Books to read

Heard some fascinating authors this week:

Today it was this guy on NPR, Bart Ehrman, who wrote Jesus Interrupted. He was a very devout, fundamentalist Christian for many years, and studied the bible in Greek. But the more he learned, the more he was forced to face the inconsistencies. His book catalogs those - the subtitle is "Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)." Now he considers himself agnostic. I'll bet his book is terrific.

I also heard this author, Diane Ravitch, who wrote The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She is deep! She helped create No Child Left Behind and now she completely disavows it. Very interesting and compelling speaker, and I'm sure her book is a great read - maybe she can shed some light on this difficult but extremely important topic.

Also heard the author of The Blind Side and Liar's Poker, Michael Lewis, talking about his new book, about the financial meltdown (which I am just starting to understand), The Big Short. Sounds very illuminating.

Also this week, my friend Janet sent me a link to a book that she's reading now, Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof & Cheryl WuDunn, about women around the world - the subtitle is "Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide." I've heard about this many times now and know of several book clubs that read it. I put it on my To Read list - way overdue.