NEW: Suggested Reading List

I was going to report on my progress in my personal black belt requirements this week. But two things prompted me to delay until next week. The first is that I attended the first of the Leadership seminars organized by Sifu Playters. The point of these seminars is to help us carry out our project based leadership goals. Next week we are to submit our topic and a quick blurb explaining why we have chosen it. There will be discussion and help provided in a structured step-by-step format over the course of the seminars. At the end of the five weeks, we are to present our project to the class. I've decided to delay my blog about my progress on the project based leadership for week while I reflect on my submission to the leadership seminar. The other reason for the delay is that I have been encouraged to start some sort of a reading list highlighting some of the books I have read and would like to reccommend to others. I think the goal is for there to be some sort of exchange of reccommendations between everyone. Ideas included starting a thread on Kwoon talk, having a segment on the Silent River Kung Fu site, or just starting a list on my blog. So this week, to get things started, I have decided to blog about the NEW feature on the side panel of my posts, the 'Suggested Reading List'. Already, I find this tool inadequate because it is just a list, with no room for a quick synopsis or comments. Nevertheless, I need to start something, and then work with that.

The list is in no particular order.

"The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963; by Christopher Paul Curtis. I read this book to my daughters when they were in Elementary school, and to some of my younger students at a Junior High Outreach school when I was an Education Assistant. The book profoundly impacted both my daughters and my students. And of course, I ended up crying as I read parts of the book both times. I was reminded of this book after listening to Mr. Tymchuck talk about his visit to Alabama last month to help build a house for one of the local citizens. He spoke of his visit to the church where the two innocent young girls died when the church was bombed - an act of racism and hate. His comments reminded me of how important it was for us to know our history, how we got to the place we are at now, what things we should never take for granted, and why there is still some hate and resentment in some parts of our world. This book is reccommended for students age 9-12, but is a good read for adults also.

I Didn't Do it For You; How the World Used and Abused a Small African Nation; by Michela Wrong. I commented on this book a couple of posts ago, so I won't repeat myself.

An Illustrated Short History of Progress; by Ronald Wright. Sifu Laurie reccommended this book to me about a week ago. I highly agree with her reccommendation. Wright reviews our history of civilizations (Easter Island, Sumer or modern day Iraq, Mayan and Roman) and points out that, for the most part, they have dissappeared because of human's habit of using farming practices that destroy our environment, and our propensity towards destroying our natural resources. A really easy read, and incredibly impactful at the same time.

Diet for a Small Planet; by Frances Moore Lappe. I've just finished reading the introduction to this book. The introduction was written a few years ago. The book was first published twenty years ago. Frances Moore Lappe is a great antedote to the gloom and doom I was left feeling after reading Ronald Wright's book. She has an optimistic view of the possibilities for change that are required if this present global civilization is to be saved from collapse. In her introduction, she speaks about something called 'citizen democracy'. I believe that we should all be reading this book.

Collapse: by Jared Diamond. He is the same guy who wrote "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and an article that I had recently reccommended, called "What is Your Consumption Factor".
Same theme as the the last two books. Very informative.

Well, that's it for now. I expect that a better reading list will have categories, like 'civil rights', 'environmental issues', etc.