76. The Associate - John Grisham

My first John Grisham novel! ... though to be honest, I was only mildly impressed.

This book (legal thriller #20 for Grisham) is about Kyle McAvoy, an impressive Yale law student whose dreams of working a public service job after law school are forced to change when shadowy figures emerge and start blackmailing him with a videotape that revives a five-year-old rape accusation. Kyle does as his blackmailers tell him, and accepts a job at a huge Wall Street firm that represents a military contractor involved in a hefty lawsuit. That client is the blackmailers' reason for blackmailing Kyle: as long as he feeds them information about the $800 billion case, then they won't expose his past.

Honestly ... it's a decent story, but I thought it would be more of an intellectual legal thriller. It was really more of a simple story which happened to take place at a law firm. And it could have easily been told in way less than 400 pages! I think the middle hundred or so pages could be shortened dramatically. Some parts were quite unbelievable, like this part explaining Kyle's experiences growing up with his dad, an attorney:

"Every lawyer and every judge in York knew Kyle, and it was not unusual for him to slip into an empty courtroom, present a motion to a judge, argue its merits if necessary, then leave with a signed order."

A high school student?? Really?! However, there were other parts that I could totally relate to and smile about, like when Kyle was studying for the bar exam, and this part about billing:

"It took an hour to read every word in the file. One point two hours to be exact, and suddenly he had no reluctance in billing Placid for 1.2 hours, or $360 for the review. Not long ago, say about ninety minutes, he found it hard to believe he was worth $300 an hour. He hadn't even passed the bar! Now, though, he had been converted."

Despite my critiques, I'll definitely be willing to check out the movie when it comes out in 2010 (yes - Grisham must have movie rights lined up while he's still writing!) - and I'm willing to read some more Grisham novels. He's got enough to choose from!

Oh - and many thanks to my buddy Cole for giving me this book to add to my library!! :)

75. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

The main character in this book, Janie Crawford, is a middle-aged black woman who has just returned to Florida after being gone for a while. The people in the town start to gossip about her and try to speculate what happened to her most recent husband, Tea Cake, after he's found dead, and the plot of the majority of the book is framed by the story as Janie relates it to her friend Pheoby ...

Janie's life can be divided up into three time periods, during each of which she was married to three very different men. First: her marriage to Logan is unromantic and uninspired. She then runs away with Joe, who forbids her to associate with "common folk"; Joe's goal seems to be to shape Janie into what he considers to be the perfect wife through both physical and emotional abuse.

"He wanted her submission and he'd keep on fighting until he felt he had it. So gradually, [Janie] pressed her teeth together and learned to hush. The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again ... The bed was no longer a daisy-field for her and Joe to play in. It was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy and tired."

Joe eventually dies, and Janie seems quite relieved at finally achieving her freedom from him. She starts seeing a man who goes by the name of Tea Cake - a man twelve years younger than her. One part in the book that really shocked me is where Janie is discussing her relationship with a neighbor, Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner refuses to have a black doctor see her; she also refuses to go into black-owned business because "colored folks don't know nothin' 'bout not business." Even worse:

"Ah ain't got no flat nose and liver lips. Ah'm uh featured woman. Ah got white folks' features in mah face. Still and all Ah got tuh be lumped in wid all de rest. It ain't fair. Even if dey don't take us in wid de whites, dey oughta make us uh class tuh ourselves."

Apparently this extended exchange with Mrs. Turner received a lot of criticism from Harlem Renaissance writers: many said that it "favored" lighter-skinned African Americans, though I didn't see it as such (I agree with some other critics in that it more "exposed" the division between light-skinned and dark-skinned African Americans).

Anyway, at the end of the story, Tea Cake gets bitten by a rabid dog and gradually gets very sick and delusional. I won't spoil the ending, though I will share one of my mom's favorite passages:

"The day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the courthouse came and commenced to sing a sobbing sigh out of every corner in the room; out of each and every chair and thing. Commenced to sing, commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. Then Tea Cake came prancing around her where she was and the song of the sigh flew out of the window and lit in the top of the pine trees."

My mom pointed out the alliteration in that paragraph ... true, something that I likely would not have picked up on! I really enjoyed reading this book, though it was very hard for me to get into the phonetic spelling of the dialect spoken by all of the characters. I think I finally stopped having to re-read every page maybe a third of a way through the book. But this is definitely a classic piece of American literature that I wouldn't mind re-reading some other time to try to more fully enjoy all of its symbolism and literary devices.

74. Body Language 101 - David Lambert

This book is basically a guide to understanding body language. The material is divided into categories like "signs of conflict, "getting together" (including an interesting subcategory called "courtship"), and "keeping your distance," complete with color illustrations and even research from zoology and kinesics to describe the origins of the body language. I was also very impressed with the author's extensive explanations of gender and cultural differences.
Though much of the material was common sensical, the book does have some interesting tidbits: i.e. you know how people cross their fingers for "good luck"? Apparently that actually originated as a symbol of the cross on which Jesus died, and so "crossing your fingers" used to be a way to ask for God's protection. It seems so secular now! Some other parts I found particularly interesting:

"The consensus among researchers appears to be that women display more courting signals than men .... Women give off subtler courtship signals than men and are sharper at spotting those made by the opposite sex."

Also: not that I thought about it much, but I would have guessed that handshaking has been around for centuries. Apparently, I was wrong: "As a gesture of openness showing that the hand is empty of weapons, handshaking would seem to have early origins. Some people think it goes back to the Roman practice of grasping the forearm, but handshaking as we usually do it today perhaps began only two centuries ago."

Next time you observe two men getting into an argument, if you see either of them display this type of body language you might smile: "Two men who are strangers and feeling unsure of themselves might try to proclaim their masculinity by standing with hands on hips, or fingers or thumbs tucked into the front of the belt, a gesture which draws attention to the genital region. Some researchers claim this posture means 'I can dominate you because I am virile.'"

73. My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love, and Forgiveness - Patricia Raybon

How about this for the first page in a book:

"God help me.
I stopped hating white people on purpose about a year ago. I didn't tell anybody. I couldn't. If I did, I would have to explain how I started hating in the first place. And I really didn't know then myself.
I just hated."

In this very heartfelt book that is part memoir, part social commentary, and part self-help, Raybon explains how she found herself hating white people for years. Eventually, she decides to trace her journey from "rage and racial reasoning" and starts trying to practice forgiveness. She realizes that she would first have to hunt out the flaws in herself; and in the words of the gospel, realize that "It's me, it's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Not my brother, not my sister, but it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer."

Part of what I loved so much about this book was the author's candor - she incredibly real. She really draws the reader into feeling her anger and her pain - whether it's from the perspective of sympathy or empathy. From one part:

"'Tell me I'm OK. Befriend me, hire me, admire me, give me a good table at your restaurant, sell me a house in your neighborhood, talk to me, listen to me, look at me, love me.' But white people can't satisfy all these needs - because nobody externally can possibly fill up somebody else's internal longings. That inability, of white folks to satisfy my emotional needs, has been part of my disappointment with white people. I hated them, indeed, for not filling me up."

I also really liked this book because it followed how the author went from feeling such anger to achieving forgiveness. That is of course a skill that is useful in any context, not just racial forgiveness.
Thank you to my dear line sister Andrea for this great recommendation :)

72. Black is the New White - Paul Mooney

I had no idea that Paul Mooney was the writer behind Richard Pryor; not to mention his significant work for In Living Color and Saturday Night Live! (of course, most of us younger folks know his work on The Chappelle Show). This is an interesting combination of a biography/memoir and an absolutely hilarious commentary on race and society. Mooney helped a lot of comedians "make it" - i.e. Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Sandra Bernhard, etc. - while he mostly stayed behind the scenes. He's got great stories of life in Hollywood with these big names, and he of course tells these stories in a hilarious way. One part I've thought about several times since I've read the book:

"For white people, Bill [Cosby] is the perfect Negro. He's the Sidney Poitier of comedy, very clean-cut and articulate. White folks love to use that word to describe us. Articulate. It means we don't grunt like jungle savages."

Ha! Another funny part:

"...We decide to keep all of my money in Mama's bra, since that's the equivalent of hiding it under the mattress. There's a lot of room in there. My money goes into the left cup. I always know where it is. I do my business at the Bank of Mama's Left Tit."

Clearly, if you aren't one for the "m-f word" or a lot of crude humor - this book is not for you. It wasn't a fabulous memoir or book of humor, but I'd give it a solid three and a half stars out of five.

71. House of Sand and Fog - Andre Dubus III

Instantly a top-5 choice. A simply beautiful story.
The book begins from the point of view of Colonel Behrani, a man who was once wealthy in Iran and is now a struggling immigrant in California. He has blown most of his money trying to keep up appearances in the U.S., and is struggling to make ends meet for his family. He sinks what money he has left into a house that he buys at an auction, not knowing the direction in which the purchase would lead his family ...
The next chapter is told from the point of view of Kathy Niccolo, the former owner of the house that Colonel Behrani bought. Kathy is incredibly emotionally unstable: her husband has recently left her, and the house (an inheritance from her dad) is all that she has left. When the house is foreclosed upon, Sheriff Lester Burdon helps her try to get it back - but ends up falling in love with her. Lester ultimately becomes obsessed with Kathy and with helping her try to get the house back.
For the majority of the book, the chapters alternate in terms of from whose point of view they are told. The author does an excellent job of making the reader feel what the character was feeling. He perfectly captures the way in which Colonel Behrani and his family, as recent Iranian immigrants, speak English; he also does a great job at weaving in a lot of Persian/Iranian culture. I could feel how determined Colonel Behrani is to keep the house: to him, it's his key to the American dream and to redeeming himself as the provider for his family.
In the chapters told from Kathy's point of view, I could feel her desperation and her feelings for Lester. Some chapters later in the book are told in third person, and in those chapters I could feel Lester's confusion and how torn he was between his developing obsession for Kathy and his pain in leaving his wife and children.
While I was reading this, I was so into it that I got annoyed when the phone would ring and interrupt me. I didn't want to put it down! I plan on renting the movie this weekend (it was made into a movie that came out in 2003) - I hope it doesn't disappoint me!

70. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

What a strange book ...
In the first chapter, Arthur Dent is upset that bulldozers are about to demolish his house. His neighbor, Ford Prefect (an alien who's been posing as an out of work actor on earth), comes over and tells Arthur that he has to tell Arthur the most important thing he's ever heard ... that the earth is about to be demolished to make space for a freeway. Suddenly, the loss of Arthur's house doesn't seem that terrible ...
The rest of the book is about Arthur and Ford's adventures as they travel through the galaxy. Some parts of this book were just downright strange ... maybe they were above my head, or not just my kind of humor? Although I do know that I'm not much of a sci-fi fan, except for Star Trek (I know, go figure). But it definitely did have its funny points. One of my favorites:

A voice comes in and announces that "the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route" ... and that "regrettably, [earth] is one of those scheduled for demolition." When the people of earth start panicking and objecting, the voice tells them that all of the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in Alpha Centauri for fifty years ... so they've "had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now ... What do you mean you've never been to Alpha Centauri? For heaven's sake, mankind, it's only four light-years away, you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that's your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams."

I also like this part:

"One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behavior. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favor of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working."

There are some die hard Douglas Adams fans out there, so even though I was left a bit bewildered ... maybe it was just me. Give this book a try :)

69. The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography - Sidney Poitier

This is a great story (although I'm not quite sure what makes it a "spiritual autobiography") of the life of actor Sidney Poitier. Poitier talks about growing up very poor in the Bahamas; moving to Miami with his brother when he was a teenager; and eventually moving to New York where he worked as a dishwasher and eventually started taking drama classes and started acting.
The first few chapters moved a bit slowly for me; the book picked up a bit about a quarter of the way through when he talks about his time in the army. After having joined the army, Poitier realized that it had been a bad decision. His anger about the decision started seeping out, and he threw a chair at the head of one of his senior officers. Here is a passage from when he's talking about being faced with a court martial:

"...The act was premeditated. Yes. And calculatedly designed. Yes. But not to do harm. My scenario called for the chair to miss that officer by inches. And in fact it did ... My overall purpose was aimed at something other than that officer's head. An excuse was my immediate objective. My actions were a shameful attempt to establish an excuse that would allow me to eventually walk away from obligations I had freely and solemnly assumed. Simply put, I wanted to get the hell out of the army."

Some parts of the book were quite interesting - like Poitier's description of his first interaction with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn before they filmed Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; his explanation of how he goes deep inside himself to to make a connection with the character he's playing when he's acting; and also his work with the play A Raisin in the Sun. So although the story of Poitier's life is certainly interesting, I wouldn't say that the book itself was spectacular.

68. Animal Farm - George Orwell

What a strange/interesting/hilarious book ...
Animal Farm is a brilliant commentary on the corruption of the Russian Revolution ... in the form of a satire. A barnyard full of animals revolt against their human masters in the hopes of achieving an idealistic state of justice and progress. The revolt is initially a success: the animals meet to debate farm policy and complete the harvest. The pigs are the most intelligent animals and are therefore put in charge; Napoleon (one of the pigs) is initially the leader of all of the animals. Some premises behind the revolt ...

"Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes up on four legs, or has wings, is a friend. And remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco ... All habits of Man are evil."

They even set forth the "Seven Commandments," one of which is "No animal shall sleep in a bed." Yet throughout the story, when Napoleon and the other pigs start (among other things) sleeping in beds ... the commandment changes to, "No animal shall sleep in a bed ... with sheets."

The farm is doing well, although "it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer ..." except, of course, for the pigs. The pigs start taking on many qualities of their human oppressors, including walking on their hind legs and gambling. The Seven Commandments are eventually reduced to a single law: "All animals are equal; but some animals are more equal than others." The book ends with a drawing (yes, it has sketches!) of the pigs sitting around a table playing cards ... looking like strange pig-human hybrids.

I might have appreciated the book even more than I did if I knew a bit more about the Russian Revolution; nonetheless, I know enough about Communism to have gotten the gist and to have definitely found the book very, very funny!

67. Push - Sapphire

This incredibly sad and moving book was the basis for Tyler Perry's most recent movie, Precious. The story is about Claireece Precious Jones: an obese, illiterate, dark-skinned, HIV positive teenager in Harlem - who had a daughter at twelve by her sexually abusive father, and who was pregnant again with another one of his children by the age of sixteen. It's impossible to read this book and not be overwhelmed with emotion for this poor girl. From one passage, where Precious was describing her life not long after the birth of her first child who has Down Syndrome:

"Sometimes I wish I was not alive. But I don't know how to die. Ain' no plug to pull out. 'N no matter how hard I feel my heart don't stop beating and my eyes open in the morning. I hardly have not seen my daughter since she was a little baby. I never stick my bresses in her mouth. My muver say what for? It's outta style ... She say I never do you. What that child of yours need tittie for? She retarded. Mongoloid. Down Sinder."

She actually called the baby "Little Mongo" throughout the book ... I was hoping that was some awful nickname that she gave the baby, but no other name was ever shared. From another passage, talking about her son ...

"When he grow up he gonna laff big black girls? He gon' laff at dark skin like he got? One thing I say about Farrakhan and Alice Walker they help me like being black. I wish I wasn't fat but I am. Maybe one day I like that too, who knows."

The author certainly doesn't hold back: some parts were incredibly, incredibly ... raw. I was shocked. Other parts aren't as explicit but make you want to cry:

"I always thought I was someone different on the inside. That I was just fat and black and ugly to people on the OUTSIDE. And if they could see inside me they would see something lovely and not keep laughing at me, throwing spitballs (shit one time nigger at school just spit on me when I was pregnant) and polly seed shells at me, that Mama and Daddy would recognize me as ... as, I don't know, Precious!"

Definitely one of those books that leaves you feeling very emotionally drained; but thankfully, the ending does leave the reader with hope.

66. The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Story of America's Wealthy - Thomas J. Stankley and William D. Danko

How do the rich people in this county become wealthy? Not in the ways that you may think! In this fascinating book, the authors share their research based on interviews spanning over twenty years with America's millionaires (those with a net worth of more than $1 million). An important point to make: your net worth is definitely not the same as your income. In fact, the authors use an interesting formula in computing one's net worth: "Multiply your age times your realized pretax annual household income from all sources except inheritances. Divide by ten. This, less any inherited wealth, is what your net worth should be." So someone can have a really high income but low net wealth ... which is actually the case of a huge percentage of America's high income earners. Too often, the high income earners become overly concerned with displaying a high social status and therefore don't accumulate the net worth that they should, relative to their incomes, to be considered "wealthy." "It is much easier in America to earn a lot than it is to accumulate wealth." Take this into consideration:

"... approximately 70,000 Mercedes were sold in this country last year. This translates into about one-half of 1 percent of the more than fourteen million motor vehicles sold. At the same time, there were nearly 3.5 million millionaire households. What does this tell us? It suggests that the members of most wealthy households don't drive luxury imports. The fact is that two out of three purchasers or leasers of foreign luxury motor vehicles in this country are not millionaires."

... and I bet 90% of those people live right here in flashy Atlanta! The authors share fascinating information, summed up into seven common denominators, among those who successfully build wealth. There's no point in my listing them all here because they won't make much sense without context; but they include living below their means; allocating time, energy, and money in ways conducive to building wealth; believing that financial independence is more important than displaying social status; and choosing the "right" occupation.

An interesting overall point: 80% of America's millionaires are first-generation millionaires - i.e. they did not inherit their wealth from their parents! Maybe if some of us were as quick to invest in the stock market and real estate as we were to go buy a Benz as soon as we come across any money, we would be a lot better off.

This book is definitely top-5 status. A must-read!

65. The Physics of Star Trek - Lawrence M. Krauss

I know, I know. My secret's out.

I'm a Trekkie.

As much as I want to say that "anyone can enjoy this book" (in the way that I think anyone could enjoy many of the movies), the truth is that you will probably miss 95% of what the author is talking about if you've never seen an episode of Star Trek. But ... bear with me anyway :)

Krauss explores the physics behind the show (all spinoffs except the most recent one, Enterprise) and speculates about which pieces of technology might actually exist some day - and which are completely against the laws of physics.

One of my favorite chapters was about the transporter (non-Trekkies: the thing they use to "beam" from one location to another; think, "Beam me up, Scotty!" ... although Captain Kirk never actually said that phrase in any episode or movie! The closest he came was, "Scotty, beam us up" ... but I digress.). The idea came about because Gene Roddenberry's design of the Enterprise was such that the ship glided through space easily; but it would have a lot of trouble with its footing if it ever tried to land. Plus, "...the meager budget for a weekly television show precluded landing a huge starship every week." And what kind of plot would you have if you didn't interact with the people on the planets you encounter?! Cutting through all the techno-jargon, Krauss basically explains that transporter beams will never work; though holodecks and holograms are quite possible. Just look at the holographic technology that exists already!

One of my other favorite chapters was a list of the author's favorite physics "bloopers" on Star Trek. (I'm quite aware that I've lost 90% of my cool points by now). An example: whenever someone shoots a phaser beam, we see the beam of light. But that's a problem because light is not visible unless it reflects off of something.

"If you have ever been to a lecture given with the help of a laser pointer ... you may recall that you see only the spot where the beam hits the screen, and not anything in between. The only way to make the whole beam visible is to make the room dusty ... Thus, unless empty space is particularly dusty, we shouldn't see the phase beam except where it hits."

How disappointing! But honestly, the most interesting parts of this book were those that showed some absolutely amazing accuracy and even foresight in some instances on the part of the writers.

Clearly, if you're a Trekkie, you'll enjoy this book. If you're not ... moving on to book #66 ...

64. The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke - Suze Orman

Financial guru Suze Orman provides her savvy financial advice in this book geared towards "Generation Broke" - those in their (our) twenties and thirties who have recently entered the working world and are buried in student loans and/or credit cards; trying to figure out what a 401(k) is; and interested in figuring out how to save up for a down payment for a home.
There is an incredible amount of information in this book, i.e. explaining what your FICO score is and why it's so important; how to deal with student loan debt; tips on dealing with finances for newlyweds (interesting tip - make a commitment to sit down once a year with your significant other and check your FICO scores together!); explaining the difference between 401(k)s and Roth IRAs; the best way to deal with and pay off your student loan debt; how to figure out if you're in the position to be able to buy a home; and why credit cards aren't always bad ... and why it's sometimes a bad idea to cancel them!
This is definitely a book I'd have to reference again as I reach certain stages in my life ... I'm not the type to take everything that one person says as gospel, but this did seem to have some great information. I also really appreciated having a book that was geared towards younger, just-starting-out folks (why keep telling recent college grads that we need to have eight months of expenses in an emergency fund when we've barely started working?!).

63. Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine - Glenn Beck

The premise of this book is that Americans in 1776 were woken up by Common Sense (by Thomas Paine) and realized that "an oppressive English government was out of step with the Laws of Nature." Beck argues that "our government is once again out of step with the Laws of Nature. The government by, of, and for the people has been turned on its head."
Given Beck's reputation, I was surprised that he actually seems to take shots at both sides in this book. It wasn't as divisive (Republican v. Democrat) as I thought it'd be. He does make some great points and is a good and entertaining writer.
In one chapter, he explains what a Ponzi scheme is and then says that "Social Security is a great example of a 'legal Ponzi scheme.' Every time you're paid for work, the government takes a portion of your hard-earned dollars to 'invest' in the Social Security Trust Fund, where it sits, collecting interest, until you retire and are eligible to start receiving your Social Security checks. At least, that's the way most of us think that it works. The truth is that your money isn't set aside until you retire. In the meantime it's spent by the government and an IOU is put in the trust fund in its place."

Another good point about the overly-complicated tax code: "If you're a friend to those in power and fail to pay your taxes, it's considered a simple oversight and you move on to become secretary of the treasury. But if you're considered hostile to those in power, then the same mistake will be used to destroy your reputation ... Do you think it's purely a coincidence that Martin Luther King, Jr., was targeted as a tax cheat or that both Jesse Owens and Joe Louis were investigated for tax-code violations after they spoke out against the government?"

I did start to roll my eyes, however, when he used in support of his argument that the government will always say that anything is for the "common good" - like when it put Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II "for the common good." A little extreme - I don't think a health care bill is quite on the same level as interning American citizens based on their ethnicity.

I was disappointed when I realized that only part 1 of this book (i.e. the first hundred or so pages) is actually from Beck - part 2 is the original "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine! Only someone with name recognition could sell half a book like this and have it do so well.

62. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want

In this book, Deepak Chopra shares twenty spiritual lessons for taking control of your spiritual journey. Raging from love to selflessness to identity, Chopra presents these lessons from a sort of philosophical - slash - religious perspective.
Much of the book was a bit too mushy and "new-agey" for my taste; but there were some great lessons. For example:

"When you say you are in love, what you're really saying is that an image you carry around has been satisfied. This is how attachment begins, with attachment to an image ... Look beyond your emotions, which will always change, and ask what lies behind the image."

Also: "In the same way most of the events you call misfortunes or even divine punishment are really born of compassion, for God always takes the kindest way to correct imbalances in nature. It is you who build up these imbalances , which He must purify in order to save you from deeper misfortune."

The main thing that makes this book different from Chopra's other self-improvement books (or really, anyone else's since they all start to seem the same after a while) is the way in which it's told - it's divided up into twenty lessons, and each lesson is divided up into a story of a lesson that Arthur learns from Merlin the Wizard (because each of us have a "wizard" within us); a section about understanding the lessons; and one about living the lesson.

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Definitely a classic piece of American literature ... that I think I was supposed to read in high school but never did :) This book is about two migrant workers in California - George and Lennie. Lennie seems to be mildly retarded - but is incredibly strong and is thus a great worker. Lennie is also somewhat obsessed with petting soft things; but because of his strength, he often accidentally hurts them (i.e. mice and puppies). Because Lennie dreams of having a farm with lots of rabbits, George tries to protect Lennie and prevent him from getting into trouble by saying that if Lennie doesn't do what he's supposed to do, he won't be able to "tend to the rabbits" on the farm they're going to buy.

However, Lennie gets into trouble when the wife of Curley, the farm owner, starts flirting with him. Knowing that Lennie likes to touch soft things, she tells Lennie to touch her hair; but in doing so, he accidentally breaks her neck. He runs away, and the other farm workers (including Curley) form a mob that starts looking for him to try to kill him. To spare Lennie a painful death at the hands of the mob - and perhaps for selfish reasons as well, the story ends with George shooting Lennie in the back of the head.
I can't seem to figure out why George took responsibility for Lennie to begin with - they don't seem to be related. It's also interesting to note that Steinbeck never gives the name of the woman that Lennie accidentally kills - she is just "Curley's wife."

This is a well-written (and sad!) story. It almost seems like a play - it's really easy to envision the setting and the characters from the way that Steinbeck writes.

60. Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now - Maya Angelou

This is a beautiful collection of short, inspirational pieces by poet Maya Angelou. Angelou shares her thoughts on topics like morality, perseverance, friendship, love, and manners, and weaves in her own life experiences.
This passage epitomizes the theme throughout the book:

"...by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends."

One of my favorite pieces is called "Getups":

"If I am comfortable inside my skin, I have the ability to make other people comfortable inside their skins although their feelings are not my primary reason for making my fashion choice ... then I am so comfortable that whatever I wear looks good on me even to the external fashion arbiters .... Seek the fashion which truly fits and befits you. You will always be in fashion if you are true to yourself, and only if you are true to yourself."

Reading this book reminded me of when I took Dr. Angelou's class at Wake Forest ... and how whenever we would beg her to read to us one of her poems, she would make sure that we weren't following along in our books because she would always change the words!
This was a beautiful, quick read - a great gift idea, as well.