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This Month's Picks
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Books and audio tapes available through Amazon.com:
Consuming
Desires : Consumption, Culture, and the Pursuit of Happiness
by Roger Rosenblatt (Editor), Jane Smiley (Editor), Bharati Mukherjee
(Editor)
Reviews
Amazon.com
This collection of essays by an all-star roster of social critics
takes a skeptical look at American and global capitalism on the eve of the
21st century. Some of the contributors, such as William Greider, are
downright pessimistic: "If the world is to save itself from
ecological disaster, the redemption cannot begin among the poor," he
writes. "Only the wealthy few--that is, nations such as ours--have
the power and the wherewithal to rescue us all from the impending
consequences of mass consumption on a global scale." Most of the
other essayists treat mass consumption as a mixed bag. Novelist Jane
Smiley, for instance, notes that consumerism fed feminism by inventing
appliances, phones, and cars--and freed women from domestic chores.
"There is much talk of the emptiness of modern life, but think of
emptying chamber pots of the accumulated waste products of seven or eight
household members every day for the rest of your life," she writes.
These pages are full of good writing and smart observations. Bill McKibben,
for example, suggests that "instead of defining ourselves by what we
buy, we define ourselves by what we throw away." Other contributors
include Alex Kotlowitz, Edward Luttwak, and Juliet Schor, as well as
editor Roger Rosenblatt. All told, Consuming Desires is an eclectic mix of
thought-provoking essays on the culture of materialism. --John J. Miller
The
Hungry Ocean : A Swordboat Captain's Journey
by Linda Greenlaw
Available in the Audio
Cassette Abridged edition (June 1999)
Reviews
Amazon.com
The term fisherwoman does not exactly roll trippingly off the tongue,
and Linda Greenlaw, the world's only female swordfish boat captain, isn't
flattered when people insist on calling her one. "I am a woman. I am
a fisherman... I am not a fisherwoman, fisherlady, or fishergirl. If
anything else, I am a thirty-seven-year-old tomboy. It's a word I have
never outgrown." Greenlaw also happens to be one of the most
successful fishermen in the Grand Banks commercial fleet, though until the
publication of Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, "nobody
cared." Greenlaw's boat, the Hannah Boden, was the sister ship to the
doomed Andrea Gail, which disappeared in the mother of all storms in 1991
and became the focus of Junger's book. The Hungry Ocean, Greenlaw's
account of a monthlong swordfishing trip over 1,000 nautical miles out to
sea, tells the story of what happens when things go right--proving, in the
process, that every successful voyage is a study in narrowly averted
disaster.
There is the weather,
the constant danger of mechanical failure, the perils of controlling five
sleep-, women-, and booze-deprived young fishermen in close quarters, not
to mention the threat of a bad fishing run: "If we don't catch fish,
we don't get paid, period. In short, there is no labor union."
Greenlaw's straightforward, uncluttered prose underscores the qualities
that make her a good captain, regardless of gender: fairness, physical and
mental endurance, obsessive attention to detail. But, ultimately, Greenlaw
proves that the love of fishing--in all of its grueling, isolating,
suspenseful glory--is a matter of the heart and blood, not the mind.
"I knew that the ocean had stories to tell me, all I needed to do was
listen." --Svenja Soldovieri
The New York
Times Book Review,
Douglas Whynott
...a beautiful
book for what it says about the love of the sea--sea fever, Greenlaw calls
it. And it is a story of triumph...
From Booklist , May
15, 1999
Originally profiled in Sebastian Junger's hugely popular The
Perfect Storm (1997), Captain Greenlaw pens her account of one
memorable fishing trip to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland aboard her ship
the Hannah Boden. Greenlaw and crew are in search of a
"slammer," one month at sea that hopefully will bring them
upwards of 60,000 pounds of very valuable fish. Probably the world's only
female swordboat captain, Greenlaw recounts the 20-hour workdays, the
frequent equipment breakdowns, and the in-fighting that eventually erupts
among her crew. Not surprisingly, her all-male crew includes some macho
types, but that's something Greenlaw uses to her advantage; her efforts
are always matched or bettered by the men, as "No self-respecting
fisherman will allow himself to be outworked by a woman." Exciting
and gritty, especially when the big fish are biting and Greenlaw is
expertly detailing the dangerous world of deep-ocean fishing. Brian
McCombie
Copyright© 1999, American Library Association. All rights reserved
The
Millionaire Next Door : The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy
by Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko
Reviews
Amazon.com
How can you
join the ranks of America's wealthy (defined as people whose net worth is
over one million dollars)? It's easy, say doctors Stanley and Danko, who
have spent the last 20 years interviewing members of this elite club: you
just have to follow seven simple rules. The first rule is, always live
well below your means. The last rule is, choose your occupation wisely.
You'll have to buy the book to find out the other five. It's only fair.
The authors' conclusions are commonsensical. But, as they point out, their
prescription often flies in the face of what we think wealthy people
should do. There are no pop stars or athletes in this book, but plenty of
wall-board manufacturers--particularly ones who take cheap, infrequent
vacations! Stanley and Danko mercilessly show how wealth takes sacrifice,
discipline, and hard work, qualities that are positively discouraged by
our high-consumption society. "You aren't what you drive,"
admonish the authors. Somewhere, Benjamin Franklin is smiling. --This
text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
Midwest Book Review
This expose of
America's rich and how they achieved their wealth and status exposes the
myth of inherited wealth and instead reveals that hard work, living below
one's means, and diligent savings are more often the creators of true
wealth. Big-spending tendencies and high-profile images are often rejected
for thrift and low profiles in this revealing and important expose. --This
text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
The Motley Fool,
Jerry Thomas
Suppose you had a chance to interview hundreds of people who had
succeeded in building wealth on a scale that placed them among the richest
people in America. What if you could get inside their heads, and find out
what they think, how they behave, and what they feel about money? Imagine
how your chances for success would improve if you could adopt the
attitudes and mindsets of those who have proven their ability to achieve
the kind of financial security that escapes nearly all of us.
Authors Thomas J.
Stanley and William D. Danko spent over a decade researching and studying
America's wealthy--those who have amassed a net worth of $1 million or
more--and encapsulated what they learned in their bestseller, The
Millionaire Next Door. The results of their surveys are profound: the
self-made millionaires they examined have values, lifestyles, and
attitudes you might not have expected.
What makes a
millionaire is not his Armani suit or his diamond pinky ring. In fact,
most self-made millionaires know the value of a dollar and shun these
superficial trappings. By modeling their behavior, you, too, can see a
marked improvement in your ability to generate wealth. --This text
refers to the hardcover edition of this title
Ethics
for the New Millennium
by Dalai Lama
Audio
Cassette Abridged edition (June 1999)
Reviews
Amazon.com
In a modern
society characterized by insensitivity to violence, ambivalence to the
suffering of others, and a high-octane profit motive, is talk of ethics
anything more than a temporary salve for our collective conscience? The
Dalai Lama thinks so. In his Ethics for the New Millennium, the
exiled leader of the Tibetan people shows how the basic concerns of all
people--happiness based in contentment, appeasement of suffering, forging
meaningful relationships--can act as the foundation for a universal
ethics.
His medicine isn't
always easy to swallow, however, for it demands of the reader more than
memorizing precepts or positing hypothetical dilemmas. The Nobel Peace
laureate invites us to recognize certain basic facts of existence, such as
the interdependence of all things, and from these to recalibrate our
hearts and minds, to approach all of our actions in their light. Nothing
short of an inner revolution will do. Basic work is required in nurturing
our innate tendencies to compassion, tolerance, and generosity. And at the
same time, "we need to think, think, think ... like a
scientist," reasoning out the best ways to act from a principle of
universal responsibility. Like a merging of the care and compassion of
Jesus, the cool rationality of the Stoics, the moral program of Ben
Franklin, and the psychology of William James, Ethics for the New
Millennium is a plea for basic goodness, a blueprint for world peace. --Brian
Bruya --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
From Booklist , June
1, 1999
Fascinated by science and technology as a boy living in isolated Tibet
and certain that such advances would improve people's lives, the Dalai
Lama was surprised to discover how prevalent feelings of isolation and
despair are in affluent and developed societies. The more acquainted he
has become with the West, the more he believes that the pursuit of
material comfort and wealth is not only immoral but also leads to neglect
of the "inner dimension," fostering emotional and societal
chaos. In his most forceful book to date, the Dalai Lama responds to this
malaise--which, along with American popular culture and computer
technology, is spreading around the world--by calling for a spiritual
revolution free of any religious trappings. Stating bluntly that it is far
more important to be a good human being than to be a religious believer,
the Dalai Lama encourages his readers to act out of concern for the
well-being of others rather than indulge "our habitual preoccupation
with self." This may sound simplistic, but there is nothing
superficial about the Dalai Lama's argument or the ethics he defines. He
possesses a deep and fluent understanding of the human psyche, and he
writes about the true meaning of spirituality with unfailing wisdom and
transcendent intelligence. His sophisticated yet commonsensical approach
to spiritual practice does not involve rule-following; rather, it demands
discipline. Learning to control negativity, the source of unethical
behavior, is a "lifelong task," the Dalai Lama cautions, so
practice compassion, share the wealth, aim for serenity, and don't worry
about Nirvana. Donna Seaman
Copyright© 1999, American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
See
Jane Win: The Rimm Report on How 1,000 Girls Became Successful Women
by Sylvia B. Rimm, Sara Rimm-Kaufman (Contributor), Ilonna Jane Rimm
(Contributor)
Amazon.com
See Jane Win is a parents' guide for turning girls into happy,
successful women. Child psychologist Sylvia Rimm, along with her
daughters--a research psychologist and a pediatric-oncology
researcher--spent three and a half years collecting data and conducting
interviews to devise the 20 basic points detailed in this book. Their
conclusions were based in large part on a detailed questionnaire completed
by over 1,400 women with successful careers in a variety of fields,
including science and technology, media, the arts, medicine, law, and
education. (Homemaking and volunteer work do receive some token attention,
but there is a clear professional bias in their definition of success.)
Their goal is to "identify the essential childhood elements that
encouraged these women to achieve fulfilling careers" in order to
alert other parents to them. In this, they achieve their aim. See Jane
Win is well organized and informative. Even if some of the advice
leans toward common sense, the combination of professional opinion and
personal experience is an effective one, animating statistics that could
otherwise be as dry as chalk dust.
In the Rimms' findings,
education emerges as the key common denominator. High academic
expectations, good study habits, strong math and science skills, and a
love of reading (no television!) are all stressed. They also encourage
parents to resist the urge to overprotect girls, and recommend fostering a
healthy love of competition in order to build self-confidence. Indeed,
self-esteem is a major underlying theme of the book. The authors discuss
in detail how to combat eating disorders, social insecurities, and the
negative image of women often portrayed in the media.
Overall, this is a
useful compendium of sound advice and enlightening case studies that
ultimately serves to underscore one vital point: Parents do make a
difference. Sugar and spice are certainly nice, but See Jane Win
offers a more substantial recipe for the raising of daughters. --Shawn
Carkonen
From Kirkus Reviews
A paint-by-the-numbers plan for raising daughters that calls for being
challenging but not too challenging, supportive but not too supportive,
and promoting a work ethic. Rimm, parenting correspondent on the Today
show and a psychology professor at the Case Western Reserve School of
Medicine, has joined with her own successful daughters (Sara, a research
psychologist; Ilonna, a pediatric oncologist) to investigate the lives of
more than 1,000 achieving women to understand how their success can be
translated to the next generation. The universe is self-selected, via ads
on the Internet, in choice publications, and by word of mouth. Respondents
were basically well-educated middle-class women who evaluated their
present lives as generally happy, both personally and professionally. The
emphasis is on women who benefited from the women's movement by choosing
careers in business, science, and politics, although nurses, homemakers,
and teachers are included. As a result of their research, the authors
offer 20 guidelines for raising daughters, and ``childhood
characteristics'' that lead to five career categories. Subsequent chapters
elaborate on the findings, offer succinct profiles of women who represent
the results of such slogans as ``Be a Coach, not a Judge,'' ``Good Little
Girls Aren't So Bad,'' and ``Parents Do Make a Difference.'' The last
chapter is devoted to the roadblocks some women have met their career
paths, including pressures from parents and peers to curtail their
ambitions. Graphs throughout compare the selected women on such qualities
as ``self-perception of sociability'' (most saw themselves as average or
less social than typical). The authors advise parents of daughters to set
high academic standards and to encourage competition and an interest in
advanced math. Intended for parents and teachers as well as the girls
themselves. Hard work and high standards are the foundation of this dry
template for guiding girls into becoming women who can successfully
combine career and family. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus
Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Book Description
Noted child psychologist Sylvia Rimm, along with her daughters, a
research psychologist and a pediatric oncology researcher, conducted an
extensive three-year survey among more than one thousand satisfied women
who have achieved success in their careers. She explored in depth these
women's childhoods, adolescences, and young adulthoods, noting what the
women had in common and culling from her findings important advice on how
parents can give their own daughters the same advantages.
Based on extensive
original research, See Jane Win provides invaluable advice for
helping girls deal with such issues as middle-school grade decline, math
anxieties, eating disorders, social and academic insecurities, feelings of
being different, self-esteem and competition, the career-family balance,
and the glass ceiling. Included are profiles of seventeen women in
disparate careers that illuminate the rewards and penalties of linear
versus delayed career patterns and show us the typical pathways for women
in specific fields, including medicine, science, law, business, education,
politics, and the arts.
Despite the many
victories of the women's movement, little girls are still given negative
messages about their potential and prospects. Dr. Rimm shows parents how
to combat those messages and give their daughters the confidence and
skills they need to follow in the footsteps of the successful women
surveyed.
Synopsis
A noted child psychologist presents the conclusions of her extensive
survey among more than 1,000 successful women, exploring what they each
had in common with their upbringing and how parents can give their own
daughters the same advantages.
A
Star Called Henry (Doyle, Roddy, Last
by Roddy Doyle (Reader)
Audio
Cassette edition
(September 1999)
"Worse than the
ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood." The
quote is from Frank McCourt's memoir of growing up impoverished in
Limerick, circa World War II. But the sentiment might just as easily have
come from the fictional lips of Henry Smart, the hero of Roddy Doyle's
remarkable novel of Dublin in the teens, A Star Called Henry. The
son of a one-legged hit man, young Henry is the third child born but the
first to live through infancy. He is also the second Henry--the first
having died, and become a star in the mind of his mother.
She held me but she
looked up at her twinkling boy. Poor me beside her, pale and red-eyed,
held together by rashes and sores. A stomach crying to be filled, bare
feet aching like an old, old man's. Me, a shocking substitute for the
little Henry who'd been too good for this world, the Henry God had wanted
for himself. Poor me.
Soon, his father has
all but abandoned the growing family, and at 9 Henry is on his own,
running wild in the streets, thieving to stay alive. Depressing as all
this sounds, Doyle has invested his narrator with such an appetite for
life, and rendered him so resolutely unsorry for himself, that it seems
almost insulting to pity him.
By the time he is 14,
Henry has become a soldier in the new Irish Republican Army and in one
long and harrowing chapter, we view the events of the Easter 1916 Uprising
from his position in the thick of it. It's not a pretty sight by any
means, as the populace is divided in its support and various factions
within the Republican Army threaten to splinter and annihilate one another
before the British even get there. When the shooting starts, Henry aims
not at the British but at the store windows across the street. "I
shot and killed all that I had been denied, all the commerce and snobbery
that had been mocking me and other hundreds of thousands behind glass and
locks, all the injustice, unfairness and shoes--while the lads took chunks
out of the military." Though the uprising is eventually crushed and
the leaders executed, Henry escapes to live--and fight--another day.
In previous books such
as The
Barrytown Trilogy, Paddy
Clarke Ha Ha Ha, and The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Doyle
has established himself as one of the premiere chroniclers of modern Irish
life. With A Star Called Henry, he works his singular magic on the
past. What's more, this is only volume one of the Last Roundup, so it
looks like we haven't seen the last of Henry Smart. And that's a very good
thing, indeed. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to the hardcover
edition of this title
