Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson

Read April 2021 - Well Read Book Club

What a powerful book.  So hard to read (for the content) but so important to read.  This book connected so many dots for me under the thesis of caste.  The US having a caste system sine our very beginning makes sense.  Whiteness is the thing that must be preserved at all costs (in this thesis) including if it goes against personal interests (economic, health, etc).  There have been three caste systems in world history - India (ongoing), US (ongoing) and Nazism (12 years).  Horrifying.  As mentioned in the book, this statement got me... Africans say they don't 'become black' until they come to the United States.  Everywhere else they are Nigerian, Ghanan, etc.  But 'black' in the US is the bottom rung no matter what else exists.  Also, Europeans become 'white' in the US - so can be a way to 'rise up'.  Wow.  So much.  Such an important book.  I also note that it is so important to read this book all the way to the very end.  There is so much horror in the book but at the end the author helps us by providing us with tangible ways of moving forward... things we can actually do.  To read the book and not get to that part would leave you with a weight far too heavy.  

The Prodigal Summer

The Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Read April 2021 - Zoom Reading Circle

Okay, so who knew this book would be like ecology porn??  How very strange!  I'll admit I was a bit startled by how much sex was in this book - I did not expect that!  I suppose it was partly making a point about how all species are basically the same - procreate, eat, survive, die.  I kept at this book even though in other circumstances I probably would have stopped.  I also disliked most of the characters.  However, by about ⅔ through I was more into the stories and interested in outcomes.  By the end of the book I even sort of enjoyed the story and liked the characters a bit more.  But I still had several 'ewwww' moments (like Lusa and her nephew???).  Overall it was an interesting book - and it has left an impression on me about living things - cycles, interconnectedness, predators, etc.  It was just kind of a strange book.  

Quote from the book...

Everything alive is connected to every other thing by fine, invisible threads.  Things you don't see can help you plenty, and things you try to control will often rear back and bite you, and that's the moral of the story. 

A Walk in the Woods

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson

Read April 2021 - Zoom Reading Circle

This book had true 'laugh out loud' parts.  It was hard to read when I was holding a sleeping baby!  :D  I truly enjoyed this book although I have a sneaking suspicion I might get annoyed with the author in real life.  Some of the people he mocks really remind me of myself!!  :)  I enjoyed the relationship between him and Katz and was fascinated by both their adventures and experiences alone the trail and the historic and scientific background information.  I would be interested in a follow up on more recent times about the trail, forest service, national parks and etc.  So in some ways it did feel dated (written in 1998).  One interesting note - since I read this book the same month as The Prodigal Summer, all the talk about the chestnut trees and the horrible blight that killed them definitely connected those two reads.  I really wish I could have seen those magnificent trees.  And this book adds to the grave concern about climate change, extinction of species, and mismanagement of lands and nature.  

Quote from the book...

In America, alas, beauty has become something you drive to, and nature and either/or proposition - either you ruthlessly subjugate it, as at Tocks Dam and a million other places, or you deify it, treat it as something holy and remote, a thing apart, as along the Appalachian Trail.  Seldom would it occur to anyone on either side that people and nature could coexist to their mutual benefit - that, say, a more graceful bridge across the Delaware river might actually set off the grandeur around it, or that the AT might be more interesting and rewarding if it wasn't all wilderness, if from time to time it purposely took you past grazing cows and tilled fields. 

Reader's Digest interviews Bill Bryson - A Walk in the Woods

A Walk in the Woods - official movie trailer

A Walk in the Woods - Hike with the cast featurette

The Book of Lost and Found

The Book of Lost and Found by Lucy Foley

Read April 2021

I really did enjoy this story.  It is different from other books by Lucy Foley in that it is more historical fiction than hard core mystery.  Following the deaths of her mother and grandmother, Kate discovers a portrait that greatly resembles her mother and she sets out to discover all she can about the woman in the portrait.  The story is told from through different characters voices across decades from the 1920's to current days.  Much of the story takes place in Corsica and the author truly brings that locale to life with vivid imagery.  The last part of the book, I will admit, felt a bit like a whole other book that tacked on and then sprinted through.  But overall the book was quite engaging. 

Quote from the book...

"That view, out there, it's the same as it has been for centuries, perhaps even millennia, give or take a couple of the boats.  When you are confronted with the permanence of other things in that way way..." he paused.  "Well, it heightens the sense of ones own short span here."

(Reminds me of how I feel in Wyoming.) 

The Keeper of Lost Things

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

Read March 2021

The book begins with a box almost falling off a train seat but being caught by a man who takes it home and carefully catalogues it - placing it in a huge room of other 'lost things'.  We get some of his story and then the book turns to the young woman he leaves everything to - who he also entreats to return all the lost items to their owners.  It was a good story and is one of those books that I like even better now thinking back than when I first read it!  ha!  

Quote from the book - 

At the bottom of the tree, she was tiny and the tree was an invincible giant.  At the top, the tree was still huge, but tiny though she was, she had climbed it.  

The World According to Mister Rogers

The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers

Read March 2021 - Zoom Reading Circle

This book is simply a collection of quotes and stories of Mister Rogers.  Simple yet profound wisdom.  I do love Mister Rogers so much and so very much enjoyed the book.  What is not to like?  It is a lovely little pocket book or a small coffee table book and would make a very nice gift. 

The Best of Mister Rogers - Charlie Rose Interview

Fred Rogers Acceptance Speech - Emmy Awards 1997

What Unites Us

What Unites Us by Dan Rather
Read March 2021 - Zoom Reading Circle

Wonderful and timely book!  I appreciate Dan Rather's thoughtful take on patriotism and what it truly entails.  Not all the gunk that tries to pass for patriotism far too often.  He covers topics such as Service (he believes everyone should have a period of some kind of public service), Public Education, Inclusion and more.  His history - as a journalist, his upbringing, and his longevity in the midst of American history - provides him with good insight.  I wish all would read this book.  

Patriotism, he says, is loving your country and dialoguing with your fellow citizens to improve it. Nationalism is the belief that we are better than everyone else and leads to conflict and war.  Patriotism is rooted in humility.  Nationalism is rooted in arrogance.  

Good points all!

What unites Americans regardless of political belief - PBS Newshour

What unites Americans?  We took a road trip to find out - Bloomberg Quicktake

Ahead of election day, what unites Americans? - Bloomberg QuickTake

Dan Rather - What Unites Us?

Trouble I've Seen

Trouble I've Seen by Drew G.I. Hart

Read March 2021

Drew G.I. Hart is a young black pastor who shares insight about racism in our country and in the church.  He shares his own experiences - and those of others - and offers ways the white American church can and should examine ourselves in order to move forward in positive ways.  We have to be aware of systemic racism through the eyes of those who experience it - and not just through our own personal lens.  We cannot know or understand what minorities go through because our lives just are different.  It is also not the way of Jesus to continue the hierarchies that have long been established that keep others down.  We must be part of the solution - actively.  I highly recommend this book. 

Quote from the book - 

Those who violently colonized you ought not set the standard of what is proper and respectable. (p. 135) 

Systemic Racism - the Unscripted Series