Book Group - Cheshire County Democrats

Hello Everyone,

 

We had a good turnout last night and a very good discussion of $20 Per Gallon, by Christopher Steiner.  Thank you Cyndy for that recommendation.

 

For next month, we will be reading The Punishment of Virtue:  Walking the Frontline of the War on Terror with a Woman Who Has Made it Her Home, by Sarah Chayes.  We are going to meet on Tuesday night, December 1, 6:30 PM in the Foodcourt at Colony Mill Marketplace. I hope you can join us.

 

Linda Cates

From Publishers Weekly

"Afghanistan only uncovers itself with intimacy, and intimacy takes time," writes Chayes, a skilled but increasingly frustrated journalist, whose determination "to grasp the underlying pattern" during and after the toppling of the Taliban in late 2001 chafes against her editors' post-9/11 comfort zone. With keen sympathy for Afghanistan's indomitable people, Chayes eventually swaps NPR and its four-and-a-half-minute slots for an NGO, becoming "field director" of Afghans for Civil Society, spearheaded by Qayum Karzai, the president's brother. ACS's humanitarian work, which includes rebuilding a bombed-out village, brings Chayes into direct conflict with the warlords with whom U.S. policy remains disastrously entangled. This is the point of her engrossing narrative, which begins in Pakistan, inside the U.S.-backed Afghan resistance pushing northward to Kandahar, and is framed by the 2005 murder of police chief Zabit Akrem, a key ally in the fight against Kandahar's corrupt warlord-governor. Throughout, Chayes relies on exceptional access and a felicitous prose style, though she sacrifices some momentum to cover several centuries of Afghanistan's turbulent past in an account that adds little to those by Ahmed Rashid and others. However, her hands-on experience as a deeply immersed reporter and activist gives her lucid analysis and prescriptions a practical scope and persuasive authority

October: $20.00 Per Gallon

Hello Everyone,

 

For October, we are reading $20.00 Per Gallon:  How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better, by Christopher Steiner.  We will meet on Wednesday evening, October 28th, 6:30 PM at the Food Court at Colony Mill Marketplace. I hope to see you then.

 

Linda Cates

 

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. According to Steiner, senior staff reporter at Forbes magazine, surging fuel prices will transform Americans' daily lives almost beyond recognition. With traditional energy sources disappearing and global demand soaring, the U.S. will confront gas prices rocketing to $6, $8, $14 and beyond—prices that will compel sweeping changes in everything from urban planning to food production. He reveals the consequences of each incremental hike in gas prices: at $8 per gallon, air travel will essentially vanish; at $14 a gallon, Wal-Mart stores will become empty "ghost boxes"; when gas hits $16 a gallon, sushi will become an extravagance only for the extremely wealthy. While many changes will come at tremendous social and economic cost, Steiner envisions a better future, where human ingenuity will spur greater efficiency and less waste. Although it's unlikely all the author's predictions will come true—he goes so far as to forecast the order in which airlines will go out of business—the surprising snapshots of the future (where rising gas prices might revitalize Detroit) make for vivid and compelling reading.

Hello Everyone,

 

For October, we are reading $20.00 Per Gallon:  How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better, by Christopher Steiner.  We will meet on Wednesday evening, October 28th, 6:30 PM at the Food Court at Colony Mill Marketplace. I hope to see you then.

 

Linda Cates

 

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. According to Steiner, senior staff reporter at Forbes magazine, surging fuel prices will transform Americans' daily lives almost beyond recognition. With traditional energy sources disappearing and global demand soaring, the U.S. will confront gas prices rocketing to $6, $8, $14 and beyond—prices that will compel sweeping changes in everything from urban planning to food production. He reveals the consequences of each incremental hike in gas prices: at $8 per gallon, air travel will essentially vanish; at $14 a gallon, Wal-Mart stores will become empty "ghost boxes"; when gas hits $16 a gallon, sushi will become an extravagance only for the extremely wealthy. While many changes will come at tremendous social and economic cost, Steiner envisions a better future, where human ingenuity will spur greater efficiency and less waste. Although it's unlikely all the author's predictions will come true—he goes so far as to forecast the order in which airlines will go out of business—the surprising snapshots of the future (where rising gas prices might revitalize Detroit) make for vivid and compelling reading.