Franklin D. Roosevelt — The Thrill of Creativity

Creativity is not limited to writers, artists and musicians.  Anyone can be creative if they open themselves up and listen to the ideas inside.  Who has not had a better idea about something?  There are creative business people who have new ideas about how to do something better.  There are creative doctors who develop better ways to treat patients.  My dentist has developed 12 products that he has sold on the market. Unfortunately, some people bury their creativity deep inside.  They even announce loudly to those around them: "I don't have a creative bone in my body."  We all have the potential to be creative if we allow ourselves the opportunity.

Creativity is one of the most thrilling acts that we as humans can participate in.  If you have ever experienced the excitement of chasing a new idea or exploring a new way of seeing the world you will understand what Roosevelt is saying.  Some people might say that Roosevelt was not creative.  He did not produce any great works of art.  His creativity lay in his ability to change the way he and others saw the world.  The ideas that rose to the surface during his Presidency dramatically changed life in the United States and around the world.  People today are still trying to understand the impact of the changes Roosevelt created in our society and our politics.  Roosevelt was a creative leader.

What are you doing to cultivate creativity in your life?  Give yourself the freedom to look at the world in new ways.  See the world in ways that others don't.  Don't accept things as they are.  Question why?  Creativity is not about technique.  It is about seeing the world in new ways.  

Bernie Siegel — Hope

As a young writer, hope is one of the few things that kept me going.  I would read a story about someone who was 50 or 60 or 7o and he had just published his first novel.  After years of toiling in the salt mines of writing, he found success.  These stories inspired me to keep writing.  I had hope that one day I would be discovered and become successful.  Even today I have that sense of hope, that belief that one day I will be proved right.  Yes, I am a writer.

When we lose hope, we give up on life.  We quit.  Some days all we have is hope.  As the old saying goes: every dark cloud as a silver lining.  We just have to find it — to look at the world with new eyes.  To see the butterfly in the midst of chaos.  No matter how dark the night, there is always a sunrise.  Everyone faces challenges and difficulties.  The sad thing for me is people who see no way out of a problem but to take their own lives.  Never give up hope for a better tomorrow.

As creative thinkers, we need hope.  We need to believe in ourselves, our ideas, our art.  Have faith that you have been given a gift.  Have faith in your dreams.  Have faith that the sun will rise again.

Robert Henri — Visual Memory

Philosophers have long said that we experience the world through our senses, and scientists have confirmed this.  The ability to see is one of our dominant senses.  The question that Robert Henri is raising here is about our memory of what we see.  Both painters and writers need strong visual memory in order to put detail into their work.  Painters often work from observing models, but they also need to be able to work from the memory of that model.  The same is true of writers.  We must be able to describe our characters, the setting and the physical world.  Often the physical world provides the reader with insight into the nature of a character.

Bernadita (1926)
Robert Henri

Visual memory is something I struggle with both as a writer and a reader.  When I come to a long descriptive passage in a novel, I will skim through it quickly so as not to be bored.  When I write, I struggle to put in visual detail of the person and his surroundings.  As a speaker I can be in a room for eight hours with a group of people, but at the end of the day I could not describe their faces or the clothes they were wearing.  

The only place where I have discovered that I have a strong visual memory is when I am driving.  I can have driven through a city once and come back five years later and I will remember visual elements and be able to find my way around without getting lost. Somehow subconsciously, my brain picks up the physical clues and I remember them when I am back in the same place, but if you were to ask me to describe the place I could not.

For the past fifteen years I have been cultivating my visual memory through the study of art. If your visual memory is weak like mine, I would encourage you to find ways to improve your visual literacy.  Most creative leaders need a strong visual memory.

Dr. Benjamin Mays — Goals

Research shows that only about 2% of Americans write goals.  I was 35 years old when I first heard about the importance of goal-setting in achieving one's dreams. In college I had dreamed of being a writer but at 35 was far from my dream. I had only written about 200 poems in 15 years. I set a goal to write a poem a day for a year. That year I wrote over 400 poems.

If you want to achieve your dreams, you need to turn them into goals.  Goals are dreams with deadlines.  Some creative leaders don't want to set goals because they are afraid they will not reach them. But the truth is that people achieve more when they have goals then when they don't. You may not reach the goal you set but you will come closer than if you had no goal. And as many people learn, the joy is in working to achieve the goal, not in actually achieving it. And when goal-setters reach their goal, they quickly set a new goal. 

I once met a 101 year old man who was writing his first book using a laptop computer in a nursing home. I visited that nursing home a couple of years later and the man, then 103, was writing his second book. What goals have you set for yourself? Your work? Your life?

Dr. Benjamin Mays must have been a master goal-setter for all that he accomplished. Mays was the youngest of eight children born to tenant farmers and former slaves in South Carolina. He earned a B.A. from Bates College in Maine, a Masters and a Ph.d in religion from the University of Chicago. He received almost 30 honorary doctorates in his lifetime. He was an ordained Baptist minister and an educator. He became President of Morehouse College in 1940, a post he held for 27 years. Mays wrote nearly 2,000 articles and nine books includingThe Negro's Church, the first sociological study of African-American religion. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who graduated from Morehouse in 1948, called Mays his "spiritual mentor" and "intellectual father." 

Childhood home of Benjamin Mays

Louis Auchincloss — The Gift of Dreams

How often do we hold ourselves back from doing the things we want to do because we are afraid? Afraid of what others will say? Afraid of failure? Afraid of success? Afraid we don't have any talent?

Louis Auchincloss wrote this statement in his first memoir, A Writer's Capital, in 1974. In his 92 years on this planet, Auchincloss was a lawyer, a novelist, a short-story writer and a historian, publishing more than 60 books. He filled his life with things he wanted to do.
Dreams are creative gifts we have been given — paths that we should walk.  When we refuse to seek our dreams and refuse to do the work that needs to be done, we are rejecting the gift. We are denying our birthright. 

Is there something you have been dreaming of doing, but have not done it? Maybe today it is time to take that first step in achieving your dreams. If you don't, no one will care. Only you care about your dreams. Only you can achieve your dreams. Only you have the power it takes to achieve your dreams.

Today I celebrate my 67th birthday. I am thankful for the gifts I have been given — the dreams that I followed and the life I have lived.

Leonardo da Vinci — Miracle of Creativity

The ability to create is a miracle that has been given to the human race.  We have the ability to create something that did not exist previously.  From our early days in the caves to the high tech world of digital art, humans have had a need to share their stories and express their emotions.  Whether we sit around the campfire and mesmerize others with our stories or we sit in front of a computer and compose a novel, we are experiencing the miracle of creativity.

Some of us have tossed this miracle away by denying our ability to create.  Some of us have allowed others to destroy this miracle through their words and actions.  And some of us allowed our need for perfection to keep us from expressing ourselves.  The miracle of creativity is a gift that is sacred and we need to honor, respect and give thanks for what we have been given.

If you have lost the miracle of creation, you need to rediscover it.  You need to go deep within yourself and restore the miracle that is your birthright.  If the miracle of creativity has died a slow death within your soul, you need to resurrect it and celebrate the gift of life.

The miracle of creativity is the gift that gives the human race life.  Without creativity, there would be no progress — no growth.  Without creativity, we would not be human. Give thanks this week for the precious gift you have been given.  Celebrate the healing power of creativity.  Draw a picture.  Write a poem.  Tell a story.  Sing a song.

Natalie Goldberg — Listen Deeply

Most of us probably never associate the creative process with listening. We experience writing, painting and singing as active processes. We perceive listening to be a passive process. Actually, listening is very active and engaging. 

As writers and painters we need to be listening to the world around us and to the people within that world. By listening we learn to see the world for what it is. The better we understand our world the stronger artist we become. Those, who are so absorbed in themselves that that they do not listen, ultimately, will lose touch with the world and they will become weak.

Learn to listen with your heart, your body, your soul, your mind and your spirit. Taste the different flavors of the world around you. Explore the dark crevices and the deep roots. Climb the highest trees and tread on the sandiest beaches. Taste the heights of the human spirit and the deepest valleys of the human heart. Listen with every pore in your flesh. Listen with every cell in your body.

Here is Natalie Goldberg discussing the 30-year republication of her famous book, Writing Down the Bones. 

Milton Berle — Build a Door

Many times we have to make our own opportunities. People often complain that they were not given a chance. They fall into "If Only"thinking: "If only I could have gone to school." "If only my boss would have promoted me." "If only my parents loved me." "If only I had a job." "If only someone would publish my book." If only. . . . If only. . . . If only. . . . 

If you are going to achieve your dreams and accomplish your goals, you must move beyond "If Only" thinking to "Opportunity" thinking. You must build your own doors and knock on them.

What doors can you build today that you can knock on tomorrow? Building the door to opportunity does not just happen by accident. It takes hard work, belief in oneself and persistence.

Joan Miro — Planting Seeds of the Spirit

Growing up in a conservative Mennonite family, I was not exposed to art as a child. My maternal grandfather even forbid photographs and television.  My parents did not buy a TV until after he died. 

The Garden 2
Joan Miro

My first exposure to art came my freshman year in college where in one of my classes we had to choose an artist to study. I chose Joan Miro, a Spanish artist, and his paintings planted in my soul a love of art. I had an opportunity to study art history about 30 years later and fell in love with several painters including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Eastman Johnson, Edvard Munch and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. When you fall in love with a painting, you come back to it again and again for it to refresh your soul. 

A great novel stays with you long after you have read it. My all time favorite novel is Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  I first read it college and have read it 3 times since.  

How many times do you listen to the same piece of music over and over. And each time you hear it years later, it brings back waves of emotion. Roberta Flack, Harry Chapin and Kris Kristofferson remain some of my favorite singers more than 40 years after I first heard them.  

Artists, musicians and writers all plant seeds with their works of art. What seeds are you planting with your writing, your painting or your music? How is your art impacting your audience? What seeds have you planted in their souls?

Christina Baldwin — The Gift of Creativity

Sometimes as writers we become caught up in the business of publishing and experience the hurt and pain of rejection. We become frustrated and sometimes quit writing because we don't think we are good enough. The need to write, to express ourselves, is not about being published. The need to write and to create is the gift in itself. Celebrate and honor the gift you have been given. Write for the sake of writing.  Write for the sake of the gift.

The same can be said of painting and any of the other forms of creative expression. Painting is not about selling your art to the highest bidder or having your painting hang in a museum somewhere. The art of painting is a gift to be honored and treasured. Respect and appreciate the gift that you have been given.

Gail Godwin — Writing Habits

Our minds are very powerful and capable of doing more than we imagine.  In a New York Times Book Review essay on the lives of aging writers, Gail Godwin told the reporter that she was able as she grew older to compose paragraphs in her mind and retain them — something she was unable to do in her youth.  She remembers as a young writer hearing Jorge Luis Borges tell his audience at the Iowa Writer's Workshop that blindness taught him to compose his stories in his head.  I know of poets who compose poems in their minds and are able to recite them from memory.

Many young writers and artists feel that if they are not successful by the time they turn forty, they have failed.  Yet, writing and painting is a learning process.  Creative power does not rest only with the young.  Some of us don't get our first wind until we are over sixty.  I remember reading the story many years ago of a writer who published his first novel in his thirties and his second in his eighties.

While Gail Godwin is best known for her fourteen novels, she has also composed music with Robert Starer and keeps colored pencils at her bedside.  On her website Godwin says that she will often draw before she goes to sleep.  She says: "I also draw when I am baffled by some aspect of the character.  Making a visual image of that character in action almost always reveals something new."

(Photo of Gail Godwin by David Hermon.)

Leo Buscaglia - The Healing Power of Hugs

After a speech a number of years ago, a manager came up to me and said she had a story to tell me about the healing power of hugs.

The manager, who was an administrator in health care, said that she had a long-term employee who began to come in late and even miss days of work. Being a good manager, she took note of this.

One day the manager saw the employee coming down the hallway. She said the employee seemed lost to the world — about ready to give up on life. Instinctively, the manager gave the woman a hug. The woman just stood there not knowing what to do or say. Every day after that the manager would give the woman a hug whenever she saw her.

After a couple of months the employee opened up and explained to the manager why she was so depressed. Her daughter had recently moved out of the home to attend college. Her son had moved out two years earlier and she was alone. And she said that it was the tenth anniversary of her husband’s death. She felt she had nothing left to live for.

For a while taking care of her patients kept her going. She knew her patients needed her so she would come to work. But she reached the point where her patients were not motivation enough. She decided to take her own life.

She came into work with the intention of gathering up her belongings and driving back home and taking her own life. That was the day the manager gave the woman her first hug. That hug saved her life and every hug after that helped to draw her out of a depression.

Hugging was not something I grew up doing. I was raised German Mennonite on a farm in central Illinois. As a family, we did not hug. My wife is of Mexican-American descent and she taught my family and me the importance of hugging. When I got into health care, nurses reinforced the importance of touch and hugging. So for the last 20 years of my parents’ lives I hugged them.

As writers and artists, we often work in isolation and yet we have this desire and need for human touch.  We should surround ourselves with supportive friends with whom we can cry  and who will give us a hug when we need it the most.  Healthy friendships are a necessary part of the creative process.

As creative leaders, we need to take care of our own emotional and mental heath so we have the strength to create more works of art.  Be sure to give your friends and family a hug each and every day.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Silence is a valuable gift for writers and artists. Silence is where our work as creative leaders begins. We must go back to the well of silence again and again to refresh our spirit and restore our sanity. Silence allows us to process the tons of information that enter our brains. Silence allows creativity to take root and grow beautiful flowers. Silence allows for reason to prevail over ignorance.

There is a lot of noise in our society that clouds our thinking and hinders the flow of creativity. The noise of multiple voices rises from the traditional media: newspaper, radio and television. And the noise is multiplied a hundred times over today by the cell phones, the internet and social media. Each of these technologies has value and can contribute to our success, but we must manage and control their use, not let them control us. We must sometimes go silent and cut ourselves off from the noise. We must go deep inside and experience the silence.

And in the silence we will know and understand our purpose. If we lose sight of our purpose, we will lose our way and become lost in the noise and chaos. The silence allows us to find ourselves and to stay focused on what is important and why we are here.

Are you in touch with your purpose? Do you know why you are here? Do you know what lessons you have learned and what lessons you still need to learn? How are you going to make a positive contribution to the world at large? What are you giving back to society? Seek to know who you are by knowing your purpose for being. Embrace the silence and stay focused on your purpose.

Prakashan B.V.

Happiness does not come from buying a new house or an expensive car.  The thrill of buying something new is very short-lived. Happiness can not be found in the world outside ourselves.  Happiness is an inside job.  Each of us is responsible for our own happiness.

The same can be said for those of us who are creative leaders.  The happiness created by the acceptance of our work by a publisher or an art gallery is only temporary.  If we are not happy on the inside, we will soon return to our negative feelings of failure and frustration.

There is always going to be someone who is richer than you — more successful than you. Likewise, there is always someone who is poorer than you — less successful that you. No amount of money or success will free us from our fears and doubts.  No amount of money will eliminate the pain in our hearts. If you win the lottery tomorrow, you will still be the same person you are today.  The money will not make you happy if you are not already happy.

Happiness comes from loving and caring for those around us — from sharing of ourselves with the people in our lives. Happiness comes from creating what we want to create, not what the market wants to buy. Happiness comes from making the most with what you have and not coveting the success of your neighbor.

Diego Rivera

"Only the work of art itself 

can raise the standard of taste."

— Diego Rivera

Mexican Artist / Muralist

1886 - 1957

The Flower Carrier

People talk of taste as if it was real.  It is an illusion of judgement.  Every work of art, every poem, and every story has value.  When people begin to label art as good or bad, they are creating false categories that are based on artificial judgements.  What the majority label as good today may be considered bad tomorrow.  You may like something or not like something which in itself is okay.  Liking or disliking reveals something about you.  There is nothing inherently bad or good within the work of art itself.  The sense of good or bad is in the eyes of the beholder. Any judgement made about a work of art is actually a judgement of the person who made the statement.

While there may only be one person today who likes your art, it does not make the art bad. Two hundred years from now the majority of people may consider it a masterpiece.  Taste is fickle and useless.

Diego Rivera, the great Mexican Muralist,  painted a number of murals in the United States during the 1930's.  Edsel Ford hired him to paint a mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts which is still on view today.  John Rockefeller commissioned him to paint a mural in New York.  Since Rivera was a communist, he included a portrait of Lenin in the mural.  When Rockefeller demanded that he remove the portrait from the mural, Rivera refused.  Rockefeller had the mural destroyed.  In the 1930's, a portrait of Lenin was unacceptable to the American public taste.  A work of art was destroyed because the subject matter was unacceptable.  Three hundred years from now, most people probably will never had heard of Lenin and nobody will be offended.  Remember public taste is fickle and arbitrary.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry.  He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'"

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

American Civil Rights Leader/Preacher/Author

1929 - 1968

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

One of those games we play is:  "Where were you when . . ."  On April 4, 1968, I was a nineteen year old college student at Goshen College in Indiana.  Two months earlier I had the privilege of marching with Dr. King at a Vietnam War protest march in Washington D.C. The murder of Dr. King on my birthday in 1968 impacted me both emotionally and spiritually.

For the past twenty-five years I have been sharing this quote by Dr. King in my speeches on leadership.  I believe that work is spiritual in nature.  The work we do helps to cleanse our souls and free our spirits.  Many people see work as a negative condition.  They hate Mondays and grumble about having to go to work.  Many people wish they did not have to work.  But if you have ever lost a job and sat idle for a few months, you appreciate the value of work in your life.

As creative leaders we have a special opportunity to share the fruit of our labor with others. Most of my life I have dreamed of being able to give up my bill-paying job and write full time.  Fortunately, this never happened.  I think I am a better person for having the discipline to get up an hour earlier than everyone and writing before going to work.  Sometimes what we wish for is not in our best interests.  The bill-paying work and the creative work are both important and both have helped to make me a better person.

Be proud of the work you do.  Celebrate the work you do.  Be happy with the gifts you have been given.

William James

Every person is unique. There has never been a person just like you and there will never be a person just like you. The life you lead is yours. Nobody can lead the same life and do the same things, so that makes you special.

Do not judge yourself by how much money you make or how much power you have or the creative work you produce. Your success lies in the lives of the people you have touched. And if that is only one person, then you are a success. All of us in some way will touch the lives of our parents and our siblings. So from the moment we are conceived, each of us is successful.

Be not afraid to live the life that you want to live.  Trust in the belief that you are here for a reason.  You are here to make a difference in the lives of others through your creative work. You have a purpose for being. You have been given the gift of life. Accept who you are and celebrate your individuality.

Harley King

In 2015, I read 55 books, an increase of 7 over 2014.  Sixty percent of the books were e-books, twenty-two percent were printed books and nineteen percent were audio books.  I continue to read more e-books than printed books because of both convenience and cost.  I read 35 works of fiction, 18 non-fiction books and 2 poetry collections.

Here are the sixteen best books I read in 2015.

16. I Can See Clearly Now by Wayne Dyer  

I had the opportunity to hear Wayne Dyer speak in person about 20 years ago.  I was a member of the Michigan chapter of the National Speakers Association.  The speaker before him was very high energy and kept the audience engaged for 3 hours.  The chapter presented an award to Dyer for what he had accomplished in life.  He spoke for 30 minutes following 3 hours of high energy.  When he first came on stage, I thought we were in trouble.  We had been there all day and Dyer spoke very softly in contrast to the previous speaker.  But he had us listening to his every word within less than a minute.  There was a peaceful gentleness about him that just captured our attention.

I have since listened to Dyer on CD multiple times.  When he recently passed on to the next world, I started to read his memoir and it is an amazing book.  It is not your typical memoir.  He organizes the book around key intellectual, philosophical and spiritual events in his life.  After writing about the event, he tells what the event means to him looking back on it all these years later.  He connects the key dots in his life and we begin to understand the intellectual underpinning of his books.

You will not find a lot of personal stories about his wives and children.  He only hints at what happened between his first wife and him.  The closest he comes to sharing his pain is in the chapter where his second wife leaves him for another man and he spends two years in deep depression.

The book is inspirational and full of spiritual connections.  Near the end of his life he gave up his home and the things he owned in Florida and walked away.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who has read any of Wayne Dyer's books or heard his CDs or seen his PBS programs.  The man communicates on a very deep spiritual level.

15. Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon — and the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller  

Sheila Weller is an amazing storyteller who has done her homework.  A lot of research has gone into this book which is about the lives of a generation of women as seen through the lives of 3 female singers of the era.  I knew much of the Carole King story having read her memoir and listened to her music.  I knew a lot less of Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon.  Weller fills her book with details of the lives of the three women but also the people who joined them on their journey.  I would recommend the book to anyone who grew up listening to Carole, Joni and Carly as well as anyone interested in the music of the era and the lives of the artists.

14. Nick Virgilio: A Life in Haiku by Nicholas A. Virgilio  

I first read the haiku of Nick Virgilio in haiku magazines in the 1980s.  I also read his haiku in the The Haiku Anthology edited by Cor Van Den Heuvel.  This is the first collection of his haiku that I have read.  One of my favorite haiku by Virgilio is:

the sack of kittens
sinking in the icy creek
increases the cold

Farmers sometimes kill litters of baby kittens because there are too many cats on the farm.  In this haiku, we see the farmer standing by the creek watching the sack sink into the icy water.  He is not happy that he has to kill the kittens, but he knows it is for the best so they don't starve to death.  Yet he is uncomfortable and maybe even thinking of his own death.  It is winter and there is snow on the fields.  The farmer has some time on his hands.  The harvest is over and spring is still weeks away.  Watching the kittens die, the farmer feels a shiver through his body.

In the world of haiku, Nick Virgilio is known for the haiku he wrote about his brother who died in Vietnam.  This is one of my favorites:

deep in rank grass,
through a bullet- riddled helmet:
an unknown flower

Here the poet walking through a war-torn countryside comes upon a soldier's helmet and is surprised to see a flower popping through the holes in the helmet.  Even in death, there is life.  Just as the owner of the helmet is unknown to the poet so is the flower.  And yet that is okay.  We can not know everything.  No matter how violent life is, we can always find some beauty.

In one of the essays in the book, Virgilio compares himself to the Japanese haiku poet, Buson, in that like Buson he composes him poems.  For him it is not based simply on an experienced moment.  He would write and rewrite the haiku until he was satisfied.  The helmet poem above was inspired a photograph he saw in a newspaper in 1967.  The last line came to him during a conversation he was having with a friend.

In an interview published in the book, Virgilio discusses a haiku he created to communicate receiving the news of his brother's death.

telegram in hand,
   shadow of the marine
       darkens our screen door

In these eleven short words, Virgilio captures the essence of the moment.  The poet is focused on the small things:  the shadow and the screen door.  He may even be in denial.  He is staying at the edges of the truth.  And yet he knows the truth is there:  his brother is dead.  He doesn't want to face it head on.  

I highly recommend this book of haiku poetry by one of America's best haiku poets to all poets and lovers of poetry.

13. Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee by Allen Barra  

I was inspired by Allen Barra's book on Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle to read this one on Yogi Berra.  As a St. Louis Cardinal fan, I never had much interest in the NY Yankees, but I found this biography of Yogi to be fascinating.  Yogi's career was coming to an end when I became interested in baseball as a child.  Unlike many athlete heroes, Yogi appears to have few personal flaws.  Growing up in an Italian neighborhood of St. Louis, he hoped to play for the Cardinals, but when he was offered only a $250 sign on bonus he refused because it was less than the $500 paid to his friend, Joe Garagiola.  Yogi was the inspiration for the cartoon character, Yogi Bear.  I recommend this book to baseball fans, Yankee fans and Yogi fans.

12. Sidetracked by Henning Mankell  

I last read a Henning Mankell novel back in 2011, but I felt like I was coming home when I read this novel.  I enjoy being in the company of Kurt Wallander.  He is a bit of a depressive, but he is tenacious.  This novel finds him on the trail of an axe murderer.  This is a great read that I would recommend to all who enjoy mysteries.





11. The Kizuna Coast by Sujata Massey  

The Kizuna Coast is another excellent Rei Shimura mystery.  This one is set in Japan right after the earthquake and tsunami in 2011.  I was first introduced to the character of Rei in 2014 when I read The Flower Master.  I appreciated seeing the aftermath of tsunami through the eyes of a novelist.  Of the 4 Shimura mysteries that I have read, this is easily my favorite.  I highly recommend it to all readers of novels, not just mystery lovers.




10. Brush Back by Sara Paretsky

This is my eleventh V.I. Warshawski novel and it has been a couple of years since I read my last one.  Reading the book was like visiting an old friend and catching up on what has happened to her in recent years.  At the age of fifty, Warshawski continues to stir the pot and get herself beaten up.  But in the end, she comes out on top, although, not always wiser. I enjoy the novels not so much for the plot as the voice and character of V.I. She is a great character. I highly recommend this book and the series to lovers of mysteries and strong women P.I.s.



9. Death of a Doll Maker by I. J. Parker

I am addicted to the Sugawara Akitada historical mystery series set in 11th century Japan.  I have read 8 of the novels including 5 this year.  I.J. Parker is skilled at telling stories where Akitada not only solves mysteries but also has to cope with the challenges and pain of living.  The book is a great read, but I recommend reading early books in the series first.




8. A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren

I knew very little about Elizabeth Warren prior to reading the book and I walked away impressed. Warren shares the story of her 10 year battle with big banks on the behalf of middle class working people and how she lost.  Warren is a law professor and bankruptcy expert turned activist and politician.  Mixed in with discussion of her fight with the banks is Warren's personal story of being born in Oklahoma and her struggle to obtain a college degree.  She tells the story of her marriage and divorce and re-marriage.  She talks of giving birth and raising her children and becoming a grandmother.  She also tells the story of her senate race to fill the seat of Ted Kennedy after he died.

I recommend the book to anyone who likes to read political memoirs or who is interested in bankruptcy and the banking industry and consumer protection.  I also recommend listening to the book rather than reading it so you can hear the passion and concern in her voice since she recorded the book herself.  

7. Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke  

I read this excellent book with my seven-year-old daughter.  I started reading it to her.  Then she wanted to read it to me.  Then we traded back and forth.  She would read two pages and then I would read two pages.  Excellent adventure story involving a silver dragon, a brownie, a boy and other characters.  Funke does a great job of weaving a story and drawing the reader in.  I would recommend this both for adults and children.




6. Ripper by Isabel Allende

Contrary to some negative reviews that I have read, I feel Ripper by Isabel Allende is a fantastic novel.  Allende tells the story in a circular manner which seems to bother some people but it is story telling at its finest.  The story keeps circling around the characters and slowly expands the world the story inhabits.  This style of storytelling is not normally seen in mystery novels.  I first discovered the style when I read the novels of John Irving who wrote one of my favorite novels, A Prayer for Owen Meany.  It took me several attempts before I actually read A Prayer... and the same may hold true for people who attempt to read Ripper.


This is the third novel that I have read in the last 2 years that was written in the circular storytelling style.  In 2014, I read Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan and in 2013, See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid.  All three books received negative criticism for repetition which means the reviewers did not understand the style of storytelling.  Circular storytelling, which can be very poetic in the right hands, builds the story through repetition and slowly draws the listener in.  Sometimes it is better to listen to circular storytelling than reading it on the page so I recommend that potential readers consider the audio version.  I wager you will like it better.

5.  Life Itself by Roger Ebert 

I must confess that Roger Ebert was not my favorite movie critic.  I preferred Gene Siskel.  But this memoir has changed my opinion about Ebert.  Roger Ebert was raised in Urbana, Illinois in the 1940's and 50's.  I lived in Champaign-Urbana from 1975 -1982 so I was familiar with some of the things he talks about.  Even though Roger's mother wanted him to be a priest, his passion was journalism.  He did not set out to be a movie critic, but spent most of his life discussing movies in print and on television.

Late in life, cancer and 3 surgeries destroyed Ebert's ability to speak and eat.  He turned to writing his life story.  What amazed me is how much he remembers.  He says that he has always had a good memory, but not being able to engage in conversation with others opened up the flood gates and the memories poured through.

I found the book entertaining, funny with touching moments where Roger shares of himself.  I would recommend it to anyone who loves memoirs, journalism or the movies.  He does not tell his story in a straight forward fashion but skips around much as memory does — jumping back and forth in time.  I would have enjoyed having a conversation with Roger while sitting down to dinner.

4. Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton

Hard Choices is full of stories of Clinton's time as Secretary of State and the people she met.  I was fascinated and intrigued as I read it.  She tells stories of both failures of diplomacy and successes.  She provides insight into many of the key players on the international scene and some historical context to current events.

If you are interested in international politics, you should read this book with an open mind.  While you may not agree with Clinton's conclusions, you will have a better understanding of who Hillary Clinton is and the challenges the United States faces on the world stage.  
I also have walked away with the belief that people who run for President should have spent time as Secretary of State.  Presidents have less influence on the internal affairs of the country than they do on the international scene.  Congress has greater control and influence on the American society than any one President.  Congress makes the laws and determines the direction of the country.  Decisions made in Congress are with us for generations.  Presidents can twist arms, but in the end, their influence is short-lived.  Presidents can do more on the world stage than they can at home.  Unfortunately, most candidates for President have very little experience on the international stage and waste much of their time in office learning how the world works.  If Presidents spent time as secretary of state before running for President, they would have a greater opportunity to influence world events.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in international politics or in understanding what makes Hillary Rodham Clinton tick.  I also would recommend that you listen to the audio version of the book.  While Clinton read the opening and closing chapters of the book, she did not read the entire book.  Kathleen Chalfant did an excellent job of reading most of the book. Though, I would have preferred to have Hillary's voice all the way through.

3. No Higher Honor by Condoleezza Rice

After listening to the audio book by Hillary Clinton on her experience as Secretary of State, I decided to follow it with No Higher Honor by Condoleezza Rice, her predecessor.  The books are in many ways very similar both in the telling and in the stories being told.  

Rice tells a very powerful story about her 8 years of experience in the Bush Administration as the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of State.  She was introduced to George W. by his father whom she had served under during his administration.  Rice consistently defends the George W. and his decisions.  His administration was deeply influenced by the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.  She discusses the fear that permeated the administration in the months and years that followed the attacks. The way the Administration saw the world was colored by that fear.  While Rice admits making mistakes in her positions, she does not voice any negative feelings toward George W.  She is less positive about Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld with whom she experienced major disagreements, although one has to read between the lines to gain a sense of the conflict.

Rice grew up in the segregated Birmingham, Alabama.  She tells the story of how one of her kindergarten friends was killed during the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham.

One of my favorite anecdotes was during a trip to Rome for the funeral of the pope.  She was sitting between George W. and Bill Clinton.  She said Bill talked all the time and George did not talk.  The story, I believe, is very telling about the differences between the two men.

Rice did her own recording of the audio book so one hears the story in her voice.  I would highly recommend the book to anyone interested in politics, history and the international world.  The book offers more of the story than one finds in the newspapers and on television.  And I would also recommend that one reads it in conjunction with Hillary Clinton's book on her experiences.  Hillary opens her book with the letter she received from Condoleezza.  

2. The Making of The President 1960 by Theodore H. White

The Making of The President 1960 earned the author, Theodore H. White, a Pulitzer Prize in 1962.  In the  book, White, a journalist, follows the candidates from the moment they made the decision to enter the race for the Presidency until Kennedy was elected.

In the 1970’s I had read White’s The Making of the President 1968, the third of 4 books in the series.  I was impressed with book when I read so decided with being on the doorstep of the 1916 election that I would read the original book in the series.

The book is as relevant and important today as it was in 1960.  White has the reporter’s knack of capturing the detail that makes the story exciting even 55 years after the event.  Many of the issues that he identifies in the 1960 campaign are still relevant today.  He also has a strong sense of history and is able to put the events of the time in historical context.

White touches on the fact that the peaceful transfer of power from one person to the next is unusual in the annals of history.  White writes:

“Heroes and philosophers, brave men and vile, have since Rome and Athens tried to make this manner of transfer of power work effectively; no people have succeeded at it better, or over a longer period of time, than the Americans.”

The Democrats seeking the nomination of their party in 1960 included Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, former Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson II and Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.  The Republicans seeking the nomination of their party in 1960 were Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon. 

White is excellent at summing up a situation in a very simple image.  After Humphrey had lost the primary in West Virginia which ended his campaign, White writes: “In the morning, when Humbert Humphrey woke, the Presidential image had evaporated. Outside the Ruffner Hotel his parked bus had overnight been given a ticket for illegal parking.”

Lyndon Johnson, like some politicians today, was seen as being too close to the workings of Washington.  Johnson’s weakness was that he believed that the Senate was America and that he was the Senate. In a very relevant passage even today, White writes: “Long service in Washington at the court of power decisions causes men to forget that power rises ultimately from beyond the Potomac.”

Here is one of White’s descriptions of Kennedy: “He had mastered politics on so many different levels that no other contemporary American could match him. He had nursed ward politics with his mother’s milk; heard it from his grandfathers, politicians both, in boyhood; seen it practiced from his father’s embassy in London at the supreme level of world events in 1939, as war and peace hung in the balance.”

White fills his book with telling details.  He writes: “At almost any moment of afternoon and evening on the road, soup is the favorite Kennedy dish — almost any kind of soup: chicken soup, tomato soup, bean soup and his favorite New England clam chowder.”

White reviews in detail the impact of the changing demographics on the politics of the time.  Between 1950 and 1960, the population of the country grew by 18%.  Forty-one million Americans were born during the period and 16 million died.  Two-thirds of the growth had occurred in the suburbs.

White also discusses immigration which statistically began being counted in 1819 as required by Congress.  White writes, “In 1820 America held 9,638,000 people, of whom almost 20 per cent were Negroes; and the rest are considered to have been the parent ‘colonial stock’ of America — an overwhelmingly British stock, spiced lightly with adventurers from all northern Europe.”

Over 40 million immigrants entered the country between 1820 and 1960.  The Irish came first.  Between 1847 and 1854, over one million Irish entered the country.  Almost 900 thousand Germans came between 1850 and 1857 and they kept coming in waves.  By 1960 people with German heritage had become the second largest component of the American population.  The Scandinavians arrived in the late 1800s.  In the early part of the 20th century, more than 3 million Italians arrived.  

White also writes about the issue of religion.  He reminds us that many of the early settlers came to escape the religious wars of Europe.  The memories of how they were punished in Europe for their religious beliefs led to the decision that government had no right to make inquiry into the faith of its citizens and that the state should not have any connection to religion.  People were free to worship as they pleased without guidance from the government.

I think every American would benefit from the reading and rereading of this book. White is a great storyteller who helps us understand how politics work and how Presidents are elected to serve the people.  

1. The Cider House Rules by John Irving  

This is another brilliant novel by Irving, one of American's finest novelists.  I saw the movie based on the novel about 15 years ago.  I remember little of the movie except for Michael Caine who played Dr. Larch.  Irving is a phenomenal storyteller who tells his stories in a circular fashion.  Each circle reveals more of the story.  Detail after detail is slowly revealed.

The story is about abandonment — about orphans and abortions and about unwanted children.  Dr. Larch has spent a lifetime doing what he calls: "God's work."  He delivers unwanted babies, raises them in the orphanage until he can find a home for them.  He also provides abortions to women who are early enough in their pregnancies.  At the heart of the story is Homer Wells for whom Dr. Larch could never find a home.  Larch teaches him how to deliver babies.  Homer ventures out into the world and his life becomes entangles with the lives of Candy and Wally.  This is a novel that everyone should read.