A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides

David Rhode and Kristin Mulvihill's book, A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides, is one of those books that sounds great on paper. It has all the intrigue of a fabulous story--a kidnapping in a faraway land, the new bride at home tossed into the confusing, mysterious world of government agents and international agendas as she tries to free her new husband from the clutches of murderous extremists and a backdrop of international terrorism and religious zealotry. Rhode and Mulvihill manage to take that set of facts and make it into a dry, boring, tedious work that will desperately make you wish you weren't the type of person who finishes books that you start regardless of their quality.

Rhode is a Pulizter-prize winning journalist and his skill in writing and narrating isn't entirely lost in this dull, occasionally self-indulgent memoir/expose/snoozefest. Mulvihill's presence in the book adds an element of vacuous tedium, the voice of a powerless woman who spends her time pining for her husband with a ticking biological clock and a career built on the vanity and materialism of other vapid, dull women. Her portions of the book made me long for the riveting plots of Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer where his sections of the book reminded me of that dull history professor with a penchant for including family stories in his lectures.

I'd place this book in a category with Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea and that's a far better read.

Mockingjay

The last of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay is the weakest of the three books. Katniss and Peeta return to the arena, slated to fight to the death against other victors yet again. This time there's a rebellion underfoot and a handful of the victors escape the arena to stoke the flames of revolution. Peeta, however, is captured by the capital and thus, we have angst as Katniss and Gale team up to rescue Peeta from the clutches of the evil capitol, as Katniss takes her role in a manicured broadcast of rebellion. It's a very odd take on revolution and propaganda and unlike the empowered girl of the first two books, Katniss comes across very much as bumbling, meandering, powerless token of forces beyond her control. Her actions in this book seem fairly useless and ultimately contrived by those around her for their own benefit. After plowing through the first two books, I found this one something of a let down. And I hated what Collins did to Peeta. Sadistic bitch.

At any rate, after you've gone through the first two books, you really have to finish the third. And if you're into melodrama, you may enjoy it.

Catching Fire

The second of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire, picks up where The Hunger Games left off, with Katniss and Peeta as celebrated victors of the sadistic games. Katniss learns that they've inspired a rebellion among the districts against the oppressive rule of the Capital and that she has become the heroine of the rebels. She's also discovered that her best friend, Gale, has romantic feelings for her, creating an anticipated but groan-worthy love triangle for the remainder of the series.

Catching Fire manages to maintain the momentum and interest of The Hunger Games. The world that Collins has created is cruel and gory; it has all the elements to appeal to its target audience, vicious, blood-thirsty, romance-starved teenage girls and their adult counterparts. I liked it. The whole series is worth a go.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

In her first book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, writer Rebecca Skloot cleverly weaves a tale of scientific discovery with the story of a poor black woman who died of cancer in the 1950's. That woman was Henrietta Lacks, the body behind a cultured line of cells named HeLa that have done everything from traveling to outer space to playing an integral role in the development of the polio vaccine.

Skloot takes us through Lacks' childhood as a member of a poor, black sharecropping Southerner to her move to Baltimore where her husband found work in the steel factory during WWII. Her philandering husband most likely gave her the HPV that precipitated her cervical cancer, a slice of which ultimately became the first line of cells to be successfully cultured for experimentation. Her family had no idea that Lacks' cells were being used in this manner and eventually, when they did learn of it, they ultimately lacked the education to understand what a significant contribution to science the cells had made.

This is a story about science and about a poor black family, full of ignorance and tainted by poverty and illness even before birth. We may all be born equal in the eyes of the law, but Lacks' children were born touched by syphilis, with the accompanying impacts on IQ and competence. This narrative is both heartbreaking and stunningly effective in demonstrating the ethical dilemmas of research medicine, particularly when subjects are impoverished or unable to comprehend the implications of their participation. From a woman who doesn't understand the basic mechanics of cellular structure to researchers performing some of the most consequential and advanced cytological studies, Skloot manages to weave a true history of the women behind the cells, her descendants and the paradoxical centrality and irrelevance of their family to science.

Fascinating book. I highly recommend it.

The Price of Everything

Eduardo Porter's bestseller, The Price of Everything, is an economic exploration along the lines of Freakonomics, only not quite as interesting. That's not to say it's a bad book, just that if you only had time for one, I'd go with Freakonomics.

Porter examines the price of everyday goods and services before taking his book on a more interesting path as he examines the price of concepts and institutions, like happiness and marriage. He employs economics to explain why polygamy fell out of favor, why religion has the potential to make rational sense and why the recording industry had to destroy Napster but may have gone about it in a stupid way.

Overall, I liked the book. If you're looking for some interesting dinner conversation, it provides some relevant, timely fodder.

The Purpose Driven Life

Rick Warren's bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?, found its way into my library queue after several years of procrastination. I'm not particularly religious, but I was sufficiently curious to pick the book up and see what Warren has to say.

While obviously, this book would speak far more profoundly to an active Christian than to a secular humanist, I thought it was a pretty accurate representation of what it means to be a Christian and how being a Christian can give your life purpose, meaning and dignity no matter how small your talents or capacities. If you're interested in the Christian faith or what churchy-folk believe, it's not a bad place to start, though it's not really written as a conversion text, but more as a galvanizing book for those already somewhat familiar with Christian principles.

It's not for everyone and since I don't read Christian literature all that often, I can't speak to how it compares to other Christian texts. But it's well-written and those far more spiritually wise than me seem to like it.

Half The Sky

NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, collaborated on Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a sobering look at the appalling conditions that women endure around the world and how contributions of time and money are making substantial changes on both an individual and a societal level. This book is Kristof and WuDunn's call to arms and I think it would be incredibly challenging to read it and not be moved to participate in some way to help the women and children profiled in its pages.

In topics varying from forced prostitution to unhealed obstetrical fistulas, Kristof and WuDunn take stock of the condition of women in third-world countries and the very real challenges to helping them in any meaningful way. They highlight people like Greg Mortensen (of Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time fame) who are working in hostile or challenging environments to promote education and public health. They examine successes and failures in international aid approaches and after ripping your guts out with horrific stories of war survivors and rescued prostitutes, they let you know how you can help.

There's nothing light about this book. If Kristoff and WuDunn's intention is to stoke people into helping women, to raise consciousness to prompt action, they've succeeded brilliantly.

If I have one criticism of the book, it's that Kristoff and WuDunn are clearly liberals and at times, their policy analysis reeks of that bias. However, the focus of the book is NOT politics and it would be a mistake to ignore it on that basis.

Worth reading.