What I’m reading, January 2012

Everything Is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer, by Duncan J. Watts
The role of “common sense,” if there is such a thing, in making
choices and plans for the future. Sociologist/physicist Watts shows how we understand less about human behavior than we think, and attempts to predict, manage, or manipulate social and economic systems often go awry.
The Man of Property (The Forsyte Saga, Volume I), by John Galsworthy
Overlooked this classic for years, but since it was first published in England in 1906, I have an excuse. This pictures a capitalist, upper-middle-class family with its customs, emotional turmoil, lifestyle, and the times of the late 1800s.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander
A thought-provoking, fascinating, and well researched commentary about the current state of racial discrimination in the US. It hasn’t disappeared; it’s disguised as anti-crime. An eye-opener.
White Noise, by Don DeLillo
I missed this winner of the 1985 National Book Award when it was first published. Dark, satirical, crammed full of American life with all its highs and lows, protagonist and professor Gladney and his family address major questions and issues of life.

Bonnie McCune, author