Non-Fiction Readings

APLG titles. Title and Buddy chosen by Dec. 15. Book read by January 12. All blurbs are New York Times Book Review, except as noted.

The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (2009) by Jacqueline Novogratz, 304pp. The Blue Sweater is the inspiring story of a woman who left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand global poverty and find powerful new ways of tackling it. It all started back home in Virginia, with the blue sweater, a gift that quickly became her prized possession—until the day she outgrew it and gave it away to Goodwill. Eleven years later in Africa, she spotted a young boy wearing that very sweater, with her name still on the tag inside. That the sweater had made its trek all the way to Rwanda was ample evidence, she thought, of how we are all connected, how our actions—and inaction—touch people every day across the globe, people we may never know or meet. From her first stumbling efforts as a young idealist venturing forth in Africa to the creation of the trailblazing organization she runs today, Novogratz tells gripping stories with unforgettable characters—women dancing in a Nairobi slum, unwed mothers starting a bakery, courageous survivors of the Rwandan genocide, entrepreneurs building services for the poor against impossible odds. She shows, in ways both hilarious and heartbreaking, how traditional charity often fails, but how a new form of philanthropic investing called "patient capital" can help make people self-sufficient and can change millions of lives. More than just an autobiography or a how-to guide to addressing poverty, The Blue Sweater is a call to action that challenges us to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink our engagement with the world.

Outliers (2008) by Malcolm Gladwell, 309pp.
Gladwell’s latest book, “Outliers,” is a passionate argument for taking the second version of the story more seriously than we now do. “It is not the brightest who succeed,” Gladwell writes. “Nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities — and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.” He doesn’t actually tell his own life story in the book. (But he lurks offstage, since he does describe the arc of his mother’s Jamaican family.) Instead, he tells other success stories, often using the device of back-to-back narratives. He starts with a tale of individual greatness, about the Beatles or the titans of Silicon Valley or the enormously successful generation of New York Jews born in the early 20th century. Then he adds details that undercut that tale.

WHAT THE DOG SAW And Other Adventures (Nov 2009) by Malcolm Gladwell, 410 pp.
Have you ever wondered why there are so many kinds of mustard but only one kind of ketchup? Or what Cézanne did before painting his first significant works in his 50s? Have you hungered for the story behind the Veg-O-Matic, star of the frenetic late-night TV ads? Or wanted to know where Led Zeppelin got the riff in “Whole Lotta Love”? Neither had I, until I began this collection by the indefatigably curious journalist Malcolm Gladwell.

Superfreakonomics by (Oct 2009) by Levitt and Stephen Dubner, 288 pp.
“A book with mind-blowing ideas, innovative research and quality investigative journalism, it’s also a story about creativity and what it takes to get the mindset to turn conventional concepts upside down. The authors have found their stride with “SuperFreakonomics.” As good as the first “Freakonomics” was, I found this read much more enjoyable and interesting” (Wall Street Journal), and “A reasonably quick reader could finish it on a coast-to-coast flight, with time left to watch a movie. But the feeling at the end is about the same as the one after reading a Dan Brown novel or eating a bag of Cheetos. You finished the whole thing but didn't walk away feeling particularly proud of yourself. Levitt and Dubner take Gladwellism to its logical extreme: "Superfreakonomics" doesn't really have a broader argument. The authors acknowledge in the opening pages that their book has no unifying theme, beyond the banality that "people respond to incentives." So instead of offering up a bunch of quirky stories of questionable reliability to make an argument that feels coherent, they offer up contrarianism for its own sake. (Washington Post).

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2007)by Carol Dweck, 288 pp.
Mindset is "an established set of attitudes held by someone," says the Oxford American Dictionary. It turns out, however, that a set of attitudes needn't be so set, according to Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford. Dweck proposes that everyone has either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is one in which you view your talents and abilities as... well, fixed. In other words, you are who you are, your intelligence and talents are fixed, and your fate is to go through life avoiding challenge and failure. A growth mindset, on the other hand, is one in which you see yourself as fluid, a work in progress. Your fate is one of growth and opportunity. Which mindset do you possess? Dweck provides a checklist to assess yourself and shows how a particular mindset can affect all areas of your life, from business to sports and love. The good news, says Dweck, is that mindsets are not set: at any time, you can learn to use a growth mindset to achieve success and happiness. This is a serious, practical book. Dweck's overall assertion that rigid thinking benefits no one, least of all yourself, and that a change of mind is always possible, is welcome.

Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan
(Dec 2009) by Greg Mortenson , 420pp.
As “Stones Into Schools” explains, the institute has accomplished its innovative educational work without any government money. That point is crucial, since it has allowed the Montana-based institute to reach across borders with remarkable impunity. While “Three Cups of Tea” describes how Mr. Mortenson stumbled into his life’s work, which began as the building of schools for girls in remote parts of Pakistan, “Stones Into Schools” takes him into hazier geographical realms. The new book is about his organization’s expansion into Afghanistan — and into one region so inaccessible that one Afghan official isn’t sure that it doesn’t belong to neighboring Tajikistan or China instead.

The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq (2005) by John Crawford, 219pp.
As a deluge of memoirs begin to address the war in Iraq, certain constants emerge. First of all, these could wind up being the most readily chronicled military experiences in history: no other war has made blogging or photography so accessible. Never before has it been so feasible for soldiers to phone home after a tough day in-country. It's also new for them to get stuck leaving voice-mail messages for loved ones who aren't around to take their calls.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (2006) by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, 300pp.
Regardless of how the war ends, Iraq is not Vietnam. This is true not just militarily and politically but also in the reporting about the two conflicts. For many journalists who covered Vietnam and subsequently wrote books about the war, the experience could be understood only as a hallucinogenic nightmare, and they described it in gonzo prose to match. The reality of Iraq is much more frightening than a bad acid trip, but the writing about this continuing fiasco has been cleareyed and sober, and all the more powerful for it. Rajiv Chandrasekaran's ''Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone'' is a fine example.

The Mind’s Eye (2010) by Oliver Sacks, 288pp. In The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world.
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (2008) by Oliver Sacks, 425 pp. Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat. But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does–humans are a musical species. Oliver Sacks’s compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we think of our own brains, and of the human experience. In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people–from a man who is struck by lightning and suddenly inspired to become a pianist at the age of forty-two, to an entire group of children with Williams syndrome who are hypermusical from birth; from people with “amusia,” to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans, to a man whose memory spans only seven seconds–for everything but music.
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (2009) by Jon Krakauer, 440 pp.
There may be no better example of the tragic aftermath of 9/11 than the story of pro-football-player-turned-Army Ranger Pat Tillman, whose death in the wilds of Afghanistan in 2004 created a scandal of government cover-up. In this masterful work, bestselling adventure writer Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild) renders an intimate portrait of Tillman and brilliantly captures the sadness, madness and heroism of the post-9/11 world. After the attacks, Tillman, a rising football star, eschewed a $3.6 million NFL deal with the Arizona Cardinals to join the military with his brother. From the outset, Pat was elevated by politicians and pundits as a symbol of America’s resolve, a role he detested and shunned, believing his football career afforded him no special status. After a grueling three-year training with the elite Army Rangers, however, instead of fighting terrorists, he found himself first deployed to Iraq--a war he called "an imperial whim." Tillman was later redeployed to Afghanistan, where he was killed in an almost unfathomable incident of friendly fire, which the Army obfuscated for weeks while the government hailed Tillman as a hero. Drawing on interviews with family, fellow soldiers and correspondence, Krakauer’s page-turning account captures every detail--Tillman’s extraordinary character, including the “tragic virtues” that led him to give up a comfortable life and athletic stardom for the army; the harshness of military training and life; the rugged terrain of remote Afghanistan--and, of course, the ravages of war. Most critically, Krakauer, by telling Tillman's personal story and blowing apart the "cynical cover-up" that followed his killing, Krakauer lays bare the best--and worst--of America's War on Terror. (Publisher’s Weekly)

All Rise: The Remarkable Journey of Alan Page (2010) by Bill McGrane, 238 pp.
If life really is a journey, Alan Page has taken a memorable trip.He was a standout in football at Central Catholic. He was a star in the sport at Notre Dame. And he played at a Hall of Fame level as one of the members of the devastating "Purple People Eaters" defensive line for the Minnesota Vikings. But, while the new book "All Rise," by Bill McGrane, tells of "The Remarkable Journey of Alan Page," as its subtitle indicates, it is not alone about the journey that Page took from football player to Minnesota Supreme Court justice. It is about many who made the most of their talents, and about providing the opportunity for all. "I call the book 'All Rise,' the warning the bailiff shouts out to awaken the dozers when a judge enters a courtroom. I thought 'All Rise' would be a nice salute for Page's achievement-filled career," the author wrote in his introduction. "Alan frowned when I laid my cards out. 'I don't ....,' he hesitated, frowned, and then shrugged. 'I don't want a story that is just about me.'" So, McGrane spreads throughout his text tributes to other "All Risers," individuals who have made something of themselves. Some are students financially supported by the Page Education Foundation. (The Review)

IN DEFENSE OF FOOD ; an Eater’s Manifesto (2008) by Michael Pollan, 244 pp.
Goaded by “the silence of the yams,” Mr. Pollan wants to help old-fashioned edibles fight back. So he has written “In Defense of Food,” a tough, witty, cogent rebuttal to the proposition that food can be reduced to its nutritional components without the loss of something essential. “We know how to break down a kernel of corn or grain of wheat into its chemical parts, but we have no idea how to put it back together again,” he writes. In this lively, invaluable book — which grew out of an essay Mr. Pollan wrote for The New York Times Magazine, for which he is a contributing writer — he assails some of the most fundamental tenets of nutritionism: that food is simply the sum of its parts, that the effects of individual nutrients can be scientifically measured, that the primary purpose of eating is to maintain health, and that eating requires expert advice. Experts, he says, often do a better job of muddying these issues than of shedding light on them. And it serves their own purposes to create confusion. In his opinion the industry-financed branch of nutritional science is “remarkably reliable in its ability to find a health benefit in whatever food it has been commissioned to study.”

Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated into What America Eats (2008) by Steve Ettlinger, 304 pp.
If you want to explore all the unpronounceable and highly suspect ingredients we consume daily, what better starting point could you choose than that classic golden crème-filled cake reputedly capable of withstanding a nuclear holocaust? In Twinkie, Deconstructed, Steve Ettlinger sets out on just such an exploration, with mixed results. "Where does pol-y-sor-bate six-tee come from, Daddy?" This is the question that inspires Ettlinger to research every ingredient listed on the back of the Twinkie wrapper, from enriched flour right on down to Yellow Dye No. 5. Having "always wondered what those strange-sounding ingredients were" as he read food labels "purely out of habit" (though not, apparently, out of any concern about what he was pouring down the throats of his innocent progeny), Ettlinger travels to plants, mines and refineries the world over, where he witnesses all manner of centrifuging, sifting and mixing of the flammable petroleum products that eventually make their way into these snack cakes. (Washington Post)
Teaching As Leadership: The Highly Effective Teacher's Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap (2010) by Teach for America, 352 pp. For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can’t. Now, as the Obama administration offers states more than $4 billion to identify and cultivate effective teachers, Teach for America is ready to release its data. (Atlantic Monthly)
Columbine (2009) by Dave Cullen, 435pp. Although much has been written about the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, little of it has helped to explain why two high-school students went on a rampage, killing 13 people and wounding scores of others. Cullen, acclaimed expert on Columbine, offers a penetrating look at the motivation and intent of the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Drawing on interviews, police records, media coverage, and diaries and videotapes left behind by the shooters, Cullen examines the killers’ beliefs and psychological states of mind. Chilling journal entries show a progression from adolescent angst to psychopathic rage as they planned a multistage killing spree that included bombs that ultimately didn’t detonate. Cullen goes beyond detailing the planning and execution of the shootings, delving into the early lives of the killers as well. He explores the aftermath for the town of Littleton, Colorado: survivors’ stories, investigation into how the sheriff’s department mishandled the crisis, several ongoing legal issues, exploitation of the shooting by some religious groups and sensationalists, and the school’s battle to regain its identity. Cullen debunks several Columbine myths, including the goth angle and a martyrdom story of a girl who proclaimed her belief in God before she was killed. Graphic and emotionally vivid; spectacularly researched and analyzed. (Booklist)
The Longest Trip Home (2008) by John Grogan, 352pp. Grogan follows up Marley & Me with a hilarious and touching memoir of his childhood in suburban Detroit. To say my parents were devout Catholics is like saying the sun runs a little hot, he writes. It defined who they were. Grogan and his three siblings grew up in a house full of saints' effigies, attended a school run by ruler-wielding nuns and even spent family vacations at religious shrines, chapels and monasteries. Grogan defied his upbringing through each coming-of-age milestone: his first impure thoughts, which he couldn't bare to divulge at his First Confession (the priest was a family friend); his first buzz from the communion wine he chugged with his fellow altar boys; and his coming to know women in the biblical sense. As Grogan matured, his unease with Church doctrine grew, and he realized he'd never share his parents' religious zeal. Telling them he's joined the ranks of the nonpracticing Catholics, however, is much easier said than done, even in adulthood. At 30, he fell in love with a Protestant, moved in with her and then married her—a sequence of events that crushed his parents. In this tenderly told story, Grogan considers the rift between the family he's made and the family that made him—and how to bridge the two. (Publisher’s Weekly)