Thursday, February 24, 2011

March Book: This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women

Amy's selection for March:


This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women
by Jay Allison, Dan Gediman

This is the first book Amy listened to on her ipod. She recommends that you listen to it if you can as opposed to reading it. Something about her the essayists  reading puts the emotion into the book. It can be checked out at the library.

Summary:
Based on the National Public Radio series of the same name, This I Believe features eighty essayists—from the famous to the unknown—completing the thought that begins the books title. Each piece compels readers to rethink not only how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs but also the extent to which they share them with others.

Featuring a well-known list of contributors—including Isabel Allende, Colin Powell, Gloria Steinem, William F. Buckley Jr., Penn Jillette, Bill Gates, and John Updike—the collection also contains essays by a Brooklyn lawyer; a part-time hospital clerk from Rehoboth, Massachusetts; a woman who sells Yellow Pages advertising in Fort Worth, Texas; and a man who serves on the state of Rhode Islands parole board.

The result is a stirring and provocative trip inside the minds and hearts of a diverse group of people whose beliefs—and the incredibly varied ways in which they choose to express them—reveal the American spirit at its best.

Introduction

I am excited to get this family reading group up and going. I created this blog and a separate email to organize the communication about our books, thoughts, etc. We will each be administrators on the blog and everyone will have access to the email password., so we can all email and post as we want to.

blog address: walkerreads.blogspot.com
email: walkerreads@gmail.com

The idea is to all read the same book and then have some type of discussion about the book through blog posts. Each one of us will choose a book for the month. That's the fun part... everyone being exposed to something new and having a little insight into what the rest of our minds are doing. Whoever chose the book will make a post on the blog introducing the book we are to read and any other information about it. The person in charge for the month will also be responsible for asking questions, sharing insights, or leading online discussion. If you want to do a lot, then great. If you don't want to do anything, then that's fine, too. Hopefully, though, at the end of each book we will all be willing to post and share something about our thoughts on the book. Who knows what this might evolve into; I know I am excited to get reading.

Please feel free to post other ideas, suggestions, etc.