November's Books

As the month draws to a close, I am just closing the cover on Let The Great World Spin Colm McCann's fictionalized account of events in New York City during the 1970s on the day when a man walked across a tightrope strung between the World Trade Center towers. It's a great character study, with the city itself one of the main characters, and stands quite nicely as a much more compact and unassuming companion to Don Delillo's Underworld.

Last month I read Richard DuFour's book on Professional Learning Communities, Learning by Doing. This month, I'm reading David Townsend's Made In Alberta Reply, Essential Questions. One day soon I hope to update my Exploding Beakers blog with some brief thoughts of these work related books.

I also started reading British historian Eric Hobsbawm's slim volume On The Edge Of A New Century because I was bored one night and frankly too lazy to go all the way downstairs to get my other books out of the trunk of my car. Hobsbawm used to review jazz records under a pseudonym as an undergraduate back in the 1930s, so we get along fine.

With luck, December will be a lot quieter and I'll be able to dip into some pocketbooks.

Books Read
Colm McCann, Let The Great World Spin (2009)

Currently reading:
Eric Hobsbawm, On The Edge Of A New Century (2000)

David Townsend, Pamela Adams - The Essential Question: A Handbook For School Improvement (2009)

J. Lloyd Trump - A School For Everyone (1977)*
Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter - Rich Dad, Poor Dad(1997)*
*I'm in no hurry to finish these, but for different reasons

Books Acquired
Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays (2009)

October Bookends

October was a busy month and November shows no sign of relenting. Having said that, I did manage to finish Jack Whyte's finale to his Templar Knights Trilogy, Order In Chaos. I was very pleased with the way he ended his chronicle with the unfolding of events in France under the reign of Philip the Fair. Last month, I mentioned that I had been a bit disappointed with the middle volume of the series, Standard of Honour; my wife is reading that particular book at the moment and has no such feelings, so maybe it was just me all along.

I am currently reading Let The Great World Spin Colm McCann's fictionalized account of events in New York City during the 1970s on the day when a man walked across a tightrope strung between the World Trade Center towers. The actual events, I believe, are captured in the documentary Man on a Wire, a film that's been on my to-watch list for quite some time. There's been a lot of talk the last few months about how New York has become a squeaky clean city in the wake of the post-9/11 rebuilding and finance bubble. McCann and his characters, a socialite, a prostitute, two Irish brothers (one a priest, the other a writer), all hearken back to that grittier, edgier, New York that we seem to have lost.

The other book I read in October was Richard DuFour's book on Professional Learning Communities, Learning by Doing. It was quite the unintentional experience. I read it for my nine to five work, and while I had some questions about how to translate some of its Message to American Audiences to the Alberta Experience, it nevertheless became obvious that many people I work with had read his earlier work. The result made me laugh, a kind of laughter that allows you to let go of a lot of pent up baggage. I felt a lot of relief afterwards. Not because of anything that that DuFour wrote about facilitating change, but because it was clear that my organization was following his (or similar) principles and all of sudden their goals became clear. It was like discovering the playbook to the other team.

Books Read
Jack Whyte - Order In Chaos (2009)

Richard DuFour, et al., Learning By Doing (2006)

Currently reading:
Colm McCann, Let The Great World Spin (2009)

David Townsend, Pamela Adams - The Essential Question: A Handbook For School Improvement (2009)
J. Lloyd Trump - A School For Everyone (1977)*
Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter - Rich Dad, Poor Dad (1997)*
*I'm in no hurry to finish these, but for different reasons

Books Acquired
None