115. Call Me Ted - Ted Turner

It's impossible to live in Atlanta and not see the influence that Ted Turner has had over the city ... Turner Field; CNN Studios; Atlanta Braves; Atlanta Hawks. What I didn't understand is the influence that he has had over the media industry, the nation, and the world.

Turner is a man who is part narcissistic; part humanitarian; and completely fascinating. Even though he never finished college, his intelligence and experiences with his dad's billboard business led him to become one of the wealthiest men in the world. In his book, he shares stories of his tyrannical father who sent him off to boarding school at age four; his passion for sailing; his difficulty in maintaining his marriages, including his most recent marriage to Jane Fonda; and his insane idea to start a 24-hour news service (read my review of CNN: The Inside Story to learn more!).

This is a book worth reading on so many levels. The maneuvering of Turner Broadcasting taught me a lot about business. Apparently, after Turner Broadcasting merged with Time Warner, someone had the idea to merge with AOL during the dot com boom. By that point, Ted Turner was no longer on the Board of Directors - so he essentially wasn't running his own company anymore. AOL's stock was completely overvalued, so after the merger Turner ended up losing millions of dollars from the deal. The book also talks about the difficulties in starting CNN taught me about the media industry. I even learned more about the United Nations (who knew that he donated $1 billion to the United Nations Foundation?!).

The last paragraph in this book was so powerful:

I've often considered and joked about what I might want written on my tombstone. At one point, when I felt like I couldn't get out of the way of the press, "You can't interview me here" was a leading candidate. In the middle of my career, I considered, "Here lies Ted Turner. He never owned a broadcast network." These days, I'm leading toward "I have nothing more to say."

Ted Turner has his faults, but he is truly an amazing man. I can't recommend this book more highly.

92. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance - Barack Obama

Dreams from My Father is the autobiography of President Obama, published in 1995 after he was elected to be the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, but before the start of his political career. In addition to telling the story of his life, Obama talks a lot about his personal experiences with race and discovering his identity.

Most of us know the basics of Obama's life: he was born in Hawaii to a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, and his parents separated when he was just two years old. Obama's image of his absent father was created by stories told by his mother and her parents; he didn't get to spend time with his father until he was ten years old when his father came to Hawaii for a month-long visit. His father died in a drunk driving car accident in 1982.

Obama moved with his mother to Indonesia when she married Lolo Soetoro, but returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents when he was ten years old for better educational opportunities. He stayed there until the end of high school, after which he moved to LA where he attended Occidental College. In discussing his freshman year, Obama says:

... [O]ur worries seemed indistinguishable from those of the white kids around us. Surviving classes. Finding a well-paying gig after graduation. Trying to get laid. I had stumbled upon one of the well-kept secrets about black people: that most of us weren’t interested in revolt; that most of us were tired of thinking about race all the time; that if we preferred to keep to ourselves it was mainly because that was the easiest way to stop thinking about it, easier than spending all your time mad or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.

Even though this next passage is a bit long, it has so much depth:

That was the problem with people like Joyce. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. It wasn’t a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective. Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks. Only white culture had individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don’t have to? We become only so grateful to lose ourselves in the crowd, America’s happy, faceless marketplace; and we’re never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us or the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we’re bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every single day of their lives--although that's what we tell ourselves--but because we're wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger.

Obama finished up his last two years of college at Columbia University and then moved to Chicago where he worked for a non-profit organization doing community organizing for the Altgeld Gardens housing project on the South Side. It was during this time that he decided to visit Kenya for the first time. On his way there, the flight attendant looks at Obama and asks him if he is related to Dr. Obama (i.e. Obama Sr.). It turns out their families were close.

I found myself trying to prolong the conversation, encouraged less by Miss Omoro’s beauty – she had mentioned a fiance’ – than by the fact that she’d recognized my name. That had never happened before, I realized; not in Hawaii, not in Indonesia, not in L.A. or New York or Chicago. For the first time in my life, I felt the comfort, the firmness of identity that a name might provide, how it could carry an entire history in other people’s memories, so that they might nod and say knowingly, “Oh, you are so and so’s son.” No one here in Kenya would ask how to spell my name, or mangle it with an unfamiliar tongue.

Something that came to mind after having read this book and Sarah Palin's book was Palin's comment during the 2008 campaign about how she loved to visit the "pro-America" parts of the country - implicitly implying that there were some parts of the country that she believed to not be "pro-America." Even though she later apologized for that comment, her book, in my opinion, maintained that same tone: the people who are "patriotic" and "so American" are the people who are most similar to her America. This memoir by Obama was very revealing and deep (and nonpartisan) and told so much about his life and lives of the poor black people in Chicago's projects. I hope Sarah Palin some day realizes that those people are just as "American" as the white farmers in rural America and "Joe the plumber."

Definitely a wonderful book, and I look forward to reading The Audacity of Hope.

85. Going Rogue: An American Life - Sarah Palin

In this 400+ page biography/memoir that really should have been no more than 250 pages, Sarah Palin paints a portrait of her life growing up in Alaska; meeting and falling in love with Todd Palin; raising their five children; and of course, rehashing the 2008 election and the plethora of issues surrounding it. For example, she discusses how she read the Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, Forbes, etc. ... and then says,

Perhaps that's why I was so shocked during the VP campaign when Katie Couric wondered which papers and magazines I read. Maybe I should have asked her what she reads. She didn't sound very informed on our energy issues.

I feel like Palin makes a lot of cheap shots and distorts some serious issues. For example, at one point she's talking about how her son Track, at age 17, was injured while playing hockey:

Apologetically, the nurse explained that they couldn't even let him walk down the hall to the drinking fountain because if he needed surgery his stomach should be empty, and they couldn't treat him without me. Of course I understood, but I still fumed inside. I even wondered out loud about why this big, strapping, nearly grown man who was overcome with pain couldn't even get a drink of water without parental consent, yet a thirteen-year-old girl could undergo a painful, invasive, and scary abortion and no parent even had to be notified.

Ummm ... it'd be helpful to note that only six states in the country don't require parental notification: in the majority of states, notification of at least one parent is required. What she said was technically accurate in the small world of Alaska - but just a little misleading for most people who'd be reading this book.

I do have to give it to her for a few good points, like this one ...

Everything in government attracts an obligatory acronym it seems ... Political terms are meant to paint a picture. For example, liberals prefer the term "social justice" over "welfare" and why conservatives prefer "marriage protection amendment" over "gay marriage ban."

... (weird phrasing of that last sentence in original).

Overall, I definitely do not think that this is a well-written book. She jumps around all over the place: at one point, she's talking about her five kids; then goes on to talk about the birth of Trig, her fifth child. She also makes a lot of cheap shots at the Obamas - and not only with regard to policy. She came down on Michelle Obama for saying that for the first time in her adult life, she was proud of her country ... honestly, if she understood the reality of being black in America, maybe she'd be a bit more sensitive to that. As Tim Wise said in his book - Sarah Palin is a proud defender of the Second Amendment when she's shown on the cover of Newsweek with a rifle ... but what would America have said if Michelle Obama were on the cover of a magazine with a gun?! Angry, scary black woman. I don't think Palin is great at understanding people outside of her America.
Anyway ... don't waste your time reading this book (not that my lowly review will matter: it's already sold more than one million copies). If you want to read a well-written right-wing book, check out Common Sense by Glenn Beck - the writing is much better and it cuts to the chase about the issues without the cheap, personal shots and drama.

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.

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.

47. Confessions of a Video Vixen - Karrine Steffans

I know. I'm embarrassed that I read this. I was especially embarassed reading it in Borders - and it didn't help that there's a big color photo spread in the middle of the book!
Confessions is the biography/memoir/"cautionary tale" of Karrine Steffans, the infamous music video vixen (and now housewife). Originally from St. Thomas, she moved to Florida with her mom when she was little. In the first part of the book, Steffans tells some really sad stories about how her mom abused her; how she lost her virginity by rape; how her ex-husband and father of her son would force her to perform oral sex on him ... once for two hours until her nose bled.
After Steffans left her husband, she moved to L.A. and eventually got a lucky break and started performing in music videos. She appeared in videos of artists like Jay-Z, LL Cool J, and R. Kelly; she also was in a movie with Larenz Tate and Vin Diesel. While telling her life story, Steffans of course weaves in all the stuff that the book has become famous for - her tell-all tales of sexual escapades with Vin Diesel; Shaquille O'Neal; Usher; Bobby Brown; Ray J; Fred Durst; Method Man (oh, sorry - code name: "Papa"); Irv Gotti; P Diddy; Dr. Dre ... the list goes on. And on. And on.
After reading the first couple of chapters, my heart really went out to her ... by the end, I was wondering how long you can claim "I did it because I had no father in my life and my mother abused me" ... you have to realize what you're doing isn't right at some point ... no? I was also wondering if I could catch something from her just by reading the book. Interesting: no tell-all about the health risks of everything she was doing? She had to have caught something at some point.
The writing was so-so - she (or the woman who actually wrote it) skipped around chronologically, which confused me. I wonder if the New York Times was embarrassed that this ended up as a best-seller. Don't waste your money on this book.

39. Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi

This is a book by Azar Nafisi, an Iranian professor, about her experiences teaching in Iran during and after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Much of the book centers around the class on "forbidden Western classics" (The Great Gatsby; Lolita; etc.) that Nafisi teaches to a small group of female Iranian students. The author very eloquently weaves in themes from the books that her class reads with the changing Iranian culture and also with what is going on in their personal lives. The book is divided into four sections - each section dealing with a different time period and having a different theme. My favorite section, Gatsby, is set right as the revolution is starting. Nafisi compares the "American dream" in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby with the dream of the Iranian Revolution, and how this Iranian "dream" changed the lives of women in Iran. When one of her students gets really upset about the book because he says it condones adultery, they decide to hold a "trial" in their class - and they prosecute the book! I like Nafisi's conclusion ...

"What we in Iran had in common with Fitzgerald was this dream that became our obsession and took over our reality, this terrible, beautiful dream, impossible in its actualization, for which any amount of violence might be justified or forgiven."

When Nafisi returns to Iran years later after the revolution, she asks, "Who will pay for the snapshots of the murdered and the executed that we hid in our shoes and closets as we moved on to other things? ... Tell me, Mr. Bahri - or, to use that odd expression of Gatsby's, Tell me, old sport - what shall we do with all these corpses on our hands?"

This was a great book - but a bit slow for my taste. There were some parts that seemed to go on for longer than they needed to. But overall, it shared a lot that I didn't know about Iranian culture (despite all the Persian friends I have - shame on me!) and was a beautifully written story.

Legends of Our Time - Elie Wiesel

This is a memoir written by Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. He shares his recollections - in the form of short stories - of watching Nazi Germany come in and change his way of life and the way it affected people around him. For example, in one chapter, a dinner guest at his father's home is talking angrily about how he felt that God had abandoned the Jews. In another chapter, Wiesel is on a bus in Tel Aviv and recognizes a man who was a barracks chief at Monovitz concentration camp.

"...you had jurisdiction over the life and death of hundreds of human beings who never dared watch as you ate the dishes prepared specifically for you. It was a sin, a crime of treason, to catch you unaware during one of your meals. And what about now? Tell me, do you eat well? With appetite?"

There was a lot of depth in this book - to be honest, I think some things might have been over my head (i.e. why Wiesel thought the dinner guest was the return of the prophet Elijah). But this book gave an interesting insight on the Holocaust - not with harsh and gory details, but by conveying the emotions that Wiesel must have endured.

30. How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else - Michael Gates Gill

Michael Gates Gill, the son of a well-known writer for The New Yorker, led a privileged childhood. When he told his parents that he wanted to take piano lessons, they bought him a Steinway grand piano that a crane had to lift into their 25-room mansion. After being educated at Yale, he was basically handed a job as a prosperous advertising executive. This job provided him with (lots of) financial security - even if it meant rarely spending time at home with his wife and four children. Then, three things happened: (1) he got fired, (2) he got another woman pregnant and his wife left him, and (3) he learned he had a brain tumor. He ended up getting a job at Starbucks - an experience that changed his life.
Gill is such a charismatic writer and I was surprised at - and admire - his candor in this book. His boss at Starbucks is a black woman, and he has to adjust to being the only white person working there. From one part:

"I had been a classic hypocritical member of an old boys' club, congratulating myself for believing in minority advancement in the abstract, while doing everything possible in the practical world of the workplace - which I controlled - to make such opportunity impossible."

Although my situation is certainly not as extreme as his was, I do see a lot of parallels in our lives - and I learned a lot from him and the way he approached his new job.

"My old job involved sitting as a customer in Starbucks unable to find customers of my own. What a relief to have customers eager to greet me rather than my calling for clients like I had done in my old business, and no one wanting to take my calls. I loved greeting these early morning Guests, and serving them. They probably had no idea what a gift it was simply to have them waiting eagerly in line to see me."

This was such a great, inspiring, genuine, and funny book. It almost made me want to give up my loyalty to Caribou Coffee and Borders and test the waters at Starbucks again ... almost :)

26. The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

The author of this book, Randy Pausch, was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon. He was asked to give a talk entitled "The Last Lecture" - one in which he'd "be asked to consider his demise and ruminate on what mattered most to him." Most professors try to impart what they would want to share with their students if they knew it was their last chance. But Pausch didn't have to imagine it'd be his last lecture, because he had just been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer - so he already knew it'd be one of his last.

In his lecture, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his childhood dreams and about enabling the dreams of others. Two of my favorite lessons:

"Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

"A lot of people want a shortcut. And the best shortcut is the long way which is basically two words: work hard."

This was a great book, written in such a positive, touching, and humorous way - I was really rooting for Pausch and praying for him to beat his cancer, until I realized the book was published in April 2008 and he died that July. I felt really impacted by the pain he felt in knowing that he was going to leave his children without a father; and also by what his wife must have been going through. In one chapter, Pausch explained that he was scheduled to travel and give his lecture on the day of his wife's birthday. So when he finished the lecture, he had a birthday cake wheeled out and had the whole auditorium sing happy birthday to her. When she went up on stage to give him a hug, she held on tightly to him and whispered in his ear, "Please don't die ..." Even though I was reading in Borders, I definitely shed a few tears when I got to that part.

Pausch shares beautiful and touching life lessons in this book ... interwoven with his very real and tragic life experiences. Thanks to Dana for the recommendation :)

25. Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell

Three for three. I heart Malcolm Gladwell.

Now that he's brilliantly explained the three agents of change in The Tipping Point and the concept of thin slicing in Blink ... Gladwell tackles the question of what makes some people so successful, while so many others never reach their potential.

In the first part of the book, he argues that success arises out of the steady accumulation of advantages: "when and where you are born, what your parents did for a living, and what the circumstances of your upbringing were[.]" One example: why are a disproportionate number of hockey players born in the first three months of the year? Youth hockey leagues determine eligibility by calendar year, and so children born on January 1 of one year play in the same league as those born on December 31 ... and since adolescents born earlier in the year are going to be bigger and more mature than the younger players in the same league, they are often identified early on (maybe too early!) as better athletes, which means more encouragement, extra coaching, and a higher likelihood of being selected to participate in elite hockey leagues.

In the second part of the book, Gladwell argues that we can learn why people succeed and how to make people better at what they do looking at cultural legacies. He shares a fascinating case study on why Asians are better at math - it'll take up several pages if I try to explain it here, but the gist of it is the words for the actual numbers in many Asian languages. "The number system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China, Japan and Korea. They have a logical counting system. Eleven is ten one. Twelve is ten two. Twenty-four is two ten four, and so on." Therefore: "Ask an English seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty two, in her head, and she has to convert the words to numbers (37 + 22). Only then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is nine and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59. Ask an Asian child to add three-tens-seven and two tens-two, and then the necessary equation is right there, embedded in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: It's five-tens nine."

I've read some critics who have said that his ideas are not "new," but honestly - are any ideas "new" anymore? I think he makes many points that have not been expounded upon in such a way before ... and besides that, Gladwell's writing style is exquisite and engaging, and his case studies are fascinating. Screw the critics! Gladwell deserves every bit of the praise he's gotten for all three of his books - all of which happen to be #1 New York Times bestsellers. I give this book five stars out of five - and I'll be first in line whenever his next book comes out.

23. Never Make the Same Mistake Twice - Nene Leakes

Yes ... Nene Leakes. As in, Real Housewives of Atlanta. I know, I know - I was wary, too. The title didn't grab me by the throat ... and do you really need the quote on the back from Anderson Cooper that she's his "favorite housewife"?
But you know what? ... it was actually a great book!

There apparently is a lot more to Nene than what's on Bravo. As Jihan pointed out about Sheree (and why we dislike her so much on the show) - the editors of the show probably follow those women around for weeks - months? - and they are the ones who choose what we see or don't see. We all know about Nene's drama with finding out that Curtis wasn't really her father ... but did you know that her mom remarried while Nene was still young, and treated her and her husband's kids (Nene's stepdad) as her "real" kids and pretty much abandoned Nene and her brother? Or that Nene really was a stripper at a big Atlanta strip club ... and the juicy stories that go along with that? Or what Nene really thinks of Sheree and Kim?? (there's a whole chapter devoted to each!)

So, you ask ... does Nene think she's ghetto?

"People say I'm hood and ghetto and I'll take that because I do know how to get hood. I didn't grow up in any financially depressed household. Though my aunt and uncle weren't rich, we sure didn't want for anything and so I can't and won't claim the ghetto. But I do have ghetto tendencies. I know how to hold a meeting down and be professional, but if I'm riding in the car and I happen to be eating some chicken, I might just toss the bone out the window. [HA!] ... you might catch me getting a little loud and wrong while I'm drinking from a straw. I tend to slurp a little bit."

How can you not love that?! Another glimpse:

"...while what you saw of me on Real Housewives is real, it's only part of me that's real. It's my story, but it's not my complete story. There are many other facets to me. The truth of the matter is that drama sells. No matter how much people claimed they were embarrassed by my in-your-face personality, they love to hear about my drama. Big time. Nobody wants to see me going out and starting businesses, or having lunch with my kids, or cleaning the bathroom and cooking dinner. But I do these things. And anyone who says she cares to read about me doing those things is lying. Celebrities with no drama get no play and they don't last. Period.
I understand the game and I have no regrets about being on the show and how I was portrayed. Not one."

Interesting that the woman who co-authored this book with Nene is the same woman who co-authored Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man with Steve Harvey. There were some parts of the book that were a bit redundant ... but because it exceeded my expectations, I'd give it a generous four stars out of five. But wait for the paperback.

17. The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey - Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali continuously amazes me. This was a great book - it was a combination of an autobiography and a book about spirituality. It's structured almost like a scrapbook (with complete paragraphs, of course), and has subchapters with his reflections, poetry, anecdotes, and various quotes.
In this book, Ali talks about his life and the lessons he learned along the way. It was so touching when he apologized to Joe Frazier for the things he said about him before Thrilla in Manila; and to Malcolm X for turning his back on him when Malcolm X wanted to part ways from Elijah Muhammad. [sidenote: it's interesting that he didn't apologize to his second wife, Belinda Ali, for publicly humiliating her by carrying on his affair with Veronica Porsche and bringing her to the Philippines and introducing her as his wife ... ] Ali also talks about his refusal to report for the draft during Vietnam; his nine (yes, nine) children; and his decision to become Muslim.
I liked this quote:

"The key to peace of heart and mind is approaching life not with a determination to gain wealth and fame for comfort and glory in this life, but rather with a goal of realizing spiritual development. If you keep a positive mind and an optimistic outlook on life, negativity loses its power to make you unhappy. God's love is universal. He is with us always. Let Him guide you and you will never be lost."

No matter which path we choose to worship God, some lessons are truly universal.

3. Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal - Julie Metz

An amazing story about a woman whose husband passes away, leaving her with their little girl ... a few months after he dies, she finds out about his numerous affairs during their marriage. She actually tracks the women down and talks to/emails them ... and the book chronicles her emotions and her struggle to move on with her life.

It's painful enough to deal with the infidelity of your significant other. What do you do when they're dead and you can't scream at them and tell them how much they've hurt you?

This was such a beautifully written book. I could feel Metz's pain when her husband died; when she found out about the first affair. Her husband's psychiatrist said he likely had narcissistic personality disorder ... hmm. More men I know have that than most would realize. But that's for another post. From Metz, when she found out about the first affair (which was with a close family friend and neighbor):

"A gun was too swift, too merciful. I wanted a sword to slit her end to end and then, with one hundred more cuts, dice her body into small pieces and leave the bloodied, quivering remains of skin, muscle, and soulless guts on her front lawn, arranged in a gruesome scarlett letter.
I couldn't kill Henry anymore, since he was, conveniently enough, dead."

Also, something I need to remember and pay heed to in my life:
"Forgiveness is a wonderful thing, the only truth that saves us from eating ourselves alive and causing damage to everyone we love."