One of the many remarkable attributes of Chimanda Ngozi Adichie‘s dazzling novel Americanah is her ability to capture a complex condition, situation, or decision in just a few precise words. She describes the central character’s loneliness this way “… she felt sheathed in a translucent haze of difference.” (80) … Read More
Author: Kate Stover
“We understand ourselves, our lives, retrospectively.”
This is an interesting statement, considering it’s from someone who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for her column “Public and Private,” in which she explored different ways to understand her life and the world at large in the heat of the present tense. I read her work regularly then, … Read More
“I had to live on the lip of a waterfall, exhausted.”
You might expect a coming-of-age book to have a plot, to describe the who-what-when-where-how-and-why. But Annie Dillard is not a typical person, nor is her book a typical memoir. She concentrated on describing how she wanted to notice and remember everything. Her goal was to “break up through the skin … Read More
“. . . now I understand that it was not so ordinary after all.”
With his wonderful metaphors and his trademark compassion, Ted Kooser is a poet with many gifts. The gift that I appreciate most is his ability to look at ordinary things — rain, clouds, trees — and see what no one else sees. “Spatters of raindrops cold as dimes, and … Read More
“The sort of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate — four to six hours a day, every day — will not seem strenuous if you really enjoy doing these things…”
Not since Charles Dickens has a writer had so many readers “by the throat,” observed a British review of this classic by Stephen King. Having sold more than 350 million books, King could be considered an expert at many things, perhaps chiefly at developing and maintaining a vivid imagination. The … Read More
With a ‘twofold identify,’ immigrants could embrace their new country, while simultaneously believing that ‘the old world’ was not to be discarded but would remain an inspiration and source of pride in the new.”
Is it possible to identify with two countries? My family has a fondness for Norway that is hard to explain. Our Norwegian heritage comes up in conversations all the time, which is why it might be surprising to learn that my family immigrated three generations ago. Apparently, this is … Read More
“What is the rudest question you can ask a woman?”
“What do these extraordinary lines summon in you?”
The premise of Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden is this: great poems can be dangerous. They can make you question your assumptions, change your direction, and find the courage to start over. I believe that reading can lead to reflection that inspires transformation. In fact, I’m … Read More
“I began to think about what it means to be a facilitator of learning rather than a teacher.”
What is the difference between “educating people” and “helping people learn”? This classic book by Malcolm Knowles — the central figure in US adult education during the last century — explores the different sets of assumptions behind these two approaches. Educators who lecture, for example, assume that their job is … Read More
“You were right to tell me that in life, it is not the future which counts, but the past.”
What kind of person believes that the past is more important than the future? Wouldn’t the least likely be someone with amnesia? The central character in this novel by Nobel Prize-winner Patrick Modiano is a Parisian who has no memory of his life before the second world war. It appears … Read More
“They had built the entire foundation of their country on isolationism and wanting to kill Americans and South Koreans, yet they needed to learn English and feed their children with foreign money.”
When Suki Kim’s wrote about the six months she was as a teacher in North Korea, she was haunted by the idea that her book might lead to the punishment or even the death of her former students, who could be punished for knowing too much about the world. For … Read More
“There should be brief intervals of time for quiet reflection . . .”
In this 1938 book about educational theory, John Dewey continues: “But they are periods of genuine reflection only when they follow after times of more overt action and are used to organize what has been gained . . .” He famously observed that you don’t learn from experience, you learn … Read More
“We are, I know not why, double within us.”
Mark Haddon’s extraordinary novel The Red House appears to be built on the ideas and style of the essays written by Michel de Montaigne in the 1500s, and I can’t think of a better, more inventive, choice. As we see with the “double within ourselves” line, he quotes Montaigne directly, … Read More
“If trees could speak they wouldn’t. . .
The poem continues: “. . . only hum some low green note, roll their pinecones down the empty streets and blame it, with a shrug, on the cold wind. During the day they sleep inside their furry bark, clouds shredding like ancient lace above their crowns.” These wonderful sentences, which … Read More
“…I lived in a series of all-decisive moments, and the intensity was so great that sometimes life felt almost unlivable….”
This is not a book for readers who hate getting lost when a scene on page 105 doesn’t get resolved until page 340. It is for readers who would like to see how a literary genius describes the challenges and boredom of a normal life. The story’s structure consists of … Read More