Good Books Archives - Read. Think. Act.

His Other Life – Melanie McCabe

(March 2020) This book was captivating. A real page turner. I love the writing and following Melanie McCabe through her journey as a novice researcher. I’m delighted to know that she is a local English teacher in Arlington, Virginia, and that a writer of such talent teaches creative writing in a public high school. How fortunate her students are to learn the craft from someone so accomplished.

The premise of the book is intriguing. It certainly makes me consider how little we know about who our parents were before they were our parents. In this instance, Melanie’s father Terrence McCabe, had an interesting connection to the playwright Tennessee Williams. The elusive Hazel Kramer, loved by both men, passed away young and tragically. I can appreciate how invested the author came to be in giving her a voice and a presence that is now capture for posterity along with a fuller portrait of the father she lost at such a young age.

It’s a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.

by Catherine Read

The Art of Gathering – Priya Parker

Art of Gathering (Jan 2020) This book is a must read. For everyone. From dinner parties and staff meetings to holiday gatherings and funerals, we all spend so much time at “gatherings” that are organized by someone.

Priya Parker points out that surprisingly little thought is given to the structure of gatherings. Because of that, many of us spend inordinate amounts of time in boring time wasters that are often tedious and quite forgettable.

This book changes how to think about the purpose of gatherings – absolutely all gatherings. With each chapter I had “aha moments” that made we wonder why I had not thought about this before.

I will also say that this book should be added to every reading list for leadership development programs, courses and seminars. Same for corporate retreats and strategy sessions. Constructing a meaningful gathering with purpose *is* a core leadership skill. Parker’s examples of the gatherings she has facilitated in her career are fascinating. It also makes the book more of a “show” than a “tell.” Once she tells the story of a particular gathering, she breaks down how and why it worked so well.

I think we all need to incorporate the format of 15 Toasts regularly into our dinner gatherings. Of all the concepts she introduced, I really loved this one. While “communication” takes place at gatherings, it does not always lead to meaningful connection among people. And why would you pursue the first if not for the purpose of the latter? I highly recommend this book. It will change the way you think about how we spend our time with one another and how with the smallest amount of effort it could be so much more meaningful.

by Catherine Read

Caldecott & Company – Maurice Sendak

(July 2019) I love this book so much! I was led to it from a footnote in Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordsrom which was published in 1998. Maurice Sendak dedicated Caldecott & Co: Notes on Books & Pictures to his beloved editor Ursula Nordstrom, who died in 1988, the year this book was published.

By 1971, Sendak had illustrated 70 books in twenty years. Most of his illustrations in the 1950s were for the works of other authors. In 1964, he wrote and illustrated Where the Wild Things Are which won the Caldecott Medal that year. His acceptance speech for that award, the Hans Christian Andersen Award, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award make up the last part of this book of essays.

Where the Wild Things Are was not universally embraced by librarians and the adult buyers of children’s books, and In the Night Kitchen even less so. In one of Sendak’s essays published in 1964, he quotes Nordstrom about the difficulties in publishing quality children’s books:

It is always the adults we have to contend with — most children under the age of ten will react creatively to the best work of a truly creative person. But too often adults sift their reactions to creative picture books through their own adult experiences. And as an editor who stands between the creative artist and the creative child I am constantly terrified that I will react as a dull adult. But at least I must try to remember it every minute!

In a separate essay from 1964 he talks about Nordstrom’s support for Where the Wild Things Are despite her “squeamishness” on seeing the first pictures for the book.

This admission of misgivings and her realization that she was reacting in a stereotyped adult fashion was a confession of utmost truth, and only she could have made it. This is how she put it recently: “And so we remembered once again, as so many times in the past, that the children are new and we are not.” Her support and unflagging enthusiasm helped bring the book to a happy conclusion.

These essays written by Sendak are from 1955 to 1987 and are not in chronological order, but rather arranged topically about the history of children’s books and the artists who illustrated them.

One of the essays is the preface to Pictures by Sendak published in 1971. It’s a selection of 19 illustrations from eight of the 70 books he illustrated – all of them after the 1950s. I went searching for the portfolio at my “go to” website for out-of-print books www.abebooks.com and they do indeed have sellers in their network who have the portfolio for sale from a low of $750 to a high of $16,000. I’m guessing it was a small print production.

One fact that emerged in these essays is his love for music and he refers to some of his drawings as “a kind of pen-and-ink ballet.” He drew his illustrations to classical music and had a fondness for Mozart. In addition to picture books, he also designed sets for operas and ballets, including The Magic Flute. The Morgan Library in New York City has a special exhibit of his theatrical designs from June to October 2019, Drawing the Curtain: Maurice Sendak’s Designs for Opera and Ballet, which I’m hoping to see this month.

Woven throughout the essays are stories of his childhood growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s- the impact of Mickey Mouse, comics and the movies. From his acceptance speech for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1970:

Mine was a childhood colored with memories of village life in Poland, never actually experienced but passed on to me as persuasive reality by my immigrant parents. On the one hand, I lived snugly in their Old Country world, a world far from urban society, where the laws and customs of a small Jewish village were scrupulously and lovingly obeyed. And on the other hand, I was bombarded with the intoxicating gush of America in that convulsed decade, the thirties. Two emblems represent that era for me: a photograph of my severe, bearded grandfather (I never actually saw him), which haunts me to this day and which, as a child, I believed to be the exact image of God; and Mickey Mouse. These two lived side by side in a bizarre togetherness that I accepted as natural. For me, childhood was shtetl life transplanted, Brooklyn colored by Old World reverberations and Walt Disney and the occasional trip to the incredibly windowed “uptown” that was New York – America. All in all, what with loving parents and sister and brother, it was a satisfying childhood. Was it American? Everybody’s America is different.

One of many interesting things about Ursula Nordstrom and Maurice Sendak is their choice of life partner. In her letters to writers over the decades, Nordstrom refers to her partner Mary Griffith – their homes, their travels, their parties. In 1988 Nordstrom predeceased Mary Griffith, who is credited in Dear Genius with providing some of the letters that appear there.

Maurice Sendak’s longtime partner, Eugene Glynn, predeceased him in 2007 and in Glynn’s obituary Sendak was mentioned as his partner of 50 years. The following year, in an interview with the New York Times, he said never told his parents. “All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.”

I’m struck by how two such talented people impacted children’s literature, had wonderfully rewarding lives and loving partners, and were part of an LGBTQ community that wasn’t itself “out” in the workplace from the 1930s through the 1980s in New York City. When we talk about the need to teach LGBTQ History, we need to teach about the amazing accomplishments of people like Ursula Nordstrom and Maurice Sendak who persevered and gave so much to this country and to our culture. There are a number of well known authors long deceased who were less well known members of the LGBTQ community. Let’s put these role models out there for students.

I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent with both Dear Genius and Caldecott & Co. and I’m awestruck by seeing how some of my favorite childhood books were made. I would highly recommend these books to anyone of any age who loves books.

by Catherine Read

Dear Genius – The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom

(June 2019) It took so long to finish this book, but I love every minute I spent with it. It was too heavy to lug around in my travels, so it was my “at home” book for months.

These letters written by the iconic children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom are so rich in every conceivable way. They are written to the many writers she worked with in a career with Harper & Row that spanned the 1930s to the end of the 1970s. The footnotes are in a class by themselves and they are on every page. I was never at a loss for context.

Ursula Nordstrom was an extraordinary person. You get that from the tone and content of her letters. She was smart, witty, encouraging and loving. Juvenile books were not even considered “literature” back in the day. Many writers wanted to have nothing to do with it. She nurtured and developed so many wonderful writers and illustrators in her career: Margaret Wise Brown, E.B. White, Maurice Sendack, Ruth Krauss, Russell & Lillian Hoban, Syd Hoff, Crockett Johnson, Louse Fitzhugh, Crosby Bonsall, Else Homelund Minarik, Arnold & Anita Lobel, Jesse Jackson, John Steptoe, Mary Stoltz, Hilary Knight, and Meindert DeJong. She launched the I CAN READ series of books. These book titles are the ones I grew up with and many are still classics of children’s literature – Where the Wild Things Are, Runaway Bunny, Charlotte’s Web, Little Bear, Harriet the Spy, Freaky Friday and Danny and the Dinosaur.

Nordstrom was not college educated. She took a job with Harper & Brothers College Textbook department in 1931. In 1936, she became assistant to Louise Raymond, editor of the small department of Books for Boys & Girls, and in 1940 took over the chief editor position of the growing Juvenile Literature Department, staying at the helm until her retirement from full time employment in 1973.

Through all those years she was supported by her longtime partner Mary Griffith. In her letters she refers to Mary, the homes and apartments they purchased and sold, and the parties they hosted at their home.

I have markers throughout this book. I learned so much about the authors and books I have loved so much in my life. And I learned so much about writers I am not familiar with but who deserve all the accolades that were heaped upon them by their loving editor.

The book is worth every minute spent in its 400 pages. Leonard S. Marcus does a masterful job in editing and compiling her letters and providing rich additional resources and context for their content. Ursula Nordstrom made a profound impact on the children’s literature that continues to influence generations of children.

She was fond of this quote from Martha Graham which she shared with the writers with whom she worked:

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

This quote was purportedly found in the wallet of Louise Fitzhugh when she died suddenly of an aneurysm at the age of 46. The author, best known for Harriet the Spy made history with her book The Long Secret (published in 1965) by addressing menstruation for the first time ever in juvenile literature. From a Nordstrom letter in 1981:

I do remember when I read the ms. [manuscript] and came to the page where the onset of Beth Ellen’s first menstrual period occurred, and it was written so beautifully, to such perfection, I scrawled in the margin, “THANK YOU, LOUISE FITZHUGH!” It is incredible that Louise’s Long Secret contained the first mention in junior books of this tremendous event in a girl’s life.”

Nordstrom would have to defend that decision to include Beth Ellen’s first period in children’s literature for many years to come.

There are so many revealing moments in these letters for those who love books. The wit and wisdom of Ursula Nordstrom made an impact. Her story is one not to missed by the truly passionate bibliophile.

by Catherine Read

Dopesick – Beth Macy

Dopesick Beth Macoy (March 2019) Beth Macy again brings her keen skills in research and journalism to tell another story about Virginia. A long time journalist with The Roanoke Times, she brings to life the stories of Virginia few people have heard before – as she did with her two previous books Factory Man and Truevine.

In Dopesick she pulls back the curtain on the genesis of the opioid epidemic that continues to ravage Virginia and the rest of the nation. No longer confined to rural Appalachia where it all began, it has now spread to the white suburban and affluent communities throughout the Commonwealth.

Those who were earliest to sound the alarm about the addictive threats of Purdue Pharmaceutical’s new drug Oxycontin were ignored. Despite the fact that John Brownlee, US Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, successfully prosecuted Perdue Pharmaceutical for “criminal misbranding” in 2006, that did not sound alarm bells for public health officials or law enforcement. The first successful case against the pharmaceutical company (owned by the billionaire Sackler family) resulted in an award of $634.5 million dollars but failed to signal what was happening in the larger context.

Beth Macy details how the drug epidemic followed I-81 north through the Shenandoah Valley. Drugs were being brought into small towns along the route and down into Roanoke from Baltimore on a daily basis by a network of distributors and users.

She also covers the detrimental effect of the fight for Medicaid Expansion in Virginia and how four years of Republicans putting up road blocks starved a growing number of addicts of the resources they needed for recovery and rehabilitation. She calls out the role Democratic Senator Phil Puckett’s resignation in 2014 played in handing the Republicans in the legislature the majority they needed to block Medicaid Expansion. Puckett represented five rural counties in southwest Virginia where the opioid epidemic was raging unabated.

There is a tremendous stigma around this epidemic because it has struck hard at suburban middle class and affluent white families, as well as poor and rural white families. Drug addiction has turned the corner from simply being deemed criminal activity to being addressed as a disease. It has been a disease all along, but now that respectable people are falling prey to addiction and death from drugs, there is a greater urgency in finding ways to prevent and rehabilitate.

The most compelling parts of this book are the stories of the individuals that Beth Macy got to know in the years she spent researching this book. So many lives wasted so tragically.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. If your life hasn’t been touched in some way by the opioid epidemic raging through Virginia, it is likely just a matter of time before it is. We all need to get involved in advocating for better resources and programs to meet this crisis that exists in every community in Virginia.

by Catherine Read

Drama High – Lou Volpe – Michael Sokolove

(June 2018) “I’m not here to make you a great actor. That’s not my job. The reasons you should be taking this class are far more important. I want you to gain confidence, learn something about life, grow up a little bit. I want to help you see who you are.”– Lou Volpe, Truman High School – Theater I Class.

The author Michael Sokolove was one of Lou Volpe’s English students back in the early 1970’s at the beginning of Volpe’s career in education. Four decades later, he returned to tell the story of how this teacher inspired his students and the community of Levittown, PA, by creating a first class theater program in a working class town. The book was published in 2013 and concludes with Lou Volpe’s retirement from teaching. In March of 2018, the television show Rise, inspired by this book, debuted on NBC with trans actor Ellie Desautels among the cast members and Lou Volpe on board as a consultant to the show.

The book is more than just an homage from a former student to a teacher who inspired him. There is a lot of background contained in these pages having to do with the genesis of the community itself and the students and families who live there. Levittown, PA, is one of the communities that sprung up after World War II when there was a desperate need for housing and the GI Bill made homeownership possible for returning veterans. Sokolove’s father Leonard was one such returning veteran who received both housing and educational benefits, getting an undergraduate degree and a law degree following the war. Sokolove doesn’t shy away from talking about how William Levitt’s creation of post-war suburban America was for whites only, a topic discussed in depth in The Color of Law. The working class community of Levittown is still predominately white, with a small population of Hispanics in residence now. The industries that once employed many who lived in the town are now shuttered. Volpe’s students come from families who are struggling in a variety of ways.

Lou Volpe was not involved in theater as a high school student himself. He started out at 21 as an English teacher at the high school and applied to be the assistant Theater Director. He was given the job of Theater Director when the current incumbent left the school and from that point forward became a self taught theater producer and director. Throughout the book there are references to Volpe’s love for Stephen Sondheim and particularly the musical Sunday in the Park with George, which he has seen performed more than 25 times. For him, the play is life changing. He clearly wants to create those life changing moments for his students.

It is quite remarkable that such an underfunded theater program was revered by those on Broadway who came to admire and respect what Volpe was able to do with his program and his students. Musical Theatre International (MTI), which licenses plays for production, tapped Lou Volpe to adapt several Broadway musicals for the high school stage. Among them were Les Miserables, Rent and Spring Awakening. Sokolove spent two years researching this book and in those years was there for Truman’s productions of Good Boys and True and Spring Awakening (which was re-created in the season finale of Rise on May 18th.) Some of the most interesting parts of this book are his detailed descriptions of the creative process and the student actors.

As a former high school theater student myself, everything about this book resonated with me. I took four years of Drama classes at William Byrd High School in Vinton, VA, along with my best friend Jeff. (We were the only two students in Drama III and Drama IV.) While neither of us ended up as Broadway actors, we both gained a lot from our love of the theater and our pursuit of mastery within it. And that is really the goal that Lou Volpe has from the beginning for his students.

As he retired from teaching in 2013, he thanked his fellow teachers and their commitment to keeping arts eduction alive at Truman High School: “When I leave here, I know that our students will not be just skilled or trained. They will be educated. And that’s what’s most important to me.”

I loved everything about this book. I can see how it inspired a television show in a time when arts education is seen as optional and unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Many of us understand that arts education is everything. What would humanity be without the arts?

by Catherine Read

Finer Women: Zeta Phi Beta Sorority 1920 – 1935

(May 2018) This is such a remarkable book. The clue to how good it is comes down to how many pages I read aloud to my husband Tom, punctuated with “Did you KNOW this?” My favorite read aloud section of the book is Chapter Six “Honorary Members.” I learned more about black history in the pages of this book than I have in the last 50 years.

Author Tilu Khalayi has amassed the personal biographies not only of distinguished Honorary Members of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, but also of the very interesting and accomplished young women who founded the Zetas from it’s charter at Howard University in 1920 through it’s amazing national and international charter of chapters to 1935. It’s extraordinary. Full stop. It just is.

The style of the book reminded me of an actual college yearbook – personal biographies of the women founders, histories of the individual chapters, the Honorary Members, and Selected Writings and Speeches. Khalayi walks us through the genesis of Zeta Phi Beta as a sister organization of the already established Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity at Howard University. There were already two well established sororities on campus, Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) and Delta Sigma Theta (Delta).

Zeta was “the first black sorority for which members were selected primarily on the basis of academic achievement.” [Audrey Kerr, Maryland University] Myrtle Tyler Faithful confirmed this, having stated that “we weren’t looking at how rich you were or what you looked like or how you dressed.” Instead the sorority considered young women for membership based on their unique abilities, and the famous writer Zora Neale Hurston is a great testament to that practice.

Students had to be academic standouts to get into the Zeta Phi Beta and they had to maintain that academic excellence to stay. The principles that they established as the ideological foundations of the sorority are scholarship, service, sisterly love and finer womanhood. They began with a “Finer Womanhood Week” that became “Finer Womanhood Month” and their annual Boulé meetings held each December featured speakers that focused on that theme of Finer Womanhood and how it is achieved.

I was captivated reading about where these young women came from, who their parents and grandparents were, where they went to school and how they came to be at Howard University, and what they did afterward. It is such a window to what the world was like for black women striving to better their own lives and those of other women. And there are all kinds of gems tucked into those biographies.

One of the first pledges of the new Zeta Alpha Chapter, Pauline Johnson Phillips, age 17, was the first black valedictorian of any high school in Connellsville, Pennslvania, graduating on June 16, 1917. What struck me about this biography was the fact that there were integrated schools in this country before de jure segregation of cities and neighborhoods forced them to be segregated. The local Connellsville Daily Courier reported: “She is the first colored graduate to take honors here and the entire occasion was made very impressive. She received an ovation as she rose to deliver her essay.” Having recently read Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law I’m infuriated all over again by how this country has perpetuated institutionalized racism with impunity.

Annie Turnbo Malone. Holy Cow, how could I possibly NOT know who this woman was? The first profile under “Honorary Members.” She was the Oprah Winfrey of the turn of 20th century America. The first self-made black woman millionaire, she built an empire on hair care products for black women. What an extraordinary woman. She pioneered the business model on which Avon and Mary Kay were built – giving women the opportunity and incentives to sell products and make money. She gave record breaking endowments and donations to Howard University and many other HBCUs, along with numerous charities. She built Poro College in St. Louis that became the center of black St. Louis. Who knew this?

Madam Evanti, the famous black opera singer I’ve never heard of. (Her great uncle, Hiram Revels, was the first black person to serve in the United States Senate.) Her race barred her from joining the Metropolitan Opera in this country, but she was celebrated and welcomed elsewhere in the world. She did perform at the White House for three presidents: Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower and was given a commendation by President Eisenhower for her work with the USO.

Nettie Langston Napier. She was considered “The First Lady of black Nashville.” Her father, John Mercer Langston, was the first black Dean of Howard University Law School, and the first black representative elected to Congress from Virginia in a contested election in 1888. Her husband J.C. Napier was a Register of the Treasury from 1911 -1913, and he would go down in history as one of only five black people whose signatures have appeared on U.S. currency. Her nephew was the poet Langston Hughes.

See what I mean about a whole lot of history stuffed into a few well crafted paragraphs?

What interested me about this book in the first place is the extraordinary power of black sororities. They are a powerhouse and their influence is fully a hundred years in the making. This was brought home to me by an article in The Atlantic in 2015 The Political Power of the Black Sorority. I see them in the gallery of Virginia’s House and Senate on Lobby Days (they are hard to miss!) and I am in awe of their ability to organize and apply pressure where it counts. This book shines a light on a history I did not know and I enjoyed every minute of discovering these women and what they accomplished.

I’ve never belonged to a sorority, but I know quite a few women who are active members of black sororities and I admire them greatly. I highly recommend this book to those who loves American history and are curious about the history they’ve never heard before.

by Catherine Read

The Color of Law – Richard Rothstein

(April 2018) On Wednesday, April 11, 2018, 90-year-old Walter F. Mondale wrote an op-ed about the 50th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, which he co-authored as a U.S. Senator. The next day, a 14-year-old black student in Detroit was shot at by a homeowner when he rang their doorbell asking for directions to his high school. The Color of Law explains why a hundred years of public policy designed to segregate neighborhoods and communities made that moment inevitable, despite the 1968 Fair Housing Act.

Author Richard Rothstein sets out to show how unconstitutional laws and unconstitutional public policies set up a system of de jure racial segregation in housing. Where once there was integrated housing and neighborhoods a century ago, a system of establishing “whites only” and “blacks only” housing and neighborhoods was engineered and promoted from the Oval Office and the Supreme Court to State Legislatures and City Planning Commissions, passing through court rooms that refused to uphold the tenants of our U.S. Constitution’s 5th and 14th Amendments.

In the Jim Crow era following reconstruction, there was collusion at every level to deny African Americans the right to buy housing any place where they could afford it. Integrated neighborhoods were systematically dismantled and policies put into place that would create separate and unequal housing for black Americans.

In 1926, the same year that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld exclusionary zoning, it also upheld restrictive covenants, finding that they were voluntary private contracts, not state action. With this decision to rely upon, successive presidential administrations embraced covenants as a mean of segregating the nation.

This march toward segregation in housing was exacerbated by the acceleration of home construction during World War II to support war workers around the country. The migration of black workers to industrial centers following war jobs, created a sudden influx of African Americans needing housing where there was none. The hasty construction of war housing created separate and very unequal communities, setting a pattern that would continue for decades afterward.

The post war housing boom in the 40’s and 50’s was fueled by GI bills and VA loans that made it possible for WHITE war veterans to afford to own their own homes in suburban neighborhoods that were “whites only.” Black war veterans were not able to use the benefits GI bills provided for housing and higher education. Very few higher educational institutions would even accept black students. And there were few homes for African Americans to buy and the housing finance industry would not approve mortgages for homes in “red lined zones.” The history of the Fair Housing Authority (FHA) is a dark one.

Rothstein does an outstanding job in presenting thorough and credible research about how segregated neighborhoods were a result of unconstitutional de jure policies rather than any de facto settlement patterns. He explores how discrimination in educational opportunities, within the federal civil service and the military, and even within labor unions systematically disadvantaged African Americans and depressed their earning potential. That disadvantage persists from one generation to the next. The heritable wealth that white Americans have passed down from one generation to the next has created a wealth gap in this country that will not be easily reversed by any policies created moving forward.

The neighborhoods created for “blacks only” were often on the edge of industrial and commercial zones used as buffers between white suburban neighborhoods and black communities. The proximity of that housing to industrial toxins and pollution are factors that have impacted the health of African Americans living in those communities. When we speak of “social determinants of health” things like the location of housing, overcrowding, the lack of job opportunities, food deserts and the lack of adequate public transportation all lead to poor health outcomes in predominantly black neighborhoods.

The role that the mortgage and real estate industries played in segregating the country is appalling. The “block busting” that preyed upon white homeowners and black homebuyers alike by real estate agents is unconscionable and for far too many years it went on unabated. The sub prime mortgage debacle a mere decade ago greatly disadvantaged minority homebuyers and homeowners and resulted in many losing their homes.

Upholding the validity of housing covenants right through the 1960s has left us with deeply segregated neighborhoods that have subsequently led to very segregated public schools. To this day, the zoning policies of towns, cities and counties across the country determine what types of housing are built, who can afford to live there, and how that housing stock impacts the make up of public school classrooms. The phrase “residential character of our neighborhoods” takes on a whole new meaning after reading this book.

I finished this book asking myself – again – why we do not teach public school students about the economic history of this country. The national mythology that passes itself off as history in our textbooks and school curriculums does not provide a foundation for young people to make better decisions as adults than their own parents did. We are truly ignorant of our own history and I see no movement to correct that.

The Color of Law would make an excellent AP History textbook. Our history does not dictate our future – unless we don’t know that history – in which case it’s very likely we will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

by Catherine Read

Non Obvious 2018 – Rohit Bhargava

(March 2018) A trend is a unique curated observation of the accelerating present.

The future belongs to those who can learn to use their powers of observation to see the connections between industries, ideas, and behaviors and curate them into a deeper understanding of the world around us.

Preparing for the future starts with filtering out the noise and getting better at understanding today . . . as it alway has.

Rohit Bhargava – Trend Curator, Storyteller, Innovater – has been writing about Non Obvious Trends for a decade. They were first published on his blog, then as a visual presentation on Slideshare, followed by an e-book through Amazon, and eventually as a published book starting in 2011.

I have no idea how this was not on my radar before now. I picked up this book at the popup bookstore operated by Book People at the SXSWEdu in Austin, TX, earlier this month. This is precisely why it’s important to have a well curated selection of books to browse. Books are put before us through excellent curation that we would otherwise miss.

Bhargava sets about collecting ideas throughout the year, marking the hardcopy pages with the salient idea that caught his attention, then he sets them aside in a folder. These are articles from magazines, websites and other resources. He makes it a point to pick up magazines that are wildly disparate in their themes and target audiences – like model train enthusiasts.

Curiosity is key here. And having a wide range of interests is also important. We tend to gravitate to the things we enjoy, or impact our business and career, or validate our existing beliefs. Being open to a broad mix of topics helps to elevate trends away from the the specific subject to the behaviors that might be associated across that broad spectrum.

I like the way this book is put together. Having never read any of his previous Non Obvious books, it was all quite fresh to me in how he explained his process. He talked about his team and how they went about sorting, grouping and naming emerging trends. And his final trends all have well crafted names – another factor that he sees as very important to helping people understand the trend and what it means. At the back of the book, there is a section where he goes back and lists all of his Non Obvious Trends going back to 2011 and rates how well he predicted their impact. That is very interesting.

Some of Non Obvious Trends have been brought forward from earlier years as the concept have evolved, taken shape and grown in their impact. Some of the more interesting ones out of the 15 he identifies for this year are:

Ungendered
Brand Stand
Manipulated Outrage
Data Pollution
Approachable Luxury

Each of the 15 trends have their own section where he talks about how he came to identify the trend and wonderful examples of where they can be seen – using varied examples across multiple industries. I was fascinated by Approachable Luxury and some of the examples he used there. I had no idea they are producing quality diamonds in labs now.

I highly recommend this book. It’s a very interesting and engaging read. I am of a most curious mindset and I enjoy reading the works of writers who are as well.

by Catherine Read

Educated: A Memoir – Tara Westover

(March 2018) “I am not the child my father raised. But he is the father who raised her.”

A gripping memoir. From the opening passage to the final sentence, I was pulling for Tara Westover to make it.

Raised in a Mormon family in Idaho that eschewed modern medicine, public education and was deeply fearful of the government, Tara did herself and the world a great favor by keeping journals from a very early age. The word that kept flashing in my brain throughout this book was “gaslighting.” She was constantly being made to feel that SHE WAS THE CRAZY ONE by her family – her parents, her siblings and the larger Mormon community.

Despite never having attended school at all (nor having the “homeschooling” her parents claimed to provide), she managed to enroll in Brigham Young University based on her high ACT score at the age of 17. From that point, she was fortunate to connect with people who recognized her ability and wanted to help her to realize her potential. Those professors and mentors kept opening doors that she walked through to claim her future.

At the same time, she kept striving to remain a member of her nuclear family.

I never knew what would happen next. It is an emotional rollercoaster. Keeping a journal turned out to be central to this memoir. All of us have faulty memories. It’s hard to be accurate in hindsight when intervening events color our memories of the past. Having a contemporary account of what happened in the immediate aftermath of traumatic events provided a more reliable witness to her life.

Perhaps I’m just particularly drawn to memoirs of strong women these days. Tara’s internal struggles to reconcile her life with her desire to stay connected to her family reminded me of Emily Nunn’s memoir The Comfort Food Diaries which addressed similar issues. (Both authors changed the names of their immediate family members to protect their privacy.) Where does our commitment to our family begin, and end, when it impacts our ability to live a full and healthy life?

I would highly recommend this book. It is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit in the most difficult circumstances. Our history does not dictate our future. Our origination story is not the only story. We can write a narrative for ourselves that accepts that where we have come from is only part of who we are. Our “self” is in our heads. We do have choices. And self preservation is the choice we have to make first.