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spoko

spoko

Currently reading

The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia
David E. Hoffman
The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov, Diana Burgin, Katherine Tiernan O'Connor
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
Arun Gandhi, Marshall B. Rosenberg
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
Eric Metaxas, Timothy Keller
Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63
Taylor Branch
The Path to Power
Robert A. Caro
The Nature of Nebraska: Ecology and Biodiversity
Paul A. Johnsgard
Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
Robin D.G. Kelley
Cutting for Stone
Abraham Verghese
The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity - Jeffrey D. Sachs A tangled mess of a book. It's not that I don't agree with Sachs' worldview, or that I don't find some things to really like about the book. But it just wasn't compelling, mostly because of his inability to go three consecutive paragraphs without introducing some list of 16 or so bullet points to illustrate the issue. You have to hack through these things with a machete, and by the time you do, there's not much left to care about. Add to that the fascinatingly fruity digression into The Mindful Economy, and you're bound to start feeling a bit dizzy.

Again, it's not that I disagree with him, even on that hippy-dippy pipe dream. But I would have loved some middle ground. Either we're hacking through a thicket of GDP percentages and 9-point plans, or we're floating in pink clouds of mindfulness. Occasionally he bounces from one to the other with whiplash-inducing speed. Somewhere in between is the book I wish I were reading.