I set a goal for my self in January to read 52 books by the end of 2013.  When I developed Pneumonia in the middle of January and was home sick through most of February I was able to plow through quite a few books.  Here are few that I enjoyed, hopefully I’ll have more books to recommend soon.

Do you have book suggestions?  What have you been reading this year?  What has made an impact?

Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain 

I gave this four stars.  Tharps tells the story of growing up African American in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, dreaming about Spain.  When she spends the year abroad in Spain she is surprised at the racism that she encounters.  Eventually Tharps falls in love and marries a Spaniard.  As a white American woman married to a black Caribbean man there were pieces of their cross-cultural interracial marriage multi-national marriage that I could relate to.  One of the most interesting pieces of the story comes at the end when she uses her career as a journalist to research the African history (especially the slave trade) in southern Spain where almost no-one knows that there is any black history at all.

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Sheryl Sandberg has been everywhere lately.

Her TED talk:

Time Magazine:

I gave this five stars.  This book urges women to sit at the table – in other words – to fully participate in the business of work.  Another of her key ideas is to “not leave before you leave.”   She tells of women who start holding back in their careers in order to prep for having children years before they are pregnant, married or even in a relationship.  Yes, many women do need to take time off for maternity leave, or even to stay home with children which does slow down their career growth, but there is no reason to slow down before one needs to.  This is a book that I will re-read again.

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

The title of this book comes from a Chinese proverb that women hold up half the sky.  Kristoff and WuDunn, tell stories of the oppression of women around the world and explain how investments in and the empowerment of local women leads to great changes in the local economy, education and health outcomes.

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