The Way of the World
Nicolas Bouvier; Illus., Thierry Vernet, 1963 (1994, U.S.)
New York Review of Books
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781590173220
Summary
In 1953, twenty-four-year old Nicolas Bouvier and his artist friend Thierry Vernet set out to make their way overland from their native Geneva to the Khyber Pass.
They had a rattletrap Fiat and a little money, but above all they were equipped with the certainty that by hook or by crook they would reach their destination, and that there would be unanticipated adventures, curious companionship, and sudden illumination along the way.
The Way of the World, which Bouvier fashioned over the course of many years from his journals, is an entrancing story of adventure, an extraordinary work of art, and a voyage of self-discovery on the order of Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
As Bouvier writes, "You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making—or unmaking—you." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 6, 1929, Lancy
• Where—Lancy, Switzerland
• Death—February 17, 1998
• Where—Geneva, Switzerland
• Education—L.L., University of Geneva
Nicolas Bouvier was a 20th-century Swiss traveller, writer, icon painter and photographer.
Khyber Pass (1953-1954)
Without even waiting for the results of his exams (he would learn in Bombay that he had obtained his Licence in Letters and Law, he left Switzerland in June, 1953, with his friend Thierry Vernet in a Fiat Topolino.
First destination: Yugoslavia. The voyage lasted till December 1954. The voyage led the two men to Turkey, to Iran and to Pakistan, Thierry Vernet leaving his friend at the Khyber Pass. Bouvier continued alone, recounting the journey in L'Usage du monde, published in English translation as The Way of the World.
The pilgrim finds the words to express himself, and his feet follow them faithfully:
A journey does not need reasons. Before long, it proves to be reason enough in itself. One thinks that one is going to make a journey, yet soon it is the journey that makes or unmakes you.
The book has been described as a voyage of self-discovery with comparisons to Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Sri Lanka/Ceylon (1955)
With intermittent company, Bouvier crossed Afghanistan, Pakistan and India before reaching Ceylon. Here he lost his footing: the solitude and the heat floored him. It took him seven months to leave the island and almost thirty years to free himself of the weight of this adventure with the writing of Le Poisson-scorpion. It ends on a quote from Louis-Ferdinand Celine: "The worst defeat of all is to forget and especially the thing that has defeated you."
Japan (1955-1956)
After Ceylon, he left for another island: Japan, where he found a country in the throes of change. He left but would return a few years later. These experiences led to Japon, which would become Chroniques japonaises after a third sojourn in 1970 (Bouvier had produced books for the Swiss pavilion at the World Exposition in Osaka) and a complete re-edition.
Of this country, he said: "Japan is a lesson in economy. It is not considered good form to take up too much space." In The Japanese Chronicles, he blended his personal experiences of Japan with Japanese history and rewrote a Japanese history from a Western perspectives.
Ireland (1985)
Building on a report for a journal in the Aran Islands, Bouvier wrote Journal d'Aran et d'autres lieux, a tale of travel that slips at times into the supernatural, the voyager suffering from typhoid. His appreciation of the air of the Irish islands is described as that which...
dilates, tonifies, intoxicates, lightens, frees up animal spirits in the head who give themselves over to unknown but amusing games. It brings together the virtues of champagne, cocaine, caffeine, amorous rapture and the tourism office makes a big mistake in forgetting it in its prospectuses.
(Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/4/2016.)
Thierry Vernet (1927-1993) was born in Grand-Saconnex in the canton of Geneva. He studied painting and stage design with Jean Plojoux and Xavier Fiala, and worked as a stage designer for productions throughout Europe. He was married to the painter Floristella Stephanie. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The exhilaration of the open road and the feeling of connectedness to the natural world that it can produce, is, after all, a common human experience. Simply expressed, it has produced some of mankind’s greatest writing. The Swiss travel writer Nicolas Bouvier explores this territory in his youthful masterpiece, The Way of the World, where he conveys as well as anyone the raw intoxication of being on the road.
New York Times
A genuine masterpiece, an exhilarating, innocent, perceptive and wholly enjoyable young man's travel book, and a discovery of the Asian road that by rights deserves to occupy the same shelf as great classics of the genre such as Robert Byron's The Road to Oxiana or Eric Newby's Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.
Financial Times (UK)
The Way of the World is a masterpiece which elevates the mundane to the memorable and captures the thrill of two passionate and curious young men discovering both the world and themselves. Racy and meditative, romantic and realistic, the book is as brilliant as Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, but with its erudition more lightly worn and as alive as Kerouac's On the Road, though without a whisper of self-aggrandisement.... On every page a gem or two glitters, and the accumulation of colour, detail and inspired metaphor produce an intensely hypnotic effect.... If you read any travel book this year—or indeed the next forty years—this should be it.
Rory Maclean - Guardian (UK)
Bouvier has all the gifts a travel writer could want—curiosity, tolerance, hardiness—but above all he has a poet's sensibility with words. His is a lyrical style that is as pure as spring air.
James Owen - Telegraph (UK)
In the tradition of great travel writing it is beautifully written and works on many levels—being an account of the journey, a meditation on life and an appreciation of the spirit of a place.
Sarah Anderson - Guardian (UK)
Bouvier's recollections of their 18 months of travel captures the timeless nature of what happens when different cultures interact regardless of the events surrounding them. Originally published in 1963 under the title, L'Usage du Monde, the book became a cult classic in France and was translated into several European languages.
Library Journal
Lyrical reminiscences of a footloose journey from Yugoslavia to India, undertaken 40 years ago by the then-25-year-old author of the enchanting The Japanese Chronicles (1992).... Wherever he travels, Bouvier displays an artist's eye for the image-conjuring detail.... Travel writing to be cherished and reread.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(The following Discussion Questions were developed by Conrad Beatty, a member of MeRG, a book group in Douglasville, Georgia. Many thanks, Conrad.)
1. In his introduction to the book, Patrick Leigh Fermor (an accomplished travel writer himself) comments that it is hard to determine exactly what makes Nicolas Bouvier’s books and journeys different from other travel writers. Assuming you have read other travel writers, it what way do you think they are different?
2. One of the most well-known quotes from this book occurs close to the beginning. "Traveling outgrows its motives. It soon proves sufficient in itself. You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making you—or unmaking you." What has motivated you to travel and, if you have done so, how has that changed you?
3. "The virtue of travelling is that it purges life before filling it up." What idea was Bouvier trying to convey with that statement?
4. Bouvier talks of how traveling changes the traveler:
Ideas one had held on to without reason depart; others, however, are readjusted and settle like pebbles at the bottom of a stream. There’s no need to interfere: the road does the work for you.
How far or how long does one need to travel in order to experience these subtle changes taking place?
5. Speaking of a priest in Macedonia, Bouvier writes: "He represented the sacred, and the sacred—just like liberty—is not a preoccupation until one feels it is under threat." Coming from a free Western European country, what impact do you imagine life under a communist regime had on him?
6. "Beyond a certain degree of hardship or misery, life often revives and heals the scars." Is this more than merely becoming acclimated to the conditions? If so, in what ways?
7. In speaking of sickness (which seemed to go hand in hand with travel) Bouvier writes:
There were warnings , but no iron rules: it was just a case of listening to the body’s music, unnoticed for so long, which gradually returned and with which one needs to be in harmony.
Are we, in our sedentary lifestyles, out of touch with our body’s music? If so, what can we do to restore that harmony?
8. Travelling, according to Bouvier,
provides occasions for shaking oneself up but not, as people believe, freedom. Indeed it involves a kind of reduction: deprived of one’s usual setting, the customary routine stripped away like so much wrapping paper, the traveller finds himself reduced to more modest proportions—but also more open to curiosity, to intuition, to love at first sight.
How, do you think, travel differs today from that experienced by the author? What would it take to experience the kind of travel of which he writes?
9. In writing about fear, Bouvier says:
There are such moments in travelling when it arises, and the bread you are chewing sticks in your throat. When you are over-tired, or alone for too long, or are let down for a moment after a burst of enthusiasm, it can take you unawares as you turn a corner, like a cold shower…The next day you will romantically berate yourself—quite wrongly. At least half of this uneasiness—you understand later—is instinct aroused by serious danger.
Have you experienced such moments of fear while travelling? If so, how did you handle the situation and what actions did you take to minimize the threat?
10. In rural Turkey, Bouvier experiences a clash of cultures. He writes:
They lack technology: we want to get out of the impasse into which too much technology has led us, our sensibilities saturated to the nth degree with Information and a Culture of distractions. We’re counting on their formulae to revive us; they’re counting on ours to live. Our paths cross without mutual understanding, and sometimes the traveler gets impatient, but there is a great deal of self-centeredness in such impatience.
When you travel are you seeking an escape from technology or do you find that it provides a comforting link to all that is familiar to you?
11. Bouvier writes:
In the end, the bedrock of existence is not made up of the family, or work, or what others say or think of you, but of moments … when you are exalted by a transcendent power that is more serene than love. Life dispenses them parsimoniously; our feeble hearts could not stand more.
Can you recall any such moments as he describes? Perhaps a sunrise or sunset over an ocean or a view from a mountain top? How did you feel in those moments?
12. In Azerbaijan, Bouvier converses with a French priest who speaks of the re-emergence of fanaticism with its black banners and violent ways. "Fanaticism, you see, is the last revolt of the poor, the only one they can’t be denied." How do you think that reflects on the re-emergence of fanaticism today?
13. In Tabriz, Bouvier makes the acquaintance of some Americans who are attempting to build a school because in the American mindset a school is one of the main ingredients in the American recipe for happiness, but as he points out such a recipe for happiness cannot be exported with adjustments. He alludes to the fact that there are worse things than countries without schools. For example, countries without hope or justice. How has American foreign policy failed to understand those subtleties? Can you think of examples where our approach to helping other nations has failed because of this?
14. In Tehran they met with friends who came to see them off on the next leg of their journey. Bouviere says:
What took their fancy was the concept of the Voyage: the surprises, the trials, the mystique of the road. The voyage was perennially fascinating to the East, and this often worked to our advantage.
How does the romance of travel capture your imagination? To what limits would you be prepared to push yourself?
15. At one point in Isfahan he writes:
It’s odd how the world suddenly goes bad, turns rotten…I believe there are landscapes that are out to get you, and you must leave them immediately or the consequences are incalculable. There are not many of them, but they certainly exist; five or six on this earth for each of us.
Does that seem like paranoia or the voice of experience? Have you ever encountered a place where you had such feelings?
16. Late in his journey, in Afghanistan, Bouvier writes, "There isn’t a single country—as I now know—which doesn’t exact its pound of flesh." In what way do you think he meant that? Was he referring simply to the hardships of travel or of something more?
17. Standing in the Khyber Pass, Bouvier muses:
That day I really believed that I had grasped something and that henceforth my life would be changed. But insights cannot be held forever. Like water, the world ripples across you and for a while you take on its colors. Then it recedes, and leaves you face to face with the void you carry inside yourself, confronting that central inadequacy of soul, which you must learn to rub shoulders with and to combat, and which paradoxically, may be our surest impetus.
As this is Bouvier's closing thought, what do you think he learned or gained from this journey?
18. In conclusion, how would you summarize this book? In what way is it a journey of discovery versus a journey of self-discovery?
(Questions courtesy of Conrad Beatty.)
Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life
Kelsey Miller, 2016
Grand Central Publishing
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781455532636
Summary
A hilarious and inspiring memoir about one young woman's journey to find a better path to both physical and mental health.
At twenty-nine, Kelsey Miller had done it all: crash diets, healthy diets, and nutritionist-prescribed "eating plans," which are diets that you pay more money for. She'd been fighting her un-thin body since early childhood, and after a lifetime of failure, finally hit bottom.
No diet could transform her body or her life. There was no shortcut to skinny salvation. She'd dug herself into this hole, and now it was time to climb out of it.
With the help of an Intuitive Eating coach and fitness professionals, she learned how to eat based on her body's instincts and exercise sustainably, without obsessing over calories burned and thighs gapped. But, with each thrilling step toward a healthy future, she had to contend with the painful truths of her past.
Big Girl chronicles Kelsey's journey into self-loathing and disordered eating—and out of it. This is a memoir for anyone who's dealt with a distorted body image, food issues, or a dysfunctional family. It's for the late-bloomers and the not-yet-bloomed.
It's a book for everyone who's tried and failed and felt like a big, fat loser. So, basically, everyone. (From the publiosher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1985
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.S., Boston University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Kelsey Miller graduated from Boston University with a BS in Film & Television. She began her career in the film production industry before transitioning to full-time writing. Soon after joining the staff of Refinery29, she created The Anti-Diet Project, one of the website's most popular franchises. She is currently a Senior Features Writer and lives in Brooklyn. (From the pubisher.)
Book Reviews
This chronicle of [Miller's] journey from childhood through hard-won revelations is hilarious and brutally honest, offering plenty of wisdom for anyone who's struggled with issues of her own.
People
Readers of all sizes, shapes and backgrounds can relate to Big Girl. It's a tour de force on growing up, learning how to be healthy in mind, body and spirit, and coming to terms with the fact that life is fast, but it is OK to stop for a moment to bring home, smell and eat the bacon."
New York Daily News
Miller has shed her self-destructive bingeing and dieting habits...and gained the ability to recognize and embrace who she is. Her honestly, hilariously told story will appeal to any readers who have ever felt dissatisfaction with their bodies and will move them to tears of sorrow, laughter, and joy.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This is not a diet book, it's an antidiet book, as well as a memoir of one woman's lifelong struggle to lose weight and journey through mindful eating.... [C]ompelling and deeply felt.
Library Journal
Miller does take a look at some of the deeper reasons behind her compulsive eating, and it's in these passages that her vulnerability comes through and her story becomes truly compelling. Readers will cheer for Miller to succeed on her "anti-diet" diet of intuitive eating.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to get a discussion started for Big Girl...then take off on your own:
1. Talk about Kelsey Miller's struggle with food and weight loss. How does that compare with your own food issues? How are your experiences with eating and dieting similar to, or different from, Kelsey's?
2. Do you...or did you ever...have the "Food Police" watching over and judging you?
3. Talk about Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resche and their Intuitive Eating program. How does it differ from all the other approaches that Kelsey has tried? Do you think Intuitive Eating would work for you?
4. Miller talks about doing stints with Weight Watchers, Atkins, Jenny Craig, or the Type O Diet. What diet programs have you been on...and with what degree of success?
5. Miller writes about the deeper reasons at the root of her bingeing and dieting? What are those deeper reasons; what does she suggest drives her compulsive eating? If you, too, are a compulsive eater, have you considered any underlying causes?
6. Do you think Miller tends to substitute one obsession for another? If so, in what way? And is that a pattern that feels familiar to you?
7. What does Miller mean when she says losing weight is more about process than product?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind
Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire, 2015
Penguin Publishing Group
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399174100
Summary
Is it possible to make sense of something as elusive as creativity?
Based on psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman’s groundbreaking research and Carolyn Gregoire’s popular article in the Huffington Post, Wired to Create offers a glimpse inside the “messy minds” of highly creative people.
Revealing the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology, along with engaging examples of artists and innovators throughout history, the book shines a light on the practices and habits of mind that promote creative thinking.
Kaufman and Gregoire untangle a series of paradoxes—like mindfulness and daydreaming, seriousness and play, openness and sensitivity, and solitude and collaboration—to show that it is by embracing our own contradictions that we are able to tap into our deepest creativity.
Each chapter explores one of the ten attributes and habits of highly creative people:
• Imaginative Play
• Passion
• Daydreaming
• Solitude
• Intuition
• Openness to Experience
• Mindfulness
• Sensitivity
• Turning Adversity into Advantage
• Thinking Differently
With insights from the work and lives of Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Marcel Proust, David Foster Wallace, Thomas Edison, Josephine Baker, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, musician Thom Yorke, chess champion Josh Waitzkin, video-game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, and many other creative luminaries, Wired to Create helps us better understand creativity—and shows us how to enrich this essential aspect of our lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bios
Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., is scientific director of the Imagination Institute and investigates the measurement and development of imagination, creativity and well-being in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written or edited six previous books, including Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined (2013). He is also co-founder of The Creativity Post, host of The Psychology Podcast, and he writes the blog Beautiful Minds for Scientific American. Kaufman lives in Philadelphia. (From the publisher.)
Carolyn Gregoire is a senior writer at the Huffington Post, where she reports on psychology, mental health, and neuroscience. She has spoken at TEDx and the Harvard Public Health Forum, and has appeared on MSNBC, the Today show, the History Channel and HuffPost Live. Gregoire lives in New York City. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[T]he authors explore 10 “habits of mind” that great creative thinkers...cultivate in themselves.... By studying the standouts in creativity, they conclude, we can all learn how to enrich our well-being.... [N]ever pedantic, and always educational and inspiring.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Kaufman...and Gregoire...delineate the untidy ins and outs of inventiveness and how a person might also dislike his or her creative potential.... [An] explorative how-to guide...fascinating and clearly written. —Kaitlin Connors, Virginia Beach P.L.
Library Journal
For artistic people who've always wondered why they might not fit the norm, Kaufman and Gregoire provide some valid answers. For those curious about how writers, artists, and musicians manifest their art..., the authors pull back the curtains on the fascinating world of creativity.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Wired to Create...then take off on your own:
1. The authors say that "creative people tend to have messy minds." How so? They postulate that creativity is a contradictory trait. What are the conflicting mental states that creativity draws upon or fuses?
2. We generally consider the creative mind restricted to a select group of artists, scientists, writers, and musicians. Why do the authors suggest that personal creativity is important for everyone's sense of well-being, not just the geniuses?
2. Put another way, what does it mean to say that we are all "wired to create"?
3. Do you find Wired to Create empowering on a personal level? If you have never thought of yourself as particularly creative—but wish you were—how might you tap into some of the book's ideas in order to enhance the creative side of yourself?
4. Follow-up to Question 3: If you consider yourself a fairly (or very) creative individual, have you often felt alone or outside the norm? Why, according to Kaufman and Gregoire, is that experience not uncommon for creative people?
5. Do you have anyone in your life, a family member or friend, whom you consider highly creative? Is that person different—in terms of personality, life style, or career trajectory—from others you know?
6. Consider the 10 habits of mind the authors put forth. Which do you find yourself most aligned with? Which is most alien to you? Which habit do you wish you had but don't.
7. The authors draw from creative individuals in history, a fairly select group of geniuses. Whose story do you find most interesting, or perhaps relate to on a personal level?
8. Talk about some of the more recent neurological findings that explain the creative impulse. It was once believed, for instance, that creativity was restricted to the right side of the brain, but our understanding has changed. What else have scientists learned recently about creativity?
9. What have you learned from reading Wired to Create? What surprised you? Did the book inspire you to think differently about yourself and your own creative ability?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity
Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345805102
Summary
An essential, galvanizing narrative about making a difference here and abroad—a road map to becoming the most effective global citizens we can be.
In their number one New York Times bestseller Half the Sky, husband-and-wife team Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn brought to light struggles faced by women and girls around the globe, and showcased individuals and institutions working to address oppression and expand opportunity.
A Path Appears is even more ambitious in scale: nothing less than a sweeping tapestry of people who are making the world a better place and a guide to the ways that we can do the same—whether with a donation of $5 or $5 million, with our time, by capitalizing on our skills as individuals, or by using the resources of our businesses.
With scrupulous research and on-the-ground reporting, the authors assay the art and science of giving, identify successful local and global initiatives, and share astonishing stories from the front lines of social progress. We see the compelling, inspiring truth of how real people have changed the world, upending the idea that one person can’t make a difference.
We meet people like...
- Dr. Gary Slutkin, who developed his landmark Cure Violence program to combat inner-city conflicts in the United States by applying principles of epidemiology
- Lester Strong, who left a career as a high-powered television anchor to run an organization bringing in older Americans to tutor students in public schools across the country
- Esther Duflo, an MIT development economist, whose pioneering studies of aid effectiveness have revealed new truths about, among other things, the power of hope
- Jessica Posner and Kennedy Odede, who are transforming Kenya’s most notorious slum by expanding educational opportunities for girls.
A Path Appears offers practical, results-driven advice on how best each of us can give and reveals the lasting benefits we gain in return. Kristof and WuDunn know better than most how many urgent challenges communities around the world face today. Here they offer a timely beacon of hope for our collective future. (From the publisher.)
Author Bios
Nicholas Kristof
• Birth—April 27, 1959
• Raised—Yamhill, Oregon, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard; J.D., Oxford University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in suburban New York City
Nicholas Donabet Kristof is an American journalist, author, op-ed columnist, and a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. He has written an op-ed column for the New York Times since 2001.
Life and career
Kristof was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up on a sheep and cherry farm in Yamhill, Oregon. He is the son of Jane Kristof (nee McWilliams) and Ladis "Kris" Kristof (born Wladyslaw Krzysztofowicz), both long-time professors at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.
Nicholas Kristof graduated from Yamhill Carlton High School, where he was student body president and school newspaper editor, and later became a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College. At Harvard, he studied government and worked on The Harvard Crimson newspaper; "Alums recall Kristof as one of the brightest undergraduates on campus," according to a profile in the Crimson.
After Harvard, he studied law at Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned his law degree with first-class honors and won an academic prize. Afterward, he studied Arabic in Egypt for the 1983–84 academic year. He has a number of honorary degrees.
New York Times
Kristof joined the New York Times in 1984, initially covering economics and later serving as a Times correspondent in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo. He also covered presidential politics and is the author of the chapter on President George W. Bush in the reference book The Presidents. He rose to be the associate managing editor, responsible for Sunday editions.
In 2001 Kristof became a Times op-ed writer. His twice-weekly columns often focus on global health, poverty, and gender issues in the developing world. In particular, since 2004 he has written dozens of columns about Darfur and visited the area 11 times.
According to his New York Times bio, Kristoff has traveled to more than 150 countries—and not without incident. During his travels, he contracted malaria, was threatened by mobs, and survived an airplane crash. Jeffrey Toobin of CNN and The New Yorker, a Harvard classmate, once said...
I’m not surprised to see him emerge as the moral conscience of our generation of journalists. I am surprised to see him as the Indiana Jones of our generation of journalists.
Kristoff also pioneered the use of multimedia for the Times: he was both the first blogger on the paper's website and the first to make a video for the website. He also tweets, has Facebook and Google Plus pages and a YouTube channel. According to Twitter lists, he has more followers (almost 1.5 million) than any other print journalist in the world.
Kristof resides outside New York City with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, and their three children. He enjoys running, backpacking, and having his Chinese and Japanese corrected by his children.
Impact
Because of his emphasis on human rights abuses and social injustices—namely, human trafficking and the Darfur conflict—the Washington Post said that Kristoff has "shaped the field of opinion journalism."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has called Kristof an "honorary African" for shining a spotlight on neglected conflicts.
Bill Clinton said of Kristof in 2009:
There is no one in journalism, anywhere in the United States at least, who has done anything like the work he has done to figure out how poor people are actually living around the world, and what their potential is.... So every American citizen who cares about this should be profoundly grateful that someone in our press establishment cares enough about this to haul himself all around the world to figure out what's going on....I am personally in his debt, as are we all.
In 2013 Joyce Barnathan, president of the International Center for Journalists, called Kristof "the conscience of international journalism."
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation names Kristof as one of its inspirations. A January 1997 page-one article by Kristof, about child mortality in the developing world, helped forcus the couple's philanthropy on global health. A framed copy of that article hangs in the gallery of the Gates Foundation.
Books
Kristof has co-authored four books with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn:
- China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power (1994) and Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia (2000). The two books examine the cultural, social, and political situation of East Asia largely through interviews and personal experiences.
- Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2009), a best-seller, the book was the basis of an award-winning PBS documentary, which featured WuDunn. The book was also made into a Facebook game with more than 1.1 million players.
- A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity (2014) explores how altruism affects all of us and presents various ways that we can make a difference. It, too, became a widely watched PBS documentary in 2015, and featured Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria, Alfre Woodard, Blake Lively, in early 2015.
Perhaps the best known of Kristof and WuDunn's books is their 2009 Half the Sky, which hit the top of the bestseller charts. The idea for the book was sparked by the Tiananmen Square protests. After reporting on the 500 deaths from that event, the authors learned that some 39,000 girls died every year—far more than had died at Tiananmen—from being denied access to the same food and medical treatment offered to boys. Yet there was no mention or coverage of this stastic anywhere.
Stunned, Kristof and WuDunn decided to dig deeper into overall issues of gender, everywhere—sex trafficking, modern slavery, domestic violence, and rape as both weapon of war and form of "legal justice." The resulting book, Half the Sky, shines in a light onto the dark recesses of female oppression and abuse around the world. The book has since been called a classic, a call to arms, and even comparable in significance to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Carolyn Seen of the Washington Post called it one of the most important books she had ever reviewed, as did Counter Punch's Charles Larson.
Awards and recognition
1989 - George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting (on human rights and environmental issues).
1990 - Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (with Sheryl WuDunn)
2006 - Media Web's Journalist of the Year
2007 - Fred Cuny Award for Prevention of Deaadly Conflict
2007 - U.S. News & World Report: one of "America's Best Leaders."
2008 - Anne Frank Award
2009 - Dayton Literary Peace Prize Lifetime Award (with WuDunn)
2009 - World of Children Lifetime Achievement Award (with WuDunn)
2011 - Harvard Kennedy School / Washington Post: one of seven "Top American Leaders."
2013 - Advancing Global Health Award from Seattle Biomed
2013 - Goldsmith Award for Career Excellence in Journalism by Harvard University
2013 - International Freedom Conductor by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. (The prevous "Conductor" was the Dalai Lama.)
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/17/2016.)
Sheryl WuDunn
• Birth—November 16, 1959
• Raised—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Cornell University; M.B.A., Harvard University; M.P.A., Princeton Univeristy
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in suburban New York City
Sheryl WuDunn is a business executive, best-selling author, journalist, and international women’s rights advocate.
A third generation Chinese American, Sheryl WuDunn grew up in New York City on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In 1981 she graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in European History. In 1987, she earned her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and, in 1994, an M.P.A. from Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs. She married reporter Nicholas Kristof in 1988.
In 1989 she joined the New York Times, becoming the first Asian-American hired by the paper. She served as a foreign correspondent in the Beijing and Tokyo bureaus where she and Kristof covered the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. They received the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting—a first for Pulitzer: the first married couple to win for journalism, and the first Asian-American to win a Pulitzer, ever. In addition to her reporting on Tiananmen, WuDunn covered international business, including global energy, global markets, foreign industry and technology.
WuDunn was also one of the few people to move between the editorial and the business sides of the New York Times. In 2000 she was appointed executive director of the Times Circulation NexGen project. She held several other business positions before leaving for the investment bank Goldman Sachs where she became a vice president of asset management.
Since 2009, she has been managing director at the boutique investment firm Mid-Market Solutions.
WuDunn continues her work in media as a commentator on television and radio regarding China and global affairs. She has appeared on Bloomberg TV, NPR, The Colbert Report, and Charlie Rose. She has also lectured at the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Council on Foreign Relations.
WuDunn resides outside New York City with her husband, Nicholas Kristof, and their three children.
Books
WuDunn has co-authored four books with her husband, Nicholas Kristof:
- China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power (1994) and Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia (2000). The two book examine the cultural, social, and political situation of East Asia largely through interviews and personal experiences.
- Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2009), a best-seller, the book was the basis of an award-winning PBS documentary, which featured WuDunn. The book was also made into a Facebook game with more than 1.1 million players.
- A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity (2014) explores how altruism affects all of us and presents various ways that we can make a difference. It, too, became a widely watched PBS documentary in 2015, and featured Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria, Alfre Woodard, Blake Lively, in early 2015.
Awards and recognition
1990 - Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (with Kristof).
1990 - George Polk Award and an Overseas Press Club award for reporting in China.
2009 - Dayton Literary Peace Prize Lifetime Achievement Award (with Kristof).
2009 - World of Children Lifetime Achievement Award (with Kristof).
2011 - Newsweek: listed as one of "150 Women who Shake the World."
2012 - Fast Company magazine: listed in its "League of Extraordinary Women."
2013 - PBS The Makers documentary: listed as one of the "Women Who Make America."
2013 - Harvard Business School film: featured as one its most prominent female alumni.
2015 - Business Insider: listed as one of the 31 most prominent alumni of the Harvard Business School.
Boards
WuDunn served for more than a decade on the Cornell University board of trustees, including as a member of the board's finance committee and investment committee. Initially appointed to the Cornell board by the university president, she was later reappointed by the New York governor and served under two governors.
She also served for many years on the advisory council of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and in 2013 was elected by alumni to the Princeton University board of trustees. She currently serves on the board of advisers for Fuel Freedom Foundation. WuDunn is also on the advisory boards of a number of start-up companies in a variety of fields, including healthcare and mobile security. (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/17/2016)
Book Reviews
Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn show you, through many amazing vignettes matched with serious evidence, that you can make a difference….Read this book. Seize one of the many opportunities it lists, and change lives for the better, including your own.
Paul Collier - New York Times Book Review
[An] exhaustive though not exhausting profile of giving, with surprising guidance—indeed, coaching—on how to be an effective giver…. Upon finishing the book, readers are likely to…find themselves willing to do something in the world, unconcerned by questions of scale, but instead, to simply become more engaged, and in that, alive.
Boston Globe
[O]pens an important conversation for anyone interested in how to contribute to catalyzing positive change…[it] sheds light on the exploitation and inequity that exist in our own backyard, while also spotlighting the individuals overcoming it.
Christian Science Monitor
Readers will be inspired by the stories [Kristof and WuDunn] tell…. There are so many problems in the world, and so many organizations wanting charitable donations, that we can sometimes feel overwhelmed. [The authors] help us weed through those issues and find that path so we can make a difference.
National Geographic.com
Nobody clarifies the social challenges of our time, or the moral imperative to help meet them, better than Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Their latest book, A Path Appears, offers an inspiring roundup of the many simple and effective ways in which we can lend our hearts and talents to grow hope and opportunity both at home and around the globe—and an important reminder that just because we can’t do everything doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do something.
Former President Bill Clinton, founder of the Clinton Foundation
Helping suffering people around the world to transform their own lives is a rewarding challenge we all share as citizens of a global community. A Path Appears is a helpful and inspiring guide for anyone who wonders what difference a single person can make in building a more hopeful world.”
Former President Jimmy Carter, founder of the not-for-profit Carter Center
Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have done us all a great service by shining a light on the problems faced by the poor. These stories of real people struggling for survival and opportunity serve as a powerful reminder that poverty is complex and painful, but the call to action doesn’t need to be. With insight, compassion and optimism, Kristof and WuDunn show us that we can all play a role in making the world a better place. A Path Appears is a compelling read that can’t help but to educate and energize.”
Bill and Melinda Gates, co-chairs of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Broadly inclusive and multifaceted account of possible solutions to today’s "overwhelming and unrelenting" social problems. Heartening anecdotal sketches of both givers and receivers in the "charity industry" are engaging and informative, and Kristof and WuDunn hope to provoke serious thought about the role of charity in today’s world.
Publishers Weekly
[K]nown for their crusading work on human rights...[the authors] examine individuals who are making a difference, aiming not simply to get us to contribute time, skills, and/or money to their efforts but to parse which approaches and initiatives really work. The forthcoming four-part PBS documentary amplifies the message.
Library Journal
A primer on "finding innovative and effective ways to give back."... [T]he husband-and-wife team addresses how ordinary people can participate in "a revolution in tackling social problems, employing new savvy, discipline and experience to chip away at poverty and injustice."... The authors deliver a profound message that packs a wallop.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Michael Lewis, 2010
W.W. Norton & Co.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780393353150
Summary
Truth really is stranger than fiction.
Who better than the author of the signature bestseller Liar's Poker to explain how the event we were told was impossible—the free fall of the American economy—finally occurred; how the things that we wanted, like ridiculously easy money and greatly expanded home ownership, were vehicles for that crash; and how shareholder demand for profit forced investment executives to eat the forbidden fruit of toxic derivatives.
Michael Lewis's splendid cast of characters includes villains, a few heroes, and a lot of people who look very, very foolish: high government officials, including the watchdogs; heads of major investment banks (some overlap here with previous category); perhaps even the face in your mirror.
In this trenchant, raucous, irresistible narrative, Lewis writes of the goats and of the few who saw what the emperor was wearing, and gives them, most memorably, what they deserve. He proves yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our times. (From the publisher.)
The 2015 film version of Lewis's book stars Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gossling, and Brad Pitt.
Author Bio
• Birth—October 15, 1960
• Where—New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton; M.B.A., London School of Economics
• Currently—Currently—lives in Berkeley, California
Michael Lewis is an American contemporary non-fiction author and financial journalist. His bestselling books include Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt (2014); The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (2010); The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (2006); Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (2003); and Liar's Poker (1989).
Background
Lewis was born in New Orleans to corporate lawyer J. Thomas Lewis and community activist Diana Monroe Lewis. He attended the private, nondenominational, co-educational college preparatory Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. Later, he attended Princeton University where he received a BA in art history in 1982 and was a member of the Ivy Club.
After graduating from Princeton, he went on to work with New York art dealer Daniel Wildenstein. Despite his degree in art history, he nonetheless wanted to break into Wall Street to make money. After leaving Princeton, he tried to find a finance job, only to be roundly rejected by every firm to which he applied. He then enrolled in the London School of Economics to pursue a Master's degree in economics.
While still in England, Lewis was invited to a banquet hosted by the Queen Mother at St. James's Palace. His cousin, Baroness Linda Monroe von Stauffenberg, one of the organizers of the banquet, purposely seated him next to the wife of the London Managing Partner of Salomon Brothers. The hope was that Lewis, just having obtained his master's degree, might impress her enough for her to suggest to her husband that Lewis be given a job with Salomon Bros.—which had previously turned him down. The strategy worked: Lewis was granted an interview and landed a job.
As a result of the job offer, Lewis moved to New York City for Salomon's training program. There, he was appalled at the sheer bravado of most of his fellow trainees and indoctrinated into the money culture of Salomon and Wall Street in general.
After New York, Lewis was shipped to the London office of Salomon Brothers as a bond salesman. Despite his lack of knowledge, he was soon handling millions of dollars in investment accounts. In 1987, he witnessed a near-hostile takeover of Salomon Brothers but survived with his job. However, growing disillusioned with his work, he eventually quit to write Liar's Poker and become a financial journalist.
Writing
Lewis described his experiences at Salomon and the evolution of the mortgage-backed bond in Liar's Poker (1989). In The New New Thing (1999), he investigated the then-booming Silicon Valley and discussed obsession with innovation.
Four years later, Lewis wrote Moneyball (2003), in which he investigated the success of Billy Beane and the Oakland A's. In August 2007, he wrote an article about catastrophe bonds entitled "In Nature's Casino" that appeared in the New York Times Magazine.
The Big Short, about a handful of scrappy investors who foresaw the 2007-08 subprime mortgage debacle, came out in 2010. Flash Boys, detailing high-speed trading in stock and other markets, was published in 2014. Like both The Big Short and Moneyball, the book features an underdog type who is ahead of the pack in understanding his industry.
Lewis has worked for The Spectator, New York Times Magazine, as a columnist for Bloomberg, as a senior editor and campaign correspondent to The New Republic, and a visiting fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He wrote the "Dad Again" column for Slate. Lewis worked for Conde Nast Portfolio but in February 2009 left to join Vanity Fair, where he became a contributing editor.
Film
The film version of Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt, was successfully released in 2011. The Big Short, with its all-star cast—Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gossling, and Brad Pitt—came out in 2015 to top reviews.
Personal life
Lewis married Diane de Cordova Lewis, his girlfriend prior to his Salomon days. After several years, he was briefly married to former CNBC correspondent Kate Bohner, before marrying the former MTV reporter Tabitha Soren in 1997. Lewis lives with Tabitha, two daughters, and one son (Quinn, Dixie, and Walker) in Berkeley, California. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/11/2016.)
Book Reviews
No one writes with more narrative panache about money and finance than Mr. Lewis, the author of Liar's Poker, that now classic portrait of 1980s Wall Street. His entertaining new book does not attempt a macro view of the financial crisis, but instead proposes to open a small window on the calamities by recounting the stories of some savvy renegades who cashed in on their conviction that the system was rotten… Mr. Lewis does a nimble job of using his subjects' stories to explicate the greed, idiocies and hypocrisies of a system notably lacking in grown-up supervision, a system filled with firms that "disdained the need for government regulation in good times" but "insisted on being rescued by government in bad times.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Since his first book, the autobiographical Liar’s Poker, Lewis has tackled big, engaging stories…by finding and developing characters whose personal narratives reveal a larger truth. He's done it again. The story of the crash is, overwhelmingly, a tale of failure. But Lewis managed to find quirky investors who minted fortunes by making unpopular, calculated bets on a financial meltdown. Ditching the aloof irony of his earliest works, he constructs a story that is funny, incisive, profanity-laced and illuminating—full of difficult-to-like underdogs whose vindication and enrichment we end up cheering.
Daniel Gross - New York Times Book Review
If you read only one book about the causes of the recent financial crisis, let it be Michael Lewis's, The Big Short…What's so delightful about Lewis's writing is how deftly he explains and demystifies how things really work on Wall Street, even while creating a compelling narrative and introducing us to a cast of fascinating, all-too-human characters…The Big Short manages to give us the truest picture yet of what went wrong on Wall Street—and why. At times, it reads like a morality play, at other times like a modern-day farce. But as with any good play, its value lies in the way it reveals character and motive and explores the cultural context in which the plot unfolds.
Steven Pearlstein - Washington Post
[A] microcosmic lens on the personal histories of several Wall Street outsiders who were betting against the grain—to shed light on the macrocosmic tale of greed and fear.
Publishers Weekly
Lewis is a storyteller, and he weaves the personal stories of these renegades against the inner workings of Wall Street's mortgage-backed securities money machine.... Verdict: Readers from generalists through specialists will find this fast-paced, engaging account both illuminating and disturbing. Highly recommended. —Lawrence Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA
Library Journal
[Combines] an incendiary, timely topic with the author's solid, insightful, and witty investigative reporting.... Lewis is a capable guide into the world of CDOs, subprime mortgages, head-in-the-sand investments, inflated egos—and the big short.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Big Short.
1. After reading The Big Short, do you have a clearer understanding of the Wall Street collapse of 2008? Does Michael Lewis do a good job, or a poor one, of explaining the arcane financial devices and the ins and outs of the bond markets? Did you find it interesting? Or were you bored to tears?
2. Follow-up to Question 2: How much did you know about financial crisis before reading The Big Short? What have you learned since that confirmed, or deviated from, your prior understanding of the events of 2008?
3. Where, or on whom, does Michael Lewis place blame for the events leading up to the crash?
4. What role did the rating agencies play—Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch? Were they at fault, or was the system such that they were forced to become unwilling partners?
5. Talk about the mortgage initiators. What role did they play? Discuss the array of mortgages offered and how they destabilized the system.
6. Steve Eisman, Mike Burry, and the men who ran the "garage band hedge fund" made huge fortunes off the downfall of others. Do you see them as prophetic heroes, greedy opportunists...or something else? How does Lewis portray them?
7. Follow-up to Question 6: Why did a handful of outsiders foresee what would happen with the subprimes while neither the heads of the large financial firms nor government regulators saw what was coming? Do you think it was genuine ignorance (the derivatives were simply too obscure to understand) or willful ignorance (no one really wanted to turn off the money spigot)? What about the risk managers for the Wall Street firms—where were they in all of this?
8. Another way to approach this book is to think of it almost as a mystery: who know how much...and when did they know it?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)