Inscrutable Americans
by ???
This is a short read - the tale of an Indian spending a surprising
year in the US, and his growth and the growth of the people around him
as a result.
Design of Everyday Things
by Donald Norman
DOET is the classic book on basic design principles, best known
for its picture of the teapot with the handle on the same side
as the spout. It does a great job of addressing how people use
objects, and how design can facilitate their use. It's a fairly
easy read, with plenty of illustrations and examples. The
updated edition includes more on design of computer systems.
The Farseer Trilogy
by Robin Hobb
This is a fairly good fantasy series, if a little dark (the hero gets
raised from the dead for the third book). It's got dragons, magic,
kingdoms - plenty to make me happy.
Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
This is a story of the son of a zookeeper from Pondicherry, the
capital of French colonial India. In the telling of his childhood
and of his survival of a shipwreck with a Bengal tiger, Pi Patel
philosophizes about life, religion, and reality. My two favorite
passages in the book? 1) the meeting of his mentors from his
three faiths: Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism 2) when he waxes eloquent
about iddlies, a south Indian dish of soft round rice cakes.
A Lesson in Dying
by Ernest Gaines
This book feels like a classic along the lines of Tuesdays with Morrie,
but with the bitterness of the racial division of the South. It is the tale
of a black schoolteacher restoring his faith in the people of his community
as a result of interactions with a neighbor's son on death row.
Letter from Peking
by Pearl S. Buck
I feel certain resonance with this book, in which a boy, having grown
up in America, struggles with his cultural identity, and with his mother,
a Southern belle who chose a life in Peking with her Chinese-american
husband, until political pressures drove her and her son back to the safety
of the South.
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