This book is on my shelf of "How To" books for achieving world domination.
Basically, this is simply a witty manual by one who says what needs to be said, takes accountability for saying what she says, and can hand out advice that she has learned...well-seasoned from the taste of her shoe having been in her mouth, and having been so more than once. It's like getting 20-20 hindsight without the pain. Kept me laughing, too.
As the highest ranking exec at Hearst Publishing, Black doles out advice on risk, life balance, passion, leadership, work ethic, organization skills, etc. She's like senior mentors I've never had for my current position, with advice I can take with me throughout my career. Black & I seem to view work life similarly; not that it validates me or how I do things, but it does make me feel less alien for enjoying my work as much as I do. When my ability is openly doubted based upon my years of age rather than breadth of experiences, I will think of Cathie Black's young ascension as a rare female in corporate publishing and I will think of pretty much the whole young crew who created and run Google before I rise from my chair in the Board Room, yell "Stick it, you sacred cows!" and apply for my next job.
Upon receiving a promotion, a friend asked the boss, "Do you think I'm ready?" "Of course not," he said. "If you fail, I'll just fire you; if you succeed, I'll promote you." Yes, work could be just that easy.
Probably not on most of our group's "Must Reads," it is something I recently read and enjoyed immensely.
~ Robin
Monday, January 28, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
This is cheating
because I have not read any of these books, but trust Johann's judgment. Here is his list:
Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy" : all right, it's 1,350 pages but that won't scare you: the only regret you'll have is that the book ends at all. It is a family chronicle set in post-Independence India, and deals with matters social, cultural, religious, and political close to ordinary Indian people's hearts. A must-read. Seth is a poet who lives in London, and the novel contains some poetry, very enjoyable. I have another book by him, "An Equal Music", which I didn't enjoy nearly as much.
Gita Mehta's "Raj" : a novel about a woman coming of age at a princely court in pre-Independence India. It's a work of historical fiction, very well written, in a fluent style, describing fictional characters against a factual background. It offers a fascinating view of the many, unexpected dilemmas facing India (which was never fully under the "Raj": throughout the British period, independent kingdoms remained in existence).
Amitav Ghosh's "The Glass Palace" : a three-generation family chronicle novel set in Mandalay, in present-day Burma. From a literary viewpoint less impressive than Seth's "A Suitable Boy", but equally enjoyable.
Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things" : this book won the 1997 Booker Prize, not that I am guided by such, but it IS extremely well written : a devastating story that deals mercilessly with the absurdities of India's caste system and the injustices of its institutions. The novel is largely told from the viewpoint of two siblings who remember incidents in their youth which pursue them into adulthood, and the characters - some of them as eccentric as they get - are truly masterfully portrayed. I have read the book twice over, with a short time span in between, and envy anyone who will read it for the first time.
While Ms. Roy keeps her convictions largely out of this, her first novel, she is rabidly anti-American, a fact I discovered later when I read a second book of hers, a political tract about the World Bank's funding of large dams in the Third World - a subject more deserving of cool (if negative) analysis than the pamphleteering tract she wrote on it. I threw both the second book and the author (metaphorically speaking) out of the window, but I hold on to The God of Small Things, which deals exclusively with India. Disregard the author's iniquities and read it - you won't regret it.
Indra Sinha's "The Death of Mr. Love" : a novel set in postwar and modern Britain and India, cleverly commenting on both while pursuing a detective/mystery theme. This novel is worth reading, but it left less of an impression on me.
Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss" : much-acclaimed winner of the 2006 Booker Prize. I read raving reviews of it (not necessarily a guarantee of a good book, in my experience, but there you are) and bought it... at a larrrg storrrr called Barrrderrrrs in Phoenix. I will let you know what it's like (I am now finishing "Manhunt" by James L. Swanson). Kiran Desai is the daughter of the acclaimed author Anita Desai - I have a collection of her short stories under the title "Diamond Dust". Her favorite theme is "Eastern versus Western culture" and she explores it well.
Anita Rau Badami's "The Hero's Walk" is another favorite of mine, a very moving story of a grumpy old couple in a dusty, lonely seaside town who unexpectedly get their granddaughter thrust in their lap, after the death of their estranged daughter who lived in Canada. The novel deals with pain, loss, regret, bitterness but also reconciliation and hope - it is one of the very best novels, Indian or otherwise, I have ever read, and I would never part with it. Its subject is universal, not confined to India, but its setting in an alien (to me and you) culture makes it all the more compelling. If you want to read only one book by an Indian author, let it be this one.
Hari Kunzru's "The Impressionist" is the one we found in Tucson. This book, too, deals with the absurdities of the British Raj, in its tumultuous final years, but this time the theme is explored through a tragicomic lens. Fun and riveting to read.
Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" : a well-written novel by this Bengali author, about one man's search for his identity, between his roots in India and his life in America. Not a book that leaves a lasting impression (like "The Hero's Walk") but again a universal theme set against a fascinating background. A good read.
The above is my little library of (just 10) Indian authors and (just 11) books, more impressive in quality than in quantity, but then that is my philosophy. I am fully conscious of the limitations of the above mini-reviews, because taste in books is as individual - perhaps more so - than taste in wines. I find it nearly impossible to buy books for other people - my choice on the Battle of the Bulge for John was a stroke of luck really - and other people have difficulty buying books for me. To be honest, I get it wrong myself occasionally...
Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy" : all right, it's 1,350 pages but that won't scare you: the only regret you'll have is that the book ends at all. It is a family chronicle set in post-Independence India, and deals with matters social, cultural, religious, and political close to ordinary Indian people's hearts. A must-read. Seth is a poet who lives in London, and the novel contains some poetry, very enjoyable. I have another book by him, "An Equal Music", which I didn't enjoy nearly as much.
Gita Mehta's "Raj" : a novel about a woman coming of age at a princely court in pre-Independence India. It's a work of historical fiction, very well written, in a fluent style, describing fictional characters against a factual background. It offers a fascinating view of the many, unexpected dilemmas facing India (which was never fully under the "Raj": throughout the British period, independent kingdoms remained in existence).
Amitav Ghosh's "The Glass Palace" : a three-generation family chronicle novel set in Mandalay, in present-day Burma. From a literary viewpoint less impressive than Seth's "A Suitable Boy", but equally enjoyable.
Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things" : this book won the 1997 Booker Prize, not that I am guided by such, but it IS extremely well written : a devastating story that deals mercilessly with the absurdities of India's caste system and the injustices of its institutions. The novel is largely told from the viewpoint of two siblings who remember incidents in their youth which pursue them into adulthood, and the characters - some of them as eccentric as they get - are truly masterfully portrayed. I have read the book twice over, with a short time span in between, and envy anyone who will read it for the first time.
While Ms. Roy keeps her convictions largely out of this, her first novel, she is rabidly anti-American, a fact I discovered later when I read a second book of hers, a political tract about the World Bank's funding of large dams in the Third World - a subject more deserving of cool (if negative) analysis than the pamphleteering tract she wrote on it. I threw both the second book and the author (metaphorically speaking) out of the window, but I hold on to The God of Small Things, which deals exclusively with India. Disregard the author's iniquities and read it - you won't regret it.
Indra Sinha's "The Death of Mr. Love" : a novel set in postwar and modern Britain and India, cleverly commenting on both while pursuing a detective/mystery theme. This novel is worth reading, but it left less of an impression on me.
Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss" : much-acclaimed winner of the 2006 Booker Prize. I read raving reviews of it (not necessarily a guarantee of a good book, in my experience, but there you are) and bought it... at a larrrg storrrr called Barrrderrrrs in Phoenix. I will let you know what it's like (I am now finishing "Manhunt" by James L. Swanson). Kiran Desai is the daughter of the acclaimed author Anita Desai - I have a collection of her short stories under the title "Diamond Dust". Her favorite theme is "Eastern versus Western culture" and she explores it well.
Anita Rau Badami's "The Hero's Walk" is another favorite of mine, a very moving story of a grumpy old couple in a dusty, lonely seaside town who unexpectedly get their granddaughter thrust in their lap, after the death of their estranged daughter who lived in Canada. The novel deals with pain, loss, regret, bitterness but also reconciliation and hope - it is one of the very best novels, Indian or otherwise, I have ever read, and I would never part with it. Its subject is universal, not confined to India, but its setting in an alien (to me and you) culture makes it all the more compelling. If you want to read only one book by an Indian author, let it be this one.
Hari Kunzru's "The Impressionist" is the one we found in Tucson. This book, too, deals with the absurdities of the British Raj, in its tumultuous final years, but this time the theme is explored through a tragicomic lens. Fun and riveting to read.
Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" : a well-written novel by this Bengali author, about one man's search for his identity, between his roots in India and his life in America. Not a book that leaves a lasting impression (like "The Hero's Walk") but again a universal theme set against a fascinating background. A good read.
The above is my little library of (just 10) Indian authors and (just 11) books, more impressive in quality than in quantity, but then that is my philosophy. I am fully conscious of the limitations of the above mini-reviews, because taste in books is as individual - perhaps more so - than taste in wines. I find it nearly impossible to buy books for other people - my choice on the Battle of the Bulge for John was a stroke of luck really - and other people have difficulty buying books for me. To be honest, I get it wrong myself occasionally...
Johann is a banker-type in Belgium and delightfully funny and chatty. My mother just finished "A Suitable Boy" and liked it tremendously..and she reads for the writing more than I do (I still read for the story mostly).
Olga
Friday, January 25, 2008
Just checking for a pulse...
Much as I love to read my own reviews (WHAT narcissism?), I'm really more interested to know what everyone else is reading. Surely somebody's finished SOMETHING she loved or loathed lately. Please write about it! Don't make me rely on dumb luck at the library.
Looking forward to your reviews!
~Michelle
Looking forward to your reviews!
~Michelle
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS by Khaled Hosseini
You may have noticed that I read. A lot. Books, blogs, newspapers, email, misspelled billboards, all of it. And most passes through my consciousness and back out again without leaving much of a footprint. But I just turned the last page of A Thousand Splendid Suns and now have the peculiar sensation of having been changed by this story, so I ran to my laptop to tell you about it.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is set in Afghanistan from the mid-1970s to the present and tells the intertwined stories of Mariam and Laila, whose paths intersect as a result of the destruction and upheaval generated by years of war. One sign of Hosseini's talent is that he has skillfully portrayed a woman's interior life and outer experience in two different female characters. Woven into the plot is 30 years of Afghanistan's history, culture, and political strife, explained more clearly than I have ever understood it before but without the didactic tone that usually ruins a historically-based novel. The story is about survival under oppression but even more, it's about the ways these women find sustenance and meaning that transcend their circumstances. It causes me to marvel at the strength of people who live through difficulties that I can't even imagine without a writer like Hosseini to help. It makes me think deeply about my limited understanding of what I do and don't need in order to live a meaningful life.
I'm still so wowed that I can't really do justice to this book in my description, so you'll just have to read it. It's at the library but I've decided (contrary to my policy about not buying fiction because I'll never read it twice) that I must own it. This is one book I can hardly wait to start reading again.
~Michelle
A Thousand Splendid Suns is set in Afghanistan from the mid-1970s to the present and tells the intertwined stories of Mariam and Laila, whose paths intersect as a result of the destruction and upheaval generated by years of war. One sign of Hosseini's talent is that he has skillfully portrayed a woman's interior life and outer experience in two different female characters. Woven into the plot is 30 years of Afghanistan's history, culture, and political strife, explained more clearly than I have ever understood it before but without the didactic tone that usually ruins a historically-based novel. The story is about survival under oppression but even more, it's about the ways these women find sustenance and meaning that transcend their circumstances. It causes me to marvel at the strength of people who live through difficulties that I can't even imagine without a writer like Hosseini to help. It makes me think deeply about my limited understanding of what I do and don't need in order to live a meaningful life.
I'm still so wowed that I can't really do justice to this book in my description, so you'll just have to read it. It's at the library but I've decided (contrary to my policy about not buying fiction because I'll never read it twice) that I must own it. This is one book I can hardly wait to start reading again.
~Michelle
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