The "Moo York Times Bestseller List

December 1, 2008
The Milkman’s Son
By Tracy C. Baker
My Book Report #132
“Kindle”ing The Old-Fashioned Way

Amazon.Com has recently come out with the latest electronic reading gadget called the Kindle. It was featured on Oprah so you know it has climbed the adoption curve from the “If it’s new I gotta have it” geeks to the early majority.

A friend of mine recently bought one and seems to love it as she can load up a whole bunch of books before heading out on one of her many worldly jaunts. I don’t know, though. I think I would miss that tactile feel of paper upon finger…after all, I am one of a dwindling few who still have a paper delivered to my door and I have a hard time reading a long e-mail without printing it out. Of course, once Winnie and I are done with the books we read, those that we don’t pass on sometimes sit languishing on our shelves until we donate them or sell them at a garage sale. So, for shelf space sake, it might not be a bad idea.

Since it took me until just last year to start using a I-Pod (I’m still loading all my CDs on it), I’m guessing I’ve got a few years left before I force myself to give it a try.

The “Moo” York Times Best-Sellers

That said, I’ve been reading a bunch of good books lately and I would like to recommend a few to you.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin – One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time
Greg Mortenson is the Director of the Central Asia Institute, a Non-Government Aid Agency he founded to build schools, mainly for girls, in the tribal areas of Northern Pakistan. The same areas that we are having so many problems with the Taliban and Al Qaida His story is absolutely remarkable, not only for his determination and resourcefulness, but for the lessons he brings us on how the US and the other world powers can change the attitudes of the rest of the world toward us. If President –elect Obama has not read this book, he should and then buy a copy for each and every one of his incoming foreign policy staff paying particular attention to how the village leaders who asked for and helped build these schools reject the radical Islamic influence coming from others in the region. Once you have read it, I dare you not to go online or pick up the phone and contribute something, anything to the Central Asia Institute.

Einstein by Walter Isaacson
This is a fascinating biography of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, minds of the 20th Century. We all know his famous quotes – “God does not play dice” “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” But my favorite is now “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.”
You will not only get a good common sense understanding of his famous theorem, but you will come to understand him as a flawed yet fascinating person. All in all a wonderful read.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell – How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
I have always been fascinated with the business of business and had heard a lot about this book when it was first released in 2000. It is a well-researched account about how trends, fads, even crime and illness are all subject to the tipping point phenomenon. It is worth reading just for the story on how Hush Puppies made an unexpected comeback.

The House of Mondavi – The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty
This is a sweeping saga of a dysfunctional family with overtones of Steinbeck’s East of Eden, only true. Brothers Peter and Robert Mondavi take different roads to very different ends in the wine obsessed world of the Napa Valley. Truth is truly stranger than fiction.

Now I didn’t stay wrapped up in the world of reality all year. In the summer I took time out to read the entire Harry Potter series that our daughter Jackie bought us for Christmas last year. I thought I would read the first book, see how I liked it, then take a break and come back to the second one later, maybe finishing the series by January 2009. Instead, I was swept up into Harry’s world like any other 11-year old and finished all seven books within a month and a half. JK Rowling is a hell of a writer and as you read the series you see not only Harry grow, but the writing as well. No wonder kids and adults both love these stories.

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
This is a “must read” if you have any desire to understand how we ended up in this economic mess today. If we do not learn the hard lessons of the last thirty years of what has become known as Reagonomics, but is really disaster capitalism, we, as the saying goes, are doomed to repeat them. Beginning with Pinochet and the horrors of Chile, right up to the Iraq War and the US Economy, Klein takes you through the idiocratic thinking of the Milton Friedman Chicago School economists and how they forced their free-market policies on countries through secretive dealings, coups, control of the International Monetary Funds and the World Bank, and through outright violence, torture, and suppression; an excellently researched exposé of the failures and frauds of the world’s corporatists.

There were many more books, including Schulz, The Biography of Charles Schulz, Thunderstruck, Erik Larson’s (Devil In The White City) non-fiction book about Marconi and murder on the high seas, and the Judgment of Paris, about the start of the Impressionist Art Movement.

So, there you are. Light a fire, pour a toddy, turn off the TV, and snuggle up with a good book on these cold winter nights.

Fini
Tracy

Copyright 2008, The Milkman's Son, Tracy Baker