Title: Black Like Me
by: John Howard Griffin

Summary: 
A memoir set back in the 1950's about a Caucasian journalist named John Howard Griffin who decided to change his skin pigmentation (by darkening it) and live as a black man in the deep south (New Orleans, Alabama, Georgia) for almost 2 months. His experiment was to see how people would treat him, even people who knew him, but didn't know he'd undergone this experiment. He became close to and worked with other black men, got forced to use other restrooms, soda fountains, etc. right along with his fellow black men. 
He would sometimes see signs like this hanging around:
DESEGREGATE THE BUSES WITH THESE 7 POINTS:
1. Pray for guidance. 
2.Be courteous & friendly. 
3. Be neat & clean. 
4. Avoid loud talk. 
5. Do not argue. 
6. Report incidents immediately. 
7. Overcome evil with good
Griffin learned quickly of how evil racism was; how the hate and prejudice ran deep for the race more than for an individual, even when he switched back to his life as a white man. He was rejected by most of his community and he was considered an exclusive lover of blacks and a hater of whites. But he had undergone the change because he wanted to better things for black people, and felt a study in racism of a country that vehemently denied it would be the best way to bring attention to the issues in the United States.  Sadly, his family was bullied and mistreated as a result of his work and they had to move away from Texas, but it was inspiring how dedicated he was to living a life in another man's shoes, and how he continued to answer questions and appear at councils to try to unify communities after his experiment concluded. 


Notable quotes: 
*"The transformation was total & shocking. I was imprisoned in the flesh of an utter stranger, an unsympathetic one with who I felt no kinship. All traces of the John Griffin I had been were wiped from existence." 

*"The laughter had to be gross or it would turn to sobs and to sob would be to realize and to realize would be to despair."

*"My deepest shock came with the gradual realization that this was not a matter of 'inconvenience' but rather a total change in living." 
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*"This attitude cropped up often. Many otherwise decent men & women could find no other solution.  They are willing to degrade themselves to their basest levels to prevent the traditional laborer from rising in status or, to put it bluntly from 'winning,' even though what he wins has been rightfully his from the moment he was born into the human race." 

*"Night coming tenderly 
Black like me." 

*"One can scarcely conceive the full horror of it unless one is a parent who takes a close look at his children and then asks himself how he would feel if a group of men should come to his door & tell him they had decided--- for reasons of convenience to them-- that his children's lives would henceforth be restricted, their world smaller, their educational opportunities less, their future mutilated."  

*"Let us be peaceful, but the only way to do this is first to assure justice; by keeping peaceful in this instance, we end up consenting to the destruction of all peace--for so long as we condone injustice by a small but powerful group, we condone the destruction of all social stability, all real peace, & all trust in man's good intentions toward his fellow man." 

My Rating: 
4/5 (mainly because it was such heavy material and used a fair amount of language.) 

Title: The Hiding Place
by: Corrie Ten Boom 

Summary: 
This is a book that reminds us to be Christ-like & "grateful in every circumstance." The Ten Boom family, a Christian family living in Holland, take it upon themselves to help the Jews trying to escape the oppressive Nazi occupation during World War II. Corrie & her sister Betsie teach some of the most tender lessons about how to love & forgive our enemies, and how to show gratitude for every little thing.   Also, there isn't any language in this book, & although it's a wartime book, it has such a positive spin on it that it differs greatly from many other WWII books. 
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Favorite Quotes: 
"God's viewpoint is sometimes different from ours-- so different that we could not even guess at it unless HE had given us a Book that tells us such things. God values us not for our strength or our brains, but simply because he has made us." 

This psalm lends credence to the title- "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, & a light unto my path... Thou art my hiding place & my shield."  
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"Happiness isn't something that depends on our surroundings..it is something we make inside of ourselves." 

"This was evil's hour; we could not run away from it. Perhaps only when human effort had done its best & failed, would God's power alone be free to work." 

"There are no 'if's' in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety."  

"If people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love!"

My Rating:
​5 Stars!

Lale The Tattooist of Auschwitz 
by: Heather Morris 

Summary: 
The horrors of concentration camp life (from imprisonment, physical & sexual abuse, manual labor to illnesses & death in the crematoriums) during World War II are adequately portrayed in this historical fiction. We follow the lives of Lale & Gita most closely, although most of the third person point of view details Lale's life. Lale & Gita fall in love at the concentration camp, where life is not a guaranteed certainty from day to day. They both suffer illnesses, (typhoid) but are spared from the death wagon. As Lale points out, they all do what they have to do to survive; he becomes the camp Tattooist or "Tatowierer," even though it pains him to defile the skin of his fellow Jews (especially the women.)  Lale is a good, determined man, though, & he is very resourceful; that is what allows him to make his escape from the Vienna camp. 

Book Quotes: 
"Work makes you free." 

"Choosing to live is an act of defiance, a form of heroism." 

"The twinkling of stars overhead is no longer a comfort. They merely remind him of the chasm between what life can be & what it is now." 

My Rating: 4.5 or 5 stars! So good!!!

Title: The Happiness Paradox/Paradigm
by: Richard Eyre


Summary:
Eyre outlines the keys to finding our happiness paradigm and on the flip side (there are two sides to the book) identifies those factors that keep us from finding true happiness. He presents control, ownership & independence are the three deceivers & the alternatives: serendipity, stewardship, & synergicity.
I like the idea that you start with the negative (paradox) side & then switch to the other side & end on a positive note, learning about how to create a happiness paradigm. It's one of the best self-help books I've read in a long time! And I love his tips for creating an anti-planner to combat the need to always stay busy & achieving.


Favorite Quotes:
"The deceiver of ownership refers tot he prideful form that forgets both the source and the nature of our gifts. The term stewardship is the accurate acknowledgement of where it all came from and whose it all is."

"The problem is that,in the big game of life, we try to control timing, but actually have so little ability to manage it. A whole, giant industry has grown up called "time management." But we don't actually manage time-- we only hope to manage ourselves within time, trying to make good use of our time & to spend it on important things."
"Stewardship is the understanding that we really own nothing & that things merely pass through us & through our lives-- things we can care for, take responsibility for & find joy in."
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"Setbacks & failures happen more frequently & are more exposed to others than ever before. Everything we can't control & even everything we have to admit that we need, undermines our self status & can edge us toward discouragement & depression."


"Good askers are good listeners; they are willing to watch and wait."


"And the unfortunate thing is that most of the false paradigms that we carry with us and pattern our lives around were not consciously and analytically figured out personally by each of us; rather, they were adopted from the 'norms' around us."

My rating: 4.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Title: Cost
by: Roxana Robinson
Book Summary: 
This is a complicated plot; it mostly follows the perspective of Julia, (mother to Steve & Jack & ex-wife of Wendell) who had an affair, divorced her husband for the same reason, & then moved in to take care of her parents in their old age. Her dad, a former neurosurgeon, is the one she's most like & thus she butts heads with him quite a bit & her mother, Katharine, is losing her mind due to Alzeheimer's.  She has to be reminded of things, even important events like Jack's intervention.  Harriet, Julia's sister, only comes around mid-book; she and Julia were estranged as young girls & have an awkward relationship. 
Julia's younger son, Jack, has been living in New York City & he's a heroin addict. He kept asking his parents for large amounts of money, claiming he was in a band. (He used to be a musician but he turns into a total junkie.) When he is really in heroin's clutches, his parents decide to have an intervention & hire a man named Carpenter, who helps bail Jack out of jail for petty crimes once he escapes the hospital, in pain from the withdrawals of heroin.) It's a pretty heavy book; there are some major gems as far as quotes & takeaway messages, but ultimately, it's very heartbreaking what Jack's addiction *costs* the entire family. 


Favorite Quotes: 
"People were so ready now to give up, throw everything away, but divorce was the solution to nothing." 

"Now of course, you were taught that any exchange between colonials and indigenous tribes was inequitable, but Julia chose to see the scene as benign. Blankets for furs was not a bad trade, and ​the blankets were heavy, warm, handsome. She chose to see the exchange through its beauty, and wasn't this the way you defined your vision of the world?"  

"You had to create your own balance, your own certainty. You had to find your own faith, you had to stand up for it against the assaults of logic and fear and the articulations of the whole critical world. You had to close your eyes to everything else, repeating your personal creed, reminding yourself of what you were doing, why you were doing it." 
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"You were judged all the time, by the critics, by your colleagues,your peers, your family. Your work & your life. You were judged as a person as well: there was some code, moral, ethical that underlay everything. She understood that she was always striving to be good, to be virtuous; she could not have said for whom."  

My Rating: 3 stars (mostly due to explicit language)