The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry

I am feeling that old tug of "ditch desire".  Ditch desire is when I deeply desire ditching my life and following my passion.  Of course that would probably mean I have to actually whittle down all my interests into my one true passion, but I digress.  Whenever I feel ditch desire settling in, I grab a book about a person who does actually ditch their life as they know it and go for the gold.  So I was drawn to this book about Kathleen Flinn who was fired from a corporate, rat-race job and decided she was going to attend Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris.  The book tackles several of my favorite themes:  travel, adventure, following your dreams, food, and love.  The book reads quickly and the story has the requisite ups and downs that come along with the uncertainty of a new life.  I enjoyed it as a nice, easy summer read.  I enjoyed Paris, My Sweet more, but this book has just the right amount of inspiration to make me believe that one day I will be able to leave it all behind and pursue whatever dreams may come my way.

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

This story reads very quickly but it's very powerful.  I completed it in less than 3 hours.  One of the great attributes of the book is that it is written in a very accessible way.  It's not a lengthy documentary with deep political histories and dry facts.  The story is told on a personal level that it is easily visualized and understood.  Sometimes I read a book and think, "If I were an educator, I would make this required reading".  This is one of those books that I would consider to be a stepping-stone towards creating global citizens. I don't need to go into too much detail about what happens. The title tells you just about everything.  At the end of the story, the question remains:  What can we do to help these young girls escape their plight?  There is so much work to be done in this arena that it feels overwhelming because this is only one story about one girl.  The knowledge that there are so many others will hopefully propel others into action. I recently have been doing some research on organizations that help girls obtain access to education so they can escape these injustices.  After reading this, I definitely want to make a commitment to supporting a reputable organization.

A Walk in the Woods

Admittedly, I haven't been on a hike since summer camp circa 1989.  So I don't really count myself as an avid hiker or nature enthusiast, although I do enjoy lazy days in a park or a short bike ride on a trail. A friend of mine is getting married in Wyoming in about two weeks and the upcoming trip has me thinking a lot about wilderness and wide-open spaces.  So I picked this book up because it came highly recommended as a great book about reconnecting with nature.  The author decides to hike the entire Appalachian Trail (some 2,000+ miles!).  The book isn't so much about hiking the trail as much as it is about awe-inspiring nature and our capability to both revere nature, yet foolishly destroy it. What I enjoyed most about the book was the plethora of historical facts woven into the story that gave you food for thought intertwined with lots of laugh out loud moments that gave the story momentum.  Only a great writer could master that skill.  I don't think I would have been able to read a completely dry fact-based documentary about the trail.  This book is a great introduction to nature writing because the story remains interesting until the very end. I highly recommend enjoying it while outside on a beautiful day.

Cloud Atlas

I have long held the belief that we are all interconnected.  I don't believe in coincidence or chance.  Cloud Atlas is a book that solidifies those beliefs for me, even though it's fiction.  It also is a book that makes me yearn to be a better writer.  How the author accomplished this is beyond me.  He takes all the risks that could lead the story astray, but he makes it work well.  Interconnected stories that span centuries can be disastrous or wonderful. This book falls into the category of the latter.  I can not fully do it justice here by attempting to explain it, but I will give it a shot.  

The book consists of six stories.  The first five stories/chapters are interrupted at some moment of climax and then the the next story/chapter begins.  Each subsequent story is back-linked to the preceding story.  For instance the first story/chapter is about an American traveling back to San Francisco via ship circa 1800s.  He is writing a journal about his experience.  The second story/chapter is about an English composer who happens upon the published journal of the American.  It even gets deeper than that because in some stories it's intimated that some characters may be re-incarnations of previous characters.  The sixth story is told in its entirety without interruption and then the remaining five chapters are the conclusions of the previous five stories, picking up right where they left off. Have I lost you yet?  It was fun to read this book and make the connections between stories.  I am still thinking about the characters and wondering if I really understood everything or if I only skimmed the surface of something deeper.  This may be a book I revisit soon.