2013-47 - War is a Racket, by Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler

47 - War is a Racket, by Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler
WHY I PICKED IT: Recommended by my friend Jess
ELAPSED TIME: 2 days
RATING: Good

Smedley D. Butler was a career soldier for the US Marine Corps, with tours in the Philippines, China, Central America, Caribbean, and France (WWI).  After his career, he became an outspoken critic of US foreign policy (that is largely directed at protecting their capitalist interests at the cost of foot soldiers), believing in isolationism rather than engagement in the world at large.

This collection of essays is reasonably interesting:

a) He articulates how the capitalists' profits increase dramatically during wartime, at the expense of the American People (who's National Debt increases dramatically).  He provides many examples of corporations (with their incomes before and during WWI).

b) He articulates a 3-point plan to reduce war:
          (i) take the profit out of war by conscripting necessary resources from Capitalists (before conscripting soldiers);
          (ii) only able bodied men (potential soldiers) can vote on whether or not the country should go to war (because they're the ones who will!); and
          (iii) military forces must be limited to home defense purposes (ships kept to within 200 miles of US shores, and aircraft to 750 miles).  Embedded within this is a release of US territories in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and even considers the non-protection of Hawaii and Alaska.

The isolationism seems amusing in this time of integrated economies, but the idea of conscripting resources before sending soldiers out is one that I greatly enjoy!

2013-46 - Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

46 - Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
WHY I PICKED IT: I enjoyed Outliers a lot and recommended by my cousin Aaseem
ELAPSED TIME: 4 days
RATING:Very Good

Malcolm Gladwell is a fantastic storyteller.  Blink makes the argument that our subconscious sometimes makes better decisions than conscious analysis, and that there is a time and place for both.  I was quite heartened to learn that he leveraged Gary Klein's research - as I read Klein's book on decision theory a decade ago and found it to be very interesting (if not as well told)... and this is where Gladwell's ability to tell a story, and link it to an argument about how we process information and make decisions, comes into play.

I thought about summarizing the key points here, but without the examples and context, it would truly not do the book any justice.  If you like applied theory as it relates to human behaviour, this book is a great read!

2013-45 - Pity the Billionaire, by Thomas Frank

45 - Pity the Billionaire, by Thomas Frank
WHY I PICKED IT: Bought it at the Word on the Street Book Fair
ELAPSED TIME: 4 days
RATING: Meh

Thomas Frank asking a very interesting question.   How is it that the economic collapse of the 2008 bring about the resurgence of the conservative right?  And he brings about a few great points:

a) Conservative (corporate) media has focused on economy boosting measures that help the population while ignoring those that bail out large corporations (saying the latter are "necessary").  As such, people's focus has been to say "why should my tax dollars bail out my neighbor who lived beyond their means," rather than ask "why are we keeping the structures that resulted in this type of epic failure?

b)  By lumping all business-people in one bucket, the Tea Party lumps all government oversight into one bucket.  That means the safety and environmental inspectors that oversee large corporations are viewed as negatively as the food inspectors that small business owners do not like.  It's a false comparison, but one that has taken hold.

c) The wealthy within the conservative movement has in fact grouped themselves with the masses, and identified the intelligentsia and the government as "the other."  So rather than the wealthy (who took insane risks to make insane returns) being blamed for economic downfall, it is the educated and the government who feels the wrath.

d) If you limit your research of the 1930s Depression to the internet, then you would believe that it was the government who limited growth.  The numbers, however, do not match that.  FDR's new deal brought about economic growth in terms of GDP that have been the highest in US history (excluding that driven my military action).

With all of these good points (and more), why am I only rating the book as "meh"?  Because it doesn't even think about starting us down a path of how to tackle this preposterous situation, and it's remarkably dry!  It's not written in a manner that is engaging or draws you in.  I do not recommend this book.

I should add that I appreciate how he calls out Obama for turning over the economy to  Wall Street rather than following the approach taken by FDR which was to bail out companies where necessary, and put a lot of money into the economy... but in smaller amounts and in the hands of a broad number of people in a cross-section of industries.  FDR also presided over the implementation of Glass-Steagall Act, which broke up big bangs through the Glass Steagall Act (a law which protected the market from a banking oligopoly, until Clinton repealed it).

2013-44 - Girls of Riyadh, by Rajaa Alsanea

44 - Girls of Riyadh, by Rajaa Alsanea
WHY I PICKED IT: Recommended by my friend Nushin
ELAPSED TIME: 1 day
RATING: Not Good

Ugh.  This book had such a fantastic premise.  To peel back the curtain and show the inner workings of women's life in Riyadh.  And the introduction boosted that expectation, where the author acknowledged that it wasn't representative of all women in Riyadh, and that many women are looking to find their own feminism - that keeps the good from their faith and culture while discarding that which does not work for them.

Sadly, the book didn't hold up.  Told as if released in a series of e-mails through 2004 and into early 2005, the author of the emails started out as an interesting character in her own right... only to descend into wanting the fame that was associated with these emails.  And her stories, the main story of this novel, ... ugh!

The characters were one-dimensional - how Hemingway would write, were he a Saudi Woman - where men are either good or bad, strong or weak... not struggling with the same cultural forces that the women are (albeit with a lot more freedoms).  And worse, the protagonists, were written so as to fill a category:
a) Gamrah - Who conforms to cultural expectation, and gets married out of high school.
b) Sadeem - Who stays with the guy who won't marry her.
c) Lamees - Who pursued an education, and found the husband of her dreams.
d) Michelle - Who spent time in America and who doesn't conform to societal pressures to break free.

Save your time, there are more interesting stories out there.

2013-43 - The Birth House, by Ami McKay

43 - The Birth House, by Ami McKay
WHY I PICKED IT: Recommended by my friend Alexis
ELAPSED TIME: 5 days
RATING: Very Good

This is a lovely story.  Of Dora Rare.  The only girl with 5 brothers, raised in Nova Scotia.  She becomes a midwife, and grows up during The Great War.  This is a story of gender, of class, and ultimately of making (rather than finding) your place.

The story is lovely - interlacing traditional narrative, Dora's diary entries, newspaper clippings, and letters to and from Dora... The last of which included quotes by French novelist George Sand that I quite enjoyed:  "The World will know and understand me someday.  But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter.  I shall have opened the way for other women."

All in all, a really warm book with characters that I let into my heart.

2013-42 - Chasing Chaos, by Jessica Alexander

42 - Chasing Chaos, by Jessica Alexander
WHY I PICKED IT: My friend Vicky knows the author
ELAPSED TIME: 3 days
RATING: REQUIRED READING

Wow.  I loved this book.  Jessica tells her story... from naive first missioner going to Rwanda (2003), then her two stints in Darfur (2005), Sri Lanka and Indonesia (2005), Sierra Leone (2006/7), and Haiti (2010).  With a broad range of experiences in humanitarian relief, Jessica takes us through her story.  I won't ruin them in this review, but I do love that she addresses a few key themes that all aid workers I know have experienced and considered:

a) The difficulty of adjusting to life in the field the first time you go out.  And the challenge of fitting back in when you go "home" and how it's easier to go out.  The difference between having a life (living a somewhat balanced existence doing work you enjoy) and making a life (all of that and planning a future).

b) The question of value being delivered to the population in crisis.  And the abnormal relationship between aid worker and recipient (unlike government or business, the aid worker is not beholden to their "customer," they are beholden to the donor).

c) The unintended economic impact of humanitarian relief (from the balance of providing relief, but not to a standard higher than those in the region who do not qualify because they were not impacted by the natural disaster / war / incident, to hiring local doctors and teachers to serve as NGO drivers and translators, and to the inflationary impact to rent in East Jerusalem as that is where the UN employees choose to live)

d) The people who you encounter (burnt out colleagues, underpaid national staff, recipients of aid, friends).

If you donate money to humanitarian crises, read this book.  If you ever want to "go and help for a few weeks," read this book and reconsider :).  Most of all, if you want to do field work, this book should be required reading.

2013-41 - Turning Forty, by Mike Gayle

41 - Turning Forty, by Mike Gayle
WHY I PICKED IT: It's by Mike Gayle
ELAPSED TIME: 2 days
RATING: Meh

Mike Gayle has a niche and a formula.  Write about a bloke who is at a crossroads in life / relationships and take the reader through a sometimes funny, sometimes poignant tale that ends well.  It'll never change your life, but it'll serve as lighthearted entertainment.

Don't know if it's because the book is hitting too close to home (almost 40, no real plan), or if the book is just a bit less than everything else of his... but I did not enjoy reading this book.

2013-40 - In The Eyes of Others, by Catherine Abou Sada

40 - In The Eyes of Others, by edited by Catherine Abou Sada
WHY I PICKED IT: It's an MSF Publication
ELAPSED TIME: 2 weeks
RATING: Good

This is a book of essays, ostensibly as a study of how people in crisis perceive humanitarian aid.  For much of the book, it was a struggle.  It seemed to be MSF gazing at its own navel, and not broadly considering humanitarianism.  There were some well formed analyses of the confluence of military action with (purported) humanitarian objectives and the implications thereof.  All in all, a struggle to get through, but a generally good read.

The final essay, however, was very very good.  Antonio Donini's essay, titled "Humanitarianism, Perceptions, Power" is a thought provoking piece that highlights the good: the nuanced understanding of NGOs and their neutrality; and, the universality of humanitarian ideals.  And the bad: the top-down, and externally driven approach which offers little space for local participation (beyond some minimal consultation).

The imbalance between the Aid Worker and the Recipient is driven by relative wealth and power.  So although the humanitarian is trying to stand on the side of the vulnerable and powerless, they bring their own baggage that includes Western forms of organization, concepts of management, technical standards, and values, and even when the outcome is positive, it is important to note that the encounter happens on the terms of the outsider.  This approach must change, to allow "perspectives other than the dominant Western universalist discourse to emerge and be heard."