[Pacg] Book Recommendations / Prairie Lights at Unitarian Church 10am Forum

Sat Dec 8 20:51:15 CST 2007

*With the holidays fast approaching, I thought some of you might enjoy
spending a little time with a good book so we have compiled a list of
recommendations that you might appreciate. We will be compiling a list of
documentaries as well so stay tuned. For future reference, this information
will also be  posted to our website under Authors. Enjoy!
Caroline**

**FYI... Prairie Lights will be at the Unitarian Church 10am Forum tomorrow
morning - this would be a good opportunity to pick up a few of these great
recommendations! **

>From Dave Van Thurnout:
*Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy
By Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks
Forward by Former President Bill Clinton
*Robert Redford, actor/director*
For those of you who want to move beyond the doom & gloom of the global
warming dialogue, Apollo's Fire fits the bill.
*Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers columnist*
Apollo's Fire is a brilliant, inspiring book on the need to set goals and
find future solutions to achieve clean, efficient energy.
http://www.apollosfire.net/

*From Cliff Day:

*This is a must read!* Deep Economy: *The Wealth of Communities and the
Durable Future, by Bill McKibben.
McKibben offers the biggest challenge in a generation to the prevailing view
of our economy. For the first time in human history, he observes, "more" is
no longer synonymous with "better"—indeed, for many of us, they have become
almost opposites.
http://www.billmckibben.com/deep-economy.html

I have just ordered *The Two Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate
Change, and Our Future *by Richard B. Alley*
*See* http://tinyurl.com/2wd6q6* to read selected pages.

For a pessimistic view: *Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging
Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century *by Howard Kunstler*
*"In an apocalyptic vision of a post-oil future, the author of The Geography
of Nowhere details the economic, political, and social changes of an
unimaginable scale that can be expected after the tipping point of global
peak oil production is passed."
See *http://tinyurl.com/3djex4* <http://tinyurl.com/3djex4> to read selected
pages.

The following two books by E. O. Wilson -

*The Future of Life *by* *E.O. Wilson:
"E.O. Wilson delivers an impassioned plea for a new human ethic based on a
wiser, more careful stewardship of our vanishing natural world. Wilson
invites us to share his optimism that we still have an opportunity to save
the living things and wild placesthat sustain us and give us hope." KATHRYN
S. FULLER, PRESIDENT, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND
See http://books.google.com/books?id=gCpDAAAACAAJ&dq=The+Future+of+Life

*The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth* by E.O. Wilson
See http://books.google.com/books?id=DKjLHQAACAAJ&dq=The+Creation

* From Rev Roger Butts:*

*The Books I'd Point People Towards at This Moment…Roger Butts*

* *

*SOLIDARITY AND SUFFERING: TOWARD A POLITICS OF RELATIONALITY*

*Douglas Sturm*

This is the classic book for me on politics and religion. This is the one
from all of these that I would have every PACG'er read and reflect upon.

>From Amazon…

This book delineates a vision that moves beyond a politics of divisiveness
toward a new way of constructing lives together throughout the world.
Sturm's "politics of relationality" is an alternative to classical
liberalism and cultural conservatism. It calls for mutual respect and
creative dialogue, promoting a principle of justice as solidarity. Sturm
develops a radically reconstructive approach to a wide range of social
issues: human rights, affirmative action, property, corporations, religious
pluralism, social conflict, and the environment. Solidarity and Suffering:
Toward a Politics of Relationality is infused with a spirituality of
compassion, suggesting that, in their core meanings, justice and love
coalesce.

*The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story*

*Diane Ackerman*

Read this to remind yourself why you are in the justice and peace movement
in the first place.

>From Amazon…

Ackerman (*A Natural History of the Senses*) tells the remarkable WWII story
of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina,
who, with courage and coolheaded ingenuity, sheltered 300 Jews as well as
Polish resisters in their villa and in animal cages and sheds. Using
Antonina's diaries, other contemporary sources and her own research in
Poland, Ackerman takes us into the Warsaw ghetto and the 1943 Jewish
uprising and also describes the Poles' revolt against the Nazi occupiers in
1944. She introduces us to such varied figures as Lutz Heck, the duplicitous
head of the Berlin zoo; Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, spiritual head of
the ghetto; and the leaders of Zegota, the Polish organization that rescued
Jews. Ackerman reveals other rescuers, like Dr. Mada Walter, who helped many
Jews pass, giving lessons on how to appear Aryan and not attract notice.
Ackerman's writing is viscerally evocative, as in her description of the
effects of the German bombing of the zoo area: ...the sky broke open and
whistling fire hurtled down, cages exploded, moats rained upward, iron bars
squealed as they wrenched apart. This suspenseful beautifully crafted story
deserves a wide readership.

*A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life*

*Parker Palmer*

**

This book has the power to transform lives and communities. A powerful
Quaker voice who has been in the struggle from day one.

**

*From Publishers Weekly*
Palmer (*The Courage to Teach*) seeks to help us "rejoin soul and role," so
that individuals and communities can be healed from the ravages of
consumerism, injustice and violence. No small task, yet in classic Palmer
style, this mission is fleshed out with stories, poems, personal confessions
and a plan—concrete steps for creating "circles of trust" where honest, open
sharing allows each person's "inner teacher" to show up. (Ground rules: "no
fixing, no saving, no advising, no setting each other straight.") Palmer's
concern is that too many people have "divided lives," with personal values
that don't match what they are asked to do in the world to succeed. He
argues that "the soul is real and powerful" and is "safe only in
relationships with certain qualities," ones that "protect, border and
salute" the time it takes to hear our "inner teacher." Never naïve, Palmer
warns that these "circles of trust" are not management tools that
organizations can force on employees for some grand motive, such as crisis
control or increased productivity. They are the opposite of quick
fixes—places where we sit and wait for our souls to tell the truth. This
book is a treasure—an inspiring, useful blueprint for building safe places
where people can commit to "act in every situation in ways that honor the
soul."**

*The Descendants: A Novel*

* Kaui Hart Hemmings<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/002-3903398-3600043?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Kaui%20Hart%20Hemmings>
*

**

*Can't be all work and no play. This is a good play book.*

**

*From The New Yorker <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005N7T5>*
The narrator of this audaciously comic début novel, the scion of the last
Hawaiian landowning clan, has floated through his privileged life: marriage
to a model given to "speedboats, motorcycles, alcoholism"; children getting
into trouble (cocaine, bullying) at élite schools; membership at a
century-old beach club that rejects those with "unfavorable pedigrees." But
when a catamaran accident leaves his wife in a coma he must wake from his
own "prolonged unconsciousness," reacquaint himself with his neglected
daughters, and track down his wife's lover. Meanwhile, his cousins are
urging him to sell the family's vast landholdings for development—to
relinquish, in his eyes, the final vestige of their native Hawaiian
ancestry. Hemmings channels the voice of her befuddled middle-aged hero with
virtuosity, as he teeters between acerbic and sentimental, scoffing at
himself even as he grasps for redemption.

* *

*The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao*

*Junot Diaz*

**

This has to be the best novel of the year.

**

*From amazon…*

A reader might at first be surprised by how many chapters of a book entitled
*The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao* are devoted not to its sci
fi–and–fantasy-gobbling nerd-hero but to his sister, his mother and his
grandfather. However, Junot Diaz's dark and exuberant first novel makes a
compelling case for the multiperspectival view of a life, wherein an
individual cannot be known or understood in isolation from the history of
his family and his nation.

Drown, by the same author, is excellent too. Short stories.

*The Prophetic Imagination*

*Walter Brueggeman*

* *

Brueggemann traces the lines from the radical vision of Moses to the
solidification of royal power in Solomon to the prophetic critique of that
power with a new vision of freedom in the prophets. Here he traces the broad
sweep from Exodus to Kings to Jeremiah to Jesus. He highlights that the
prophetic vision not only embraces the pain of the people but creates an
energy and amazement based on the new thing that God is doing.

*Jesus for the Non-Religious*

*John Shelby Spong*

You cannot go wrong with Spong. This is a great introduction to progressive
Christianity.

**

*The Questions of Jesus: Challenging Ourselves to Discover Life's Great
Answers*

*Father John Dear*

* *

I simply love this book and this writer. He is to me the living embodiment
of Merton, Dorothy Day, Gandhi, etc.

>From Amazon

This illuminating examination of the Gospels reveals how the questions Jesus
asks of his followers lead the way to a deeper understanding of the meaning
of life and the mystery of God.

The Gospels are filled with stories, parables, miracles, commandments, and
dramatic incidents that trace Jesus' life and recount his teachings. A close
reading of the Gospels reveals, however, that they are also filled with
questions. As John Dear points out in this remarkable book, Jesus, like any
great teacher and rabbi, "has a question for everyone he meets, for every
occasion, for every experience, for every potential disciple." Dear uses
these questions as a starting point, an invitation to readers to discover
the lessons they contain by searching their own hearts and minds for
answers.

Throughout *The Questions of Jesus*, Dear interweaves insights from ethical
and religious teachers ranging from Buddha to Gandhi to Martin Luther King,
Jr. Using recent events as powerful and poignant examples, he shows why a
renewed commitment to Jesus' message of nonviolence, compassion, justice,
and peace is essential to healing a world torn by violence and war.

**

*On Chesil Beach: A
Novel*<http://www.amazon.com/Chesil-Beach-Novel-Ian-McEwan/dp/0385522401/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196910613&sr=1-1>

*by Ian McEwan*

* *

*A very fine book from the author of Atonement. I kid you not, a horror
story.*

* *

* *

*Picnic, Lightning   *and * Questions About Angels*

*Billy Collins*

He's a genius. His poetry is beyond imagining. He's good company for the
soul. And he'll make you laugh.

**

*Thirst: Poems*

*Mary Oliver*

* *

I cannot tell you remarkable this book is. This is the book that Mary Oliver
wrote upon the death of her decades long partner Molly. This is a book of
prayer and psalms and laments and throughout all a naturalist faith. It is a
book of longing for the holy, for God. O Lord of melons, of mercy, though I
am not ready nor worthy, I am climbing toward you. She is sad. She is
astonished. She is alone, but out among the trees, she dares to say that
they almost save her and daily.

*Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination*

*Toni Morrison*

* *

Three lectures on literature, race and otherness. It is a deep reflection on
the cost of racism for the perpetrators. One great line: We knew Eddie was
white, because nobody said so.

*A BONUS MUSICAL RECOMMENDATION*

*R.E.M. LIVE*

* *
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.qcprogressiveaction.org/pipermail/pacg/attachments/20071208/6bbf1f3a/attachment.htm 