Perhaps not unexpectedly, many of us in the library are great consumers of media: books, music, movies, etc. We’ve decided to introduce a new blog feature in which different staff members recommend three items they are currently or recently consuming. We call it “Shopping List for the Hungry Mind” and new posts should be appearing on a weekly basis.
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READING: Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions by Gary Klein. Quote: “The analytical methods are not the ideal: they are the fallback for those without enough experience to know what to do.” p. 103
WATCHING: Six Feet Under television series. Tough love, but I don’t think I’ve found a more accessible way to the big questions. This is what I wanted philosophy to be– but didn’t find it there.
LISTENING: The music group Mascott, led by New York city-based songstress Kendall Jane Mead. Words with rich textures wrapped in pretty pop melodies.
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READING: The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by Jeffrey Sachs. Harvard economist Sachs makes a convincing argument that the end of the most desperate, life-threatening type of poverty is possible within our lifetimes. Sachs details the basic infrastructures necessary for communities to pull themselves out of abject poverty, and provides details of how the wealthy nations of the world could easily fund this effort without much sacrifice. Reading this left me with two questions. First, will we do it? And second, how can we not at least try?
WATCHING: Happy Feet and March of the Penguins. Charming entertainment with a serious message about the environment.
LISTENING: Liadov’s piano music. Absolutely lovely by a lesser-known Russian composer.
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READING: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- time, by Mark Haddon (ISBN 0385509456). Haddon convincingly writes the narrative voice of an autistic teenager so that the world is seen through his eyes.
WATCHING: Letters From Iwo Jima, directed by Clint Eastwood. Powerful movie of the pivotal battle, told from the Japanese point of view.
LISTENING: Chamber music by Francis Poulenc, performed by Ensemble Wien-Berlin (Deutsche Grammophon, 427 639-2). If ever there was music that could be described as tongue-in-cheek, this is it. Has tender, poignant moments interspersed with vaudevillian raucousness.