Ender in Exile: After Battle School…the Lost Years by Orson Scott Card is a worth successor to his other Ender books.  It’s deeply thoughtful science fiction about where our planet Earth and peoples may be headed.

In Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West Benazir Bhutto writes of her vision of what we need to know and do to bring harmony and understanding between our seemingly conflicting cultures.  I highly recommend it.

The Republic by Plato is simply an outstanding book that give one a grand perspective. I’m very happy to have engaged this work because it stimulates the mind and furthers my thinking processes.

Safe Passage by Ida Cook, was originally published in 1950 as “We Followed Our Stars”.  It’s been republished in 2008 by Harlequin Book  under the new title. A wonderful story of the Cook  sisters. of Great Britain, who fell in love with opera and the stars of opera in the  1920s.  During the 1930s, while following opera stars and their  productions in Europe, the Cook sisters got recruited to help get  Jewish families out of Germany, Austria, and several in Poland.  An  amazing story about music and courage during the 1930s and WWII.

In Blake, respected biographer Peter Ackroyd shows painter and poet William Blake challenging 18th-century logical reasoning. Blake was a non-conformist and spiritual seeker who depicted in his art his inspired inner visions.

Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence is an outstanding book about one man’s compassion and courage to protect animals in the face of incredible odds. It is a must-read for animal lovers.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, is more than a sci-fi novel where firemen burn books.  It is a prophetic tale of the reason why society has allowed the banning of reading.  The diversity of opinions has become too controversial and offended too many citizens of various groups. While reading it one feels more like a character in the novel, than reader, since it mirrors our times so well.

I came across American Pastoral by Philip Roth quite by accident at work. I read the first few pages and was hooked.

I’m giving myself a holiday treat by slowly re-reading and taking notes on Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund. So many references to poetry and literature and history. I read it quickly for book group several years ago.

I am well over halfway into Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow and I’m enjoying it. The possibilities put forth are great although it certainly lacks the great story form of “My Brother’s Keeper” by Marcia Davenport in 1954.

I recently read Angela’s Ashes, a memoir byFrank McCourt. It’s really a good one. It’s the reason why I smile on every challenge that life is giving me.

I just finished What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn and I loved every page. I was so sad at the end, though, and have been thinking about it ever since.

A book I take with me to school everyday is The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson. “The Rum Diary” is a hardened, straight-forward, novel that would make Hemingway proud.

 I just finished The Bomb: The Classic Novel of Anarchist Violence by Frank Harris for the second time. It’s one of my favorite books to read for leisure, where you get a good dose of social justice without having to take notes as if it’s an academic book. The story is based on the 1886 Haymarket riots in Chicago, with the narrator being an educated German immigrant who landed in New York first, struggled with finding the roughest of labor jobs, all while being a writer/journalist. This eventually brought him where he discovered the circle of socialist, communist and anarchists that made up much of the working class laborers. It’s a beautiful story, with many historical facts, but throws in personal stories, and the idea of love being more than lust, and social justice being more than politics.