My life is filled with writing, cooking, and writing about cooking. So it’s no surprise that on a recent snowy weekend I found myself curled up by the fire with a cup of tea, a plate of buttered toast, and Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking:A Writer in the Kitchen. In this comforting collection of essays, Ms. …
Continue reading “Karen Schneider, Assistant to the Director, Childrens Center”
What would have happened if there had been a competition with anonymous design submissions for a September 11 memorial in New York City in 2002 –and the winner was revealed to be an American architect who happened to be Muslim? The Submission imagines this circumstance and develops an intriguing and all-too-plausible plot about the aftermath. …
Though very thankful to have a home in Maine, this year I have an hour commute to Bowdoin. Audio books have been great for me, as I feel that I am accomplishing something worthwhile in the car. I just finished Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America and I’m about halfway …
Continue reading “Shana Stewart Deeds, Laboratory Instructor, Biology”
During winter break I chose to read something that spoke loudly about my gender. In Is There Anything Good About Men?, Roy Baumeister takes a courageous stance that few would, ultimately answering the question of how cultures flourish by exploiting men. He does not argue that one gender is superior to another but takes the …
This biography offers an eye-opening look into the life of an innovator that changed the face of American technology. Starting with an account of Jobs’s childhood, and continuing up until the last years of his life, Isaacson captures the multifaceted complexity of Jobs. His struggles as a child, feeling neglected and somewhat unloved because he …
Yes, Bowdoin Reads, but students swamped with schoolwork won’t make time to read just any book. Here is one that is well worth your while… For anyone out there feeling even a modicum of disillusionment with the success of the Twilight Series, Love in the time of Cholera is the book for you. Written by …
IQ84 is the latest novel by Haruki Murakami, probably Japan’s best-known and best-selling living author. He’s an astonishing story-teller with a pyrotechnicolored imagination and a Shun-sharp eye for the minutiae of consumer culture. I had the huge pleasure of meeting him a few years ago when he visited Bowdoin. Murakami is as charming, modest, and …
Mark Epstein is a practicing psychiatrist in New York city. He is also an experienced meditator who advocates for the value of meditation in psychotherapy. Likely due to his background with Buddhism he has had his share of Buddhist patients/clients and this perhaps peaked his interest in the nature of one’s relationship to desire (his …
Freakonomics, by co-authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, is not like your typical economics class. Levitt and Dubner blur the lines between economics, sociology, and psychology to better understand the world. According to the co-authors, the study of incentives defines economics. Consumers in any market intend to maximize the amount of utility—happiness—that they can gain …
All good literature is character-driven, and Ann Patchett’s recent novel, State of Wonder, is no exception. Patchett proved in Bel Canto that she can create engaging characters even if the plot is somewhat implausible. In State of Wonder, she takes her readers to the Amazon jungle on a journey that occasionally makes us think she …