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October 07
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Kristen
is currently reading:
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't (Hardcover)
by Jim Collins
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Kristen
gave
to:
Welcome To Shirley (Hardcover)
by Kelly Mcmasters (Goodreads author!)
bookshelves:
public-health
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in October, 2008
Kristen said:
"Kelly and I went to college together and were 2 of the 12 International Studies majors in our class. We bumped into each other on Columbia's campus 5 or 6 years later when both of us were there for our master's degrees. She told me about all of the...more
Kelly and I went to college together and were 2 of the 12 International Studies majors in our class. We bumped into each other on Columbia's campus 5 or 6 years later when both of us were there for our master's degrees. She told me about all of the research she was doing on breast cancer rates and radiation exposure on Long Island, but I had no idea she had turned her research into a book until I joined GoodReads. Shortly after I joined I clicked on the "authors" link and her photo was there along with a link to her book. It's really exciting that all of that research culminated in this great book.
Welcome to Shirley is Kelly's memoir of growing up in the Long Island town of Shirley, but in many ways the town is the main character of the book. In public health we talk a lot about fundamental causes of disease and this book is full of them -- for the residents of Shirley as well as the town itself, which never really had a chance to be the suburban paradise its founder had envisioned. I read the book with a lot of fear about the radiation levels in the groundwater -- particularly because Frank's hometown of Smithtown isn't too far from Shirley. Kelly points out that there is a ridge under Long Island and that the pollutants being generated by the Brookhaven Lab flowed south, which means they probably didn't flow north toward Smithtown. I felt guilty for being relieved that my in-laws (not to mention my husband!) probably didn't have to worry about the same horrendously high levels of radiation exposure as the folks living and dying in Shirley. It's really tragic and sickening to read about the people who lived so close to this SuperFund site and who were (and probably still are) kept so much in the dark about the risks they face every day just being at home....less
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October 03
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Kristen
marked as to-read:
The Little Book (Hardcover)
by Selden Edwards
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Kristen by:
Lisa S
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September 29
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Kristen
marked as to-read:
Chocolat (Paperback)
by Joanne Harris
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Kristen by:
Wendy
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September 28
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Kristen
gave
to:
The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (Paperback)
by Paule Marshall
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in October, 1999
Kristen said:
"It took me 2 months to get through this book -- it was OK but not great. I appreciated it as a critique of anthropologists and outside-directed development schemes, but otherwise didn't enjoy it that much.
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Kristen
gave
to:
Memoirs of a Geisha (Paperback)
by Arthur Golden
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in September, 1999
Kristen said:
"An interesting story that kept me very engaged (although I didn't like the ending).
pp. 1-2
"As a historian, I have always regarded memoirs as source material. A memoir provides a record not so much of the memoirist as of the memoirist's wo...more
An interesting story that kept me very engaged (although I didn't like the ending).
pp. 1-2
"As a historian, I have always regarded memoirs as source material. A memoir provides a record not so much of the memoirist as of the memoirist's world. It must differ from biography in that a memoirist can never achieve the perspective that a biographer possesses as a matter of course. Autobiography, if there really is such a thing, is like asking a rabbit to tell us what he looks like hopping through the grasses of the field. How would he know? If we want to hear about the field, on the other hand, no one is in a better circumstance to tell us -- so long as we keep in mind that we are missing all those things the rabbit was in no position to observe."...less
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Kristen
gave
to:
Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It (Hardcover)
by Stephen Handelman
bookshelves:
central-asia
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in September, 1999
Kristen said:
"A chilling account of how lucky we were not to have biological catastrophes in the US during the Cold War. The book, written by a Soviet scientist living in exile in the US, was decidedly anti-Soviet and pro-American. But it was still terrifying to...more
A chilling account of how lucky we were not to have biological catastrophes in the US during the Cold War. The book, written by a Soviet scientist living in exile in the US, was decidedly anti-Soviet and pro-American. But it was still terrifying to see the extent of biological weapons programs and the potential for careless mistakes that would have been extremely costly or the destruction of entire populations from germ warfare.
Note that the author is actually Ken Alibek, not Stephen Handelman (who is listed on GoodReads)....less
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Kristen
gave
to:
Seven Years in Tibet (Paperback)
by Heinrich Harrer
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in July, 1999
Kristen said:
"Interesting and inspiring book, made even more poignant by my trip to the mountains of Uzbekistan while I was reading it. I wrote that I still have to read the post-movie copy with the Afterward by Harrer (but of course I don't know what this means ...more
Interesting and inspiring book, made even more poignant by my trip to the mountains of Uzbekistan while I was reading it. I wrote that I still have to read the post-movie copy with the Afterward by Harrer (but of course I don't know what this means any more as I hardly even remember having read the book).
The quote below sounds patronizing now ("stage of evolution"), but I do often miss the pace of life in Uzbekistan and think that much would be lost if suddenly Uzbeks had to live their lives at the pace we do here in the US. I miss drinking tea for a half hour before getting to the point of a visit. I also miss a lifestyle in which having a guest in the home trumped all else. These things were frustrating when I had something that "had to get done." But in retrospect it's the times drinking tea or being treated like a royal guest that I remember...not the deadlines.
"I listened to the news the first thing every day and often found myself shaking my head and wondering at the things which men seemed to think important. Here it is the yak's pace which dictates the tempo of life, and so it has been for thousands of years. Would Tibet be happier for being transformed? A fine motor road to India would doubtless raise the people's standard of life very greatly, but by accelerating the tempo of existence it might rob the people of their peace and leisure. One should not force a people to introduce inventions which are far ahead of their stage of evolution. They have a nice saying here -- 'One cannot reach the fifth storey of the Potala without starting at the ground floor.'" p. 193...less
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Kristen
gave
to:
Anna Karenina (Oxford World's Classics)
by Leo Tolstoy
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in May, 1999
Kristen said:
"I couldn't put this book down the first time I read it. It is beautiful and tragic and I would lose myself in the story for hours. Tolstoy's prose, even in translation, is gorgeous and the images he paints are vivid. I highly recommend reading the...more
I couldn't put this book down the first time I read it. It is beautiful and tragic and I would lose myself in the story for hours. Tolstoy's prose, even in translation, is gorgeous and the images he paints are vivid. I highly recommend reading the Maude translation -- they seem to be the best translators of Tolstoy's works.
I read this book nearly 10 years later, and wasn't quite as engrossed. But as Cari wrote in her review, this is probably an important book to read every 10 years or so because the meaning will be so different at various life stages.
p. 253
"There are times when one would give a whole month for sixpence and others when you wouldn't sell half-an-hour at any price."
p. 288
"Pretence about anything whatever may deceive the cleverets and shrewdest of men, but the dullest child will see through it, no matter how artfully it may be disguised."
p. 830
"If goodness has a cause, it is no longer goodness; if it has consequences -- a reward -- it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect."
I actually don't think I agree with this. Doesn't "goodness" inevitably have a result -- generally happiness or more goodness? If so, it is not outside the chain of cause and effect, but rather is an integral part of it. But I do agree about goodness being less pure if something is only done in anticipation of a reward....less
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Kristen
gave
to:
Samarcande (Paperback)
by Amin Maalouf
bookshelves:
central-asia
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in May, 1999
Kristen said:
"I wrote down 12 quotes from this book when I read it back in 1999 -- clearly I loved it. Of course, I am sure that a great deal of that love came from being in Central Asia at the time and having been to Samarkand. It's a fictional story about the ...more
I wrote down 12 quotes from this book when I read it back in 1999 -- clearly I loved it. Of course, I am sure that a great deal of that love came from being in Central Asia at the time and having been to Samarkand. It's a fictional story about the Rubiyaat and Omar Khayyam.
p. 26
"Time ... has two dimensions, its length is measured by the rhythm of the sun but its depth by the rhythm of passion."
p. 81
"...the qualities needed to govern are not those which are needed in order to accede to power. In order to run things smoothly, one must forget oneself and only be interested in others -- particularly the most unfortunate; to get into power, one must be the greediest of men, think only of oneself and be ready to crush one's closest friends. I, however, will not crush anyone."
p. 108
"In my opinion, any cause which involves killing no longer attracts me. It becomes unattractive to me, it becomes sordid and debased, no matter how beautiful it may have been. No cause can be just when it allies itself to death."
p. 299
"It was said that a half-mad king had condemned Nasruddin (Hodja)to death for having stolen an ass. Just as he was about to be led off for execution he exclaimed: 'That beast is in reality my brother. A magician made him look like that, but if he were entrusted to me for a year I would teach him to speak like us again!' Intrigued, the monarch made the accused repeat his promise before decreeing: 'Very well! But if within one year from today the ass does not speak, you will be executed!' As he went out, Nasruddin was accosted by his wife: 'How can you make a promise like that? You know very well that this ass will not speak.' 'Of course I know,' replied Nasruddin, 'but during the year the king might die, the ass might or even I might.'"...less
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Ms. Reviews & Bookmarks
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— last activity 08/15/2008 01:07PM
