Ninety people in a theatre aren’t a community — they’re strangers sharing an experience. The same is true for passengers on a plane or shoppers in a store. Community is the product of shared ownership and a commitment to the common good. There are many good books on developing community, but the best portrayal I’ve […]
Category: books
Patrick O’Brian on the storms of life
The tempests of life don’t always surprise us. Some we’ve faced before, and we often see them coming. When that’s the case, it helps to remember the experience. There’s an episode in Patrick O’Brian’s The Wine-Dark Sea that features four common stages of a storm. Though no two trials are identical, these stages rang true for me. […]
Invasive technology vs. humans
Many of the recent classics feature invasive technology. 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and The Giver come to mind. The speaker on the wall, the camera in the room, the eye in the sky, always watching. Today, we live with all of these things. We’re living the classics. The only difference is who’s watching, and why. In the right […]
Seven things I learned from The Giver, by Lois Lowry
1. Choice creates risk. With choice come wrong choices, and wrong choices bring harm. Given the harm, it’s tempting to eliminate choice. But choice brings joy and maturity. Better to equip the chooser to choose than to remove the choice. 2. Pain is something we avoid. Superficial avoidance is easy — simply find something to take your […]
I’m glad I read this
As a publishing person, I read books for a living. Great books. Last Thursday I carried a stack of them into a meeting and revealed that each one was an author’s “life message.” The fruit of careful study and decades of experience. Masterpieces and treasures. Not everything I read was written for me. Often I read […]
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