This That and Whatever Comes to Mind

A storm of books

Been reading up a storm lately...between urban fantasy (my sister hooked me on Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series) and satorical fantasy (25 years of Discworld), a lot of what I've been reading is about various social and political issues:

• Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, both Pulitzer Prize recipients (an excellent book covering the many issues concerning women)
• In the Valley of Mist: Kashmir: One Family in a Changing World by Justine Hardy (anyone interested in the situation in Kashmir should give this one a try)
• The Power of Half: One Family's Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving by Kevin and Hannah Salwen (a father and daughter collaboration about their family's decision to sell their house, move into a smaller place and use half the proceeds to help those in need...communication is also a big theme of this book)
• Outcasts United: An American Town, A Refugee Team and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference by Warren St. John (the problems refugees face when they come to the States and how one woman is trying to help through soccer)
• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (a must for educators...and if you want to try to better understand why different people think in different ways)

For Christmas last year, I bought myself a Kindle...love it, but it's a dangerous weapon...so easy to just search and click! One problem I have discovered, though...you can't lend the downloaded books to friends!

Six books on the shelf (and in Kindle):

• One Day, All Children...: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way by Wendy Kopp
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: A Memoir by William Kamkwamba
• 2 Dark Hunters
• 2 Discworlds

Should keep me busy for awhile....I swear I'm not going to buy another book until I finish these six!!!!

Never seen a book?

Can you believe there are still children in the world who have never seen a children's book?

That's changing through an organization called Books for Asia...and we can help by voting for our favorite book. Just one click...a copy of the book getting the most votes will be given to each child at a school in Northern Thailand.

Spread the word....!

Bloody River....more than you might ever want to know about the Congo

Finished reading Bloody River: The Terrifying Journey Through the World's Most Dangerous County by Tim Butcher....the Democratic Republic of Congo...rather than progress, the country is regressing. Butcher is a journalist working for the Telegraph in England and decided to follow in the footsteps of Henry Stanley (of Dr. Livingston, I presume? fame) who also worked for the Telegraph. Stanley discovered Dr. Livingston in 1871 and went back to the Congo a few years later to travel along the Congo River, from one side of the country to the other. Due to his explorations, the king of Belgium decided to move in and take over the country for his own use until the government of Belgium took over administration.

Until independence in 1960, the country had cities and towns everywhere....most of them are either falling apart or non-existent in 2004, the year Butcher traveled from Lake Tanganyika at the east to Boma at the west end of the river. Dangerous doesn't really cover the situation in many areas....I found myself having to put the book down to keep from getting depressed. Full of interesting history as well as scary moments...a good read if you want to understand more about Africa in general and the Congo in particular.