sisters combined) and I would have liked to find out more about her too.

Recommend it? According to Amazon this is “widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time”, so I’d say it’s quite a must read for any Bronte fan. Not counting the fact that it’s one of the shortest books I’ve ever read too :)

Written by the same author:
Jane Eyre

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Popularity: 4% [?]

I did not know many things about Obama at the time of my beginning this book. Now that I have finished it though I have to say that a)I admire him a lot and b)America is lucky to have him as president (I know only time will tell about the latter but that’s my opinion about it now). For starters, I think it’s wonderful that he had lived part of his life in a poor country such as Indonesia, because thus he has wider horizons than the average American. His mother taught him empathy as a child — in my opinion one of the most important traits a person can have. He loves what he does for a living and gets involved in his job. He loves listening to people and his main purpose in life is to be useful to others. What’s there about him not to like? :P

A large part of the interestingness and fun of the book stems from the fact that the Obama who wrote the book had no idea of the amazing future in store for him, of the fact that one day he was going to be the very President of the United States (a.k.a. the most powerful man in the world). See for example his thoughts when barely a member of the Illinois legislature, when he had moments of thinking he reached the top of his ladder:

I began to harbor doubts about the path I had chosen; I began feeling the way I imagine an actor or athlete must feel when, after years of commitment to a particular dream, after years of waiting tables between auditions or scratching out hits in the minor leagues, he realizes that he’s gone just about as far as talent or fortune will take him. The dream will not happen, and he now faces the choice of accepting this fact like a grownup and moving on to more sensible pursuits, or refusing the truth and ending up bitter, quarrelsome, and slightly pathetic.

Speaking of that time, it’s interesting to see how he started sort of low and how he didn’t give up but worked his way to the top:

I held press conferences to which nobody came. We signed up for the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade and were assigned the parade’s very last slot, so my ten volunteers and I found ourselves marching just a few paces ahead of the city’s sanitation trucks, waving to the few stragglers who remained on the route while workers swept up garbage and peeled green shamrock stickers off the lampposts.

I have to say that at times, throughout the book, I sort of had a sense of history in the making: while I am not necessarily a believer in predetermination, a few times I had the feeling that, somehow, Obama’s winning the race for Senate was his destiny and the destiny of the whole world too (given that his becoming a Senator was a step on his becoming President Elect, almost the most powerful man in the world, a few years later). I mean, there were times he and the people supporting him almost lost hope of winning the Senate election — and then something happened and Obama triumphed, although the odds were stacked against him until then (the Blair Hull episode for example).

What I liked most: Lots of things, so many I have trouble choosing. Obama’s sense of historical places and of the historical people that had populated them once. The fact that everything he says and every measure he suggests seems very well thought of. The visit at the Google HQ (for some completely subjective reason I cannot quite name). The way Obama talks about his mother:

Most of all, she possessed an abiding sense of wonder, a reverence for life and its precious, transitory nature that could properly be described as devotional. During the course of the day, she might come across a painting, read a line of poetry, or hear a piece of music, and I would see tears well up in her eyes. Sometimes, as I was growing up, she would wake me up in the middle of the night to have me gaze at a particularly spectacular moon, or she would have me close my eyes as we walked together at twilight to listen to the rustle of leaves. She loved to take children-any child-and sit them in her lap and tickle them or play games with them or examine their hands, tracing out the miracle of bone and tendon and skin and delighting at the truths to be found there. She saw mysteries everywhere and took joy in the sheer strangeness of life.

What I liked least: I was kinda upset by the chapter on immigration, as he speaks about immigrants this and immigrants that and oh how an important part of America were and are immigrants, and how they help the economy. The problem is that in reality it seems (to me at least) that America is doing everything it can to discourage immigration within its borders. I’m sorry to say this chapter was a bit two-faced (or that’s how I saw it anyway).
Also, the book was a wee bit too long. I loved it and found it extremely interesting, but my feelings towards it gradually evolved from “oh how I love this book” to “oh how I love this book but will it ever end??”. I’m not saying any of the topics should have been left out, as I enjoyed reading about them all (except the immigration part mentioned above), but perhaps just a few pages cut from here and there would have helped.

Recommend it? Definitely, especially now that Obama is President Elect. If you want to know what’s (hopefully) in store for America, this is the book to read.

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