Finally! Time to Read-New Recommendations

(ClipArt)

Four recommendations this time span non-fiction and fiction choices. 

Pearl sends us both fiction and non-fiction possibilities.  She writes, "Here are some titles of books I have greatly enjoyed.

1. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.  It is a book of 8 stories. Lahiri is the author of The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies, also wonderful books.  I have found her a terrific writer."

2.  She continues, "A book I would not have expected to like was The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. It is about the rowers from the U. of Washington and the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  It combines a history of the times, higher education, and divisions of social class into an intriguing book."

3.  And, thirdly, she notes, " I have been enjoying Daniel Silva's books about Gabriel Allon an art restorer and Israeli spy.  The most recent one I've read is The Messenger, but I've enjoyed them all.  I would define them as spy thrillers but found them in the fiction section of the book store.

Another non-fiction study comes as a recommendation of one of our adult children.  And it would be embarrassing not to read a book on education that he has recommended to his 1000+ LinkedIn contacts, right?  It is The Smartest Kids in the World and How They got That Way by Amanda Ripley.


Ripley's editor at Time asked her to do a story on Michelle Rhee, leader of Washington DC's public schools. The author sat in on classes in which students were excited and engaged, and she worried through classrooms full of disengaged students. Beginning with that assignment, Ripley went on to investigate the vast amount of information on achievement in the US and around the world. 

 

She investigated the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment), its test content , its emphasis on creativity, and the results of  approximately 333,000 teens in 43 countries who took the test in 2000.  She followed three foreign exchange students, who were from Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania as they experienced student life in the three top-scoring countries.  Her resulting observations are cogent and helpful. 

 

An unanticipated gem in this book is  Appendix 1: " How to Spot a World-Class Education"- a powerful guide for any of us analyzing our own schools or the possibilities for the children in our lives.

 

(Thanks to Pearl and to Eric for these recommendations.)