Orality and Literacy by Walter Ong

This is a book everyone should read in college and again in their mid-career. Every page is a revelation. These are ideas your mind has danced around or glimpsed sight of but not really grasped. There was an oral world before writing and we can see vestiges of it and have been shaped by it, but cannot really understand it completely because the very way we think and encounter the world has been changed by writing. Then print came and changed us and now electronic communication is changing everything again.

Ong is a master of explanation and uses a rich exciting vocabulary. He touches so many subjects like literary criticism and linguistics it is dizzying. If you want to read a serious non-fiction classic you will think about from now on, read this book. In the closing paragraph he briefly mentions the Christian Logos, Christ, an oral messenger of a Christianity based on a written text.

X by Sue Grafton

(read aloud)

I continue to enjoy these books; this episode included the same now beloved characters and really interesting new ones. I think by "Z" her continued failure to "call in backup" will be her end.

Patience with God by Tomáš Halík

About Zacchaeus, atheism, Nietsche, and the church on the margin.

The kind of book that you read paragraph by paragraph and ponder and look for someone to share it with. Deeply spiritual and full of insights. A book to reread, an author to note and find his other books.

God's Hotel by Victoria Sweet

(read aloud)

This puts into words so eloquently many of my thoughts and experiences of a career in medicine, and I presume the experience of many of my colleagues, particularly those in primary care and non-procedural practices.

Efficiency has been a goal that has had unintended consequences.

She talks of the value of listening, of making the diagnosis, but most of all finding that part of a person that is beyond imaging, measuring, and testing. She is the doctor you want to have in your last days or when everyone has given up on you.

A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez

(read aloud)

A good writer takes a trip across Haiti and describes what she sees and who she meets. She looks and listens and Haiti speaks. She tells a story: her story, Haiti's story, and the human story. Most delightful to us reading to each other, the details rang true to our shared experience. The Haiti we know is also the Haiti she saw. She deftly steers between the dangers of pity and naiveté. She chose an interesting subject and writes beautifully.

Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

Long well-documented, tells much about his life, his math, his code work, his development of the computer, and his homosexuality. Good balance and objectivity. Just the right level of detail in all the areas. A sad ending of a difficult but brilliant soul.

Dead Wake by Erik Larsen

(read aloud)

This was a wonderful, interesting account of a historical tragedy. The sinking of the Lusitania is a gripping, multifaceted story with intrigue and misfortune and bravery all mixed together.

The writing is very good and keeps your attention. There are many interesting characters. President Wilson, and the captains of the Lusitania and U-20 are major thread.s One of the best non-fiction books I have read in a long time.