Book 42: Second Suns

If you're interested in global health and global poverty, this is a very readable look at the power of eye surgery to improve lives. Second Suns follows the lives and work of two eye surgeons and the work they do to provide cataract and other eye surgery to people with preventable blindness.

The methods used by these two surgeons to bring sight to as many people as possible are inspiring.

Book 17: The Rent Collector

This book is apparently a fictional account based on true events. I found some parts of it hard to believe, though it was a good read.

Sometimes I felt that the reasoning displayed by the illiterate garbage picker was so deep that it was hard to suspend my disbelief. However, there were some really lovely parts that seem like they were more likely the factual aspects of the story.

Book 1 of 2014: The International Bank of Bob

I've lowered the bar considerably for 2014, as we prepare for the arrival of not one, but *two* babies. If I read more than 26 books this year, so much the better! But we'll see what happens.

I started this one in 2013 but didn't finish it until January 1. I was almost sad to see it end. Bob Harris had a moment of cognitive dissonance while writing about luxury travel around the world, seeing the migrant workers who build the luxury hotels and the women earning $2 a day cleaning them. He invested the earnings from the travel writing in microloans through Kiva.org.



This was such a delight to read. It was funny and touching, and full of empathy. Bob seems to see his family and himself in almost everyone he encounters around the world.

Come join me on Kiva!

Book 78: The Idealist

I was so excited to read this. And it really was fantastic.



In 2005, economist Jeffrey Sachs wrote a book called The End of Poverty, in which he outlined specific steps that could be taken to alleviate the world's most extreme poverty. His passion about the subject is really quite inspiring--basically, he challenges people to either sit back and allow their fellow human beings to suffer and die, or to do something about extreme poverty.

The book follows the funding and establishment of Millenium Villages, where Sachs' ideas were put into practice. Sadly, there are a lot of unintended consequences of all of these ideas, and things don't turn out quite as anyone expected.