April 2013 – “On a
Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson” by William Souder
Review by Irina
It is a
sincere disappointment when a worthy person, such as Rachel Carson, gets less
than a fair portrayal of her life and work. Less than fair, however, is
all that Souder delivered. The book is a laboriously exhaustive layout of
facts that at times only marginally touches on the who and the why of Rachel
Carson. But even that would be all right, if the author had not left out the
events most important in revealing her true person. As readers, we are
still in the dark about the people most dear to Carson, to whom she no less
than dedicated her life – her mother and her nephew. Souder also did not shed
any light on how easy or difficult it was for Carson to navigate passages of
being a civil servant at the Bureau of Fisheries at a time when women could
only be secretaries and clerks.
Further
breaking the mold of convention in the 40’s and 50’s, Carson did not go on to
marry and have children, but instead had a passionate friendship with Dorothy
Freeman, a woman with whom Carson remained very close until her death. Souder
carefully skirts any radical pronouncements regarding the specific nature of
the relationship between Freeman and Carson, but such political correctness on
his part takes away from the beautiful and tender feelings the two women
clearly felt for each other, as evidenced by their extensive correspondence.
Most
disappointing is that the reader’s arduous journey in reaching the account of
the writing of Silent Spring, the work Carson is, no doubt, most
remembered for, is not rewarded by a thrilling account of what would be the
book that changed forever how we perceive the nature around us. Here too Souder
gets caught in menial details and says too little of the work that did no less
than create the modern environmental movement. So, while we know more of
Carson, we are left waiting for a biography that pays homage to this woman on
par with her role and significance in shaping our society.
May / June 2013 –
“The Patriach: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy” by
David Nasaw
Review by Vivette
The
Kennedy family asked David Nasaw to write a biography about Joseph P
Kenndy. David spent six years working on the book investigating the myths
and truths about Joe Kennedy’s life and it showed in this lengthy
biography. Nasaw did not shy away from away from Joe’s shortcomings or
his achievements. Joe was a complicated man and had several careers and
relationships.
Joe
earned his millions in the stock market by doing things that we would find
unethical today. Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him as the first
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman and with that role, Joe
proceeded to make all of his practices in the stock market illegal. He
never returned to the stock market after his role as SEC chairman, because he
felt he could not make as much money with the new regulations he had
implemented. Nasaw found no proof that Joe had made his money through
bootlegging.
Joe also
played a large role in reorganizing and refinancing Hollywood industries.
While in Hollywood, he embarked on a three-year affair with the actress Gloria
Swanson. Joe loved his wife Rose, but they lived separate lives and he
had multiple affairs. It was apparent that Joe never became emotionally
involved with Gloria because he charged all of the presents he bought her to
her account. The book reveals an interesting idea that fidelity for that
era and that class was only emotional and not physical.
Joe’s
final career was being the US ambassador to Great Britain. He was a
terrible ambassador and Roosevelt started circumventing Joe to communicate with
the British. Joe felt that the war with Nazis was unnecessary and
believed in appeasing Hitler. Joe was always looking ahead and used the
opportunity as a way of connecting his children with royal and important
political figures. He wanted his oldest son Joe Jr to become President,
but he died in a plane crash. Joe transferred all of his desires for Joe
Jr to John F. Kennedy (Jack). Joe continued to advise and lecture Jack,
even after Jack became the President.
Joe
suffered a massive stroke in 1961 that left him without speech and
paralyzed. He survived three out of four of his sons. Robert and
Jack were assassinated and Joe Jr was killed in a plane crash. Kathleen,
one of five daughters, also died in a plane crash.
Nasaw brought
to life the story of complex man in an enthralling book. While the book
was long, it was enjoyable to read.
July 2013 – “Lean In:
Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” by Sheryl Sandberg
Review by Beth
This book
is not your typical leadership or work-life balance book. Sheryl Sandberg
offers personal histories and writes in a conversational style, which allowed
for it to be a quick read. I was excited to read Lean In, and it did not
disappoint.
Several
studies are cited that show men and women are not treated the same in
classrooms and work environments. And, while we can’t control those things,
several things we can control stuck with me.
Choose a partner who “Leans
In” – i.e. helps out. Life is a consistent balance and having a partner who
pitches in to work through that balance with you is the best way to accomplish
this.
Have a seat at the table – in
meetings, sit at the conference table instead of a chair along the wall. We
should all be participants and not observers in the conversation.
Don’t Leave before you Leave
– while you may be thinking about your next life event, don’t make decisions
that could affect your career prior to reaching that life event.
There was a lot
of controversy surrounding this book that someone so successful who can afford
a nanny isn’t equipped to write a work-life balance book. While I can
understand the detractors that being able to afford any type of child care you
want does make things easier, as a working mother, I can’t imagine any amount
of money that would make me not want to be home with my children as much as
possible or make me not go racing out of the office to attend one of their big
events.
August 2013 – “Some
of My Best Friends Are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America” by
Tanner Colby
Review by Noel
The book club read this book in August, so the review has
been a long time coming. That was not
because the book was bad or not worth reviewing: quite the contrary. The review took so long to write because this
book I have been living it, testing the boundaries of some of the discoveries
described and relating my daily experiences back to the author’s expressions of
life in an integrated America. On some
days I feel Tanner Colby’s words are insightful and revealing, and sometimes
the same words seem trite and obvious.
Overall, though, this book opened my eyes to the long term, abiding and
often subtle effects of racism and fear, both economic and psychological. As we are a country with a racial divide,
this book shows us that it took a lot of work to get that way.
Having very recently moved to the Southeast US from Michigan,
I am seeing a different perspective on race and how people relate to each
other. I have much beloved friends that
cover every racial “category” and I consider myself very fortunate to have
learned life lessons from people from all corners of the world. However, I am a Black Woman in the United
States. Unless raised in the most
luxurious bubble, all African Americans have had experiences that have colored
their understanding of themselves as a people and as individuals. For me personally, both the extreme, (being
addressed a racial slur while on a ski trip to Mount Brighton with my
classmates or being told by my graduate school roommate that the only reason I
was admitted to the program was because I was Black) to the benign examples
(having women secure their purses more closely as we shopped together in the
tight aisles of Holiday Market and being followed around Macy’s by a team of
undercover security staff) have made me strive to be the person who
relentlessly represents the opposite of the manifestation of the expectations
of those people who would see me and think “less.” However, so far, my experience here in
Atlanta is that race is no quiet thing swept under the rug, if you will. Here it is in your face. It is the wound where the surface is crystalline
and dusted, not sewn shut. People here
put it into your face. I would argue
that sometimes “in your face” is better.
You know where you stand, and who to stand by.
Tanner Colby strokes historical situations and current
“states of being” with a broad brush.
The author, a young, white man with a background in advertising,
explores racial issues in three areas—Zoning and Real Estate, Advertising, and
Organized Religion in the US--with illuminating results. I learned a great deal from this book. In my opinion, if the amount of time planning
and energy put into resisting integration of historically white organizations
over the years had been put into education and exposure; we would live in a
very different country.
Colby talks about the way in which multiple communities
around the nation saw the future of public school integration and absolutely
panicked over the effect of attending classes with Black children would have on
their families and neighborhoods. The
gist of this section of the book holds no news for me. My parents, children of Jim Crow and
witnesses to the day-to-day epic and complex struggle to attain basic civil
rights for all Americans, were hyper-aware of any institutional changes that
affected my brother and me, and they constantly dropped information clunking
onto our little heads growing up. I’ve
seen the segregated school my father attended in Kentucky. I had seen pictures of the “whites-only” signs
in the Ebony and Jet magazines to which my mother subscribed. I could not have been more than 5 years
old. It was not the sign itself that
made the impression, but the passion with which my mother explained what it
meant and the anger it drew out of her that made it memorable. There is a guilt that I have always had and
still carry to this day. I don’t know if
I could ever have been the little girl who attended the previously all white
school as the first Black student. I don’t know that I would have had the
strength to face that hatred. I fear
that I might have been the one to say, “It would be easier to stay where we are
and not make waves. Things aren’t so bad
here.”
Colby addresses one of my favorite issues in the second
section of his book. I am the child of
an Ad Man. My father was in the
advertising department of the Toledo Blade for 35 years. When I read Colby’s description of the
resistance-cum-awakening of the advertising industry to the power of the
African American dollar, I felt a certain pride. I know my father was right there in the thick
of it. Advertising creates, installs,
presses, and disengages the buttons of millions of Americans thousands of times
per day. Since the middle of the 19th
century advertisers have realized their power to push the consumer in the
direction of money-spending opportunities.
The industry came into its own in the 50s and 60s. It is about that time that African Americans
started acting upon the realization that we were not represented in print and
TV advertising. If the aliens had only
been receiving our broadcast signals shown up to the 50s and 60s, they would
arrive expecting Black people to silently and stealthily clean the ship upon
their landing. We didn’t exist. We were no one. We spent money on the products, but the
advertising industry avoided showing that.
To a child born in the 60s, the effect of 1970s Black-focused
advertising was profound.
Mind-blowing. Contrary to the
muggers and pimps we would happily watch on the tv shows, Black Ads (a term of
error and endearment) showed that guys could be dressed in the slickest plaid
bell bottom pants and suede vest, show up in a Chrysler Cordoba, and a lady in
a clingy polyester wrap dress would be waiting for him at the steps of her
Brooklyn row house. You knew they were
going to have a good time. I didn’t know
what that meant, I could not express the sentiment, but somehow it was better
than equality. It was power.
I’m still waiting for my father to weigh in on Colby’s
thoughts. I know that his time in the
industry did not start out as the creative collaborative experience, not unlike
the Ad people described in Colby’s book.
My father was, at times, a tool of the organization to try to tap into a
more integrated Toledo market. He has
talked of times when local businesses sent him away with the request that someone
else service their accounts. I’m certain
there are times when his pride was zapped by those interactions. There were several occasions where he had to
train and groom new employees to take over the accounts with prestigious local
businesses while he was left with smaller work.
Through internal strength, solid work ethic and support he
prevailed. He is retired now. He has never watched one episode of Mad Men.
The final topic tackled by Tanner Colby is that integration
of the church. I nearly skipped this
segment. I believe in God, but I
sometimes cannot believe the amount of faith people put in people. I grew up very involved in a United Methodist
church in Toledo. I have served in
several administrative positions within that church, including that of
assistant secretary when I was 12 years old.
This segment of the book discusses the struggles of church leaders who
chose to integrate their congregations for multiple reasons. The struggle was not just in one
direction.
Traditionally, organized religion has served more than just
spiritual needs in the Black community.
Among slaves, Christianity was weaved into and forced onto the lives of
the people of bondage as a means of control and as a way to remove all traces
of tribal affiliation. Religion became
the support and hope during the most desolate times. The bible was often the only book to which
slaves were exposed, where reading lessons were given or stolen. The church became the social support
structure and the direct line of communication, bestowing community and
affinity on a weekly basis. Religion and
worship equaled rest. During racial
strife, the church was a hiding place, a gathering place, and a place to mourn
the lost. During the struggle in the 50s
and 60s for civil rights, the churches were the means of communicating and
bolstering and encouraging revolution, peaceful and otherwise.
I understand the place of the church in the national
history. People are emotional about
their worship and want their religious experience to be in line with their
personal beliefs and comfort philosophy.
Colby describes the active and violent resistance of both the Black and White
parishes in a section of Louisiana to the integration and unification described
by Christian doctrine. The description
of visceral reactions to the presence of a Black person in a worship service in
the “White” church evokes images of unimaginable hurt, damage that has no
potential for healing. In some instances
like the one described in Colby’s book, where the church leadership ignored or
supported these reactions, I personally think religion harms as much as it
nurtures.
One of the fascinating things about this book is that it
begins by describing interactions between Colby and his friends. He talks about how he considers himself a
friend of many people who are African American, even though he has infrequently
had Black people in his home or been in theirs.
How big of a deal is this? I don’t
know. I have come to realize there are
degrees of friendship and you cannot help the people with whom you feel most
comfortable. But is it a matter of comfort, opportunity, or exposure? That is a question for each individual
reader, I suppose.
I have only become tangibly comfortable as an African
American woman in the last 10 years or so.
Before that I did often succumb to the insecurity, resentment, and
sadness that so many Black people live with because of the past. My current state of appreciation for my
culture and the history of my people is over the top. I cannot fathom how strong we must be to have
survived, and in some cases thrived, to this day.
I am not without prejudice, which is fear transposed onto
someone different. We are a product of
our environment. My parents are healing
from their experiences growing up. I
have, however, had much more exposure to other cultures for extended
conversations. That translates into much
greater opportunity to acknowledge, explore, and then embrace differences in
cultures and interpersonal relations.
Some of my best friends ARE Black.
Some are white, one is Japanese, one is Indian, and a couple of them are
guys. Some are married, some have
kids. All are different, and all make me
stronger and more solidly me.
September / October
2013 – “The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn
Bridge” by David McCullough
(Review by Ashley to
be posted later)
November 2013 –
“Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell
Review by Tina
This book challenges the general perception that some people
are just born talented in certain areas, whether it be in sports, music,
academics, or profession. Gladwell
analyzes how birthdate cut-offs for grouping young hockey players can influence
their entire trajectory in competitive hockey.
Next time you go to a major league hockey game, take a look at the
roster and notice how many players have birthdates within the first few months
of the year!
What was it our parents told us? Practice makes perfect? Well that’s no kidding. The ten thousand hour rule seems to support
the success of the Beatles, Bill Gates, and others as they practiced their
craft. Neither were overnight
sensations. The book details the work
that lead up to their success.
The aviation industry is also studied and the transformation
it went through in how it trains its pilots to communicate with each other
clearly and succinctly regardless of ethnic and cultural tendencies. It is fascinating to see the crash incidents
go down after this training in communication was put in place and still stands
today.
The book is an easy read and is quite thought provoking, as
well as a good conversation starter. I
would recommend this book as well as Malcolm Gladwell’s other books, Blink and
Tipping Point.
December 2013 –
“Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” by Susan
Cain
Review by Jessica
Makäe
Susan Cain
takes us along on her journey to explore introversion. She references
many scientific studies, from behavioral to brain-imaging, and examines several
older studies for their personality type implications. I found it
interesting to follow her path, and I came away with a much better
understanding of what introversion is, and how the brains and experiences of
introverts are different from those of extroverts.
While the scientific
data was rich, there were a few concerning points. At times her attitude
seemed to be, "Introverts are ok! Maybe even better than
extroverts!" And while she gave some tips for improving the
workplace for an introvert, she seemed to say, "Introverted kids are OK,
here's how you teach them to be extroverts."
On the whole,
it was good base information, but I wished for more 'tips and tricks' or coping
strategies or something. The scientific background was interesting, but I
don't feel like I learned many practical applications for it.
January 2014 –
“Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most” by Douglas Stone,
Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
Review by Heather
This
is a great book, which dissects how to have effective conversations on
difficult topics. I think so many of us choose to avoid difficult
conversations, because we're afraid of what we will hear from the other person.
And in the internet/social media age, people are increasingly being
confrontational online but seem to be regressing at effective in-person
communication. I liked that they
provided roadmaps for how conversations get derailed, because there is not one
magical communication method that is applicable to every circumstance.
I
will give this book five stars when I've successfully applied what I have
learned.
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