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250. And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Fredrik Backman

Genre:  Fiction, Short Stories, Novella

97 pages, published November 1, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Bestselling author Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove and Bear Town) has written a moving, poignant short novella about the end of life transition faced by the elderly through the characters of Grandpa and his grandson Noah.

 

Quotes 

“Our teacher made us write a story about what we want to be when we’re big,” Noah tells him.

“What did you write?”

“I wrote that I wanted to concentrate on being little first.”

“That’s a very good answer.”

“Isn’t it? I would rather be old than a grown-up. All grown-ups are angry, it’s just children and old people who laugh.”

“Did you write that?”

“Yes.”

“What did your teacher say?”

“She said I hadn’t understood the task.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said she hadn’t understood my answer.”         

 

“Those who hasten to live are in a hurry to miss.”

 

“Isn’t that the best of all life’s ages, an old man thinks as he looks at his grandchild. When a boy is just big enough to know how the world works but still young enough to refuse to accept it.”

 

“You were a busy man, ” she whispers, regret filling every word because she knows she bears the same guilt.

“And now Ted is a busy man,” he says.

But the universe gave you both Noah. He’s the bridge between you. That’s why we get the chance to spoil our grandchildren, because by doing that we’re apologizing to our children.”

 

“Almost all grown adults walk around full of regret over a good-bye they wish they’d been able to go back and say better.”

 

“…this would be my greatest fear: imagination giving up before the body does. I guess I’m not alone in this. Humans are a strange breed in the way our fear of getting old seems to be even greater than our fear of dying.”

 

My Take

Having really enjoyed Fredrick Backman’s A Man Called Ove and Bear Town, I was looking forward to listening to the audio version of this short novella.  It did not disappoint.  Poignant, sweet, heartwarming, and sad.  It makes you think about how wonderful life is and how sad it will be say goodbye at the end.

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249. Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation: How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Tony Seba

Genre:  Non Fiction, Science, Business, Public Policy

291 pages, published June 16, 2014

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

In Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation, Silicon Valley Entrepreneur, Stanford Professor and Futurist Tony Seba writes about the coming disruption in energy and transportation.  With a plethora of facts and arguments, Seba sets forth his thesis that wind and solar will be the dominate form of energy within the next ten years and that electric, self driving cars will be ubiquitous.

 

Quotes 

“When the wind of change blows, some build walls, others build windmills.” – Chinese Proverb.”

 

“The solar virtuous cycle is in motion. The lower cost of solar leads to increased market adoption, and this, in turn, lowers the perceived risk and attracts more capital at a lower cost for capital. And this, in turn, lowers the cost of solar, which leads to increased market adoption, not to mention increased investment, more innovation, and even lower costs for capital. Once this virtuous cycle reaches critical mass, market growth will accelerate. Solar will become unstoppable and the incumbents will be disrupted.”

 

“The information technology revolution was not brought about only by the miniaturization of technologies. This was a transition from a supplier-centric, centralized information model to a user-centric, participatory information model.”

 

“The age of centralized, command-and-control, extraction-resource-based energy sources (oil, gas, coal and nuclear) will not end because we run out of petroleum, natural gas, coal, or uranium. It will end because these energy sources, the business models they employ, and the products that sustain them will be disrupted by superior technologies, product architectures, and business models. Compelling new technologies such as solar, wind, electric vehicles, and autonomous (self-driving) cars will disrupt and sweep away the energy industry as we know it.”

 

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

 

My Take

I saw Technology Disruption expert Tony Seba give the keynote speech for the 2018 Conference on World Affairs in Boulder, Colorado and was intrigued by his predictions (backed up by facts) that we were rapidly transitioning to solar energy, as well as electric, self driving cars because the transition is compelling from an economic point of view.  At the the Conference, Seba was well received by both the left (solar and electric cars are huge in the climate change battle) and the right (climate change will be addressed by the market, not by a big government solution).  If this topic interests you, check out his talk or, if you want to go deeper, then read this book.  He’s convinced me.  My next house will be solar and my next car is likely to be electric.

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248. Gwendy’s Button Box

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Stephen King and Richard T. Chizmar

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Novella

171 pages, published May 16, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Gwendy Peterson is your typical thirteen year old girl from the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.  It is 1974 and Gwendy is not happy with the few extra pounds she carries and has the usual young teen issues.  When the mysterious Mr. Fariss approaches her and offers her an curious button box, Gwendy reluctantly agrees to take it.  Gwendy soon discovers that the mysterious button box has powers she can only begin to imagine.

 

Quotes 

“Secrets are a problem, maybe the biggest problem of all. They weigh on the mind and take up space in the world.”

 

“I am what you might call a rambling man, and America is my beat.”

 

“Wanting to know things and do things is what the human race is all about. Exploration, Gwendy! Both the disease and the cure!”

 

“Nailed it. So okay. The media says, ‘Girls, women, you can be anything you want to be in this brave new world of equality, as long as you can still see your toes when you stand up straight.’” He has been watching me, Gwendy thinks, because I do that every day when I get to the top. She blushes. She can’t help it, but the blush is a surface thing. Below it is a kind of so-what defiance. It’s what got her going on the stairs in the first place. That and Frankie Stone.”

 

My Take

I always enjoy Stephen King books and his brief novella Gwendy’s Button Box was no exception.  Even though it is short, the engaging characters, engrossing plot and the sense of dread that hangs over the whole story hooked me in.  Recommended if you are looking for a quick, fun read.

 

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247. La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1)

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Philip Pullman

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

464 pages, published October 19, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

When Malcolm Polstead, a young teenage boy who works in his father’s inn on the banks of the river Thames, finds a secret message inquiring about a dangerous substance called Dust, his world changes in dramatic ways.  A suspicious cast of characters are all interested in a baby girl named Lyra in the care of the nuns at the nearby Abbey.  When a flood of biblical proportions is unleashed, it is up to Malcolm and his friend Alice to save Lyra and perhaps a lot more.

 

Quotes 

“This is a deep and uncomfortable paradox, which will not have escaped you; we can only defend democracy by being undemocratic. Every secret service knows this paradox.”

 

“Once we use the word spiritual, we don’t have to explain anymore, because it belongs to the Church then, and no one can question it.”

 

“the pleasure of knowing secrets was doubled by telling them”

 

“War asks many people to do unreasonable things.”

 

My Take

This is the first book that I have read by Philip Pullman (author of The Golden Compass), but it won’t be the last.  He knows how spin a compelling and captivating yarn and I was happy to be along for the ride with Malcom, Alice and Baby Lyra as they journeyed through flooded landscapes, obstacles and hazards  in Malcom’s trusty canoe named La Belle Sauvage.  An entertaining tale for readers of all ages.

 

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246. Free to Choose

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Christopher Funk

Author:  Milton and Rose Friedman

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Economics, Public Policy, Business, Politics

368 pages, published September 1980

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Free to Choose is the seminal work by Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman and his wife Rose about the power of free markets.  As economists, they write about the extent to which personal freedom has been eroded by government regulations and agencies while personal prosperity has been undermined by government spending and economic controls.  They demonstrate that the free market is the best mechanism for helping all members of society, provide examples of how the free market leads to prosperity, and argue that it can solve problems where other approaches have failed.

 

Quotes 

“When unions get higher wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced. When government pays its employees higher wages, those higher wages are at the expense of the taxpayer. But when workers get higher wages and better working conditions through the free market, when they get raises by firm competing with one another for the best workers, by workers competing with one another for the best jobs, those higher wages are at nobody’s expense. They can only come from higher productivity, greater capital investment, more widely diffused skills. The whole pie is bigger – there’s more for the worker, but there’s also more for the employer, the investor, the consumer, and even the tax collector.  That’s the way the free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people. That’s the secret of the enormous improvements in the conditions of the working person over the past two centuries.”

 

“The smaller the unit of government and the more restricted the functions assigned government, the less likely it is that its actions will reflect special interests rather than the general interest.”

 

“In the past century a myth has grown up that free market capitalism—equality of opportunity as we have interpreted that term—increases such inequalities, that it is a system under which the rich exploit the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever the free market has been permitted to operate, wherever anything approaching equality of opportunity has existed, the ordinary man has been able to attain levels of living never dreamed of before. Nowhere is the gap between rich and poor wider, nowhere are the rich richer and the poor poorer, than in those societies that do not permit the free market to operate. That is true of feudal societies like medieval Europe, India before independence, and much of modern South America, where inherited status determines position. It is equally true of centrally planned societies, like Russia or China or India since independence, where access to government determines position. It is true even where central planning was introduced, as in all three of these countries, in the name of equality.”

 

“The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.” 

 

“When the law interferes with people’s pursuit of their own values, they will try to find a way around. They will evade the law, they will break the law, or they will leave the country. Few of us believe in a moral code that justifies forcing people to give up much of what they produce to finance payments to persons they do not know for purposes they may not approve of. When the law contradicts what most people regard as moral and proper, they will break the law—whether the law is enacted in the name of a noble ideal such as equality or in the naked interest of one group at the expense of another. Only fear of punishment, not a sense of justice and morality, will lead people to obey the law.”

 

“For example, the supporters of tariffs treat it as self-evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number–for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs–jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume.”

 

“The drive for equality failed for a much more fundamental reason. It went against one of the most basic instincts of all human beings. In the words of Adam Smith, “The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition”9—and, one may add, the condition of his children and his children’s children. Smith, of course, meant by “condition” not merely material well-being, though certainly that was one component. He had a much broader concept in mind, one that included all of the values by which men judge their success—in particular the kind of social values that gave rise to the outpouring of philanthropic activities in the nineteenth century.”

 

“Nor do the spokesmen for these organizations ever explain why, if the public school system is doing such a splendid job, it needs to fear competition from nongovernmental, competitive schools or, if it isn’t, why anyone should object to its “destruction.”

 

“Believers in aristocracy and socialism share a faith in centralized rule, in rule by command rather than by voluntary cooperation.”

 

“The threat to public schools arises from their defects, not their accomplishments. In small, closely knit communities where public schools, particularly elementary schools, are now reasonably satisfactory, not even the most comprehensive voucher plan would have much effect. The public schools would remain dominant, perhaps somewhat improved by the threat of potential competition. But elsewhere, and particularly in the urban slums where the public schools are doing such a poor job, most parents would undoubtedly try to send their children to nonpublic schools.”

 

“The question that has perhaps divided students of vouchers more than any other is their likely effect on the social and economic class structure. Some have argued that the great value of the public school has been as a melting pot, in which rich and poor, native- and foreign-born, black and white have learned to live together. That image was and is largely true for small communities, but almost entirely false for large cities. There, the public school has fostered residential stratification, by tying the kind and cost of schooling to residential location. It is no accident that most of the country’s outstanding public schools are in high-income enclaves.”

 

“A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests. On the other hand, a society that puts freedom first will, as a happy by-product, end up with both greater freedom and greater equality. Though a by-product of freedom, greater equality is not an accident. A free society releases the energies and abilities of people to pursue their own objectives. It prevents some people from arbitrarily suppressing others. It does not prevent some people from achieving positions of privilege, but so long as freedom is maintained, it prevents those positions of privilege from becoming institutionalized; they are subject to continued attack by other able, ambitious people. Freedom means diversity but also mobility. It preserves the opportunity for today’s disadvantaged to become tomorrow’s privileged and, in the process, enables almost everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a fuller and richer life.”

 

“The widespread enthusiasm for reducing government taxes and other impositions is not matched by a comparable enthusiasm for eliminating government programs—except programs that benefit other people.”

 

“There is all the difference in the world, however, between two kinds of assistance through government that seem superficially similar: first, 90 percent of us agreeing to impose taxes on ourselves in order to help the bottom 10 percent, and second, 80 percent voting to impose taxes on the top 10 percent to help the bottom 10 percent—William Graham Sumner’s famous example of B and C deciding what D shall do for A.”

 

“As these remarks indicate, the Social Security program involves a transfer from the young to the old. To some extent such a transfer has occurred throughout history—the young supporting their parents, or other relatives, in old age. Indeed, in many poor countries with high infant death rates, like India, the desire to assure oneself of progeny who can provide support in old age is a major reason for high birth rates and large families. The difference between Social Security and earlier arrangements is that Social Security is compulsory and impersonal—earlier arrangements were voluntary and personal. Moral responsibility is an individual matter, not a social matter. Children helped their parents out of love or duty. They now contribute to the support of someone else’s parents out of compulsion and fear. The earlier transfers strengthened the bonds of the family; the compulsory transfers weaken them.”

 

“The ICC [Interstate Commerce Commission] illustrates what might be called the natural history of government intervention. A real or fancied evil leads to demands to do something about it. A political coalition forms consisting of sincere, high-minded reformers and equally sincere interested parties. The incompatible objectives of the members of the coalition (e.g., low prices to consumers and high prices to producers) are glossed over by fine rhetoric about “the public interest,” “fair competition,” and the like. The coalition succeeds in getting Congress (or a state legislature) to pass a law. The preamble to the law pays lip service to the rhetoric and the body of the law grants power to government officials to “do something.” The high-minded reformers experience a glow of triumph and turn their attention to new causes. The interested parties go to work to make sure that the power is used for their benefit. They generally succeed. Success breeds its problems, which are met by broadening the scope of intervention. Bureaucracy takes its toll so that even the initial special interests no longer benefit. In the end the effects are precisely the opposite of the objectives of the reformers and generally do not even achieve the objectives of the special interests. Yet the activity is so firmly established and so many vested interests are connected with it that repeal of the initial legislation is nearly inconceivable. Instead, new government legislation is called for to cope with the problems produced by the earlier legislation and a new cycle begins.”

 

My Take

I first read Free to Choose when I was in late teens at the suggestion of my father.  I also watched many of the episodes of the PBS series by the same name in which Dr. Friedman explained in easily understandable language his libertarian economic philosophy based on the virtue and power of free markets.  Both the book and the series resonated with me deeply.  When individuals have the freedom to make their own economic choices with minimal interference from the government, not only the individual, but all of society benefits.  His viewpoints  made so much sense that I was astounded by opposing views.  Since that first reading, it is clear that Dr. Friedman’s ideas have been vindicated.  In the last 40 years, capitalism and global economic freedom and trade have done more to ameliorate poverty than any government program could hope to do.  While the book is a creature of the 1970’s when it was published, the ideas are timeless and well worth consideration.

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245. Man’s Search for Meaning

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Viktor E. Frankl

Genre:  Non Fiction, Memoir, Psychology, Philosophy, History

184 pages, published 1946

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir is a classic depiction of his life and survival in a series of Nazi death camps.  Frankl lost his parents, brother, and pregnant wife to the Nazi’s, but still managed to find meaning and purpose in his life and to go on living after the end of the war.  In fact, he did more than that, developing a psychological framework called logotherapy. Logotherapy is based on the premise that human beings are motivated by a “will to meaning,” an inner pull to find a meaning in life and includes the following principles: Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones: Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life; and We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering.

 

Quotes 

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

 

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

 

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

 

“But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”

 

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

 

“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”

 

“Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.”

 

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”

 

“I do not forget any good deed done to me and I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.”

 

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how”.”

 

“Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of the their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”

 

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”

 

“The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?  No, thank you,’ he will think. ‘Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy.”

 

“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”

 

“It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.”

 

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”

 

“A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes – within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.”

 

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

 

“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

 

“I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsiblity on the West Coast.”

 

“Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.”

 

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”

 

“But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual’s value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler’s program, that is to say, ‘mercy’ killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch.”

 

My Take

At the time of Viktor Frankl’s death in 1997, his hugely influential book Man’s Search for Meaning had sold more than 10 million copies in 24 languages and the Library of Congress found it to be among the ten most influential books in America.  I was horrified by Frankl’s depiction of the Holocaust, but moved by his description of courage, dignity, and compassion among some of the men he encountered in the concentration camps.  I was also inspired by his analysis that no matter what your circumstances, you always have a choice and how we choose reflects on our humanity.

 

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244. The Child Finder

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Rene Denfeld

Genre:  Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Crime, Suspense

256 pages, published September 5, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Three years after five year old Madison Culver disappeared without a trace in a snow filled Oregon forest while her family was choosing a Christmas tree, the authorities believe she is dead.  Holding on to hope that their daughter is still alive, her parents turn to Naomi, a private investigator with a track record of finding lost and missing children who is known as The Child Finder.  Naomi understands children like Madison because she herself was once a lost girl.

 

Quotes 

“No matter how far you have run, no matter how long you have been lost, it is never too late to be found.”

 

“Fear never keeps anyone safe.”

 

“No one ever told you what to do when love went away. It was always about capturing love, and keeping love. Not about watching it walk out the door to die alone rather than in your arms.”

 

“In the years since, she had discovered the sacrament of life did not demand memory.”

 

“But he saw Naomi as the wind traveling over the field, always searching, never stopping, and never knowing that true peace is when you curl around one little piece of something. One little fern. One little frond. One person to love.”

 

“I’m afraid,” she confessed, her voice quiet.

“Of what?”

“That if the box is opened I might want and want and never be filled.” She took a breath. “That you will get tired of filling it.” She paused and spoke her deepest fear, turning to his ear. “That you will use me and throw me away.”

 

“A farm without stock, a home without children. The world here was dying.”

 

My Take

The Child Finder is a quick and compelling read that had me hooked from the get go.  The story hums along with well drawn and indelible characters.  While the subject is disturbing (kids kidnapped or disappeared), it is handled well, in a non-gratuitous manner.  Recommended.

 

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243. Bear Town

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Frederik Backman

Genre:  Fiction

432 pages, published September, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Beartown is the name of a small town in Sweden (although it could be anywhere with cold weather that is surrounded by forest) that has seen better days.  The one thing Beartown has going for it is hockey.  The sport is beloved by all, young and old, and the teenage hockey team, especially the very talented Kevin, are treated like Gods by the townspeople.  When Kevin is accused of rape by the manager’s daughter, the town rallies to his defense with a few notable exceptions.  As the case and hockey finals progress, no resident of Beartown is left unaffected.

 

Quotes 

“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that’s easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe – comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.”

 

“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”

 

“All adults have days when we feel completely drained. When we no longer know quite what we spend so much time fighting for, when reality and everyday worries overwhelm us and we wonder how much longer we’re going to be able to carry on. The wonderful thing is that we can all live through far more days like that without breaking than we think. The terrible thing is that we never know exactly how many.”

 

“You never have the sort of friends you have when you’re fifteen ever again. Even if you keep them for the rest of your life, it’s never the same as it was then.”

 

“If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway. All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway.”

 

“There are few words that are harder to explain than “loyalty.” It’s always regarded as a positive characteristic, because a lot of people would say that many of the best things people do for each other occur precisely because of loyalty. The only problem is that many of the very worst things we do to each other occur because of the same thing.”

 

“A simple truth, repeated as often as it is ignored, is that if you tell a child it can do absolutely anything, or that it can’t do anything at all, you will in all likelihood be proven right.”

 

“What an uncomfortable, terrible source of shame it is for the world that the victim is so often the one left with the most empathy for others.”

 

“She’s fifteen, above the age of consent, and he’s seventeen, but he’s still “the boy” in every conversation. She’s “the young woman”.

 

“The love a parent feels for a child is strange. There is a starting point to our love for everyone else, but not this person. This one we have always loved, we loved them before they even existed. No matter how well prepared they are, all moms and dads experience a moment of total shock, when the tidal wave of feelings first washed through them, knocking them off their feet. It’s incomprehensible because there’s nothing to compare it to. It’s like trying to describe sand between your toes or snowflakes on your tongue to someone who’s lived their whole life in a dark room. It sends the soul flying.”

 

“Bitterness can be corrosive. It can rewrite your memories as if it were scrubbing a crime scene clean, until in the end you only remember what suits you of its causes.”

 

“But sometimes that’s what it takes, a culture of silence to foster a culture of winning.”

 

“Some people say hockey is like religion, but that’s wrong. Hockey is like faith. Religion is something between you and other people; it’s full of interpretations and theories and opinions. But faith…that’s just between you and God. It’s what you feel in your chest when the referee glides out to the center circle between two players, when you hear the sticks strike each other and see the black disk fall between them. Then it’s just between you and hockey.”

 

“Humanity has many shortcomings, but none is stronger than pride.”

 

“Ignore everything else, just concentrate on the things you can change.”

 

“If you spend your whole life being someone else, who will be you?”

 

“Some of you were born with talent, some weren’t. Some of you are lucky and got everything for free, some of you got nothing. But remember, when you’re out on the ice you’re all equals. And there’s one thing you need to know: desire always beats luck.”

 

“You never stop being scared of falling from the top, because when you close your eyes you can still feel the pain from each and every step of the way up.” 

 

“Another morning comes. It always does. Time always moves at the same rate, only feelings have different speeds. Every day can mark a whole lifetime or a single heartbeat, depending on who you spend it with. ”

 

“The only thing the sport gives us are moments. But what the hell is life, Peter, apart from moments?”

 

“We love winners, even though they’re very rarely particularly likeable people. They’re almost always obsessive and selfish and inconsiderate. That doesn’t matter. We forgive them. We like them while they’re winning.”

 

“On the one hand, our entire species survived because we stuck together and cooperated, but on the other hand we developed because the strongest individuals always thrived at the expense of the weak. So we always end up arguing about where the boundaries should be drawn. How selfish are we allowed to be? How much are we obliged to care about each other?”

 

“What you create, others can destroy. Create anyway. Because in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and anyone else anyway.”

 

“One of the plainest truths about both towns and individuals is that they usually don’t turn into what we tell them to be, but what they are told they are.”

 

“There are two things that are particularly good at reminding us how old we are: children and sports.”

 

“There’s a label she used to love but which she loathes when it’s pronounced in a Beartown accent: “career woman.” Peter’s friends call her that, some in admiration and some with distaste, but no one calls Peter a “career man.” It strikes a nerve because Kira recognizes that insinuation: you have a “job” so you can provide for your family, whereas a “career” is selfish. You have one of those for your own sake.”

 

“The very worst events in life have that effect on a family: we always remember, more sharply than anything else, the last happy moments before everything fell apart.”

 

“David drives back to Björnstad. Sits in the car and cries in anger. He is ashamed. He is disgusted. With himself. For an entire hockey life he has trained a boy, loved him like a son, been loved back as a father. There is no player as loyal as Benji. No bigger heart than his. How many times has David hugged number sixteen after a game and told him that? “You are the bravest bastard I know, Benji.” The bravest bastard I know. ” And after all those hours in locker rooms, all those nights in the bus, all the conversations and blood, sweat and tears, the boy didn’t dare tell his coach his greatest secret. It’s a betrayal, David knows it’s a terrible betrayal. There is no other way to explain how much a grown man must have failed for such a warrior of a boy to make him think his coach would be less proud of him if he was gay. David hates himself for not being better than his father. For that is a son’s job.”

 

“Not a second has passed since she had children without her feeling like a bad mother. For everything. For not understanding, for being impatient, for not knowing everything, not making better packed lunches, for still wanting more out of life than just being a mother.”

 

My Take

Having previously read (and really enjoyed) A Man Called Ove, I was looking forward to another book by Swedish author Frederik Backman.  I was not disappointed by Beartown.  Backman captures the determination, angst, sense of inferiority and pathos of growing up in a small town that isn’t quite making it.  He also shows how the sport of hockey is an all consuming religion for many players.  I’ve seen a bit of this from friends whose kids are hockey players.  A compelling, easy reading book with well drawn characters and an engaging plot that I wholeheartedly recommend.

 

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242. Fahrenheight 451

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Marianne Boeke

Author:  Ray Bradbury

Genre:  Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia

175 pages, published October 1953

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

 

Summary

Ray Bradbury’s science fiction classic Fahrenheight 451 is set in a dystopian future where books are verboten because the powers that be deem them to make people unhappy.  The main character is Guy Montag, a fireman whose job is to burn books.  After a few interactions with a teenage neighbor named Clarice, Guy comes to realize that something is missing in his life.  As begins to defy society’s rules by keeping books, he becomes a hunted man.

 

Quotes 

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

 

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

 

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

 

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”

 

“There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”

 

“If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.”

 

“The books are to remind us what asses and fool we are. They’re Caeser’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, “Remember, Caeser, thou art mortal.” Most of us can’t rush around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends. The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.”

 

“It doesn’t matter what you do…so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away.”

 

“And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands? He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.”

 

My Take

I first read Fahrenheight 451 in high school.  I enjoyed it then, but think I liked it even better on the second reading more than 35 years later.  As an avid reader, it is hard for me to imagine a world without books.  They enrich my life deeply and make me think about ideas in whole new ways.  That is the point Bradbury is trying to make.  Without exposure to ideas both old and new (with books as the premier transmission form), we are destined for a life of mediocrity and banality.

 

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241. The Blue Zones of Happiness: A Blueprint for a Better Life

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Dan Buettner

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Happiness, Self Improvement, Public Policy, Health

253 pages, published October 3, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary 

Having previously explored the Blue Zones of the world (those places around the world where people live the longest lives), author and researcher Dan Buettner turns his focus to the world’s happiest places (with in-depth analysis of particular types of happiness in three different locations, Costa Rica (joy and lightheartedness), Denmark (community and purpose) and Singapore (satisfaction and accomplishment) and provides a blue print for applying lessons from these countries to improve our own communities and our lives.

 

Quotes 

“I wake up in the morning and I see that flower, with the dew on its petals, and at the way it’s folding out, and it makes me happy, she said. It’s important to focus on the things in the here and now, I think. In a month, the flower will be shriveled and you will miss its beauty if you don’t make the effort to do it now. Your life, eventually, is the same way.”

 

“knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to seven years of extra life expectancy.”

 

“Eat your vegetables, have a positive outlook, be kind to people, and smile – Kamada Nakasato, 102-y/o-female fr. Okinawa”

 

“Wine @ 5. People in all Blue Zones (even some Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly. Moderate drinkers outlive nondrinkers. The trick is to drink one to two glasses per day with friends and/or with food. And no, you can’t save up all week and have 14 drinks on Saturday.”

 

“Drink without getting drunk

Love without suffering jealousy

Eat without overindulging

Never argue

And once in a while, with great discretion, misbehave”

 

“Gratitude always comes into play; research shows that people are happier if they are grateful for the positive things in their lives, rather than worrying about what might be missing.”

 

“In places where women have achieved gender equality, for instance, men tend to be happier than women. And in places where women are still not treated equally, women are often happier than men. Other studies have shown that, despite the popular belief that nobody wants to get older, most people actually get happier after a certain age.”

 

“WHAT CAN ADD ON MORE GOOD YEARS? Robert Kane: Rather than exercising for the sake of exercising, try to make changes to your lifestyle. Ride a bicycle instead of driving. Walk to the store instead of driving. Use the stairs instead of the elevator. Build that into your lifestyle. The chances are that you will sustain that behavior for a much longer time. And the name of the game here is sustaining. These things that we try—usually after some cataclysmic event has occurred, and we now want to ward off what seems to be the more perceptible threat of dying—don’t hold up over the long haul. We find all sorts of reasons not to do it. The second thing I’d tell you is don’t take up smoking. The biggest threat to improving our lifestyles has been cigarette smoking. That trumps everything else. Once you’re a nonsmoker, I would try to get you to learn to develop a moderate lifestyle in regard to your weight to build into your daily routine enough exercise to keep you going.”

 

“And as we shall see in forthcoming chapters, purpose and love are essential ingredients in all Blue Zone recipes for longevity.”

 

My Take

As a long time student of happiness, I was interested in reading this book.  It’s approach was to focus on three geographic locations known for high happiness levels:  Costa Rica, Denmark and Singapore.  The author discusses how joy, purpose, accomplishment and community are essential aspects of happiness and then shows how these qualities are present in those countries.  Interestingly, there is a chapter that explores the happiest place in the United States:  Boulder, Colorado.  I live in Boulder and agree that it is indeed a very happy place.  There is a tremendous sense of community here and lots of natural beauty and opportunities for outdoor activities.  A quick and engrossing read.

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