Books

Books

to read

phillip k dick bladerunner, do androids dream of electric sheet

been read

Beta Ball

Story of LA Warriers framed as a high tech data driven success, but not really. Just a pretty good book on the rise of this team.

book recommendations for Manny

If I were to hazard a guess based upon Boston Public High School seniors, these young people may still be a ways from having developed a love for reading. The following is a rather random list of books that, for at least a couple of kids, kickstarted that love.

Drown, Junot Diaz

A book of short stories about a Dominican kid growing up in the DR and then New Jersey. For my students it broke them from the mold of a stale personal narrative (we arrived, we struggled, I will be a doctor) reformulating it into tales of the moral and emotional challenges they faced in the playground and on the streets of their childhood.

The White Boy Shuffle, Paul Beatty

This book about a young man growing up in California. It taps into that street smart sensibility and gives the reader a great sense of place. It suceeded in developing and ironic sensibiliity in my students that served them well.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, Sherman Alexie

An interesting view of the world, with brillaint little character sketches of grandmas or the guy on the corner and funny descriptions of the old ways interacting with the modern world. For my readers, they came away empoweered and more confident in exploring and putting down how they see their world.

1984, George Orwell

A rather long and challenging book for a young person not versed in reading but very rewarding for those who persevered. We were able to combine it with Shepherd Fairey's work. He is a artist (those "Obey" grafitti posters used to be all around town) and there seems to be some connection to hip-hop and grafitti that works to draw in the reader.

The Girl With All the Gifts R. M. Carey

A different type of science fiction in which first the reader feels overwhelmed and lost and slowly the reality emerges. The characters are figuring things out as you are and their responses are heroic. The girl is an engaging character but so are the soldiers.

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

To be able walk in someone elses shoes is easy to do in this book. Take yourself back 90 years. You've just gotten out of prison, you are walking down the road headed home. Things are looking really dry. Everything is different...

Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder

By the time you are in your twenties you can already be pretty cynical. You have been subjected to all manner of bullshit and have seen through the lofty words of the man. Is anyone doing it right? Can anyone make a difference? Tracy Kidder gives us a pretty convincing answer in this story about the work of Paul Farmer.

Zeitoun, David Eggers

You think you got a bad deal. Check out what went down after Katrina. We have all seen the images of New Orleans after the hurricane. Maybe you have seen Treme. Check this out.

Kavelier and Clay

elevator pitch- A story of escape from Prague before the war, guilt at being the family member that got away, of cousins who share their unique talents to create art, get ripped off of their ideas, one realizing he can feel love with another man, the other realizing that he can feel love instead of perpetual grief about his families loss in the holocaust. The desire for revenge and the abhorrance of killing. Societies oppression of comic books and homosexuality. Love and family, and being a different kind of kid.

white boy shuffle

told in the first person, I am the 7th son of the seventh son , no not really. -> family history. so white mom moves them back to the ghetto -> finds friend reading Othello in class, "Psycho Loco has planned to steal the safe for nine years in retribution for the department store's having moved a race-car set the young Psycho intended to steal on the day he was to steal...""He visits a wealthy, African American Harvard graduate in his large home, which overlooks Hillside, realizing that years earlier he and his Holligan friends had stolen a security sign out of the front lawn and destroyed the man's RV."

house of sand and fog

trying to reclaim a home lost in forclosure bought by Iranian immigrants.

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

of the type of novel where the characters are purposely unsympathetic; the narrator her mother Tracey, Aimee, Lamma, Hawa they are all not loved by the reader, each represnting a part of human character. Fern, arguably the only heroic character, betrays bhis friend by ratting her out to Aimee.

Beta Ball by Eric Malinowski

Not so muc "How Silicon Valley and Science Built One of the Greatest Basketball Teams in History" more a retelling of playoff game accounts