Summer Conference Books

Yay Summer Conference! We all had so much fun, it was great to be on the beach. However, since Laguna is a good sixteen hours, I had a lot of time to read.

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, translated by Tiina Nunnally
As a girl in thirteen-hundred Finland, Kristin loves her father dearly, and does all she can to please him. But while at a convent school away from home she meets the dashing Erlend Nikulausson, and in sweeping defiance she marries him. They have seven sons, and try to be faithful to each other as the world tumbles into uncertainty.

This book won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and for good reason. It is justifiably regarded as super-slow and -long. But while most stories focus on the winning of the prince, most of Kristin Lavransdatter takes place after her marriage as she lives out her life with Erlend. This book makes you think about the consequences of the smallest actions, the shortest words, and how quickly our lives can become tangled and splintered. Read this book.
NOTE: The paperback 2005 edition's cover is much cooler, enough to tip the balance!
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Christianity's Dangerous Idea by Alister McGrath
From medieval Lutheranism to modern Pentecostalism, all Protestant churches are based on the same idea: that one can interpret the Bible for oneself. This has caused arguments, denomination splits, wars, and is the core of the Post-Reformation Protestant Church. McGrath explores the people and ideas that still cause debate across the worldwide Church today.

Basically a history of the church after 1500, plus theological arguments.
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A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
Great things were in store for John Nash. A brilliant and pioneering mathematician who developed the game theory, algebraic geometry, and nonlinear theory, fields as wide-ranging as imaginary spaces, prime numbers, economics, and computer science all fascinated him. But when he was thirty he began slipping, eventually descending into schizophrenia that would give him a divorce, lovers, an illegitimate son and a mad one, and make him an outcast to many of his peers. Yet, through his ex-wife and the loyalty of friends, he rose from the ashes and won world fame. This is his story.

The person who stood out to me most was his ex-wife, Alicia. She had no obligation to him, was in fact often frightened of him, but she was the one who was most devoted supporter. She helped pay for his treatments, the damages, and his everyday needs. It is a great thing to have a devoted friend in the first place, but Alicia Nash surpasses most.

library books! and others!

Fallout, by Trudy Krisher
Gen lives in the conservative beach town of Easton, North Carolina, in the midst of the peak of anti-communism McCarthyism and the most active hurricane season until 2005. Into her little world comes the ultra-liberal Wompers family, and she becomes Brenda Wompers's best friend. Forced to take sides during controversies that tear the town in half, Gen battles natural and social disasters, when the reunion must be caused by something as violent as a hurricane.

I live in a world where greenhouse gases might kill us in a few hundred years. Gen lived in fear of a nuclear explosion at any time, not to mention constant devastation by hurricanes. It is amazing that she was able to choose to love Brenda in spite of their differences, in spite of the fact that most of the town then branded her a communist. We should think harder about commitments that strong.
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Swimming to Antartica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer by Lynne Cox
At the age of nine, Lynne Cox swam for three hours during a freezing hailstorm, by her choice. Then, after swimming twenty-six miles across the Catalina Channel, winning multiple long-distance races, going around the Cape of Good Hope, and breaking the record across the English Channel at age fifteen, Cox decided that, during the Cold War, she would try to swim the Bering Strait. Big and Little Diomede, one Soviet and one American, stood across the border from each other less than three miles apart. The swim would be a peace-making gesture and research on swimming. After swimming the Strait and helping break the Iron Curtain, Cox set her sites on something even more outrageous: swimming to Antartica.

Inspiring. As a swimmer, it is especially motivating to me, but I think that anyone would be excited by reading this book. Cox was told when she was nine that she could swim the English Channel, and six years later she not only did it, but broke a record! And, involving even more resolution, she spent nine years trying to swim the Bering Strait. What is she doing now? What involves more than swimming for hours in thirty-four degree water?
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Greetings from Planet Earth by Barbara Kerley
Mr. Meyer asks Theo's class what makes earth special as the Voyager II is sent into space. This simple question changes Theo's life. Is it people? Is it animals? Is it art? Family? Technology? While he is trying to finish his assignment, Theo questions his home life. His father has been MIA in Vietnam for five years, and suddenly everything changes, and Theo wonders why his dad went to Vietnam in the first place, why he didn't come home, and most importantly, where he is now. In a year shaped by the golden record, Theo finds what makes us special.

It's one thing to have to deal with losing your dad, but then to find out he could have come back for five years?! Theo makes me realize how important family is.
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Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
In Blink, Gladwell tries to answer three propositions: that decisions made quickly may be just as good as those made deliberately; that when such rapid thinking goes wrong, it is for a specific reason; and that first impressions and spontaneous decisions may be controlled. Thus, we learn why a man knew that a Greek statue was a fake immediately, even though it had been declared good by all the experts. We learn that on racial-bias tests a man who associated blacks with guns much faster than whites with guns was able to change his score drastically by thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela beforehand. Gladwell shows us that, as in the case of the Greek 'kouros', snap decisions may be made accurately, and, even more importantly, our wrong judgements that we make unconsciously can be changed by a few simple steps.

Some of these tests are scary. I don't think I'm racist, but even Gladwell, who is half Jamaican, scored badly on that test. I often think that instant decisions are of less value than considered ones, but often those spontaneous things come from a deeper level of our self, so quickly that we are unable to rationalize them. But we CAN change. Thinking of brilliant black people makes our tests agree with something we know to be true. Training policemen to have better instincts causes less bystander deaths. Screening orchestra auditions allows for a sudden equalization of genders in music. This is good news! Act on it! Read this book!

Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes

Dean Karnazes has a wife, a daughter. He has friends and a good job. He ran when he was in highschool, but that was fifteen years ago. Then one night he gets up and runs from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay- thirty miles, with no training and no forethought. After that, Karnazes is hooked. Soon he's running marathons before breakfast, running in his lunch breaks, and again after work. He signs up for the Western States Endurance Run (100 miles), for Badwater (135 through Death Valley), and for a marathon at the South Pole. Through his running, his family comes closer together and find common ground in supporting him. His is a tale of the heart: courage, love, and determination to push on when everyone else has stopped.

Wow. My dad read this first, and gushed about it to everyone else. One by one my mom, brother, and uncle, all runners, read it, and joined in the praise. I was more skeptical. Not being a runner, the idea of someone running 100 miles was cool, but eh. But I read it, and I too was sucked in. It's not really so much about running as it's about getting over tragedy, loving family, and astounding perseverance. It made me try to work harder at school, swimming, and music, along with everything else. You should read this, even if you're not a runner.

Outsiders: the Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Usually success stories begin with the poor, down-on-luck person who, though faced with daunting obstacles, rise above the common man and become the elite. They pull themselves up by their bootstraps and eventually make it. But Gladwell digs deeper: he looks at the similarities between Bill Gates, Bill Joy, and the Beatles; why Korean Air suffered so many crashes and then turned itself around; and what successful New York lawyers have in common. He sees why the world's smartest man never finished college. He sees that peoples' environments, culture, and, more importantly, what they do with these things, are what make true outliers.

I didn't really get the point of this book until I talked with Dad, who had already read it. I thought that the message was that these successful people were given unexpected advantages, and that's what made them. That's true, but it's not all: Bill Gates was given the advantage of a world-class computer lab in middle school, and he took it. He spent every spare moment in that lab, and as a result had the know-how to created Microsoft.
It hits home. In almost everything, I am either good enough to get by or do just enough work to make it. I rarely 'work hard'. Even if I had the highest IQ on the planet, if I keep it up I might be just like Chris Langan, who could have had a Ph.D at seventeen but didn't persevere.
There is hope, though. After all, Korean Air, after nearly closing down, is now a respected airline. It was terrible, but the crews and pilots took the time to figure out their problems and work really hard at fixing them. I'm trying to keep this mindset, and hopefully it will lead to a better, more God-centered, more 'successful' me.

Tanglewreck by Jeannette Winterson

Silver is kept locked up in her house, Tanglewood, by her cruel guardian Mrs. Rokebye. Her parents and sister have disappeared, she doesn't get enough to eat, and she is always watched by Mrs. Rokebye's rabbit, Bigamist. The only thing that keeps her going is the house, Tanglewreck, which sometimes talks to her.
Suddenly the world goes wrong. Time isn't what it used to be- or perhaps it will not be what it is, or it isn't what it will be. People are disappearing, flung across time and space, and the only thing that can set things right is the Timekeeper, which Silver is supposed to have. Only two other unscrupulous persons want it very badly, and they are prepared to do anything to get it, sending Silver into a wild journey to save Time... and the world itself.

Good. Time is a confusing thing to write, and writing it suddenly opens the story up to countless possibilities. I read of Queen Elizabeth, the Prime Minister, Jamaica, black holes, wormholes, both Vaticans, and London, all of which happened in the space of a few days. Winterson managed it very well; I was completely caught up in the story.

Merry Christmas!! Yay for presents from Barnes and Noble!

Shakespeare by Bill Bryson

William Shakespeare, author of a considerable portion of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, is largely an enigma. He was born to John Shakespeare, married, had a few children, wrote lots of plays, and died. Follow Bill Bryson as he tries to sort fact from fiction, truth from legend, and uncover the Bard of Avon.

Interesting. It seems odd that we have most of Shakespeare's work yet next to nothing on him. We have Macbeth and Twelfth Night and the sonnets, but we don't even know what the man looked like. If he was such a favorite of the Crown why did he never have a portrait done? Consequently, hundreds of people have dedicated their lives to attempt to uncover such mundane things as where he spent half of his life, where he learned a lot of his background information, what happened to some of his plays, what order the plays were written, and if they were even written by Shakespeare. As Bryson says, the lack of information is what makes his book so small.

Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke (sequel to Inkheart and Inkspell)

Angered by the book Mo has bound for the Adderhead that has made the Adderhead immortal, Death gives Mo a bargain: if he destroys the book and kills the Adderhead before spring, he will be allowed to live and his friend Dustfinger will return. If he fails, he, his daughter Meggie, and Dustfinger will all die. It seems easy to slip into the Adderhead's chambers and destroy him and the book, but Mo is the famed robber Bluejay, with a price on his head. The Adderhead will do anything to kill him, his family, and all whom he holds dear. Can he and Meggie read the right words, as they did before in Inkheart and Inkspell, and end the fear and threat?

Good. It was like the fifth and sixth Harry Potters, though: a good read, one I would read again and recommend, but mostly tying up loose ends- and creating more- that were left by the first two books. Sure Meggie's choice between Farid and Doria is interesting, but is it important? Sure the Magpie's revenge is scary, but is it necessary? If Funke doesn't set a limit and an overarching problem for the books, it will become a large, rather boring series.
Not to mention the whole Death thing. Interesting- is it possible to cheat Death? Can people die twice and still be alive?- but perhaps it's something best left alone. Nobody knows what it's like- too bad Lazarus didn't write things down- and it would be awfully easy to convey the wrong idea.

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National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is in the twentieth hour of its third day, with 5649 words!

Library Book-es

Runaway by Wendelin Van Draanen
Abused by several foster families, Holly decides to run away. Her journal tells of jumping trains, sleeping in boxes, and eating trash, and she pours out her anger as poems. She trusts no one, not even the kindly woman who hands out food or the girl who tries to help. But Holly is lonely, and people offer her their home. Can she forget her anger and learn to trust them?

I can't imagine having to find my food and clothes and shelter. I've never experienced anything like that, and at the very least I would become bitter and disillusioned. My family is supposed to help me, but they're gone. The state handed me to other families who were supposed to help by they starved me and locked me up. It's a salvation story: you've hit rock bottom, and someone inexplicably helps you up and carries you on.

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The Crown of Dalemark by Diana Wynne Jones
Mitt, accused of murder in the South, has fled North, only to find himself ordered to assassinate the heir to the throne. If he refuses, the lives of his friends are in danger. He joins Moril the musician, Maewen, who has been kidnapped from the future to replace the heir apparent, in their quest to bring peace to Dalemark. But the evil of Kankredin is gathering, and it seems that none of them, or Dalemark, can escape.

Time travel is always hard to sort out, and if the person in question must also play the part of another person, it can quickly become chaotic. This is Jones's style. Her other books seem similarly scattered, but once the ending has been read twice the general feeling is of liking. Jones's descriptions are very powerful.

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National Novel Writing Month starts in thirteen days!

Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall, Denver Moore, and Vincent Lynn

Denver grew up in a rural Louisiana shack, working for the Man to pay off his ancestor's 'debts'. Then, one day he jumped a train to Fort Worth and lived on the streets until he found himself at a dingy mission.
Ron Hall was an international art dealer used to high-line clothes, cars, and checks. But his wife, Debbie, felt called to help the unfortunate, and she signed them up to volunteer at a homeless mission on Tuesdays, despite Ron's protests. Debbie soon endeared herself to everyone at the mission, and Ron reluctantly found himself drawing closer to Denver. Their friendship and faith, however, would soon be tested by heartbreaking tragedy.

If you don't know anything- if you can't read, write, and are in the middle of nowhere- how do you know you are in slavery? There's something of a double meaning in this book: Ron was trapped by his false sense of superiority, and unable to embrace his friends until he lost everything. The old paradox Die to Live. In the same way, Denver was trapped by decades of racism, and we're trapped in sin. But, as a Longfellow poem we read recently in Lit says, there's light behind the clouds, even if we can't see it. Denver and Ron worked through their differences and became as close as brothers, and we can do the same.


Mom and Dad are out of town; we're being watched by Anna The Intern, who is being called Ellen. She brought the Sword and the Stone for us to watch. As The Once and Future King is one of my favorite books, it's exciting. There is also cookie baking happening.

At Last! or, Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George

Sorry about the delay. Our desktop is down and I couldn't post on the laptops until now. It would have been cool if I could say At last! One year later..., but I'll have to settle with Has it really been twenty-eight days?

Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George
In fairy tales, the maiden is always saved from a dragon by a knight in shining armor. But it is Creel who saves herself with her own quick thinking, and gets a gift from the dragon's hoard in the bargain: a pair of magic slippers. Creel goes to the city to get a job at a dress-makers, and her slippers constantly attract attention- from a co-worker all the way up to the crown-prince's spoiled fiancee, Amalia. When the slippers are stolen and a war looms, Creel must use her skills and brains to save her country.

A good story. In Andrew Lang's fairy tales, the maiden is helpless, dependent on the dueling abilities of a prince. Dragon Slippers was a happy medium between that and the modern stories where the princess cuts off the dragon's head herself. That's one side of the feminist movement that I don't appreciate: empowering women are ones who are beautiful and buff; Creel is plain but smart, and she is the one who saves the day.