China

A column that I always look forward to reading in The Week magazine (published in the United Kingdom) is called “The List” which features an interviewee’s six favorite books on a given subject. A recent column featured the author of “Not Quite the Diplomat” which I found to be an interesting – slightly pompous - read that provides a European’s perspective on US foreign policy. The author/interviewee was --

Chris Patten – the last British Governor of Hong Kong who provided his six favorite books on China which included:

“The Analects” by Confucius
“Emperor of China” by Jonathan Spence
“Mao: The Unknown Story” by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
“Mr. China” by Tim Cissold
“The Collision of Two Civilizations” by Alain Peyrefitte
“Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” by Dai Siijie

Now Mr. Patten was the Governor of Hong Kong so he knows China better than I ever will but I do hope he considered including these books in his list --

• “One Billion Customers” by James McGregor, which provides solid Chinese business insights from a journalist’s perspective, and
• "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu which I hope every US military leader has read as we assess whether China is friend or foe in military terms. In fact I am surprised Mr. Patten omitted this book from his list.

Todd

Iraq

The Los Angeles Times recently published an op-ed written by Sumana Raychaudhuri and Saswato Das entitled, "Book Market Bombing Targeted Those Who Read, Think." This op-ed's central focus was on last week's bombing of the Al-Mutanabbi book market in Baghdad, Iraq. As the authors noted this book market is named after a famous 10th Century Arab poet.

If you love reading books, appreciate their role in dispensing knowledge, and believe in their power to generate creative thinking please take the time to read the Raychaudhuri/Das op-ed at:

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_5419763

Since I always love a good quote let me share this one that the authors use in their op-ed which summarizes the tone of their message:

"HE WHO DESTROYS A GOOD BOOK DESTROYS REASON ITSELF"

JOHN MILTON - ENGLISH POET

Whether it is challenging well-intentioned parents who want certain books banned from school reading lists or terrorists who bomb book markets like this one society must remain vigilant in its opposition to the various methods of censorship.

Read Free or Die,

Todd

Book Reviews

Jeffrey Trachtenberg's "Advertising" column in the Wall Street Journal this week was entitled, "Scarcity of ads endangers newspapers' book sections." Trachtenberg notes that only the New York Times Book Review has seen a recent increase in advertising revenues and that book reviews in the major dailies -- Los Angeles Times, Washington Post (one I have fond memories of reading when I lived there), Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Diego Union-Tribune -- may be phased out in the near future.

While these book reviews will likely be laid to rest in the near future let me offer a potential business partnership to fill the vacuum left by the demise of these reviews. Perhaps the USA Today newspaper (the nation's only national newspaper) and Amazon.com (the world's supermarket for books) should partner with each other to produce their own "book review" thus combining their audience reach to promote literacy and book sales at the same time.

Change presents opportunities,

Todd

Eric Foner

During my business travels I have grown accustomed to reading the "A Life in Books" feature in Newsweek magazine. Recently the featured person was Eric Foner, author of "Free Soil, Free Labor, and Free Men", which I finished reading in 2006. Foner's work was very informative so when I saw his name in Newsweek I was interested in hearing what books were important to him. Here is Mr. Foner's "Five Most Important Books" --

1. "The Making of the English Working Class" by E.P. Thompson
2. "Black Reconstruction in America" by W.E.B. DuBois
3. "Waiting for the Barbarians" by J. M. Coetzee
4. "History of the Siege of Lisbon" by Jose Saramago (a novel)
5. "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkein

Of these books I have only read one half of EP Thompson's book so I clearly have some catching up to do on Mr. Foner's list. Saramago's novel seems to be an interesting read.

Asked "what important book that you admit you have never read" Mr. Foner replied - "Moby Dick" because it is "just too long".

I agree with Mr. Foner -- but Moby Dick is not only too long it struggles to flow as a compelling story which really makes me wonder why so many critics consider it to be a key work of literature.

Consider your own "Five Most Important",

Todd

Jenna Bush

USA President George W. Bush's daughter, Jenna Bush, has completed her first book -- "Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope" -- which is being published by Harper Collins. Ms. Bush's book is focused on a 17 year old single mother in Panama who is living with HIV and ends with a "call to action" for society to do more to combat HIV/AIDS and to help children overcome "exclusion."

I do hope this book sells well -- Harper Collins has committed to publish 500,000 in a first printing -- and that Ms. Bush's message helps thousands of children. However, there is a "but" here because Ms. Bush has announced that she will donate her earnings from this book to UNICEF -- the United Nation's entity which is focused on children.

Perhaps Ms. Bush feels obligated to help UNICEF because she is completing an internship with UNICEF but as I have noted on my flag ship blog (http://spacebeaglenotes.blogspot.com) UNICEF has historically used a form of child slavery that they call -- "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" which forced/coerced young children like I was years ago to carry little orange boxes during Halloween asking our neighbors to contribute money (not caramel apples!!) to UNICEF.

To this day I resent this exploitation by UNICEF so I continue my campaign to zero fund them. Ms. Bush -- if you want to help children around the world do NOT give your money to UNICEF. Please consider non-profit/private entities such as Room to Read (www.roomtoread.org) or Habitat for Humanity (www.habitat.org) who have truly made lives better versus enriching UNICEF-bureaucrats.

Donate wisely,

Todd

Hats off to the Cat!!

I am a bit tardy with this personal tribute but wanted to be sure to note the 50th anniversary of a book that affected my formative years as I became an avid reader via my public library in Iowa -- "The Cat in the Hat" -- by Theodor Seuss Geisel -- better known as the author, "Dr. Seusss". This book was jointly published by Houghton Mifflin and Random House on March 1, 1957.

For more information on this wonderful children's book please visit -- www.catinthehat.com -- from which I copied the following excerpt regarding "Dr. Seuss'" writing success which I feel readers of this blog would be interested in knowing --

"At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, Ted had written and illustrated 44 children's books, including such all-time favorites as Green Eggs and Ham, Oh, the Places You'll Go, Fox in Socks, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His books had been translated into more than 15 languages. Over 200 million copies had found their way into homes and hearts around the world."


So nearly 16 years has passed since we lost Dr. Seuss but his books have clearly taken on immortal characteristics.

Oh the books you'll read,

Todd

Statistics

Yes I have to admit it -- I find some of USA Today's "Snapshots" bar charts informative sometimes including these recent versions focused on reading in the USA:

• Leisure Activities (percentage of adults who participated at least once in the previous 12 months) -- 35% cited "Reading Books" while the number one choice was "Dining Out" with 48% of adults, and
• Percentage of children ages 3 to 5 who were read to every day in the previous week by a family member -- 52.8% in 1993 and 60.3% in 2005

Now this is rather encouraging!! Over 1/3 of American adults are reading books regularly and 60% of young American children have a family member reading to them. There is always room for improvement but these are good results especially since "book reading " must compete with 24 hour shopping, the 500 TV channel world, computer games, Internet surfing, and MP3 listening just to name a few alternative uses of our leisure time.

Go to bed early and read,

Todd