Barack Obama: Let’s do this!

Barack Obama

Since September, I’ve been getting text messages from former president Barack Obama. 

“Hey! It’s Barack. Click on the link to sign up so I can respond directly to you,” the first text read. “I won’t be able to get to everything, but I’ll be in touch to share what’s on my mind and I want to hear from you, too. Let’s do this.”

After texting in the run-up to the November elections to make sure I had a plan for voting, last week, Mr. Obama checked back. “Hi there. As 2020 comes to a close, I wanted to share my annual lists of favorites I’ll start by sharing my favorite books this year. I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I did. What are you reading?”

Then, the other day, “Hi there. As 2020 comes to a close, I wanted to share my annual list of favorites. I hope you enjoy.” And he proceeded to list his favorite music and films.

I seem to recall that the former president started to compile his cultural lists while still in office. Imagine if we had a president now who made time for reading and kept up with music and film. Instead, for Donald Trump, it’s all about keeping up with appearances and about TV ratings and wild conspiracy theories.

Somehow, I would like to think that President-elect Joe Biden, while maybe not quite as hip as his former boss, will restore a sense of curiosity and interest to books – and, perhaps, music and film, too – during his days ahead in the White House.

In the meantime, as we count down the days until President-elect Biden’s inauguration on January 20, here’s the impressive list of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2020: 

• Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar

• Jack by Marilynne Robinson

• Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

• The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

• Luster by Raven Leilani

• How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang

• Long Bright River by Liz Moore

• Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey

• Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum

• Deacon King Kong by James McBride

• The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio 

• The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett

• The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

• Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker

• The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

• Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn

• Missionaries by Phil Klay

 

These are my (social) media habits

In our modern age of 24/7 social media and never-ending news cycles – plus our desire to stay ahead of the latest cutting-edge trends in music and pop culture – what does our media habits reveal about us?

With a shout out to The Monocle Minute newsletter for its list of questions it often asks movers and shakers, here’s a few things you might like to know about my media habits ...

What news source do you wake up to?

NPR, home delivery of The New York Times, and the Washington Post online. On Sundays, I also receive home delivery of the Washington Post. 

Coffee, tea or something pressed to go with headlines?

As I am not a tea drinker, I have three different-sized French presses at home at the ready and plenty of Community Coffee brand French Roast. Also, I maintain a supply of Community Coffee instant coffee & chickory, and once a week I treat myself to a Starbucks grande mocha.

Something from the FM dial or Spotify for your tunes?

When I’m driving up and down U.S. Highway 1, between College Park and Washington, D.C., and occasionally elsewhere within the confines of the Beltway, I enjoy – borderline love – listening to classical music via WETA. The more Dvorak the better. Otherwise, when at home, I enjoy listening to the “Morning Becomes Eclectic” show via KCRW, the Santa Monica, Calif.-NPR affiliate. While I’m late to the Spotify phenomenon, I enjoy putting together some simply playlists centered around some of my favorite musicians, such as Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Wynton Marsalis and Jazz @ Lincoln Center Orchestra, and Pink Martini.

Papers delivered or a trip down to the kiosk?

At home, it’s seven-day delivery of The New York Times and the Sunday Washington Post for me. When I’m traveling, I usually look for the nearest destination that carries The New York Times. There’s something about holding it in my hands every day and reading it wherever I am in the world. However, if that’s not possible, I’ll fall back on looking at the Times, either online or via its app. 

Magazines for your weekend sofa-side stack?

I look forward to perusing my two faves, Monocle and Racquet. The former I stop by one of the Hudson News kiosks at Union Station to purchase my monthly copy, while I subscribe the the latter, which is published quarterly. For years, I used to subscribe to The New Yorker just to make sure I never missed reading Roger Angell’s wonderfully penned baseball tomes. Eventually, I fell behind reading the magazine, week to week, and let my subscription lapse. If I’m going on a vacation trip, I might be tempted to buy a good travel magazine to put me in the right mood.

Are you a subscriber or more of a newsstand browser?

A subscriber although if I’m in a good bookstore, like Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle or Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., I’ll be tempted to browse a bit just to see what I might be missing out on. As someone who is interested in content and design, occasionally I buy Dwell, which is all about design and technology.

Bookshop for a drizzly Saturday afternoon?

In Seattle, Elliott Bay Book Company on Capitol Hill. In Washington, Politics and Prose on Connecticut Avenue NW. In San Francisco, Book Passage in the Ferry Plaza Building. All of them are independent booksellers. Sorry, no Barnes & Noble for me.

Sofa or cinema for the evening?

A little of both, although much of my cinema going takes place on Sunday mornings, as my wife and I belong to a cinema club in Washington, D.C. Otherwise, I spend a lot of time looking for hidden gems to view via Netflix or watch tennis on Tennis Channel because my job as a contributing editor for an English language tennis website based near Munich, Germany, requires me.

What’s the best thing you’ve watched recently on TV and why?

Two shows, actually. First, Good Karma Hospital, a British dramedy about a disillusioned doctor who heads to South India for a fresh start. It’s available via Acorn. Second, Kim’s Convenience, which is available on Netflix, is a Canadian sitcom about a Korean Canadian family who run a convenience store in the Moss Park neighborhood of Toronto. Each includes people of color in starring roles and the stories are believable.

Sunday brunch routine?

It starts with bringing in the Sunday newspapers from the front porch, turning on the radio to “Weekend Edition Sunday” and fixing coffee for myself. Brunch at home usually consists of a parfait of vanilla yogurt accented with maple pecan granola, a small glass of orange juice and a bagel with cream cheese or, possibly, coffee cake made by my wife. 

Last media of the day?

Usually before lights out, I make one final, brief pass through my Facebook and Twitter feeds. Sometimes, it’s valuable if there’s a late-break story worth reading or a sports score I’m searching for. Also, I’ll check to see if any of my family or friends has tried to text me or shoot me an e-mail. Then, it’s lights out by 11.

Illustration: Courtesy of Google images.

In the age of internet, why public libraries are still relevant

Woodridge Neighborhood Library in Washington, D.C.

After moving to Maryland earlier this year, one of my top priorities was finding a good local public library. And I did, even if its across the District line in Washington. I visit the Woodridge Neighborhood Library, a branch of the District of Columbia Public Library system regularly – it's only a mile from our new home – and depending upon the time of the day, the library is often filled with people availing themselves to some of the many services offered. Indeed, it's a very positive environment, which opened to the public on September 28, 2016, to much fanfare.

I've seen high school students doing their homework, college students writing their dissertations, younger kids enjoying reading time, adults searching electronic job boards. A public library is a living room where one can go and feel human instead of feeling threatened. For some, including many young students, a neighborhood public library like Woodridge represents the only wi-fi source available to them for free. With 40 desktop computers with internet access available for use, this public library's value isn't lost on its patrons.

There is a warm, community-oriented ambiance inside the 20,000 square-foot Woodridge Neighborhood Library – not to mention a modern design by Wiencek + Associates and Bing Thom Architects that spreads throughout the library's two floors. It's open seven days a week and stays open late Monday through Thursday until 9 p.m.

Indeed, public libraries serve as a valuable bridge between the information-rich and the information-poor. Within these welcoming confines – and the Woodridge Branch is very welcoming – librarians provide a highly skilled service that meets the needs of the general public. I speak with the authority of someone who is married to a librarian.

As our public libraries play a vital role bridging the digital divide and teaching people how to get reliable information from the internet – something that's become very important following the Russian meddling scandal during the 2016 presidential election – it is for this very reason that we need our public libraries now more than ever despite living in an age when most everyone has broadband and can access information without recourse to a librarian.

While I appreciate that my local public library is open seven days a week, many public libraries have limited hours. Federal funding of public libraries has decreased by nearly 40 percent since 2000 and now – more than ever – they need our support not our dismantling.

There is something of important value gained from the physical, communal space of a library, and our public libraries need to continue to be able to provide highly skilled services in order to meet the needs of the general public – not to mention continuing their valuable mission of being repositories for books. I believe they ought to continue to innovate in order to take advantage of the way people are interacting with their libraries, which differs today than it did 10 years ago – even five years ago. There is a digital gap we need to continue bridging between those who have access to the internet and those who do not.

At local public libraries, there are core services such as book loans, study materials for local and national elections, availability of federal and state income tax guides and forms, and weekday and Saturday story hours for children, that remain vital. And, of course, where would we be without our librarians? They may be physical people – hopefully never replaceable by robots – and in the age of Google, their purpose remains valuable.

It's my hope that everyone does what they can to support their own local public libraries, especially now in the age of President Trump's self-proclaimed "fake news." After all, an ill-informed society that is ill-equipped to prosper in today's "information age" is a dangerous prospect for any democracy.

Learn more about the Woodridge Neighborhood Library by clicking on the link.

Photo: Courtesy of DCLibrary.org.

Resolved: It's time to READ more books

We're a week into March – spring is almost here – and although I didn't formally jot down any New Year's resolutions for 2017, if I had, one that would have been near the top of my list is my desire to read more. "So many books ... so little time," reads the slogan printed on one of my tattered, well-worn navy-colored t-shirts that I bought a few years ago at The Elliott Bay Book Company, situated in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It happens to be one of my favorite independent booksellers in the entire country – and it's always on my things to do list whenever I visit Seattle.

When I say to you that I want to "read more," by that I mean read more books. While I stay abreast of current events by reading The New York Times daily, both in print and online, and give a good read to periodicals like The New Yorker and Monocle, the London-based monthly that covers world affairs, culture, food and design, now, every day is like engaging in an American Civics class thanks to the narcissist behavior and dystopian actions of our current president. And, I should mention that perusing my Facebook news feed has become a necessity in order to stay current on what's trending with POTUS 45, too.

But, what about books, you ask? Yes, books, remember them? Books are the foundation behind what made Amazon.com one of the most successful online retailers. Before Twitter, before Facebook, before Netflix, before texting sapped all of our intellectual energy, there were books. I have several bookshelves at home that are lined with hundreds of titles that I've bought or received as gifts over the years. Let's see, I'm proud of my collection of books by The New Yorker writers Roger Angell and Calvin Trillin, among many, and I enjoy reading books about baseball, my favorite sport. However, a few years ago, in a space-saving and budget-cutting effort, I trimmed back on the number of new titles I bought and, instead, decided to start making better use of my local public library.

Looking back on 2016, I can say without boasting that I made good use of my Oakland Public Library card. I checked out about a book a month. One thing I've learned about libraries is this: If you're willing to wait for a popular best-seller or a new title to become available, checking out library books is a good way to save money (and, I might add, bookshelf space) while also showing support for our public libraries.

Both Comedy Central's The Daily Show and the New York Times Book Review are pretty good indicators for learning about good books to read. Before he left The Daily Show, former host Jon Stewart always brought out the best in authors. You could judge by his interest in a book if it was worth reading. New Daily Show host Trevor Noah is carrying on the tradition begun by Stewart.

Among the books which I read during 2016 were:

• Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few by Robert Reich.

• I'd Know That Voice Anywhere by Frank Deford.

• Jackson, 1964: And Other Dispatches from Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America by Calvin Trillin.

• Goodbye: In Search of Gordon Jenkins and Shop Around: Growing Up with Motown in a Sinatra Household, both by Bruce Jenkins.

• Indentured: The Inside Story of Rebellion Against the NCAA by Joe Nocera.

• Federer and Me: A Story of Obsession by William Skidelsky.

Among the ties that bind these titles are my interest in non-fiction, memoirs, sports, and music. And, of course, good writing and good stories always garner my attention.

Looking ahead, I ask: Is it possible that I can increase my output this year so that I'm reading an average of a book a month? Let's see, I've already started Writings on the Wall: Searching For a New Equality Beyond Black and White by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and I'm nearly finished with the current Michael Lewis book, The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds. 

Also, I received Eat Drink Delta: A Hungry Traveler's Journey Through the Soul of the South by Susan Puckett as a Christmas gift from my brother, and I recently bought an autographed copy of Trevor Noah's Born A Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood. 

Finally, I've got Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, the acclaimed 674-page memoir by Elvis Costello that spans his almost four-decade music career left over from last year's reading list that I would like to start this year.

There's plenty to look forward to reading while trying to forget everything that's going bad with our democracy, thanks to a certain POTUS. Now, if I can just remember to stop turning on the TV.

Photo: Stained glass sign at The Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, courtesy of Google Images.

I cannot live without books, either

More than 200 years ago, President Thomas Jefferson once said, "I cannot live without books." As one of our country's Founding Fathers, Jefferson was onto something – and today, I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment.

While I have a nice living room display and collection of books, it's become increasingly challenging to find and make good time to read books on a regular basis. Mind you, I enjoy reading – even if I have a reading list I will never finish. Every day, I spend time reading The New York Times and I keep up with the newsfeed of my Facebook. Still, I would like to spend more time with books. Doesn't matter if they are hardcover or softcover. A good book is something that's hard to put down.

Fortunately, each time I go to the gym – usually five times a week – I bring a book with me and spend 30 minutes riding a stationary bike with an open book to take my mind off of exercising. After all, it's been said, "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."

While reading a book is like taking a good journey, three books which I have recently read and recommend to everyone are:

Indentured / Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss
The rebellion against
the college sports cartel.

• Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA by Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss. The authors (one a columnist, the other a contributing writer for The New York Times) have long recognized that there is a widespread corruption that plagues big-time college sports. Indentured grew out of a controversial New York Times column Nocera wrote four years ago in which he asked pointblank: "How can the NCAA blithely wreck careers without regard to due process or common fairness? How can it act so ruthlessly to enforce rules that are so petty? Why won't anybody stand up to these outrageous violations of American values and American justice?"

As millions of high school seniors each year accept athletic scholarships to American colleges and universities to chase their dream of fame and fortune as "student-athletes," sports fans have finally come to realize that athletes in the two biggest college sports, men's basketball and football, "are little more than indentured servants." Their best interests are not being served by the NCAA, notes Nocera and Strauss.

They write: "For about 5 percent of top-division players, college ends with a golden ticket to the NFL or the NBA. But what about the overwhelming majority who never turn pro? They don't earn a dime from the estimated $13 billion generated annually by college sports – an ocean of cash that enriches schools, conferences, coaches, TV networks, and apparel companies ... everyone except those who give their blood and sweat to entertain the fans."

Indentured is a must read book for college sports fans – a real eye-opening drama and a good page-turner – and chapter after compelling chapter, it tells a story of a group of "rebels" – former athletes, coaches, marketers – who decided to fight for justice against the hypocrisy of the NCAA.

Saving Capitalism /
For the Many, Not the Few
By Robert B. Reich.

• Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few by Robert B. Reich is a book that's an intersection of economics and politics, "a myth-shattering breakdown of how the economic system that helped make America so strong is now failing us, and what it will take to fix it." Reich has served in three national administrations – he was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton – and currently is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economics. So, he knows his subject matter very well.

In Saving Capitalism, Reich "reveals how power and influence have created a new American oligarchy, a shrinking middle class, and the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity in eighty years." His writing throughout the book is both filled with passion and it's precisely argued.

Reich recalls how in the post-World II outlook, America created the largest middle class the world had ever seen. "Then, the economy generated hope. Hard work paid off, education was the means toward upward mobility, those who contributed most reaped the largest rewards, economic growth created more and better jobs, the living standards of most people improved throughout their working lives, our children would enjoy better lives than we had, and the rules of the game were basically fair," writes Reich.

He continues: "But today all these assumptions ring hollow. Confidence in the economic system has declined sharply. The apparent arbitrariness and unfairness of the economy have undermined the public's faith in its basic tenets. Cynicism abounds. To many, the economic and political systems seem rigged, the deck stacked in favor of those at the top. The threat to capitalism is no longer communism or fascism but a steady undermining of the trust modern societies need for grown and stability."

Robert Reich is one of the best economists in modern American history, according to U.S. Senator and Democratic Presidential contender Bernie Sanders. "He understands that there is something profoundly wrong when the top one-tenth of one percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. This book is a road map on how to rebuild the middle class and fix a rigged economy that has been propped up by a corrupt campaign finance system," said Sanders.

I'd Know That Voice Anywhere /
By Frank Deford
A collection of his NPR commentaries.

• I'd Know That Voice Anywhere by Frank Deford. The longtime NPR Morning Edition commentator, who is also senior contributing writer at Sports Illustrated and a senior correspondent on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, is one of America's most beloved sport commentators. Since 1980, Deford has recorded over 2,000 commentaries for NPR – "the serious, the foolish, the noble, the idiosyncratic; this game, that athletic." His latest book – his nineteenth – is a collection of literary sports commentaries that brings together a charming, insightful and wide-ranging look at athletes and the sports world.

"Being a writer, I never paid much attention to my voice," writes Deford in the forward for I'd Know That Voice Anywhere. "Since, when it came to interviewing, I was a primitive pen-and-notebook reporter, I rarely even heard myself speak on a tape recorder. ... Then, in the autumn of 1979, through impossibly serendipitous circumstances, National Public Radio approached me about doing a weekly sports commentary, and suddenly I had to direct that run-of-the-mill voice of mine into a microphone. But then, to my utter delight (shock and awe?), I soon found myself being complimented, advised that I possessed a distinct "radio voice." Where did you get that? people asked me, as if you could pick it out at an appliance store."

In I'd Know That Voice Anywhere, Deford muses everything sport from our continued love affair for Joe DiMaggio to the similarities between Babe Ruth and Winnie the Pooh. He rhapsodizes about how football reminds him of Venice, and even offers Super Bowl coverage in the form of a Shakespearian sonnet. Deford waxes poetically about the most popular sports of yesteryear such as boxing, golf and horse racing, and compares the Olympics to an independent movie comprised of foreign actors you've never heard of.

"Sports is, on the one level, mere amusement, but it is found in every culture," notes Deford, "and while it's not an absolute necessity for us, as eating and drinking and procreation are – sports is a card-carrying part of the human condition, in the same league with religion and drama and art and music. You can ignore sports, just as  you might choose not to care about other of those optional devotions, but sports does have a hefty place in our world, and I'm pleased to have been its troubadour on NPR. To voice sports may well be the next best thing to being out on the field itself, playing. And there's no risk of concussions."

In support of English literacy and a love of learning

In support of English literacy /
Students benefiting from the Morocco Library Project.

During a recent walk through Town & Country Village, an upscale outdoor shopping mall in Palo Alto, California, near Stanford University, I crossed paths with a most interesting window display at independent bookseller Books, Inc., that immediately captured my attention.

Instead of witnessing a display of current New York Times best-selling books, I glimpsed a colorful collection of young adult books, including Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, The Major Poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Books, Inc. window display /
Promoting awareness of the Morocco Library Project. 

In the center of the window display were a pair of signs. One read: Morocco Library Project. The other: Support the Morocco Library Project with Books Inc.! A similar display featuring children's literature awaited customers inside the bookstore, too.

What I learned is this: The Morocco Library Project is Americans and Moroccans building libraries together in support of English learners in Morocco. The group has a Facebook page and you can also find them via LinkedIn.

The mission of the Morocco Library Project is simple: It is designed to inspire and support English literacy and a love of learning in Morocco, and to build a lasting bridge of friendship and peace between East and West. In Morocco, most students learn to speak English as their third language -- yes, third -- after their native Arabic and French.

According to the organization's website, I learned: "We strive to work with underserved communities, where a single library will make a huge difference. For each location, we work with teachers to understand the particular need and to curate a collection of books and other materials for the students and community. The students do a lot of the work putting the library together. This is truly a partnership."

The Morocco Library Project launched its first project, the Erfoud Library, at the Lycée Moulay Rachid, in April 2015. It is located in the eastern part of the country near the Algerian border. I learned that this library supports highly motivated students from under-privileged families in an after-school program called English Access, and it's also open to other students in the area. While interest in learning English is rapidly growing, until recently, there were few resources to support it.

A love of learning /
Young students at the Erfoud Library in Morocco.

However, thanks to the effort of the Morocco Library Project, both in the U.S. and abroad, about 650 books for all ages and in a variety of genres, including art, geography, literature, nature, and science -- as well as Kindles, games, puzzles and an extensive collection of National Geographic magazines -- dot the colorful library. The collection includes about 100 children's books, too.

After a successful launch of the Erfoud Library last year, the Morocco Library Project is now starting new libraries in Taroudant and Essmara in the south, and in Tétouan in the north, for a girls' high school, the Lycée Khadija Oum El Mouminine, near Gibraltar. All are in underserved communities with students eager to study English.

Recently, Moroccan author Laila Lalami, who last year won the Arab American Book Award for her most recent novel The Moor's Account, donated autographed copies of her books to the Moroccan Library Project for distribution in its libraries.

Last month, the Minister of Education in Morocco launched a new nationwide program, CIRCLE (Club of Instructional Resources for Culture and Language Enhancement), and the Erfoud Library was selected as one of the first locations.

So, as you can see, good things are happening with this meaningful organization as they strive to turn collections of books into libraries.

The Morocco Library Project is funded entirely by donations from the public. To learn more about this worthwhile project and how to donate, visit their website: http://www.moroccolibraries.org.

Photos: Window display at Books, Inc. by Michael Dickens. Morocco Library Project photos courtesy of their website.

My New Year's resolution? Read more books!

To read or not to read / So many books ... so little time.

Happy New Year everyone!

We're less than a week into 2016, and just as everyone is writing out their New Year's resolutions, I've jotted down a few of my own.

One resolution that's near the top of my list each year is to read more. "So many books ... so little time," reads the slogan printed on one of my tattered, well-worn navy-colored t-shirts that I bought a few years ago at The Elliott Bay Book Company, one of my favorite independent bookstores in the country, located on Capitol Hill in Seattle, Washington.

Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle /
One of my favorite independent bookstores in the country. 

When I say "read more" I mean books. Oh, sure. I stay abreast of current events by reading The New York Times, both in print and online, on a daily basis, and I enjoy giving a good read to periodicals like Monocle, the London-based monthly that covers world affairs, culture, food, and design. 

And, of course, there's always perusing my Facebook news feed, to stay current on what's trending, too.

But, what about books, you ask?

Roger Angell / This Old Man: All in Pieces.
This book is on my reading list for 2016.

Yes, books, remember them? It's the foundation behind what made Amazon.com one of the most successful online retailers. Before Twitter, before Facebook, before Netflix, before texting sapped all of our intellectual energy, there were books. I have several bookshelves at home lined with hundreds of titles that I've bought or received as gifts over the years. I'm proud of my collection of books by The New Yorker writers Roger Angell and Calvin Trillin, among many. However, a few years ago, in a space-saving and budget-cutting effort, I trimmed back on the number of new titles I bought and, instead, decided to start making better use of the local public library.

Looking back on 2015, I can say without boasting that I made good use of my Oakland Public Library card. I checked out seven books at our local branch library. One thing I've learned about libraries is this: If you're willing to wait for a popular best-seller or a new title to become available, checking out library books is a good way to save money (and, I might add, bookshelf space) while also showing support for public libraries.

Watching Comedy Central's The Daily Show, I've found, is a pretty good barometer about good books to read, and before he left the show last summer, former host Jon Stewart always brought out the best in authors. You could judge by his interest in a book if it was worth reading. Fortunately, new Daily Show host Trevor Noah is carrying on the tradition begun by Stewart.

Among the books which I read during 2015 were:

Mark Bittman on food / A Bone To Pick 

Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson
Midnight in Siberia by David Green

A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power by Jimmy Carter

The Children of Willesden Green: Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival by Mona Golabek

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan

Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

You Can't Make This Up by Al Michaels

Mona Golabek / The Children of Willesden Lane:
Beyond the Kindertransport:
A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival

A Bone to Pick: The Good News and Bad News About Food by Mark Bittman

Leap: Leaving a Job with No Plan B to Find the Career and Life You Really Want by Tess Vigeland

Among the ties that bind these titles are my interest in non-fiction, memoirs, sports, food, travel and public radio personalities, as well as interest in world religions. And, of course, good writing and good stories always garner my attention.

Looking ahead, I wonder if it's possible that I can increase my output to 12 books, thus reading an average of a book a month? Let's see, I've already started a wonderful memoir by the gifted New Orleans actor Wendell Pierce, The Wind in the Reeds: A Storm, a Play, and the City That Would Not Be Broken, and I received Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta by award-winning adventure writer Richard Grant as a Christmas gift from my brother. Plus, I can't wait to begin reading Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, the acclaimed 674-page memoir by Elvis Costello that spans his almost four-decade music career. So, yes, reading a book a month seems like a reasonable goal.

I'm optimistic.

Now, if I can just somehow find a way to unplug my TV set and turn off my iPhone.

Photos of Elliott Bay Book Company by Michael Dickens © 2015. Book illustrations: Courtesy of Google Images. 

A New Year's resolution: Read more books!

Reflections from a bookstore window /
 The Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle.

So many books ... so little time, reads the slogan printed on one of my tattered navy-colored t-shirts. It's a well-worn one that I bought a few years ago from The Elliott Bay Book Company, one of my favorite independent bookstores, located in Seattle.

As the middle of January approaches, many of us -- including yours truly -- are still drawing a list of New Year's resolutions. 

One of my resolutions for 2014 is to read more. Oh, sure, I stay abreast of current events by reading The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle, both in print and online, on a daily basis, and I enjoy giving a good read to the Life & Arts section of the Financial Times of London each weekend.

And, of course, there's always perusing my Facebook newsfeed, too, to stay current on what's trending.

But, what about books, you might ask? Yes, books, remember them? Before Twitter, before Facebook, before texting sapped all of our intellectual energy, there were books.

Looking back on 2013, I can say with pride that I made better use of my Oakland Public Library card than ever before. I checked out several books at our local branch library. I've learned that if you're willing to wait for a popular best-seller to become available, checking out library books is a good way to save money (and, I might add, bookshelf space) while also showing support for one's local public library.

Watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report regularly, I find both shows to be good barometers about good books to read -- and Stewart, especially, is one of the best interviewers on TV and always brings out the best in authors. You can judge by Stewart's interest in a book if it is worth reading. 

With kudos to Stewart, among the books which I checked out from my local public library last year -- and read cover to cover -- were:

Fawzia Koofi:
"As you grow older
you will learn
about loyalty."

• Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter by the American sportswriter, novelist and NPR commentator Frank Deford.

• The Favored Daughter: One Woman's Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future by the Afghan politician and women's rights activist Fawzia Koofi. 

• Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by the highly successful American pro basketball coach Phil Jackson.

• Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography by the American journalist Richard Rodriguez.

Currently, I am ploughing my way through the 468-page Cooked: A Natural Transformation by the American author, journalist, activist and academic Michael Pollan.

I tend to favor non-fiction over fiction books. One thing that unites my list of books I read last year is a spiritual quality found in each of them. For instance:

In Darling, Richard Rodriguez, who is considered one of the most prominent Hispanic essayists in America, speaks out of an illumination of the “desert God” of Judaism, Christianity and Islam — a divinity that “demands acknowledgment within emptiness”, wrote The New York Times in its Sunday Book Review section last fall. And, for Rodriguez, who is gay, it extends to a more personal history, too: the ways in which he has resisted, and felt himself resisted by, the Roman Catholic Church.

In Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter, The New York Times wrote of Frank Deford: "His work has helped shape our contemporary view of sports as an enterprise populated not by sublime gods, untouchable athletes, heroes and goats, but by beings recognizable as men and women."

Meanwhile, in Fawzia Koofi's memoir, The Favored Daughter: One Woman's Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future, written to her daughters, she explores the complexities of Afghan society and Islam and her determination to become an educated woman and live in freedom despite constant threats on her life by Islamic extremists.

Eleven Rings:
The Soul of Success

Finally, there's plenty to absorb in Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success, and Phil Jackson quotes from the Grateful Dead, William James, Thelonius Monk, Abraham Maslow and Lao-Tzu, among many. The book reflects Jackson's polymathy. "In the space of a page, he toggles from psychotherapy to Native American customs to Christianity to Buddhism and back to 'two recent studies published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology'," The New York Times wrote in its review of the book.

As my time allows, this year I would love to go back and catch up with some of my favorite authors like Calvin Trillin (Alice, Let's Eat), Roger Angell (The Summer Game) and Michael Lewis (Moneyball). While I've read many of the books written by Trillin, Angell and Lewis -- all of them wonderful American authors -- I haven't read them all!

Also, I would love to tackle the intellect of the likes of Malcolm Gladwell and the literary brilliance of Stephen Fry and Nick Hornby.

Add to that, I've always been intrigued by the late Eudora Welty, the American author of short stories and novels about the American South, and would love to make the time to read one of her short story collections.

If I can average to read a book a month in 2014 -- 12 by the end of the year -- I'll be happy and, I'm sure, feel enriched by the experience. 

Indeed, so many books ... so little time.

Photo of Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, by Michael Dickens, copyright 2013.

The little free library that's always open

Take a book, return a book ...  a simple guiding premise.

I had just bought the November Monocle, the bookish and dense global briefing on international affairs and culture, from my favorite magazine shop, Issues, where they were holding a copy for me. As I walked back to retrieve my car that was parked less than 50 yards away, I came upon a small, colorful structure that resembled a miniature one-room school house.

A closer look revealed something totally unexpected to me. What I saw was a Little Free Library in front of the residence at 38 Glen Avenue, just off Piedmont Avenue in Oakland.

The noted Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar and writer Cicero once opined: "To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul."

Although I'm not sure if this is what Cicero had in mind, after seeing this lovely and quaint rainbow-colored Little Free Library, built with repurposed wood and other materials, and filled with a few choice books and periodicals leaning against an interior wall, it left me wondering if this was the start of something new or a part of a larger movement.

So, I decided to find out more about Little Free Libraries.

Open morning, noon and night.

Did you know: Little Free Libraries are part of a U.S. and worldwide community movement offering free books housed in small containers -- some resembling wooden doll houses -- for members of the local community. According to a recent story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, there are more than 12,000 Little Free Libraries around the world in countries such as Italy, Japan, Brazil and Ukraine -- even Pakistan. They have a website, http://www.freelibrary.org, and, they even have a dedicated Facebook page with more than 36,000 likes.

Other names for these little free libraries include: community book exchanges, book trading posts, pop-up libraries, and Noox (Neighbourhood bOOk eXchange). Anything that encourages people to read more is a good thing. Fostering a sense of community, reading for children, literacy for adults and libraries around the world adds up to a tremendous mission with a wonderful sense of purpose.

A friendly site in wintertime.

Even Hollywood has found a way to give a shout out to the movement's new-found popularity. Earlier this month, the new motion picture "The Book Thief", about a young girl's relationship with her foster parents, other residents of her neighborhood, and a Jewish fist-fighter who hides in her home during a period of heightened escalation in World War II, offered a special opportunity for Little Free Library stewards to spread the word about the importance of books by sharing photographs of their own little free libraries via Twitter and Instagram accompanied by the movie's hashtag #thebookthief.

The bottom line to this great community -- and worldwide concept -- is simple: Take a book, return a book ... as the sign says.

Oh, to have a hungry mind and to be able to nurture it!

To learn more about Little Free Libraries or to order a library, go to http://www.littlefreelibrary.org. 

Top photograph by Michael Dickens, copyright 2013. 
Other photographs courtesy of Google Images.