This illustrated children’s book illuminates the basics of the human nervous system. It teaches kids about their bodies – specifically, about their brains and senses – in a way that intends to make such learning fun. The pictures are colorful and engaging for young learners. Even though the brain can seem like an abstract topic, this book centers on the very basics – in other words, high-yield material. This book can be helpful to just…
This novel, translated from the Czech language, describes the life of Germans in the Czech region of Europe before, during, and after World War II. It does not paint a pretty picture. Some Germans supported the rise of Adolf Hitler and paid a moral price for the rest of their lives. Others – especially women and children – were not directly involved in the political and war efforts, but were still forced on a death…
Albert Camus was a towering intellectual figure during and after the Second World War in France. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature and tried to stand for truth in an era of ideology. However, on January 4, 1960, he tragically died in his prime in a car wreck while traveling back to Paris. This book tries to make sense of this tragedy, approximately fifty years after. Catelli excels at setting up the circumstantial case…
Zora Neale Hurston was one of the pioneering authors during the Harlem Renaissance and is most well-known for the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. This work is a compilation of short stories published during her life. Many of these short stories are previously unavailable to a wider audience. Together, they open a tall and wide window to African American life in Eatonville, Florida, Hurston’s hometown, and Harlem, New York, in the early twentieth century.…
Albert Camus is known mostly for his novels which investigate human existence – that is, existentialism as a philosophy. His characters question whether there is meaning in human life or not at all (nihilism). This work, however, is not a work of fiction but of non-fiction. In it, Camus expounds on the nature of human rebellion against the present state of affairs – that is, against the meaninglessness of life. He examines this rebellious act…
Historically, this work was written before the Civil Rights era (1940) and shed light on the terrible social circumstances that pervaded African-American life in the North. Set in Chicago shortly after the Great Migration, it portrays what we now would characterize as systemic racism – the realities of a dysfunctional society. A black everyman has his life cast away by a lack of opportunity to make his life count for something. It can remind today’s…
“The universe of these beings is finite and yet has no limits.” – Albert Einstein, in chapter XXXI So says one of the great thinkers – perhaps, the great thinker – of the twentieth century in explaining his general theory of relativity. While there was much mathematical in its derivation, Einstein explains it in common language to the educated reader in this short work. He also explains the special theory of relativity here. While such…
My boss is so much a fan of this book that she gave it to me free this month. She reads it every year in pursuit of further mastery of her work and life. Although the obvious application is to the realm of employment, Allen’s approach is applicable to one’s personal/private life and even to stay-at-home parents. It’s about keeping the “projects” in one’s life moving forward without causing stress. Allen’s system runs off on…
King Arthur’s mythic Round Table – with Queen Gwynevere, Sir Launcelot, and the famous sword Excalibur – resounds through England’s history. They might be fable, or they might have a historical root. Either way, they make for a good telling and national myth. Sir Thomas Malory recorded these tales in book form in the late fifteenth century, and Keith Baines adapted these for modern languages in the mid-twentieth century. Their storytelling power remains full of…
In this work, Goodwin charts the lives of four influential US Presidents – Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. Having written leading biographies previously of each of these, she combines her insights to profile the character of leadership, at least in an American form. She distills prior deep study of these presidents into an interwoven narrative that highlights how their personal narratives enabled them to meet the challenges of their times…