Jodi Picoult: My Sister's Keeper

Hi guys,

We only have 3 weeks left in April (sorry for the late post), but you're welcome to join me in reading My Sister's Keeper if you want!

Here's the inside flap:
"Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate - a life and a role that she has never questioned… until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister - and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable… a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life… even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less?"

Benjamin Franklin: Question #1

In introducing his life and biography Franklin states “that were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first.” Do you think he took this advantage in writing about his life? Did he re-write his life in a better light? Is it possible to write an autobiography without doing this?

Benjamin Franklin: Question #2

In justifying not being a vegetarian because he saw fish inside the fish he wanted to eat, Franklin said, “So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.” We know that he cheated on his wife a lot (who knows what else). Do you think he used this attitude to justify his actions throughout his life? (I just thought this saying was clever and showed his personality, so I wanted to quote it here.)

Benjamin Franklin: Question #3

Franklin had some good connections: the governor helped him get his start; he met up with people in the printing industry in New York on the way to Philadelphia, etc. Considering all that Franklin accomplished in his life, was Franklin an unprecedented genius, or just in the right place at the right time? Are there people of equal caliber that we never hear of because they’re born in some obscure part of the world? Does such a thing as a “self-made man” exist, or is it all about who you know?

Benjamin Franklin: Question #4

Upon his involvement in expanding the printing and circulation of paper money, Franklin states, “My friends there (in the House), who conceived I had been of some service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money; a very profitable job and a great help to me.” This sounds very similar to the pork barreling and large government contracts we so often hear complaints of. Is this something that has always happened? Is there anything in Franklin’s biography that would lead you to think that he would disagree with the way those contracts are awarded today?

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

I stole the following intro to Benjamin Franklin from USHistory.org:

"Benjamin Franklin was the most famous American in his day. Wherever he went, crowds formed. People worldwide pictured Franklin when anyone said, "American."

The diversity that is the Internet may be epitomized by few people in history — Benjamin Franklin is one such person, commercially successful, ever concerned and involved with the public good, a great communicator, and a remarkable man of science and technology, finding practical effective solutions to real problems.

Trying to comprehend Benjamin Franklin's life and legacy is like trying to grab a shadow. Each time one tries to get a fix on the reflection, it darts away and grows even larger.

By turns pamphleteer, apprentice, printer, balladeer, inventor, philosopher, politician, soldier, firefighter, ambassador, family man, sage, delegate, signer, shopkeeper, bookseller, cartoonist, grandfather, anti-slavery agitator, Mason, and deist — he was all of the above and none of the above.

His great biographer Carl Van Doren called Franklin "a harmonious human multitude." As Franklin was an "electrician" also, we kept looking for a common current that defined him. From the time he was a teenager thinking about ways of education to the time he was an 83-year-old man agitating for abolition, the mainspring of the "human multitude" may well have been public service.

Each generation produces people who reshape their world. Benjamin Franklin was one such man."

If that's not enough to get you excited, what other books have we read where the whole text was online?

I have been wanting to read this for a while, I only hope it is as interesting to read as his life seems like it was.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman

From Wikipedia, here is a basic summary:

"Covertly recruited by the United States National Security Agency and on the payroll of an international consulting firm, he traveled the world—to Indonesia, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and other strategically important countries...Perkins reveals the hidden mechanics of imperial control behind some of the most dramatic events in recent history, such as the fall of the Shah of Iran, the death of Panamanian president Omar Torrijos, and the U.S. invasions of Panama and Iraq."

According to his book, Perkins' function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with huge debts they could not hope to pay, these countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues. Perkins argues in his book that developing nations were effectively neutralized politically, had their wealth gaps driven wider and economies crippled in the long run. In this capacity Perkins recounts his meetings with some prominent individuals, including Graham Greene and Omar Torrijos. Perkins describes the role of an EHM as follows:

Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

Here is a link to the author's website and life's work since leaving his EHM colleagues behind.

Trust me, this book reads like a John Grisham novel with a glimpse into a global history that most of us have never known.

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to the book club! I hope everyone is as excited as I am to start reading more. To see the schedule for this year, refer to the side bar on the left. If you have not submitted a book but want to participate, feel free and we will add you on to the list. Also, if you decide to change your book, let me know at least a month before you are supposed to host, and I'll let everyone know. Happy reading!

Reading Lolita in Tehran Discussion

I enjoyed this book for the most part, but sometimes it got a bit boring. I wasn’t expecting so much of it to be literary analysis. Maybe some of you are like James, who got a little bored and stopped after the first section of the book. Either way, if anyone wants to comment on something I haven't mentioned, feel free to.

Lolita in Tehran Question 1

What did you learn about Iran from this book? What, if any of it surprised you?

Lolita in Tehran Question 2

There were different attitudes toward the veil in Iran. Mashid wore it by choice for her religion, but resented its political enforcement. Nafisi suggested that the enforcement of the practice made her expression of faith meaningless. Do you agree?

Lolita in Tehran Question 3

Nafisi and her magician both make the argument that Ayatollah Khomeini and "they" "did to us what we allowed [them] to do." How is that true? How is it not true?

Lolita in Tehran Question 4

In pages 124-136 The Gatsby trial illustrates the thought process behind censoring in Iran. All of us censor media that we consider to be inappropriate, even if only on a personal level. How is our censoring process any different than the methods used in Iran? When, if ever, is censoring appropriate?

Lolita in Tehran Question 5

The Islamic Republic enacted a number of laws that were extremely oppressive towards women, telling them what they can wear, who can accompany them in public, and how they can act around members of the opposite sex. As a result, men seemed to view women more and more as sexual objects, being aroused at the mere sight of hair or a naked toe. Why would the regime be so oppressive towards women and not towards men? Why were men not expected to live up to equally oppressive standards?

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

During my last semester at BYU I took a Women's Studies class that was absolutely amazing. The professor was a very intelligent and inspiring woman who I really admired. She split our class into groups and assigned us books to read and present to the rest of the class. When one of the other groups presented this book I thought it sounded really interesting and have been wanting to read it ever since.

Here is a review by Random House:

"For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Azar Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading—Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolita—their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran.

Nafisi’s account flashes back to the early days of the revolution, when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum.

Azar Nafisi’s luminous tale offers a fascinating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women’s lives in revolutionary Iran. It is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, written with a startlingly original voice."

I thought this book sounded insteresting is because it is an insider's perspective of what life was like in Iran (especially for women) during the Islamic Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, and in the Islamic Republic of Iran in general. I admit I don't know much about the the recent politics of the Middle Eastern countries, but I'm hoping that reading this book will add a little more understanding and perspective to the current situation in that part of the world.

Self Help Books

So this was quite a bit more of a self-help book than I thought it would be. I wasn’t expecting so many introspective questions to ask ourselves and little worksheets and activities. I was actually pretty embarrassed about reading this one and tried not to let people see what I was reading. I feel bad for making others read it because it is a little embarrassing to read a self-help book. Do people think you need help if you’re reading one? Is it socially acceptable? Today people were joking about the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, which I haven’t read, as if everybody knew self-help books were a joke. Little did they know that I had one stashed in my backpack right under their very noses – of course, I was happy that they didn’t know.

I have read a few self-help books in the past and wanted to get everyone’s take on self-help books as a genre before we dive into this specific little gem. I actually read the book “The Secret”. (Not recommended – my dad is really weird and gifted both the book and the audio-book to all of his children, with STRONG encouragement to read it.) I also recently read “The Automatic Millionaire”, so apparently I like self-help books. What do you all think of this type of book in general? Do you like to read them? Is it embarrassing to read them? Do we actually become better people if we do read them?

7 Habits: Question #2

Being LDS and knowing that the author was LDS also, it was easy to see A LOT of gospel/church related ideas/principles woven throughout the book. If the author was not LDS do you think you would identify these as such? Do you think that you would find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with him more or less if you didn’t know you shared the same faith as him (if you had a different paradigm)?

7 Habits: Question #3

Is there a particular habit that really resonated with you as needing to be implemented in your life? Were there any that you thought were really stupid?

7 Habits: Question #4

Can we pretend we’re in a group therapy circle for a second? What does it take to get us to retain and implement good advice? Who wants to share their success story from doing anything that they learned in this book? Does anybody have any other thoughts/comments on the book?

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Ok, so I'm still a little bit embarrassed to be picking this book. But isn't the whole point of the bookclub to get us to read what we otherwise wouldn't read? I have mostly heard about this book and all of its contents from my mission president - I think everything he ever taught us stemmed from this book. And seeing as how last week marked five years from returning from that experience, I think it is only fitting that I finally get around to reading one of the books I put in my "to read" list five years ago. Most of us have probably heard a lot of what this book has to offer and rolled our eyes at somebody or just been annoyed because people are rehashing what they read in a book. Well, now we get to read it first hand.

Apparently, the book has sold 15 million copies, so whether you're Mormon or not, you've probably heard about this book. I even had a co-worker (not LDS) telling me he was reading it with his kids and really liked it. I could only say that I had skated in front of the author's house in Provo, but didn't know too much more about it. So I'm excited to read this one and finally check it off my list.

And if anyone is feeling disgruntled about reading this one, here is a quick summary I found online.