The Help (#2)

That's right.  I've already finished my 2nd book! Maybe 30 books before 30 isn't too tall an order!  (Let's check back in with this flood of enthusiasm/optimism once I'm done with vaca and work picks back up).  And, yes, I also adjusted my goal to 30 finished books rather than books read.  I don't think books on tape are anything less than books I actually read.  Books on tape are awesome.  Talk about the ultimate multi-tasking tool!

Anyway, to the book (and soon-to-be movie!).  I had been listening to The Help by Kathryn Stockett on my iPhone while running, doing errands, wandering the city, etc.  In fact, I loved it so much that I found myself doing random chores and stuff just so I could continue to "read" it!  Needless to say I finished it in record time.  Well, record for me anyway.

I'll talk specifically about the audiobook version.  There were several different actresses as the readers.  This aspect of the recording made the book more real to me.  I'll miss the characters—especially Minny!  For those of you without tv that haven't seen the trailer, it's a book about Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s and tracks the lives of domestics and the white women they serve illuminating severe race inequalities and the power of a few women.  But even that description does not do it justice.  It was truly one of the most delightful and engaging books that I have read in a long time.  In fact, just writing and thinking about it makes me want to put my earbuds in and play it again.  Hopefully, I will not have to work this upcoming weekend so I can check out the movie in the theater!

Half the Sky (#2)

So, this may be kind of cheating, but I'm counting it anyway!  Maybe I should revise my list on the right to be finish 20 books and, in that case, I might as well increase the number to 30.

At any rate, let me present book #1: Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.  I bought this book in January of TWO THOUSAND TEN.  That's right, it only took me 19 months to read it.  I try to alternate my reading between fiction and nonfiction.  My last fiction book I finished in April (Atlas Shrugged for the 4th time in preparation for the release of the movie), and it's taken me this long to get through a nonfiction book.  

This was not an "easy" read.  It was a hard read.  The things that happen to women all over the world are absolutely disgusting.  The thing that bothered me the most was the prevalence of something called a fistula.  I had no idea such a thing existed and it makes me so sad and outraged that in today's modern era there are women suffering from such a thing.  It made me so thankful that I live in the U.S. and have access to all the opportunities that that affords me.  Some excerpts:

During World War I, more American women died in childbirth than American men died in war. . . When women could vote, suddenly their lives became more important, and enfranchising women ended up providing a huge and unanticipated boost to women's health.

Consider the costs of allowing half a country's human resources to go untapped.  Women and girls cloistered in huts, uneducated, unemployed, and unable to contribute significantly to the world represent a vast seam of human gold that is never mined.  The consequence of failing to educate girls is a capacity gap not only in billions of dollars of GMP but also in billions of IQ points.

A . . . study focused on television's impact on rural India.  Two scholars . . . of the University of Chicago, found that after cable television arrived in a village, women gained more autonomy—such as the ability to leave the house without permission and the right to participate in household decisions.  There was a drop in the number of births, and women were less likely to say they preferred a son over a daughter.  Wife-beating became less acceptable, and families were more likely to send daughters to school. . . .  These changes occurred because TV brought new ideas into isolated villages that tended to be very conservative and traditional.  Before TV arrived, 62 percent of women in the villages surveyed thought it was acceptable for husbands to beat wives, and 55 percent of women wanted their next child to be a son (most of the rest did not want a daughter; they just didn't care).  And fully two thirds of the women said they needed their husband's permission to visit friends.

The book provides resources to help with issues affecting women throughout the world.  The most accessible of which is www.kiva.org, where people like you and me can give microloans to women in developing countries.  This is something that I'm seriously considering doing.  Microloans are almost made to women more so than men.  According to the book, there is research that shows that when women own the purse strings families are better off.  If there is an incremental uptick in income controlled by men, it tends to go toward more pleasure-seeking activities and less for the family needs.  I hope that you consider reading the book.  It really is a much needed wake up call.