Professional Development, Serendipity Style

One of the aspects I like about cruising is the informal book exchanges you often find. These usually are just a small shelf at fuel docks, in marina offices, or at laundry-mats.  The unstated rule is to try to leave a book for one you take. The selection is not always diverse; there are plenty of Michael Connelly and James Patterson books to keep Matt busy, and oodles of romances, but my tastes for better or worse lean more towards literary fiction and non-fiction, which are not so plentiful. But by fate I have been finding some very good books to read, and they are often ones I would have never picked up had I been presented with more choices.  Although I haven’t been employed as a librarian for a while, I still consider myself one, and reading these books has been excellent professional development for me. Here’s a few of the reads I have recently enjoyed:

All the King’s Men  - Robert Penn Warren: Not to be confused with All the President’s Men, although it could superficially be called a political novel. I was blown away by the mood setting opening scene which describes a drive down a two lane blacktop. Narrated by Jack Burden, a former newspaper writer who is employed by Governor Willie Stark, this is a powerful novel about the rise and fall of the Governor, but with Burden's personal story reluctantly but gradually revealed. Complex and layered, with a grand cast of characters.

A Thousand Acres – Jane Smiley: The story of what happens to a farming family when the father decides to legally sign over his land as a corporation to be controlled by his daughters and their husbands. The  tragic events that follow are inevitable and irreversible, but the resilience and inner strength of the narrator makes her a character to admire.

Please Look After Mom – Kyung-Sook Shin: Translated from Korean, this was a very emotional read about a mother who disappears at the train station having come from the rural countryside to visit her adult children in the city of Seoul. Poetically told from the character’s different view-points – the mother’s and husband’s as well as the children’s.

Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri: A quiet but beautifully written collection of short stories about the experiences of Indian immigrants. Lahiri has a wonderful way of making the opening sentence of each story a hint of all that follows.