The Book: Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (2009)
The Goods: Half the Sky is both an investigation into women’s oppression worldwide and a moving call to action to economically and socially empower women in developing countries – not just because it’s the morally correct thing to do, but also because the authors believe that it’s the most effective way to fight poverty and extremism. To make their case, Pulitzer-Prize winning authors Kristof and WuDunn focus on three major issues facing women around the world — forced prostitution and sex trafficking, gender violence, and maternal mortality — blending grim reportage and ample statistics with individual stories of women who are triumphing over their circumstances and making real change for their families and communities. The authors also observe and report on the pros and cons of varied international development/aid strategies and argue that grassroots, ground-up activism and support is the most effective way to fuel change. ok
I’m a Kindle owner. Most of the novels I read these days are in electronic format. My brain likes e-books, as does my back and my budget.
I’ve taken my Kindle to book clubs, answered questions about it on the subway, and found myself in countless conversations about the aesthetic and economic implications of the growing e-reader market. I’ve stopped being surprised at how passionate people are about their reading preferences, their fears about the digital future, and their suspicions about the pleasures of reading electronic ink. I think these are exciting conversations to have, and in the course of talking so much about e-books, I realized that even though I’ve always been a book lover, I stopped being a book buyer a long time ago. What’s more, I’ve realized that I have a much more enjoyable relationship with e-books now than I’ve had with real books for years. ok
Timex the Traveler, created by Robots and Monsters, January 2009
Hey Hey Hey! Just found out that Robots and Monsters has recently launched a new website, and I wanted to pass along the info in case any of you are researching creative, meaningful holiday gifts. The brainchild of Joe Alterio, RobotsandMonsters.org creates commissioned art work – of either a robot or a monster – drawn by a fabulous indie artist, and then donates the proceeds to a great cause. Right now, that cause is water.org. All it takes to get your very own dream robot/monster is 50 bucks and a three-word description.
I’ve posted the robot (above) I had commissioned as a gift last year with the following specs: time-travelling, shape-shifting, one-seater robot. Hooray!
The Book: I am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett (2009)
The Goods: I am Not Sidney Poitier is – blarg – a bit hard to blurb. It’s the story of a young man named Not Sidney Poitier who looks, in fact, an awful lot like Sidney Poitier, and his coming-of-age, which the author (Percival Everett, not to be confused with the novel’s character Percival Everett, who turns up throughout the story along with a hilarious fictional version of Ted Turner) casts as an intertextual adventure through Sidney Poitier films. (Did the best I could, briefly.)
The Report: Book club really enjoyed I am Not Sidney Poitier. We found it nearly impossible, though, to talk about the novel without moving the conversation into more theoretical territory: what postmodern narratives can or can’t achieve; why our approaches to the book may have created very different types of enjoyment (some readers felt that this was an enjoyable, thoughtful text that ultimately didn’t move them while others – okay, really just ME — felt greatly moved by the identity crisis at the heart of the novel AND how that may have been informed by our relationship to literature/film in general); and how literature constructs identity and race. But we did also talk about THE book! ok
Just wanted to pass along this short and thoughtful interview with Kathleen Fitzpatrick, associate professor of media studies at Pomona College and one of the founders of the digital scholarly network MediaCommons recently published in the NEH Humanities Magazine. Fitzpatrick is one of a growing number of scholars who are embracing the changing media landscape instead of pushing back on it with fear and anxiety.
It’s not a lengthy interview, and I’d encourage you to read the whole thing. However, there are two parts I want to zero in on… ok
