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Ex Libris Kirkland
Ex Libris Kirkland is my extremely self-centered way to keep track of what I read, what I like, and what I want to remember. And because I like the internet, it's public.
Recently Added Books
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Recent Added Notes
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August 15, 2010
I left for a 36-hour work trip thinking I'd be too busy for a book - but found myself buying something at an airport bookstore for the first time in my life. Thank goodness SFO has more than Dan Brown and James Patterson.
I'd read The Remains of the Day years ago, and remembered how lovely it seemed. It's a gorgeous book, small and quiet and charming and of course modestly sad. Ishiguro's unreliable narrator could have been a disastrous plot device, and in the hands of another author the narrator Stevens would be just insufferable. Instead, we root for him even as his self-delusion becomes more and more transparent.
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August 13, 2010
So great. I don't need to tell you about Bleak House - but I will take this opportunity to highly recommend the BBC's 2005 miniseries. If you weren't convinced that you loved Inspector Bucket, his appearance in this 7-hour melodrama will definitely convince you. It's full of great performances by British actors, and has given us a new ridiculous fake-curse-word in our house: "Burn Gorman! I broke another glass!"
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August 12, 2010
If I add any more books to the 'read every two years' list, I'll never have any space for new books. And yet, I keep picking up The Bros about that often, and loving it every time.
This round, I read it while listening to the audio version read by Stephen Beyer, which is really quite amazing. The combo of reading the text and hearing it is powerful. It makes me wonder if I should spend more time reading aloud, or listening to others read aloud as well.
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July 18, 2010
Despite the sensational title and endorsements by Dr. Phil, this is a really compelling quick read, with what seems like smart thinking about consumer debt. More than anything else, it makes me want to see more support for Warren's policy work.
What gets families into bankruptcy? It's not overconsumption - people don't spend their way into bankruptcy; it's caused by sudden loss of income (a layoff) or huge expenses (medical costs). And it's not that the social stigma has reduced - people still feel the moral burden of debt, and bankruptcy is still shameful.
Families spend up to their means to cover their homes and educations costs -- and homes are often really just education costs in disguise. If we don't send our kids to private school, then we move into the nicest school district we can afford. It's the allure of a good school that stretches our budgets.
Stay-at-home moms serve as an unrecognized safety net. Besides providing childcare and domestic services, she can enter the workforce if Dad gets laid off or hospitalized.
Here's the kicker: living on two incomes feels safer, but it's really more dangerous. When both parents work, you've doubled your chances for a layoff or a disability injury. And because we're all living at or near our means on fixed costs - not frittering our money away on luxury goods - there's no place to cut back. It would actually be safer if we all had spent lots on cruises and fancy restaurants, because that stuff is easy to cut.
So Warren's recommendations: If you live at the edge of your income, don't cut back on discretionary spending: reduce your fixed expenses.
Warren's policy proposals:
1. a serious school voucher program that lets parents stay in their houses and send kids to school anywhere.
2. public preschool. If we've decided as a society that preschool is more or less mandatory, then we should make it public just like kindergarten.
3. reduce college costs by specializing them. There's no need for every specialty at every school.
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July 7, 2010
There are places (part 21) where Traherne meditates on the act of breathing, in a very modern zen-like stance. Isn't it wonderful to breathe? If we can put a correct value on breathing, we have hope of seeing the world as God does.
Recently Added Quotes
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August 31, 2010
"Nay, nay," said Balafre, "he did but jest. We will have no quarrels among comrades."
"We must have no such jesting then," said Cunningham, murmuring, as if he had been speaking to his own beard.
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August 31, 2010
"I have little more to tell," said Durward, "except that, considering my poor mother to be in some degree a pledge for me, I was induced to take upon me the dress of a novice, and conformed to the cloister rules, and even learned to read and write."
"To read and write!" exclaimed Le Balafre, who was one of that sort of people who think all knowledge is miraculous which chances to exceed their own. "To write, say'st thou, and to read! I cannot believe it—never Durward could write his name that ever I heard of, nor Lesly either.
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August 31, 2010
Show me a living traitor, and here are my hand and my weapon; but when life is out, hatred should not live longer.
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August 31, 2010
The first of these attributes was Louis's excessive superstition, a plague with which Heaven often afflicts those who refuse to listen to the dictates of religion.
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August 29, 2010
It was His wisdom made you need the Sun. It was His goodness made you need the sea. Be sensible of what you need, or enjoy neither. Consider how much you need them, for thence they derive their value. Suppose the sun were extinguished: or the sea were dry. There would be no light, no beauty, no warmth, no fruits, no flowers, no pleasant gardens, feasts, or prospects, no wine, no oil, no bread, no life, no motion. Would you not give all the gold and silver in the Indies for such a treasure? Prize it now you have it, at that rate, and you shall be a grateful creature: Nay, you shall be a Divine and Heavenly person.
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