Mike Falick's Blog

Book Recommendation: Mitch Albom's "Have a Little Faith"

I just finished listening to Mitch Albom's new book, "Have a Litte Faith."  As with his prior books, Have a Little Faith is an excellent read that I highly recommend.

From Mitch Albom's website:

Albom’s first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have A Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an 82-year-old rabbi from Albom’s old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy.

Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he’d left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor – a reformed drug dealer and convict – who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof. 

Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Mitch observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi, embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.

As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Mitch and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers and histories are different, Albom begins to realize a striking unity between the two worlds - and indeed, between beliefs everywhere.

In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor’s wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.

Have a Little Faith is a book about a life’s purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man’s journey, but it is everyone’s story.

Blue Willow Bookshop Presents Stratford Alum and ESPN Analyst Craig James

From the Blue Willow Bookshop website:

All Hail the Spartans!  Craig James of the 1978 Spartan State Champion team and an SMU alum, now a commentator on ESPN, will be in town to discuss and sign his book, Game Day: A Rollicking Journey to the Heart of College Football.

As we anticipate a large crowd for this event, we will hold it in the Stratford High School auditorium.

Although this event is free and open to the public, if you would like to go through the signing line and meet Craig James, you must purchase Game Day: A Rollicking Journey to the Heart of College Football from Blue Willow Bookshop. People who enter the signing line may also have Craig sign sports memorabilia, time permitting.

To order your copy in advance, please call the store at 281-497-8675.

Location: Stratford High School Auditorium
14555 Fern
Houston, Texas 77079

The New York Times Says Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been Leaked Online

More information on the leak is available here. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/books/17cnd-potter.html?hp

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July 17, 2007

New Potter Book May Have Made Its Way to Web

By MOTOKO RICH

 

Photos of what appeared to be every page of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the breathlessly awaited seventh and final installment in the wildly popular series by J.K. Rowling, were circulating around the Web today, potentially upsetting the most elaborate marketing machine ever mobilized for a book.

Various file-sharing Web sites were carrying what looked like amateur photographs of each pair of facing pages of the book, which officially goes on sale at 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning. The pictures show the book laid out on a green and red-flecked looped carpet with somebody’s fingers holding it open. Some of the photos make the text difficult to read, but the ending is definitely legible.

Kyle Good, a spokeswoman for Scholastic, the book’s United States publisher, said that she was aware of at least three different versions of the file “that look very convincing” with what she described as “conflicting content.”

In a court filing on Monday, Scholastic sought “materials hosted on Photobucket.com’s system” that it said might violate the book’s copyright, Bloomberg News reported today. Photobucket is a unit of the News Corporation.

In addition, Bloomberg said, Scholastic sent a subpoena to Gaia Interactive in San Jose asking the identity of someone who had posted a copy of the book on Gaia’s social networking Web site, gaiaonline.com. A spokesman for Gaia told Bloomberg that it had complied with the subpoena, turned the name over to Scholastic, removed the material and banned the user from the site.

In Britain, where the book is published by Bloomsbury, Sarah Beal, a spokeswoman, said: “We are encouraging people not to do this. This happens with every book, and there are a lot of them out there, and we appeal to everybody not to put them up. It’s amazing how creative people can be. It may look real, but it doesn’t mean they are.”

Hype and frenzy have been building for weeks, as readers anticipate the release of the final book, in which Ms. Rowling has hinted that two or more characters are likely to die, leading to speculation from many fans that Harry might not survive his own series. Fans have been guessing about other important plot points, as well, such as who will end up with whom, or whether Professor Severus Snape, a character whose moral character has been in question, is genuinely evil.

Bookstores across the country are gearing up for festivities Friday night and are expecting long lines of readers who want to get their hands on a copy, which comes out in hardcover. Scholastic is publishing a record-setting print run of 12 million copies.

DailyLit: This Site Delivers Great Literature to You, One Part at a Time, by email (for free)

I recently ran across the Daily Lit website . This site does something new with great classic literature as well as more modern, lesser known works.  All you have to do is choose a book, tell Daily Lit how often you want to read, and enter your email address.  Daily Lit will then send you a portion of the book via email -- free.  The current top 10 list includes the following, but there are literally hundreds of books from which to choose:

• Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
• Pride & Prejudice
• Moby Dick
• Crime and Punishment
• Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The
• Tale of Two Cities, A
• Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, The
• How to Speak and Write Correctly9. Art of War, The
• Many Thoughts of Many Minds (Quotations)

Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Jim Collins Adds a Chapter to His Bestseller

I have just finished reading best-selling author Jim Collins' recently published a monograph entitled Good to Great and the Social Sectors.  Essentially, Mr. Collins has added an additional chapter to Good to Great for the 30% - 50% of Good to Great readers who come from non-business, social sector environments.

The monograph starts with this provocative statement:

We must reject the idea - well intentioned, but dead wrong - that the primary path to greatness in social sectors is to become "more like a business."

Mr. Collins recalls how, upon making this statement in a gathering of business CEOs, he was challenged by David Weekley who stated "In my work with non-profits, I find they're in desperate need of greater discipline - disciplined planning, disciplined people, disciplined governance, disciplined allocation of resources."  Mr. Collins responded that these concepts are not solely business concepts because most businesses also need this "culture of discipline" and concludes that

The critical distinction is not between business and social, but between great and good.  We need to reject the naive imposition of the "language of business" on the social sectors, and instead jointly embrace a language of greatness.

I found this monograph to be an excellent addition to an already phenomenal book.  Additional excerpts from Mr. Collins' website appear below.

Blink: Malcolm Gladwell

I am currently reading Malcolm Gladwell's fascinating new book called Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking.  Using such disparate evidence as sociological and psychological field research, observations of speed-dating, art historians, tall people, horse track betting, heart attack exams, war games, tennis, and the killing of Amadou Diallo, Gladwell asserts that often and unknowingly people make decisions and that we should trust our intuition, the first 2 seconds, the "blink" moment. 

He describes this rapid cognition as "thin-slicing," and, with example after example demonstrates that by distilling decision-making to less information rather than more, better decisions will result.  Gladwell cautions though, that as was the case in the Amadou Diallo shooting, rapid cognition requires recognition that the blink moment be accurately interpreted.

The premise is very interesting and Gladwell's writing style is engaging.  I highly recommend this book.

I also highly recommend Gladwell's first book The Tipping Point.

Thomas Friedman on Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Keeping Us in the Race

Thomas Friedman offers his typical brilliant insight on the National Academy of Sciences report Rising Above the Gathering Storm.

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Keeping Us in the Race

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

What if we were really having a national discussion about what is most important to the country today and on the minds of most parents?

I have no doubt that it would be a loud, noisy dinner-table conversation about why so many U.S. manufacturers are moving abroad - not just to find lower wages, but to find smarter workers, better infrastructure and cheaper health care. It would be about why in Germany, 36 percent of undergrads receive degrees in science and engineering; in China, 59 percent; in Japan, 66 percent; and in America, only 32 percent. It would be about why Japanese on bullet trains can get access to the Internet with cellphones, and Americans get their cellphone service interrupted five minutes from home.