The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A cottage industry of writers survives thanks to the concise yet profound knowledge found in The Elements of Style. It was required reading in college and should be part of the standard work contract. Weighing in at a nimble 95 pages, including the glossary, there are few books more densely packed with wisdom.

In the age of blogs, tweets and megabyte data streams, crisp clear communication is seldom seen. Few endeavor to contemplate how to communicate clearly. The Elements of Style is the guide post in this blizzard of messages. The books is tremendously old, but still recommended reading in writing courses and newsrooms around the world. Why?

Is humor possible while discussing grammar? Uhm, yes. The trick, evidently, is in clarity.

The Elements of Style covers grammar usage, composition, form expressions and style. All of which are critical elements in communicating tone, style and information. Even if I get labeled a nerd, I have to say one of the best books I CONTINUE to read.

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Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Finding your life’s purpose and changing the lives of nearly 24,000 children and their parents in the process is sometimes less about running after defined dreams and sometimes more about listening to the wind. Three Cups of Tea is the story of Greg Mortenson, an extreme mountain climber, who in failing to conquer the second highest mountain in the world, stumbled across his life’s work, changing the future of 24,000 impoverished children and their families in the process.

The book was written by Mortenson and writer David Oliver Relin and published by Penguin in 2006. It was a New York Times best seller and 2007 winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize for Nonfiction. It’s easy to understand the book’s popularity given the region which Mortenson’s work finds him in. The mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan are now at the heart of the war on terror and central to winning that war, says Mortenson, is educating the children, especially the girls.

Mortenson’s story is vividly detailed in this well written book which provides and understanding of village life high in the mountains of the Karakoram Mountain range located in Pakistan and bordered by China to the east and India to the south. The strongly Christian Mortenson is taken care of by a village of strangers after losing his way on an expedition in the mountains. He is cared for with kindness by the residents of the Korphe village and eventually comes to see their leader Haji Ali as his mentor. Through Ali’s eyes, Mortenson begins to realize how inaccessible education is in this part of the world. He also begins to understand that the inhabitants of the area would give anything to have a school and makes a fateful promise to help the village build a school, and in so doing sets his future in motion.

As a precursor to understanding the war on terror and its root causes, this book is invaluable. Throughout the book we see first hand how brutal poverty and lack of access to the essentials of life make them easy targets for Islamic extremists who provide food, clothing and an extremist education that fuels the war on terror. By educating the girls, not just boys, Mortenson believes that the society will in turn become more educated.

Throughout the book we watch as Mortenson is kidnapped, swindled, caught in firefights and even has local Muslim leaders issue religious pronouncements, Fatwas, against him and his work. The journey is an inspiring story that displays how one person’s promise and determination can change the fate of a nation and indeed,the world.

The writing style is fluid and quick. There are some gaps in the writing, for instance the time he initially spends in Korphe is abbreviated and we miss understanding some of the passion that fuels his initial promise. But at 336 pages, the adventure and the rich characters more than make up for it.

Another interesting subtext for this book is religious tolerance and respect for other cultures. As a Christian, Mortenson is primarily educating Muslim children. Rather than providing a Christian based indoctrination, Mortenson strove to provide the children with a balanced education that could save them from the extremism that was popping up everywhere in the country. As an infidel, the Muslim word for a non-Muslim, his mission was that much harder and that much more improbable. When asked if he was a Muslim while in the region, his response was that he was a Christian, but that he respected Islam. That respect ultimately allowed him to go in places and meet people the U.S. military could only hope to know.

Dr. Greg, as he came to be known, was more popular than the president in the region as he served the needs of the poor in exemplary fashion. For Christians called to serve and for those interested in understanding exactly why there is a war on terror and for those daring to be inspired, I highly recommend Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

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No two ways about it, staring is impolite. So, with great pleasure, I bestowed a wide-eyed Mike Singletary stare on four Australian teenagers eating a meal on the other side of a glass McDonald’s door in a restroom waiting area. For good measure, I pointed at them and feigned a whisper to my 11-year-old son blatantly daring the impolite teenagers to respond to my childish actions. Yes, I’m 40 and I still haven’t learned to always take the high road.

As a 40-year-old black American, I’ve grown accustomed to stares. My parents made sacrifices early in my life and moved us to the regular dinner times and bedtime stories that haunted predominately white suburbs with schools that would fill my childhood and adolescence with rich experiences and naked ugliness. Somewhere in between those two extremes, lurked the stares of unfamiliar friends and familiar enemies. I came to know the unwitting power of seemingly benign stares.

I was surprised to come across a book on the subject, Staring: How We Look, by Rosemarie Garland Thomson. She clinically dissects the peculiar nature of staring and fine tunes the murky details of the age old, unavoidable attraction it wields over our eyes:

We stare when ordinary seeing fails, when we want to know more. So staring is an interrogative gesture that asks what’s going on and demands the story. The eyes hang on, working to recognize what seems illegible, order what seems unruly, know what seems strange. Staring begins as an impulse that curiosity can carry forward into engagement.

Curiosity can be at the heart of staring, but my experiences also knew that staring was a silent segregator, dividing those who belong from those who do not. The teenager’s stares reminded me of those experiences. Their furtive glances and stiffled giggles fired up emotions long ignored, relegated to obsolescence. Anger and rage were normally inappropriate responses to the primary motivator for staring, curiosity.

The problem is, the stare automatically betrays the starers understanding of what is normal, casting the object of the stare, the staree as abnormal in some shape fashion or form.

“Staring offers an occasion to rethink the status quo. Who we are can shift into focus by staring at who we think we are not,” Thomson writes.  This creates the power struggle inherent in the stare that we feel but don’t understand. The staree is defined against a fictional backdrop created by the starer. In the case of two people attracted to each other, the backdrop is mutually beneficial for both the starer and the staree. “Staring encounters nonetheless draft starees into a story of the starer’s making, whatever that story might be, whether they like it or not,” concludes Thomson.

I can remember one of my earliest memories as a child was a staring incident in which I, the starer concocted a story for my staring subject. I couldn’t have been older than five and I was on a trip with my mother to the supermarket. The American era of free love was drawing to an end in the seventies and hippies were everywhere. Following close behind my mother, I rounded the corner in what I believed to be the dairy section. Riveted by what I saw my hand rose with a pointed finger singling out the focus of my youthful attention. I spoke loudly, to my mother’s eventual mortification.

“Momma,” I shouted in semi-joy, amazement, and curiosity. “Is that Jesus?”
My mother’s lowered head and aggressive tugging gave me the sneaking suspicion my answer was, “oh my gosh no, you are such an embarrassing child, please stop staring and didn’t I teach you not to point at people?”
In that moment, I created a world for the anonymous grocery store patron to fit into. Even children have the power to create a world into which adults conform.

So, I grew up practiced in the silent art of staring as most of us do. The suburbs prepared me well to become invisible to the stares that I would so often get. When we notice we are the subject of staring, we are forced to respond in some way. Even the choice to ignore is an initiated action. I recently spoke with a friend, the child of a military officer stationed overseas. While stationed in Japan, he vividly remembers an incident in which children walked up to him and began rubbing his brown skin, which they clearly had never seen before. They stared and touched in stunning amazement.

“I pulled my arm back,” he said, “but my father stopped me and told me to hold my hand out.” As his father explained to him, even if he didn’t understand, he was representing a whole new realm of understanding for those children enamored by his skin and his appearance. His father taught him to smile at the stares; his very presence was educational. He still remembers that lesson to this day.

I can understand this perspective, but the teenagers who had been eying my family, whispering amongst themselves as they gawked at our existence was proving to be unsettling. I had traveled across the world to enjoy the Australian culture and, as a veteran of the staring game, I was seldom unsettled. But the nature of the stares surpassed even my appalling experience on a South Korean bus in 1987. After coming to a complete stop, the bus driver turned to me and stared me up and down the entire time the light was red. His uncomfortable and obtrusive gaze never wandered from my 18-year-old frame. Only the anxious honking of horns from the cars behind him, who clearly had no idea of the wonder he had found, jarred him to unfix his uncomfortable stare and drive the damn bus.

The stare wields the power to render a person’s being, accomplishments, shortcomings and heroics obsolete. Inherent in the stare is the ability to reduce a person to a shell of their real self, substituting perceived stereotypes, notions of value, and worthlessness. In this ocular transaction, there is the potential for tension. My pointing display was evidence of my desire to ratchet up the tension; return the favor to the starer. It hadn’t worked, they continued to take unwanted glances, smirking and joking with each turn back to their table of peers.

In that moment, I was thankful I had talked with my children before they ever arrived in Australia. We talked about standing up for ourselves and never allowing anyone’s words, fingers or eyes make us feel uncomfortable. I communicated to them how important it was to understand people stare because they seldom see black Americans here and as my friend’s father taught him, smiling and educating the curious about who we are allows everyone to win. We talked about ignoring the stares and never internalizing them.

I was satisfied when my daughter came home laughing because a little Australian child around the age of five ran to her mother, pointing at my children, “Mum, look at their faces!!!” My daughter got it, she knew she was complete whole and beautiful and the child was simply amazed by her. Her laughter warmed, she could protect herself from the pressure of the stares. But, there is a point, where curiosity becomes blatant rudeness. I was now there. Question was, what was I going to do about it.

We were in the town of Gimpy, Queensland eating at a McDonald’s after being on the road for six hours. My grump factor was up as I was tired and hungry. The gawking teenagers had tested my patience and it was time to put an end to it, they clearly hadn’t gotten my impolite warning.

As my family walked out of the restroom waiting area toward the cashier and past the teenagers, they looked down at their food and a wave of patience came over me. I stared at their table, no one stared back. Thankful for my second wind of patience, I was happy to put the moment behind me, but as I passed their table preparing to get into the long line to order, I saw at least six other faces from all ages staring blankly at myself and my family. Would it always be like this? My second wind of anger filled me.

Unable to control myself, a smile came across my face as I stepped back to the table of giggling teenagers. Pausing momentarily, as I towered over their table my mouth opened, I didn’t know what was about to slide past my tongue. They had stopped giggling, and were now looking at the black man leaning into their table, their space of private jokes and shared conversation.

“I’m just curious, did you all want to ask me something,” I courteously questioned, distributing an even stare to each of the starees seated at the table? They all quickly said no, hoping to diffuse the awkward situation that was now unfolding. I paused again.

“Are you sure,” I asked again, staring ever more deeply into their eyes. They all again said no.
“Well, let me know if you do,” I offered as I left the table. They didn’t seem as curious as I thought they might, but no matter. I was no longer angry, no longer grumpy, only hungry.

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For the workaday professionals bound in the fishbowl of office life, Joshua Ferris’ freshman novel, Then We Came To The End, will be familiar territory with comical twists and reminiscent characters. The story covers the intertwined office and often personal lives of an advertising firm’s employees as they endure the turbulent bust period of the dot-com era.

Ferris imbues his book with rich characters who display the anti-social, psychotic group think prevalent but overlooked in the 9 to 5 office existence. Conversations around watercolors spawn plots and generate resentment among the advertising employees who answer to Joe Pope, even though they report to the bigger than life Lynn Mason.

The book is written in the first person plural which allows us to sit inside the heads of the employees as they cycle through their madness. Ever looked at a co-worker in dread and wondered, what in the world were they thinking? If you could think in first person plural, you would know. The technique is useful in painting a full picture of the dysfunction generated by the band of misfits comprising the staff. What used to be thought of as the ‘royal we’ could now be considered the ‘corporate we’,” says Ferris when asked about the style in an interview at the end of the book.

As the company loses clients they begin to go into perpetual downsizing mode. As the team is arbitrarily and summarily dismantled and sent packing, the groveling office mates shift their attitudes, their allegiances, their gripes, and their complaints, each survivor thankful for another day’s reprieve from “walking Spanish” – a euphemism concocted by surviving employees. The quirky, funny and unique euphemism of course is code for being fired.

They’re prisoners of their own making, delusional in their desire to control and know the tidbits of everyone’s life. Case in point, the group can’t understand why Benny the Jew would hold on to a totem pole left to him by an old deceased office worker who lived for nothing more than his daily cigarette, often smoked in the bitter cold. When the answer for his affection for the totem pole escapes the group, they create their own answers to suite their tastes.

Each character lends a unique color to the rainbow that is the we. Tom Moto, before he is let go is the free spirit in the bunch who rebels in hopes of inspiring. He is the poster boy for “when keeping it real goes to far.” After he is let go, rather than being remembered for the inspirational challenge to authority, he is feared as the one that could come back and go postal.

In Ferris’ book we find the cynical nature inherent in the American dream. Spending all of our time at a job most can’t stand so that we can hold on to the safety of the American dream buckled tightly into the drivers seat of our Mercedes and Beamers. It is the safety found in the mindless work that protects our image of ourselves and who we are in life. It is a comical look at American life that shows the irony of inept communication and under appreciation of those we spend much of our lives with.

The book took a little while to get into, but once it got going, I felt the character development was strong, the writing was crisps and fresh. The plot meandered but it seemed right in line with the lives lead by the characters. For anyone searching for the something to help quantify the value found in the average workplace, pick up this book and enjoy.

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The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lemony Snicket should be purchased and perused by audiences of all ages: that is to say, despite the gruesome awful and terrible events befalling the hapless children in this story, it was a completely charming, dry heavingly funny, oddly sad and amazingly disturbing tale.

I cheated on reading this book in that we acquired it on audio tape to calm the family as we made a six hour trek with an eight and nine year old in tow. To my chagrin, not only did the children remain quiet, but the adults were riveted to the tale as well. A year later with only adults traveling in the car, it was still a hit.

The power of this tale is generated by the strong writing and unique literary devices employed by the author Lemony Snicket (a.k.a Daniel Handler) and Brett Helquist. The fictional tale recounts the lives of the Baudelaire children: Violet, Klaus and Sunny. The children are orphaned after an unfortunate fire claims the lives of their wealthy parents and their home. After staying with the manager of the family estate temporarily, the children are shipped off to live with a distant relative. Just when their luck seems to be looking up, it comes crashing down around them. The relative the children are sent to live with is a less than blissful individual. Blissful here meant to insinuate that he, being Count Olaf, was a repulsive, repugnant, dreadful man who was despicable in every sense if ever the word had applied to a human.

Throughout, the writing for The Bad Beginning is witty, precise and comical and oddly dark. The writing is so tremendous that adults with no children around will find themselves captured by the language, the story and the situations the children find themselves in. I believe the writing is so good that it overcomes the fact that nothing ever really seems to go right for the children and at its core, the story really is tragic and dark.

As previously stated, the orphaned children are sent to live with Count Olaf who treats the children terribly. In addition to plotting for their fortune, Count Olaf and his friends are not very fond of children and go to great lengths to make life uncomfortable and miserable for the children. At every turn as things seem to get brighter for the children, misfortune seems to magically appear to place yet another road block to happiness.

Throughout, the children rely on themselves to avoid catastrophe. Klaus at the tender age of 12, proves extremely bright and is able to keep the kids one step ahead of the man made traps placed before the children. Violet, who is 14, is the ranging thinker and tinkerer whose inventions and analytical mind serve to both escape and ensnare the children. Sunny, the baby, is simply an intuitive baby unable to do anything but incite laughter: loved her.

I’ve heard some rubbish masquerading as criticism bantered about labeling the tale formulaic and repetitive, however, for my first brush with the series I simply say bravo: here bravo means tremendous, wonderful and ppppllllgggghhhhhhh to all the naysayers.

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The Shack by William P. Young

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I endeavored to begin a 500 book reading voyage, I asked friends and family for suggestions of “the most life altering books.” There were quite a few responses, but The Shack, written by William p. Young, was continually nominated so I grabbed a copy and dived right in.

The Shack is an engaging story that intertwines Christian theology within a modern tale of tragedy and struggle. The language is straightforward and places the subject matter into an understandable and digestible format accessible to all. Some criticisms attack the straightforward style, but I think it works for this story. Be mindful, there are some deep reactions from the Christians as to the accuracy and even heresy of some of the books content. To look into some areas of the skirmish, you can visit: http://www.boundless.org . Much of the criticism circles around the interaction and usage of the trinity in direct communication with Mack(Mackenzie) Phillips, the main character of the story.

As we meet Mack, he has entered into a period of his life he dubs, “The Great Sadness.” This period is ushered in by the abduction and murder of a close and vulnerable family member. In the midst of his pain, Mack grapples with the reconciliation of his faith and the atrocity visited upon his family. The plot, though not unique, delivers a compelling exposition of the Christian trinity and the attendant love gracefully bestowed upon mankind through the creator.

I found the book to be a quick read due to not only the subject matter, but the fresh approach in explaining such complicated topics as the trinity, forgiveness and redemption.

The trinity consumed a large portion of the book. Young spins a tale where Mack, against common sense, heeds a call to revisit the site of the horrendous crime. Once there, Mack begins a journey in conversation with The Father, represented as, for lack of a better metaphor, “Aunt Jemima,” Jesus as a man of “Middle Eastern” descent, and The Holy Spirit as an ethereal woman of Eastern descent.

Although the name Aunt Jemima doesn’t appear in the book, the images of God as a portly African-American woman, cooking in the kitchen plays on the obvious stereotype. The problem with the stereotypes is that they erect a philosophical barrier, for those observant of them, that the user must grapple with prior to moving forward with the book. As in any writing, cliches are to be avoided, well, “like the plague ” – couldn’t resist.

Utilizing a stereotype is a weak way of not developing characters. By relying on the images and baggage generated by the stereotypes, the writer doesn’t have to develop the characters. The unintended consequence, however, is that the stereotype carries baggage that each user will interpret to their own understanding which may prove detrimental or helpful to the writer. In my case, it wasn’t as bad, but in many cases, it became a huge flaw that soured readers on the whole experience.

One of the redeeming aspects of the book, however, is the confrontation of forgiveness, which is a complex emotional issue. The interplay between The Father, referred to as “Papa”, Mack intertwined with his tragedy, Young does a great job in illustrating the interplay of forgiveness in it’s multiple facets as he weaves the conept through The Father, Mack and the perpetrator of the deadly deed.

All and all, I liked the book and would recommend it. If pushed for a grade on the book, I’d give it a C+.

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Fences by August Wilson


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m ashamed to say that I’d never taken the time to read the 1987
Pulitzer prize winning play “Fences” by writer August Wilson. I’ve really hurt myself by not
reading it, it is an enjoyable, informative and instructive play.

The play centers around Troy Maxson. He reminds me of the
quintessential black patriarch. Consumed with his own understanding and
experiences with the world, he narrows the scope of life to that which
is comprehensible to him. Anything outside of this sphere is nonsense.

His tendency to judge his son’s future by his past is deceptively
destructive to not only his relationship with his son Cory, but Cory’s
future and subsequent generations. In Troy we find that cantankerous
man growing old and struggling to stay afloat in a world changing
around him. His life is like concrete quick sand both knocking him
about and swallowing him up at the same time.

His love for his wife seems to be of legend, yet and still, he ends
up having a relationship outside of his marriage that produces a child.
He judges his actions by his heart, failing to consider how his actions
jeopardize the relationship he had so fully built with his wife. In him
we find the drive which insecurity breeds in clinging to one’s own
understanding in the midst of a complex world of complex relationships.

The workmanship of Wilson’s dialogue is amazing. I found myself
reading out loud, portraying the gruff, shortened sentences of Troy and
the seemingly long and thoughtful words of Rose. The dialogue rolls
along pushing into the next idea and thought, wrapping the reader up
and placing them in the yard surrounded by the fence.

Throughout the play, Troy transforms before our eyes as he is played
against the supporting characters who reflect his goodness, his
stubbornness, his selfishness. In them we see the irony of the fence he
slowly builds over time. Even as the play states, a fence is not only
used to keep others out but also to keep some in. At the conclusion of
the play, we find those who are within and without the gates that
Troy’s life has constructed.

An excellent play!!

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