Surfing from blog to blog, I came across something called the 2010 Global Reading Challenge. So of course I immediately signed up, and chose the hardest level available. That’s just the way I roll.
Within 2010, I have to read two novels each from Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America (including Central America), South America and two set in Antarctica. Within these choices, fourteen different countries have to be represented.
I was the eighty-eighth person to sign up, and upon corresponding with the creator of the challenge, a blogger named Dorte, I found out that the vast majority of the participants found out about the challenge just like I did. They came to it from links from other blogs. Dorte has a partner, Kerrie, who provides technical assistance. The two have never met and are associated with each other only from the blogging world. Suitable to the spirit of the challenge, Dorte is from Denmark and Kerrie is from Australia. I find it interesting that this entire sphere of communication has developed between bloggers who write about similar topics. It is certainly its own online community.
I will of course, review the books I read for the challenge, so keep an eye out for them to appear in the near future. If you have any suggestions for new global authors, please leave a comment.
For more information about the challenge, please go here or my Examiner article on the topic.
The other week I was pleased to see an article by Fiona Smith in the Financial Review about Seth Godin’s latest book ‘Linchpin’. Seth Godin is nothing short of brilliant and has written a raft of books and has a brilliant active blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ that all offer terrific insights that are relevant for us all.
Seth has his finger on the pulse and always manages to be one step ahead of the mainstream. Whenever you read one of Seth’s posts or books you gain new insights and feel it was time well spent. Unfortunately, those who really need to be reading and up to speed with the subject matter that Seth writes about prefer to keep their heads in the sand, to the detriment of themselves and their employers. Those who tap into his research, thoughts and ideas are certainly the better for it. When it comes to HR, Recruitment and Marketing professionals, being across what Seth has to share is a must. Likewise, his books and blog are a valuable resource for all of us in our careers – particularly those looking to challenge themselves and achieve greatness.
Back to Fiona’s article that promoted this post. Fiona did a review on his latest book Linchpin, focusing on a couple of the key subjects covered in the book – risk taking and fear. Her article “How fear stops us from achieving” is focused very much on the world of work and how fear stops us from taking risks in our careers. The end result is that we don’t get where we want to on a professional level. Perhaps this could account for why so many of us don’t feel engaged or satisfied with our careers. The obvious is quoted, that the world of work has changed – no more chain of command. We have fluid and flexible work now with new jobs being created all the time. Today’s workers are operating in a world where brains, creativity, problem solving and calculated risk-taking are increasingly being rewarded. Subservience and following instructions to the tee won’t get you as far as they did in the past. As Seth so rightly states “more people are unemployed today because they followed instructions.” This is fairly major and many of us are still getting our heads around what this means and how we adapt our approach to this new world of work to remain relevant.
Seth goes on to explain fear – pointing out that “we evolved to survive because we are full of fear” and that we need to conquer our fears if we want to get ahead in our careers. What we perceive as the ‘safe’ approach in our careers is probably the most dangerous of all.
By coincidence, after just having read the article by Fiona, I picked up and flicked through the book by Dr. Suess ‘Oh, The Places You’ll Go!’ that was given to our recently born son. What struck me about the article ‘How fear stops us from achieving’ and this Dr. Seuss book was that we start life with so much potential. We are fearless and have big dreams. Our parents have big dreams for us and we ourselves believe that anything is possible when we are young. However, as we age we take fewer risks, we let fear rule our lives and can often settle for the status quo. So where do things go awry?
As Dr. Seuss writes in this inspirational book -
“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where you go.”
At what point do we let others decide our fate? When do we forget that we are the ones who decide where we go?
Dr. Suess goes on to talk about “The Waiting Place … for people just waiting.” A place where it seems many of us are stuck in our careers. Not satisfied where we are; however, not willing to take the risk to make a change, to try something new. So we remain where we are, going through the motions at work. Dr. Suess continues in the book “And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.” The book takes you on the journey of the ups and downs, overcoming fears, enforcing that we will succeed despite the challenges we will face.
FInally, Dr. Seuss ends with “Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So … get on your way.” Some of the best career advice I think you will find!
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What this is not… It is not an autobiography, or biography for that matter, of Joe Torre. Torre has, of course, given a lot of information in the putting together of this tome, but this is Verducci’s book and to pretend it is Torre’s is disingenuous. The subject matter is the period of time that Joe Torre was manager of the New York Yankees, from uncertain beginnings, through to the dominance of the late 1990s and 2000, the struggles to win a World Series post then, to the last couple of years of uncertainty and his final departure. It is life with the New York Yankees in detailed form, framed around the tumult of the steroid era, the phasing out of the old Yankee guard, and the decline of the owner they called “The Boss”.
Regular readers know how much I despise the Yankees. For me their advantage is such that when they don’t win major questions should be asked. If Joe Torre were manager of Manchester United, Real Madrid, hell, even Chelsea, his failure to win the World Series since 2000 would have resulted in his receiving of the order of the boot well before his denouement at the hands of the Cleveland Indians in 2007. The disaster in the desert, the Weaver meltdown in Miami, the comeback to end all comebacks at the hands of the Sox… all might have seen a premature end to his reign. However Joe Torre does come through his own book looking dignified, restrained and at peace with himself. It would be a surprise if he didn’t.
What this book does do is expose how a manager often has to work with one hand tied behind his back, and it is in the players he has to deal with that your admiration for him comes out. Reading about the strops of Gary Sheffield makes me wonder how a bloke like him doesn’t go insane. He had David Wells, a notorious headcase, and Randy Johnson, a man who could handle small markets but despised bigs. Then there was Carl Pavano – a man so ill-suited to being a professional athlete that even Torre can’t defend him. It was clear that this man was a thief, and yet…. Torre has to deal with the consequences of the VP of Player Operations (or whatever they call Brian Cashman) decisions and not complain too loudly.
The book gets all dewey eyed at the greats of the 1990s – the Paul O’Neills and the Bernie Williams’ and, of course, continues to facilitate the beatification of St Derek of Jeter throughout as some sort of Jesus figure. There are egos all over the place – Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, Mike Mussina – and they all weave in an out of the story. Damon’s malaise at the start of the season leading to a difficult year, A-Rod trying too hard to fit in and failing miserably, the rages in Clemens and the ill-fated comeback and Mussina? Well, as one of those quoted in the book and an obvious co-operator, Mussina throws Mariano Rivera under a pretty large bus by blaming him for losing the World Series in 2001 and blowing the Red Sox series via two blown saves in 2004. I’ll bet he’s a popular one on the reunion tours!
All throughout the character of George Steinbrenner pervades through the Yankees, and Torre had a decent relationship with him. I think if the Boss were of sound mind and body now Torre might still be there if he’d chosen to, but the sons have taken over and Torre was toast. The clear inference I got is that Torre thought he’d won despite Brian Cashman, and once the big free agent era and the numbers approach of Cashman came into effect, they stopped. No doubt Cashman will point to 2009 as his redemption, but buying up the best two pitchers on the market and nabbing the best first baseman not called Pujols, he wasn’t exactly going against his past purchasing policy. The abject failure to make use of Chamberlain and Hughes, the laughable Kei Igawa contracts etc. show his limitations. Torre, through Verducci, makes us aware, ever so gently, that he thought Cashman a fraud and a bit of a snake. There’s no pearl handled dagger on the blade, but the wound is beautifully executed – in my opinion.
Verducci can ramble – as he does on steroids – and can repeat (I was getting fed up with the amount of times that something was the last ever – such as ….little did he know that was the last play-off series win he would ever have) especially on the decline of George Steinbrenner. But this book was a really good read, excellent value at nearly 500 pages, and although I must now have read about 10 books detailing either the 2003 or 2004 Yankees / Red Sox series, I still get chills just thinking and reading about it – I will never tire and the 2004 series has to be in my top 10 sporting moments of my lifetime. How could you ever. What you get from this book is how theYankees believed they were dead when they lost Game 6. I only wish they had told me that before that Game 7. Reading about the Boone walk-off was painful, but even then the victory never resulted in a World Series so to Yankeedom, it was a failure.
Torre emerges with class from his own book. That is not a shock. What is are the anecdotes and the characters he encounters. To me Pavano and Sheffield are two that you deserve the millions to manage. Read Sheffield’s reaction when he thought that Torre preferred signing Guerrero to Sheffield and you’ll see what I mean….
Ponary diary, 1941-1943 : a bystander’s account of a mass murder New Haven : Yale University Press, c 2005 Kazimierz Sakowicz ; edited by Yitzhak Arad Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) , Lithuania , Vilnius, Sakowicz, Kazimierz, 1894-1944 , Diaries Hardcover. 1st ed. and printing. xvi, 156 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG
About sixty thousand Jews from Vilnius and surrounding townships in present-day Lithuania were murdered by the Nazis in huge pits on the outskirts of Ponary. Over a period of several years, Kazimierz Sakowicz, a Polish journalist who lived in the village of Ponary, was an eyewitness to the murder of these Jews as well as to the murders of thousands of non-Jews on an almost daily basis.
He chronicled these events in a diary that he kept at great personal risk.
Written as a simple account of what Sakowicz witnessed, the diary is devoid of personal involvement or identification with the victims. It is thus a unique document: testimony from a bystander, an “objective” observer without an emotional or a political agenda, to the extermination of the Jews of the city known as “the Jerusalem of Lithuania.”
Sakowicz did not survive the war, but much of his diary did.
Painstakingly pieced together by Rahel Margolis from scraps of paper hidden in various locations, the diary was published in Polish in 1999. It is here published in English for the first time, extensively annotated by Yitzhak Arad to guide readers through the events at Ponary.
Gerhard Roth’s slim documentary novel The Story of Darkness (115 pages, including an Afterword by Helga Schreckenberger of the University of Vermont) packs a powerful punch. It begins with Roth explaining the origins of the novel.
After having lived in the country for ten years, I moved to Vienna and into the apartment of a former fellow student of mine named Ascher. During the same time period, he committed suicide in my house on the Yugoslavian border.
Ascher is immaterial to the novel except to set the tone and to provide Roth with the apartment from which he explores the now-destroyed Jewish neighborhoods of Vienna, looking for a topic for his next novel.
I intended to write a novel about Austria, about the open insanity of the Austrian past and the hidden madness of Austria’s everyday life.
Walking through a Jewish cemetery, he settles upon the general idea of writing “the life story of an Austrian Jew who left Vienna in 1938 and returned after World War II.” Eventually, he finds such a person in Karl Berger.
It was in his little kitchen that I recorded in several notebooks what he had told me about his life. I am reproducing these notes, which I edited, without making any major changes, because I believe that Berger’s reports are so exemplary that they transcend the boundaries of documents and literature.
As scholar and co-translator Schreckenberger explains, we need to take this statement with a grain of salt. If, indeed, the work was written “truthfully” – or at least “honestly” – it was done so according to a carefully calculated aesthetic plan. Schreckenberger writes that Roth’s “preoccupation with the story and his lack of distance” made it difficult for him to find an appropriate form at first. However,
an encounter with the work of the sculptor Giacometti, who reduces the human body to tall, thin figures gave him the idea to cut his material radically. Looking at black and white photographs strengthened Roth in his resolve to limit the story to its essential message. Since the story was not simply a portrait of Berger but his entire life-story, Roth finally settled on the notion of creating a literary photo-album: ‘I wanted to structure the story as single pictures, pictures in black and white – as if taken with an amateur camera, blurry but authentic because of it. Not as classical “beautiful photography” but like a photo from a family album produced by an unskilled hand.”
Berger’s story is told in the first person, as if directly from the pages of Roth’s notebook. Here is my hyper-condensed version of Berger’s life. Born in Vienna in 1919, he flees to Slovakia (where he had relatives) immediately after the Anschluss in 1938. Shortly thereafter, Slovakia becomes part of Hitler’s territory, he returns to Vienna, witnesses Kristallnacht and emigrates to England. He tries to follow a woman to Canada by signing on as a seaman, only to be arrested after jumping ship in Canada. Returned to England, he is offered leniency if he will join the Czech exile army. Meanwhile he marries, has a daughter and is sent to fight in France after D-day. In Czechoslovakia at the war’s end, he locates his mother and sister, who survived Theresienstadt, and learns that his father was killed by the SS. Divorce and British citizenship. Stops seeing his daughter (“too painful”). In 1952, he emigrates to Israel, but lasts only a few months on a kibbutz and eventually returns to England, remarries, and moves to Scotland. (“For Israelis, leaving the country is the same as treason…”) In 1959, he returns to “repulsive” Vienna for the first time to visit his mother, but also begins to understand that he’s not really a “true” Englishman. After a brief stay in Germany, he and his family (there are eventually six children) return to Vienna. His twenty-five year old son commits suicide.
The book ends with Roth and Berger seated in Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts studying Hieronymus Bosch’s Last Judgment (perhaps a nod to Thomas Bernhard’s novel Old Masters). Appropriately, a museum guard looks on.
‘Earth is hell,’ Berger said in the quietness of the picture gallery, in which only the wooden floor squeaked, when the guard shifted his weight from one leg to the other.
Berger is no different from the people whose lives have been uprooted and set adrift in W.G. Sebald’s book The Emigrants. (Sebald’s book was first published in 1992, a year after Roth’s book. It is interesting to note that Sebald had written about two of Roth’s earlier books in 1984 and 1986.) In discussing Berger’s inability to feel comfortable anywhere after his initial exile in 1938, Schreckenberger turns to Jean Améry, a favorite of Sebald’s, for the explanation:
Améry defines “Heimat” not as a geographical place, but as a feeling of well-being and security resulting from the knowledge of being a legitimate and accepted member of a community.
Berger and the emigrants in Sebald’s book might find ways to “decode” and survive their adopted environments, but, according to Améry, “this remained an intellectual and never a spontaneous process and thus prevented the emotional feeling of security.”
(Thanks to Steve, for pointing me to this novel which is takes the opposite approach from Sebald’s work by building a novel around the concept of a photographic album without actually including any images.)
Summary: This is a story of a caterpillar’s life. The caterpillar hatches from an egg, grows through eating, and then builds a cocoon for himself. After a bit of time, he emerges as a beautiful butterfly.
Literary elements at work in the story: This is a short informational, picture book that works through the life cycle of one character, a caterpillar. It is told from the third person perspective by an omniscient narrator. It is a relatively accurate portrayal of the brief life cycle of a caterpillar, despite also being a picture book.
How does the perspective on gender/race/culture/economic/ability make a difference to the story? This is a fictional story about a male caterpillar. None of the other perspectives really pertain to this book.
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:17
Theology: Because of the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, we have a new life and a new relationship with God. We are also promised that physical death is not the end of our life. We will continue to live in and have relationship with God.
Faith Talk Questions:
What happened to the caterpillar after he went into the cocoon?
Did the caterpillar change or stay the same?
When we have Jesus in our hearts, do we change or stay the same?
Who made the caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly?
Does God make us beautiful?
How? (for older children/adolescents only)
Review prepared by Katie Todd, MDiv/MACE, Entering Cohort Fall 2005
I knew I wanted to try student blogs with my juniors after our Gatsby Facebook project was such a success, and now that I feel more confident with managing and explaining digital projects with my students. I also knew I was committed to digging deep into my Shakespeare Set Free book (which is absolutely invaluable) and building my unit from the lessons there, one of which is a log the students keep throughout their reading of the play. I’ve been doing a lot with response logs and reading journals this year, so this seemed like the perfect fit for adapting digitally.
I worked with our tech coordinator to set up blogs for each student that would be hosted on my faculty website and password-protected. Then I gave my students the following instructions, adapted from the Set Free assignment:
As we read Hamlet, you will make an entry in your log, paying attention to different aspects of the play each time. There are six options to guide your responses:
1. Comment on the significance of the scene. What would the play be like without it? What does it add, and how?
2. Ask questions about the scene: has anything caused you confusion? Ask the characters in the scene some question.
3. Quote lines from the scene that you enjoyed and comment on them.
4. Describe your reactions to a character, action or idea you confronted in the scene—be specific.
5. Talk about the relationships characters have to one another, quoting specific words or phrases to give evidence for your opinion.
6. Imagine yourself as an actor playing one of the characters in the scene. Get inside that character’s mind. Tell how the character feels about herself or himself, about other characters, about the situation of the scene.
I’ve also had them use their blogs to record their reactions to different filmed versions of particular scenes, and to make predictions about the next act or scene. Once when I was absent, I assigned them writing work and they posted it on their blogs, a paragraph addressing one of the soliloquys to be graded for 20 pts. I try to comment regularly on their entries, and I’ve given class time to have them read each other’s blogs and comment as well. Finally, I will give them a grade at the end of our unit as a major 100-pt assessment.
This blog has supplanted the dreaded reading quiz for me, and feels like such a more authentic way of really discovering whether or not they are engaging with the text. I learn so much more about each of my students from these blogs than I would from a quiz– I see their senses of humor, their preferences, their opinions and reactions, and what they truly find most important, revealing or interesting about a text. In my comments, I can offer encouragement, give gentle nudges if a student has wandered off-track, agree or disagree with one of their conclusions, or trade favorite lines, as I did tonight. I have really loved getting a peek into their minds, and it has really enriched my teaching of the play.
I’m still working on the rubric, but I envision it as a mix of this one, this one, and this one, with some tailoring. Since my Gatsby Facebook entry is consistently one of my most visited, I am trying to do more entries like this one that really talk about a specific project or lesson. I’d love to hear what you think!
The other week I was pleased to see an article by Fiona Smith in the Financial Review about Seth Godin’s latest book ‘Linchpin’. Seth Godin is nothing short of brilliant and has written a raft of books and has a brilliant active blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ that all offer terrific insights that are relevant for us all.
By coincidence, after just having read the article by Fiona, I picked up and flicked through the book by Dr. Suess ‘Oh, The Places You’ll Go!’ that was given to our recently born son. What struck me about the article ‘How fear stops us from achieving’ and this Dr. Seuss book was that we start life with so much potential. We are fearless and have big dreams. Our parents have big dreams for us and we ourselves believe that anything is possible when we are young. However, as we age we take fewer risks, we let fear rule our lives and can often settle for the status quo. So where do things go awry?
Name of Book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar