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53. Boomsday

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   JL Collins

Author:   Christopher Buckley

Genre:  Fiction, Satire

336 pages, published April 2, 2007

Reading Format:  Book

Summary 

Outraged over the mounting Social Security debt, Cassandra Devine, a charismatic 29-year-old blogger and member of Generation Whatever, incites massive cultural warfare when she politely suggests that Baby Boomers be given government incentives to kill themselves by age 75.  Her modest proposal catches fire with millions of citizens, chief among them an ambitious senator seeking the presidency.  With the help of Washington’s greatest spin doctor, the blogger and the politician try to ride the issue of euthanasia for Boomers (called “transitioning”) all the way to the White House, over the objections of the Religious Right, and of course, the Baby Boomers, who are deeply offended by demonstrations on the golf courses of their retirement resorts.

 

Quotes

“My, my, my, how very different are the workings of government from what we all read about in books as children.  I wonder, do the Founders weep in heaven?”

 

“Had he merely dreamed a beautiful dream, or had a United States senator just gone on television to advocate mass suicide as a means of dealing with the deficit?”

 

“a blue blood in a red meat business”

 

“like the milk ads, only they’re drinking poison”

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49. Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Rolf Potts

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Travel

205 pages, published December 24, 2002

Reading Format:  Book

Summary 

Vagabonding is about taking time off from your normal life, from six weeks to four months to two years, to discover and experience the world on your own terms.   In this handbook, veteran travel writer Rolf Potts explains how anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel.   Subjects he covers include:   determining your destination, paying for your travel time, adjusting to life on the road, working and volunteering overseas, handling travel adversities and re-assimilating back into ordinary life.

 

Quotes

“The more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that were too poor to buy your freedom.” 

 

“For all the amazing experiences that await you in distant lands, the meaningful part of travel always starts at home, with the personal investment in the wonders to come.”

 

“Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we sense them.  The least we can do is try to be there.”  Quoting Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.”

 

“Thus, the question of how and when to start vagabonding is not really a question at all. Vagabonding starts now.  Even if the practical reality of travel is still months or years away, vagabonding begins the moment you stop making excuses, start saving money, and begin to look at maps with the narcotic tingle of possibility.  From here, the reality of vagabonding comes into sharper focus as you adjust your worldview and begin to embrace the exhilarating uncertainty that true travel promises.”

 

“The value of your travels does not hinge on how many stamps you have in your passport when you get home — and the slow nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.”

 

“For first-time vagabonders, this can be one of the hardest travel lessons to grasp, since it will seem that there are so many amazing sights and experiences to squeeze in. You must keep in mind, however, that the whole point of long-term travel is having the time to move deliberately through the world. Vagabonding is about not merely reallotting a portion of your life for travel but rediscovering the entire concept of time.  At home, you’re conditioned to get to the point and get things done, to favor goals and efficiency over moment-by-moment distinction.  On the road, you learn to improvise your days, take a second look at everything you see, and not obsess over your schedule.”

 

“In this way, we end up spending (as Thoreau put it) “the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.” We’d love to drop all and explore the world outside, we tell ourselves, but the time never seems right. Thus, given an unlimited amount of choices, we make none. Settling into our lives, we get so obsessed with holding on to our domestic certainties that we forget why we desired them in the first place.”

 

“Money, of course, is still needed to survive, but time is what you need to live. So, save what little money you possess to meet basic survival requirements, but spend your time lavishly in order to create the life values that make the fire worth the candle.”

 

“The secret of adventure, then, is not to carefully seek it out but to travel in such a way that it finds you. To do this, you first need to overcome the protective habits of home and open yourself up to unpredictability. As you begin to practice this openness, you’ll quickly discover adventure in the simple reality of a world that defies your expectations. More often than not, you’ll discover that “adventure” is a decision after the fact—a way of deciphering an event or an experience that you can’t quite explain.”

 

“Vagabonding is about using the prosperity and possibility of the information age to increase your personal options instead of your personal possessions.”

 

“Vagabonding is an attitude—a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the word. Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor is it a trend. It’s just an uncommon way of looking at life—a value adjustment from which action naturally follows. And, as much as anything, vagabonding is about time—our only real commodity—and how we choose to use it.”

 

“having an adventure is sometimes just a matter of going out and allowing things to happen in a strange and amazing new environment—not so much a physical challenge as a psychic one.”

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37. An Officer and a Spy

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Lisa Goldberg

Author: Robert Harris

Genre: Historical Fiction, Spy/Espionage

Info: 429 pages, published January 28, 2014

Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

An Officer and a Spy is the story of the Dreyfus Affair.  In 1895 Paris, Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish officer was convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil’s Island.  Among the witnesses to Dreyfus’ humiliation is Georges Picquart, who had recently been promoted to the head of the counterespionage agency that “proved” Dreyfus had passed secrets to the Germans.  While Picquart initially believes that Dreyfus is guilty, he comes across information that leads him to suspect that there is still a spy at large in the French military.  As evidence mounts that implicates the uppermost levels of government, Picquart begins to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country and himself.

Quotes

“There is something to be said for senility . With her mind gone, she does not lack for company.”

“My four golden principles are more important now than ever: take it one step at a time; approach the matter dispassionately; avoid a rush to judgment; confide in nobody until there is hard evidence.”

“There is no such thing as a secret—not really, not in the modern world, not with photography and telegraphy and railways and newspaper presses.”

“The old days of an inner circle of like-minded souls communicating with parchment and quill pens are gone. Sooner or later most things will be revealed.”

“I feel as if I have walked into a mirrored room and glimpsed myself from an unfamiliar angle for the first time. Is that really what I look like? Is that who I am?”

“There are occasions when losing is a victory, so long as there is a fight.”

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36. Going Solo

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   

Author:  Roald Dahl

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Memoir, Humor

Info:  209 pages, published 1986

Format:  Book

Summary 

Going Solo is the autobiographical sequel of Boy, which is written by the world-famous author Roald Dahl (author of many famous children’s books including personal favorites Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach and Fantastic Mr. Fox).  It is about his life as a worker with the Shell Company in Africa and an RAF fighter pilot during World War II.  Dahl hilariously recounts stories from his adventurous life as a young man, out on his own and ready to conquer the world.

Quotes

“A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones.”

“What a fortunate fellow I am, I kept telling myself. Nobody has ever had such a lovely time as this!”

“I was already beginning to realize that the only way to conduct oneself in a situation where bombs rained down and bullets whizzed past, was to accept the dangers and all the consequences as calmly as possible.  Fretting and sweating about it all was not going to help.”

“Mary Welland was certainly lovely. She was gentle and kind. She remained my friend all the time I was in hospital. But there is a world of difference falling in love with a voice and remaining in love with a person you can see. From the moment I opened my eyes, Mary became a human instead of a dream and my passion evaporated.”

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27. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Andrea Banks

Author:  Jean-Dominique Bauby

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Memoir

Info:  132 pages, published June 23, 1998

Format:  Book

 

Summary 

In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle, the father of two young childen, a 44-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life.  By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brainstem which left in him in a state of locked in syndrome.  Only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking it, to communicate with the outside world.  Amazingly, he dictated his Memoir, a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him slowly, over and over again.  In magical sequences, he imagines traveling to other places and times and of lying next to the woman he loves.  Fed only intravenously, he imagines preparing and tasting the full flavor of his favorite foods.  Again and again he returns to an “inexhaustible reservoir of sensations,” keeping in touch with himself and the life around him.  Jean-Dominique Bauby died two days after the French publication of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Quotes

“But I see in the clothes a symbol of continuing life. And proof that I still want to be myself. If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere.”

“The memory of that event has only just come back to me, now doubly painful: regret for a vanished past and, above all, remorse for lost opportunities. Mithra-Grandchamp is the women we were unable to love, the chances we failed to seize, the moments of happiness we allowed to drift away. Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but in which we fail to bet on the winner.”

“I need to feel strongly, to love and admire, just as desperately as I need to breathe.”

“Once, I was a master at recycling leftovers. Now I cultivate the art of simmering memories.”

“I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches his home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.”

“Want to play hangman? asks Theophile, and I ache to tell him that I have enough on my plate playing quadriplegic.”

“Whereupon a strange euphoria came over me. Not only was I exiled, paralyzed, mute, half deaf, deprived of all pleasures, and reduced to the existence of a jellyfish, but I was also horrible to behold. There comes a time when the heaping up of calamities brings on uncontrollable nervous laughter – when, after a final blow from fate, we decide to treat it all as a joke.”

“But I see in the clothes a symbol of continuing life. And proof that I still want to be myself. If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere.”

“I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches the home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede.  My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.”

“I hoard all these letters like treasure.  One day I hope to fasten them end to end in a half mile streamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship.  It will keep the vultures at bay?

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25. Confess

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  

Author:   Colleen Hoover

Genre:  Fiction, Suspense, Romance 

Info:  306 pages, published March 10, 2015

Format:  Book

 

Summary 

Since Confess won the Goodreads Choice Award for Romance in 2015, it seemed worth checking out.  It tells the story of twenty one year old Auburn Reed who walks into a Dallas art studio in search of a job and find herself deeply attracted to Owen Gentry, the inscrutable artist who works there and who invites people to leave their anonymous confessions at the gallery.  Auburn takes a risk and starts a relationship with Owen.  Many twists, turns and passionate scenes ensue.

 

Quotes

“Every day I’m grateful that my husband and his brother look exactly alike.  It means there’s less of a chance that my husband will find out that our son isn’t his.”  

“I’m scared I’ll never feel this again with anyone else,” I whisper.  He squeezes my hands. “I’m scared you will.”

“Selflessness. It should be the basis of every relationship. If a person truly cares about you, they’ll get more pleasure from the way they make you feel, rather than the way you make them feel.”

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14. The Language of Flowers

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Deidre Farrell

Author:  Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Genre:  Fiction, Romance

Info:  323 pages, published August 23, 2011

Format:  Book

Summary 

The Language of Flowers follows the fraught life of a Victoria Jones, who by the age of 18, had lived in 32 foster homes, and becomes a flower arranger.  Victoria learns the human lessons of love and trust with the aid of a flower dictionary, a type of Victorian-era book which defines what different types of flowers mean.

 

Quotes

“If it was true that moss did not have roots, and maternal love could grow spontaneously as if from nothing, perhaps I had been wrong to believe myself unfit to raise my daughter. Perhaps the unattached, the unwanted, the unloved, could grow to give love as lushly as anyone else.”

“Common thistle is everywhere,” she said. “Which is perhaps why human beings are so relentlessly unkind to one another.”

“She was perfect. I knew this the moment she emerged from my body, white and wet and wailing. Beyond the requisite ten fingers and ten toes, the beating heart, the lungs inhaling and exhaling oxygen, my daughter knew how to scream. She knew how to make herself heard. She knew how to reach out and latch on. She knew what she needed to do to survive. I didn’t know how it was possible that such perfection could have developed within a body as flawed as my own, but when I looked into her face, I saw that it clearly was.”

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6. Stumbling on Happiness

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  

Author:  Daniel Gilbert

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Self-Improvement, Happiness

Info: 336 pages, published January 1, 2006

Format:  Book

 

Summary 

Gilbert’s central thesis is that, through perception and cognitive biases, people imagine the future poorly, in particular what will make them happy.  He argues that imagination fails in three ways:

(1)  Imagination tends to add and remove details, but people do not realize that key details may be fabricated or missing from the imagined scenario.

(2) Imagined futures (and pasts) are more like the present than they actually will be (or were).

(3) Imagination fails to realize that things will feel different once they actually happen—most notably, the psychological immune system will make bad things feel not so bad as they are imagined to feel.

Gilbert then recommends using other people’s experiences to predict the future, instead of imagining it, since people are very similar in many of their experiences.

 

Quotes

“Our brain accepts what the eyes see and our eye looks for whatever our brain wants.” 

“The fact that we often judge the pleasure of an experience by its ending can cause us to make some curious choices.”

“Impact is rewarding. Mattering makes us happy.”

“In short, we derive support for our preferred conclusions by listening to the words that we put in the mouths of people who have already been preselected for their willingness to say what we want to hear.”

“Economies thrive when individuals strive, but because individuals will only strive for their own happiness, it is essential that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being.”

“Why isn’t it fun to watch a videotape of last night’s football game even when we don’t know who won? Because the fact that the game has already been played precludes the possibility that our cheering will somehow penetrate the television, travel through the cable system, find its way to the stadium, and influence the trajectory of the ball as it hurtles toward the goalposts!”

“Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.”

“Indeed, in the long run, people of every age and in every walk of life seem to regret “not” having done things much more than they regret things they “did”, which is why the most popular regrets include not going to college, not grasping profitable business opportunities, and not spending enough time with family and friends.”

“The belief-transmission network of which we are a part cannot operate without a continuously replenished supply of people to do the transmitting, thus the belief that children are a source of happiness becomes a part of our cultural wisdom simply because the opposite belief unravels the fabric of any society that holds it.”

“We treat our future selves as though they were our children, spending most of the hours of most of our days constructing tomorrows that we hope will make them happy… But our temporal progeny are often thankless. We toil and sweat to give them just what we think they will like, and they quit their jobs, grow their hair, move to or from San Francisco, and wonder how we could ever have been stupid enough to think they’d like that. We fail to achieve the accolades and rewards that we consider crucial to their well-being, and they end up thanking God that things didn’t work out according to our shortsighted, misguided plan.”

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