Book Review Mondays

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You’ve Got to Read This Book: 55 People Tell the Story of the Book That Changed Their Life
by Jack Canfield and Gay Hendricks

Book Review by Richard L. Weaver II, Ph.D.

I found this book absolutely fascinating, and it made me think about the single book that has had the most effect on my own life. More on that book in a moment. This is a book designed to get you reading. What Canfield and Hendricks have done is ask entertainers, sports personalities, businesspeople, writers, environmentalists, and activists to tell about the book that has impacted their life the most and why. The book is more uplifting than literary, however, when you find out what people you know (e.g., Dave Barry, Catherine Oxenburg, Kenny Loggins, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Lou Holtz, Max Edelman, Bernie Siegal, and a host of others) have been inspired by, it does inspire you as well. As I read these 55 brief, well-written, inspiring messages, I was reminded of the old cliche I have always supported, “When the student is ready, the teacher will come.” It is definitely true that what inspires one person, or what causes a major shift in his or her thinking, or what changes the course of one’s person’s life may not do the same for another person; however, many of the books mentioned are classics. For example, To Kill a Mockingbird, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, The Bible, The Teachings of the Buddha, Mein Kampf, The Secret Kingdom, On Aggression, The Science of Getting Rich, Life after Life, The End of Poverty, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Catcher in the Rye, Great Expectations, The Brothers Karamazov, Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul, The Great Divorce, A Guide for the Perplexed, The Legacy of Luna, How to Make Millions with Your Ideas, Key to Yourself, Gone with the Wind, 100 Selected Poems, Franny and Zooey, Peace Pilgrim, and more. I liked the simple (Chicken Soup for the Soul) format; the book is easy to read (It will take you several hours only.), and the stories are entertaining.

I obtained my Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1969, and I was just beginning my teaching career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts when a new book caught my attention and changed my life. The book, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner , did not just touch a nerve, leave an impression, or tug at my heartstrings. No, I found this 1969 book to be the most thought-provoking I had ever read, and it changed entirely my approach to teaching because it offered an entirely new paradigm. From my own observations of my teachers, my formal teacher’s education at the University of Michigan, and from working with a very strict practice-teaching supervisor and mentor, I learned there is one right answer, that the teacher has it, that memorizing facts is important, and that fellow students have little to contribute to the education of their peers. From Postman and Weingartner, however, I discovered how to construct an environment in which real learning takes place and where people learn how to learn themselves. I learned, too, that teachers need to get out of the way of their students' learning, stop identifying teaching with "getting through" or completing their syllabi and daily lesson plans, create questions that will help their students raise and begin to answer good, worthwhile questions, and, as a direct result of their book, my entire approach to teaching changed for the better. It wasn’t just a light being turned on, it was as if a beacon suddenly appeared that lit the way to my educational enlightenment. This book is a classic for anyone in education because it promotes free thought, advances communication and expression, and assists educators in building a society of intelligent citizens.

How did I get started on my rant about the book Teaching as a Subversive Activity? That is the beauty of the book, You’ve Got to Read This Book. It makes you think, and for readers, that’s a good think!

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Books: A Memoir
by Larry McMurtry

Book Review by Richard L. Weaver II, Ph.D.

I think it’s fairly easy to understand how a writer like myself would appreciate a book by the name of Books: A Memoir. This book by McMurtry is special, however, because it is the story (actually, a whole lot of stories) of how a person raised in a small ranch house in the village of Archer City, Texas, where there were no books (“the bookless ranch house”) could grow to read, love, collect, and use — then write his own — books. To me, that fact alone, warrants the stories he tells, warrants reading this book. McMurtry grew up in a storytelling culture, and obviously it had a profound, engaging, and long-term effect on his life (and all this time I thought it was the possession, availability, and reading to children — from in the womb until they can read on their own — that was the influence that mattered!). What this book is, is a series of vignettes about McMurtry’s life with books. Not only does he write about books he treasures and acquires and sells, but you get a wonderful picture of the writer himself: “My method of writing a novel was, from the first, to get up early and dash off five pages of narrative. That is still my method, though now I dash off ten pages a day. I write every day, ignoring holidays and weekends” (p. 49). “Once my writing duty was done each morning,” McMurtry writes, “I went out into the city and spent the rest of my day in bookstores” (p. 53). This isn’t a book for everyone. McMurtry spends a great deal of time naming names: books, people, places, relatives, friends of friends, characters, etc. Also, if you have no interest in book scouting, book acquisitions, book trading, or running a bookshop, this book is likely to hold little interest for you. I found his vignettes, as one reviewer of his book said, “entertaining, educational, vividly portrayed, and descriptive.”

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Through our reading, researching, and writing, And Then Some Publishing (and our extended family of readers) mine volumes of books representing a wide variety of tastes. We use the books in our writing, test and try suggested techniques, and we read for enjoyment as well. We wouldn't spend the time reviewing the books if we didn't get something out of it. Read more reviews on other fantastic books at our BookWorksRules.com website.