The Checklist Manifesto

In The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Atul Gawande describes the surprising power of the checklist in our increasingly complicated world. His examples, from performing surgery to flying an airplane or building a skyscraper, illustrate how listing critical steps, working as a team, and scheduling communication at crucial points can dramatically improve the outcome of complex tasks. Far from a self-help book, this is an absorbing read...Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Outliers) says of The Checklist Manifesto, "It has been years since I read a book so powerful and so thought-provoking."

Atul Gawande is a surgeon, Harvard professor, and staff writer for The New Yorker. The Checklist Manifesto is available in print at the SPL and on CD through interlibrary loan.

Schooled x 2

While catching up on some of the popular children's lit, I came across two books with the same title. Both are fun, breezy reads, fine for a day at the beach...The first is for middle schoolers, the second's for adults.

Schooled by Gordon Korman
Capricorn Anderson and his grandmother, Rain, are the last residents of Garland Community, a commune begun in the '60s. When Rain winds up in the hospital and Cap must attend public middle school for the first time, his ignorance of pop culture makes him an easy target. I particularly like the shifting point of view as various characters take turns telling the story.
Gordon Korman wrote his first book at age twelve, and many of the dozens he's produced since then are well-liked middle school reads.

Schooled can be found at Sherwood...Look for it in our fall display of stories dealing with bullying, along with The Revealers, Bystander, The Girls, Secret Identity, The Truth About Truman School, and others.

Schooled by Anisha Lakhani
Columbia grad Anna Taggert can barely make ends meet in her new job, teaching at a prestigious private middle school in Manhattan. Before long, she learns the secret of her colleagues' affluence...tutoring. Sporting Chanel bags ("Coach is so public school.") and moving to a Madison Avenue apartment gain Anna the respect of her students and their families. Her dilemma? Anna's uncomfortable doing her private students' work for them, but she's come to enjoy and rely upon the $250/hour income.

Like her main character, Anisha Lakhani is a Columbia alumna. She taught English at the Dalton School in Manhattan. Schooled is available in print through the SPL's interlibrary loan service.

The Last Lecture; by Randy Pausch

On September 18, 2007, computer science professor Randy Pausch stepped in front of an audience of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University to deliver a last lecture called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” With slides of his CT scans beaming out to the audience, Randy told his audience about the cancer that is devouring his pancreas and that will claim his life in a matter of months. On the stage that day, Randy was youthful, energetic, handsome, often cheerfully, darkly funny. He seemed invincible. But this was a brief moment, as he himself acknowledged. Randy’s lecture has become a phenomenon, as has the book he wrote based on the same principles, celebrating the dreams we all strive to make realities. Sadly, Randy lost his battle to pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008, but his legacy will continue to inspire us all, for generations to come.

This book is a quick read with many funny stories, interesting takes on the world and thought provoking ideas. I highly recommend it and having read it at the library I actually think this is one that I want to go out and buy. I will definitely read and re-read this book. Hope you enjoy!

Still Alice, In Defense of Food

Some of my favorite books are ones friends have recommended, so I'm excited that many staff members have shown interest in a book-sharing blog!

I don't often give myself time to read, and all too often I fall asleep when I do sit down with a book. So I'm a big fan of audio books,which allow me to read while quilting, walking on the treadmill, or driving to the grocery store. (I thought about listening in the grocery store until I read Why We Make Mistakes, and I re-considered...)

Let me start off by sharing a couple of books that I've enjoyed recently:

Still Alice by Lisa Genova, 2009.
By all outward appearances, Harvard professor Alice Howland shares a storybook life with her successful husband and three grown children. But a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's disease at age 50 confirms Alice's fear that episodes of confusion are more than mere "senior moments." Alice must re-evaluate her self image and learn to live in the moment as her world changes in this moving novel.

Lisa Genova holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard and writes a column for the National Alzheimer's Association. Still Alice is available in print and on CD at the Shrewsbury Public Library.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan, 2008.
The author of The Omnivore's Dilemma takes a fresh look at how the Western diet and a nutrient-by-nutrient approach to eating have replaced the traditional foods our ancestors ate, and how our health has suffered because of it. His advice? "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." It's enough to make me think twice before ordering at the drive-through or reaching for the processed "edible foodlike substances" that fill our supermarket shelves. :-)

Pollan is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. Newsweek named him one of the top ten New Thought Leaders of this decade. In Defense of Food is available in print at the SPL and on CD through inter-library loan.