Chips from the Block
Brad Hoge posted a Book Meme and named me among the tagged.
It seems wrong to choose a single book to fit some of these categories, but I understand that limitations serve a useful purpose. As for joining in “fun” group efforts, I’m a poor candidate. I don’t stand for the wave at hockey games, but the wave goes on without my help. We’ll see what happens in this case.
- One book that changed your life? Coming Into the Country showed me that Alaska was a place where I could be whatever I chose to be. I moved here soon after I read it.
- One book you have read more than once? The Heart of Darkness is a mythic, primal, masterpiece.
- One book you would want on a desert island? The Tao te Ching is a little book I’ve owned for over 30 years. I’d go mad on an island, and I’d want a book without any plot.
- One book that made you laugh? One Man’s Meat, by E.B. White, who writes about moving to Maine from NYC in 1938. E.B. White is a master of the essay form.
- One book that made you cry? A River Runs Through It probably didn’t make me cry, but I remember being touched by this passage: He almost reached the door and then turned back for reassurance. “Are you sure that the bones in his hand were broken?” he asked. I repeated, “Nearly all the bones in his hand were broken.”"In which hand?” he asked. “In his right hand,” I answered….Like many Scottish ministers before him, he had to derive what comfort he could from the faith that his son had died fighting.
- One book you wish had been written? I’ll have to work on this one.
- One book you wish had never been written? The Bible, for all the guidance and comfort it’s credited with, is behind more bloodshed and controversy than any other text I can think of. It doesn’t automatically cause trouble, but in the wrong hands it inspires a lot of narrow-minded self-righteousness. (Argue with me, but don’t demonstrate my point.) For a historical view of religion, try A History of God.
- One book you are currently reading? I discovered Maxine Greene at the library recently. Her book, Teacher as Stranger, is about how to do educational philosophy.
- One book you have been meaning to read? Vaclav Havel’s, Disturbing the Peace, is next on my list. I keep a list.
- Now tag five people. Oops. uhh….. Can’t do it. Sorry. I’m no fun, I know. Jump in if you care to. It’s a good exercise.
p. 21 …philosophy always begins in wonder. The individual must be moved to ask questions about the universe, to engage in dialogue with himself about the world as it impinges on him and about the explanations others provide. He must stand, if he dares, in “the wind of thought,” examining doctrines and opinions and preconceptions. He must realize his thinking in judgments, in praxis, particularly if he is a teacher concerned with discovering what the known demands….And indeed, one of the objectives of this book is to enable the reader to let his consciousness take over, to enable him-in the face of mechanization and controls-to create himself as a human being, as a teacher capable of freeing other human beings to choose themselves.
