List of all Lists

Yeah you know what time it is.  9 minutes till windshield guy and craziness of a day.  So lists...I'll give you a good one:

And she said "hmmm...I'd like to read again":

So in no particular order, she picked up the following for some particular reasons.

1001 Questions to Ask Before You Get Married by Monica Mendez Leahy Read more about this book...

Pretty obvious.  And pretty funny.  We were supposed to start classes at church yesterday but, and I'm not sure if I should be concerned about this, I think someone forgot us.  We ended up with a nice dinner instead and had I been thinking I would have whipped this little puppy out for some mid week entertainment.  I mean 1001, you can imagine that there are some oddball ones in there.  Like:

"Would you attend a time-share or other sales presentation?"

Heavy stuff there.

The Hazards of Good Breeding: A Novel by Jessica Shattuck Read more about this book...

I've been to Boston.  Once.  No wait...twice. I liked it well enough. Most of the folks I went to school undergrad with were from NYC and they had this "thing" against Boston.  I don't know...I'm a Texan.  In any event, I love reading stories of "old money" and the secret lives of people so this I think will be a quick read.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire Read more about this book...

Back in grad school, I struggled through this book.  The whole po folks havin' to rise up and save themselves left me feeling...well...hopeless.  Which I guess makes it appropriate that there is a very hopeful followup to this one.  Nonetheless, going back a little wiser, a little smarter, I still can unequivocally say that it will take more than the oppressed saying "that's enough" to enact change.  Yeah, the oppressed have to realize they are oppressed, but the oppressors also have to realize there is a better way.  There is benefit to stopping the madness.

Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia Read more about this book...

Love me some Christina Garcia. And for a long time now have been fascinated with the prospect of going to Cuba sometime in my lifetime.

A Cure for Dreams by Kaye Gibbons Read more about this book...

For a hot moment there, I was all about anything southern.  Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me was another good one that kicked it all off.  But this one is about the girls, generations of them, telling stories, getting by, loving and having hearts broken.  I think I picked this one up again because as I was on one of the boards and reading profiles over at SiS, one of the questions asks for fave movie line.  One of the sisters quoted a line from the Color Purple.  Which I have seen, but never read.  I have to work up to Ms. Walker though.  Still trying to get over the Toni Morrison bad taste

Don't Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey Through the Color Complex by Marita Golden Read more about this book...

I picked this one up a while ago at Powells in Portland.  At the time, when I checked out, the cashier gave me a really good recommendation on an African American women's collective writing project.  Which I have promptly forgotten the name of.  I so wanted to get that book.  She said I would love it and I think she was likely right.  I need to research that.

Tyranny of the Majority : Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy by Lani Guinier Read more about this book...

You know I'm on this tip lately...all riled up.  On the way back from Psyche, not REALLY caucus training the other day, while I was railing against the system, my more astute better half was saying "What's the difference between a Republic and a Democracy?" And that spiraled into a conversation on how corrupt the two party system in America is because money and people (he would argue power...but power wielded by PEOPLE is what I would counter...more specifically, only a select handful of people) just went up and did it to it.  Anyhow, Fundamental Fairness has been my kick for...oh...about 3 months now.  But I'm not going there again.

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by Jeffrey Sachs Read more about this book...

Forward by Bono was actually really good.  A bit dense and academic, and anyone who knows me knows I'm not on the "relative poverty" bandwagon.  Mostly because of my own selfish background and my travels and experiences with "what is happy" and "what is enough" exposes BUT.  I get it.  Academically.  Theoretically.  Practically though...I think I've matured enough to move beyond that impasse to get through this book this time.  That or I'll just read Collapse again.

Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure by Daniel Quinn Read more about this book...

Have always been and will always be fascinated with the end of time and what is next.  Who will come and dig up who we were.  What will they be, what will they wonder?  Another one a bit academic in nature looking back at how civilizations have been built and abandoned back to a more "simple" way of living.  Here, he tries to imagine what, well, what might happen if we evolved into something bigger than civilization.  Hopefully, before we destroy what we have, but my brief stint in genetics/evolution leads me to believe that it is only because of destruction that we'd be forced to consider "what next." I'm marrying a finance geek, he's marrying a latent evolutionary believer.  I'm contradictory.  I know that.  I like it.  I like shades of gray.

Love, etc. by Julian Barnes Read more about this book...

Travel.  Love triangles. Past, present and future. Tragic, funny, awesome and awful.  So it goes. It's a novel without a very novel base.  Sometimes mindlessness is good.

Spending: A Novel by Mary Gordon Read more about this book...

Another mindless one.  Mindless for me because I LOVED the Thomas Crown Affair and this is about that.  But one step further.  When he loses it all and she gets it all and the power and attraction shifts...what happens then.  This will take me like 2 hours to read.

Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership by Read more about this book...

More from grad school.  Truth be told, the only book I read cover to cover in grad school.  Lots of branching off and it was the impetus for me even looking up, applying for, getting a spot and ultimately having to turn down the GSE South Africa trip.  I need to look one of those up again.  Out of Seattle, competition would be stiff, but I think I could manage to make it again and go somewhere absolutely amazing to do amazing things.  Man, the photos I could have had in SA...I need to get there.  I will get there.  Now that I'm "in that club" I so railed against in grad school...still trying to cope with that.

Black Beauty: A History and a Celebration by Ben Arogundade Read more about this book...

Thought this was something else for the past couple of weeks and when I picked it up and settled down today to do it to it, I was at first disappointed (think of anticipation for apple pie and ice cream and all they have is cherry pie and whipped cream...blech).  Then, I was very pleasantly surprised.  There were some things I was looking for (primarily, face shots to take in for a consultation on wedding makeup and hair) but the history in this book and the "beauty" as not just external.  Love. This.

Now I must go find the windshield guy.  Happy reading.