The Cheese and Candy Book Club

It's October so it's the month of spooky...what better book to read than one all about the lives of dead bodies. It's not just cadaver labs for those who donate their bodies to science. You have no idea how useful bodies can be after people are done with them. I loved this book. It's one of the most fascinating non-fiction books I've ever read. Slightly squeamish but totally eye opening. Enjoy it. It's not as bad as you think and way better than you expect.

Sorry I'm slow getting this up, but here is a review for the June book. I love this book, it's a fast read and packed with really interesting information.

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best of the Month, November 2008: Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."

Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples--and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps--Gladwell invites conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential. --Mari Malcolm

"Cannery Row in Monterey California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." -John Steinbeck Cannery Row This book is fiction, though in reality the place and the people are all real, written about a place Steinbeck lived and the people he knew there. The book was required reading for me in college before I went and spent a spring term studying Marine Biology in Monterey just down the street from Cannery Row itself. As we'd go out collecting animals from the same tidepools, I liked to imagine that my professor was Doc himself, the good parts about him at least. The place has changed from a row of factories to a tourist town, but many of the buildings and feelings the surroundings give are the same and reading this book brings back magical memories in my mind of one of the most wonderful summers in my life. It was almost like we read the book and then lived out our own version of it for a summer. Obviously everyone won't have the same feelings about this book as I have, but I still love it, the characters, the descriptions, and the ideals of a simple life in a friendly community, making do with what you have and enjoying it. Don't expect much of a plot, it's more about a place that Steinbeck loved and him trying to convey the feelings it created. I get it, maybe it's because I also experienced and fell in love with the same place, but hopefully you guys can relate to it on some level. Enjoy!