Books Worth Singing About

THREE CUPS OF TEA: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations...One School at a Time

2007-02-16T20:16:00.000-06:00

by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

http://www.threecupsoftea.com/

"Three Cups of Tea is one of the most remarkable adventure stories of our time. Greg Mortenson's dangerous and difficult quest to build schools in the wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only a thrilling read, it's proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world."
-Tom Brokaw

Do you know anyone who would be willing to sell everything they own and live in their car just so they could save every dollar for someone else? Greg Mortenson, a great American hero, did just that when he followed through on his promise to an impoverished Pakistani village to build a school for its children, and in the process has found himself playing a major role in one of the most historically and culturally pivotal areas in the world today.

In THREE CUPS OF TEA Greg Mortenson, and journalist David Oliver Relin, recount the unlikely journey that led Mortenson from a failed attempt to climb Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain, to successfully building schools in some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. By replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading, Mortenson combines his unique background with his intimate knowledge of the third-world to fight terrorism with books, not bombs, and successfully bring education and hope to remote villages in central Asia. The book is at once an unforgettable Indiana Jones style adventure and the inspiring true story of how one man really is changing the world—one school at a time.

In 1993 Mortenson was descending from his failed attempt to reach the peak of K2. Exhausted and disoriented, he wandered away from his group into the most desolate reaches of northern Pakistan. Alone, without food, water, or shelter he eventually stumbled into an impoverished Pakistani village where he was nursed back to health.

While recovering he observed the village’s 84 children sitting outdoors, scratching their lessons in the dirt with sticks. The village was so poor that it could not afford the $1-a-day salary to hire a teacher. When he left the village, he promised that he would return to build them a school.
From that rash, heartfelt promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time: Greg Mortenson’s one-man mission to counteract extremism and terrorism by building schools—especially for girls—throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban.

Mortenson had no reason to believe he could fulfill his promise. In an early effort to raise money he wrote letters to 580 celebrities, businessmen, and other prominent Americans. His only reply was a $100 check from NBC’s Tom Brokaw. Selling everything he owned, he still only raised $2,000. But his luck began to change when a group of elementary school children in River Falls, Wisconsin, donated $623 in pennies, thereby inspiring adults to take his cause more seriously. Twelve years later he’s built fifty-five schools.

Mortenson and David Oliver Relin have written a spellbinding account of his incredible accomplishments in a region where Americans are feared and hated. In pursuit of his goal, Mortenson has survived an armed kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, repeated death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. Yet his success speaks for itself. This year the schools will educate 24,000 children.
This book inspired me to keep working to improve the world around me, if one man can do what Greg Mortenson has done, under the conditions he works in, then surely one person can have an effect in this country.

Bill Langsdorf
Oct. 10, 2006
Kansas City, MO

GAVIOTAS: A Village to Reinvent the World

2006-09-22T19:21:00.000-05:00

A book by by Alan Weisman

I loved this book because it is a book about possibilities. It showed me that we are limited mainly by our own thinking, and conversely, empowered by our personal creativity and imagination. “Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World” describes the achievements of a small utopian community in Colombia, South American, founded in the 1960’s. “Nowhere,” the literal meaning of utopia, is actually somewhere real! It’s called Gaviotas.

The founders of this amazing village are a group of university thinkers and engineers led by visionary Paolo Lugari. I was fascinated by the way they tackled problems and the solutions they discovered. Using solar energy, wind mills, seesaw pumps and other environmentally enlightened technology to problems, they build a hospital, a school, and homes for themselves and their families. Their mobile offices consist of bicycles outfitted with laptop desks rather than baskets. Music, dance and celebration center life in the community. The land is barren, so they plant trees. Not only do flowers and birds proliferate, but eventually the resin from more than 1.8 million Caribbean pines rescue the community from a financial crisis. In addition to practices of sustainable living within Gaviotas, the community begins exporting their technology to impoverished villages throughout Colombia, providing clean water in diseased areas.

Unfortunately Gaviotas was founded in a remote area of Colombia now surrounded by the illegal crops and horrific violence of drug cartels. It has become too dangerous a place to visit and, in fact, I am uncertain whether or not it still exists. No matter what its fate, however, the story of Gaviotas as told by journalist Alan Weisman remains an inspiration to anyone who wants to change the world we live in. I highly recommend this exciting book.

Jo Ann Stanley
September 20, 2006
Westwood Hills, Kansas

Gaviotas

STUFF: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things

2006-09-04T10:27:00.000-05:00

"Stuff deconstructs the American Dream by unraveling the hidden costs behind the objects around us." - Mother Jones

While reading the first chapter of Stuff by John C. Ryan and Alan Thein Durning, I figured out that there are 18 coffee trees tended somewhere in the world to supply me with the coffee I drink, and I don't consider myself a heavy consumer of coffee. I was shocked!

Each chapter of the book looks at a different totally normal aspect of life in the United States, and exposes what it really costs to live the way we do. Most of the costs are not in our usual accounting ledgers, because they have been drawing on the wealth of our environment. For example, rather than cleaning up the waste, it is just abandoned in the hope that nature will take care of it. We are now coming to a time where we are going to have to pay back (with interest) that loan of fertile soil, clean air and water.

At the end of each chapter, the authors provide us with alternatives that will improve our lives and lighten the load we place on the planet. So why not take these steps toward sustainability?

After reading this book, I felt like I'd had an awakening similar to a child who first learns that food doesn't spontaneously generate in grocery stores. I'm happy to have a more mature vision of how the world works. This book empowers me to move toward a healthier lifestyle.

Stuff is an easy read. I am in awe that the writers could present so many facts in such a conversational and digestable way. There's only 88 pages, so start reading today, and please share your thoughts by commenting on this blog entry.

I loved the appendix in which the authors analyzed the impact of the book Stuff itself. It taught me that we can make choices that really make a difference.

Lynn Snyder
September 4, 2006
Kansas City, Missouri

Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things

GANGS OF AMERICA: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy

2006-08-10T23:14:00.000-05:00

If you've ever watched the chicanery of the corporatocracy unravel before your very eyes on the evening news and wondered, as I have, how the heck the corporations got to be so powerful and apparently above the law, this is the book for you. Beginning with the Magna Carta, author Ted Nace traces the roots of corporate power and ultimately offers remedies for restoring balance between the citizenry and the corporations -- which is our only true access to the kind of healthy, workable world we all want. He doesn't advocate elimination of the corporations, nor does he say there are magic words and incantations that can make everything right within a few years. But there are ways of limiting corporate power and making the corporations at least as accountable for their behavior as individual citizens are. Human nature being what it is, the only thing that really works is sensible checks and balances. Unfortunately, this political mechanism seems as doomed to extinction as much of the wildlife in our rain forests, unless we do something quickly to begin to restore and revive this essential machinery of democracy.

One of the most interesting revelations for me was the suspicion and distrust of our nation's Founders toward the corporations. They had direct experience of the shocking abuses of such British corporations as the Virginia Company and the East India Company, whose maltreatment of workers led to thousands of deaths. In fact, it was their rebellion against the East India Company that led to the Boston Tea Party -- and look where THAT got us!

Nace's tone is trustworthy, passionate without being alarmist, and he appears to have done his homework. Formerly a researcher on electric utility policy for the Environmental Defense Fund, he is the founder of Peachpit Press -- known to Mac users throughout the world. What's brilliant about this book is that it is a fascinating and quick read, despite the fact-dense prose. I couldn't put it down. You just HAVE to read this book. And when you do, let us know what you think.

K.C. Compton
August 9, 2006
Lawrence, Kansas

Gangs of America

Mountains Beyond Mountains

2006-08-08T23:14:00.000-05:00

Paul Farmer has tackled seemingly impossible problems and shown that amazing things are possible. Who would have thought it feasible to deliver good health care to indigent Haitians living in remote villages in the face of political turmoil and indifference or opposition from the World Health Organization?

And yet that is exactly what he has done. Not alone, of course - while Farmer is justly the focus of Kidder’s readable and moving account there are other agents of positive change about whom this reader would love to hear more: Tom White, Farmer’s principal patron, who earned a fortune in construction in Boston, Massachusetts, and evidently decided one day to give it all away, Jim Yong, whose dedication has been a match for Farmer’s, or Ophelia Dahl, daughter of the quirky author Roald Dahl, who stepped back from marrying Farmer yet remained an important part of his growing organization.

But it is Paul Farmer who occupies center stage, and with good reason. His accomplishments to date in public health and epidemiology would be worthy of admiration if they were the life’s work of two or three people. Having scaled the mountains of Haiti he was then called, as the book title implies, to other challenges, such as drug-resistant TB in Peruvian slums and Russian prisons. The Haitian saying is, “Beyond mountains there are mountains.” Paul Farmer reminds and inspires us, powerfully, to keep climbing.

Kerry Stanley
August 2006
Kansas City, Missouri

Welcome

2006-08-01T08:33:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Checkered Past's Book Blog. About the time Kerry wrote the song, "Change That Thing!," we began sharing our excitement for the books we've been reading, by giving one away at every concert. These are books that have touched and inspired someone in the band and we all agree they share a message that we want to get out there.

Here are the books we've given away so far:

The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community by David C. Korten - Chosen by June - Given to Gene F. of Kansas City at the Kansas City Fringe Festival, July 30, 2006.

Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things by John C. Ryan, Alan Thein Durning - Chosen by Lynn and June - Given to Amy of Kansas City at the Kansas City Fringe Festival, July 30, 2006.

Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy by Ted Nace - Chosen by K.C. - Given to Judith C. at the Kansas City Fringe Festival, July 29, 2006.

Mountains Beyond Mountains: Healing the World: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer by Tracy Kidder - Chosen by Kerry - Given to Nancy H. at the Writer House at Lake Waukomis, June 17, 2006.

We'll be posting our thoughts on these books and we invite you to add yours.