Moments: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs by Hal Buell

I let myself browse the library a few weeks ago, and I ended up coming home with a huge coffee table book of photography, Moments: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs by Hal Buell. I thought I’d browse through the award-winning photographs and then return it.

To my delight, the short summaries on the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs were fascinating as well as the photographs. In just a few days, I found myself engrossed in the stories of the photographs. I had to read it! Continue reading »

Political Reading

As I mentioned recently, I minored in “International Studies” in college. I took courses in political history, U.S. international relations, anthropology, and sociology. I also took one economics class, but I don’t recall a thing about it.  My minor was too broad, because I don’t remember very much, and it’s only been five years. I also didn’t read well.

When people started mentioning magazines they read for Weekly Geeks, I realized that I used to read The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and other political newspapers and magazines on a regular basis. Since graduation, I haven’t read them. But I greatly enjoyed political subjects: Why don’t I make time to read those things? Continue reading »

Challenges, A Personal Challenge, and a Giveaway!

Weekly Geeks this week is about Challenges.

I have been hesitant to sign up for challenges because I’m a perfectionist. While I know there are no “challenge police” coming to check that I’ve finished my reading, I can’t bring myself to say “I’ll read these books” if I don’t think I’m going to have time. (And I barely do these days.)

That said, I have signed up for a few challenges in the past two months that I’ve been blogging, I’ve started my own personal challenge (which I’d love for you to join if you want!), and I’m giving away a book in the coming weeks. Continue reading »

What is Reading? and Audiobook Review of The Book Thief

Suggested by: Thisisnotabookclub

What is reading, anyway? Novels, comics, graphic novels, manga, e-books, audiobooks — which of these is reading these days? Are they all reading? Only some of them? What are your personal qualifications for something to be “reading” — why? If something isn’t reading, why not? Does it matter? Does it impact your desire to sample a source if you find out a premise you liked the sound of is in a format you don’t consider to be reading? Share your personal definition of reading, and how you came to have that stance. Continue reading »

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

There are hundreds of book blogs reviewing The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I didn’t really read any of them before I began this book. What I did read was my cousin’s suggestion that I read it, along with some comments she had. She wrote:

It addresses orphans and hunger and family separation and Jewishness during World War II Germany. But it doesn’t bludgeon you with horror upon horror, then wallow in the pain. This is not one of those books that introduces you to characters only so you can more fully appreciate how the events of the story are the worst possible outcome for that person. It shows the beauty and triumph amidst gray life and thereby reveals the preciousness of love and relationships. Despite the subject matter, each time you put down the book you’ll feel a little warm glow in your heart.

I think she explained it wonderfully: she didn’t reveal a number of details about the plot, but she perfectly explained the emotions. I felt those same emotions as I read it. Because I didn’t know too much about The Book Thief before I read it (and most other reviews I’ve read after-the-fact reveal far too much), I was surprised and delighted by this book when I did pick it up. Continue reading »

March by Geraldine Brooks

Ignored Characters

As I mentioned, to my surprise, I loved rereading Little Women. I think I liked it more now than when I first read it as a teenager, simply because the goody-goody characters were refreshing to me after the novels and the nonfiction books I’ve been reading. I related to the girls.

Author Geraldine Brooks read Little Women the first time when she was ten. When her mother recommended it, she said to take it with a grain of salt: “Nobody in real life is such a goody-goody as that Marmee” (Afterword, page 354). With that concept was born Brooks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, March.

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Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a young adult novel (other than Harry Potter, which doesn’t count), so when I picked up Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women this week, I was at first taken aback by the rosy, generic moral lessons within it. As I began, I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it, since it’s a reread for me. Besides, I had this idea that I’d outgrown it. I was wrong. Continue reading »

Kissinger by Walter Isaacson

Real Politics

Recently, I’ve been watching The West Wing, which aired on NBC from 1999 to 2006. We’re currently watching season 5 of 7. This television show follows the eight White House years of Democratic President Jed Bartlet and his staff. Of course, being a television drama, President Bartlet has an incredibly interesting presidency (the details of which I won’t divulge in case you are intrigued and care to watch the show).

The most intriguing part of this show is watching and learning about political processes. I don’t know how accurate the portrayals are of the West Wing, White House, and Congressional debates, working situations, and characters. But with each episode, I wonder what the real political situation is for the subject.

Because I have been so absorbed by this fictional political situation, I decided to read about the real thing. I really enjoyed reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Einstein a few months ago, and I was eager to read another of Issacson’s biographies—this time a biography of Henry A. Kissinger, national security adviser to Nixon and later Secretary of State to Nixon and Ford.

I’ll begin my review by saying that I don’t recommend this book, although I am glad I read it. (Does that make sense?)

It’s not that Isaacson did a poor job. In fact, I think his analysis and portrayal of Kissinger is incredibly well researched and thorough. He does a great job of avoiding his own commentary and opinion. The problem is that Henry A. Kissinger was a man without morals. He was not a likeable man for me. Continue reading »

Einstein by Walter Isaacson

The Mind of a Genius

Even at his death, Albert Einstein was regarded as someone with an incredible brain: the pathologist performing the autopsy decided, without asking permission, to embalm Einstein’s brain. For years, he kept the brain and drove around the United States touring with it. A few studies were done on the brain to try to determine what made Einstein a genius, but little has been proven scientifically. Eventually, in the late 1990s, Einstein’s brain was returned to the Einstein family (see Epilogue, pages 544-551).

In reading Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, I’ve likewise been intrigued by Einstein’s genius. Why is it we equate “Einstein” with “genius”? What made him so smart? It seems clear to me that, as Isaacson opines in his conclusion, Einstein’s genius was in his mind and not necessarily his brain.

Continue reading »