BOOK REVIEW OF, With Charity for All: Why Charities Are Failing and a Better Way to Give By Ken Stern Reviewed by Mark D. Walker Former NPR CEO analyses the not for profit sector he knows so well. At the very beginning he states, “This book is not my story. This is a story about how the charitable sector lost its way.” The scope of the charitable sector the author critiques is immense and very complex–1.1 million organizations, 10% of the national workforce, and $1.5 trillion in annual revenues. The sector continues to grow and yet as the author contends, […]
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Book Review – Non-fiction: WINNERS TAKE ALL: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
WINNERS TAKE ALL: The Elite Charade of Changing the World By Anand Giridharadas Reviewed by Mark D. Walker Based on a growing awareness of the increased income inequality in the U.S. and around the world, this insider’s investigation on how global elites promote “global change” at least partially has resulted in it being one of the most read books in the country at this time. The author also tells how this group ends up preserving the status quo and obscures the role these same “experts” play, causing some of the same problems they seek to solve. This former New York […]
Continue readingBook Review – Latin America: Voices From Exile
Voices From Exile By Victor Montejo Reviewed by Mark D. Walker As a lifelong learner of Guatemala and its history, I came across this author through an earlier book I’d read in Spanish, “The Adventures of Mister Puttison and the Mayas.” Then, just this year I came across this book while researching a documentary on migration entitled “Guatemala: Trouble in the Highlands.” While the earlier book was satirical, and related to cross-cultural norms and conflicts, this book tells the tragic story of Mayans being forced from their land during the “Civil War” of the 1980s. After copious research and interviews […]
Continue readingBook Review – About Writing: Virginia Woolf: A Writer’s Diary
Virginia Woolf: A Writer’s Diary Edited by Leonard Woolf Reviewed by Mark D. Walker I knew that Virginia Woolf was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century and understood that she’s transformed the art of the novel with her ground- breaking works of Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. I’d soon learn that she was the author of numerous collections of letters, journals and short stories and an admired literary critic and master of the essay, so she was someone I needed to become familiar with. I assumed that she was also the inspiration of Edward Albee’s […]
Continue readingBook Review – Fiction: Town of Angels
Town of Angels by Jody Sharpe Reviewed by Mark D. Walker This inspirational book proves the power of the human spirit to move on despite incredible tragedy and personal loss. The author’s daughter, Kate, was killed in a tragic accident and then her husband died, and during a difficult period where many would have succumbed to despair, she had a dream in which a voice told her to read “Charlotte’s Web,” by E.V. White, which is a children’s book. Initially she didn’t know why she should read it until the last line of the book revealed that, “Nobody would take […]
Continue readingBook Review – Travel: Topographies
Topographies by Stephen Benz Reviewed by Mark D. Walker I was drawn to this book because the author had written about my favorite part of the world, Guatemala, as well as several parts of the Wild West. The reader is taken through a diversity of locations starting with the Everglades and the sad story of the mass killing of egrets. Forty to sixty hunters would descend and let loose a “barrage,” killing hundreds of birds. The author goes beyond the location and even its beauty with a dramatic focus on history. In Nebraska, we are introduced to the plight of […]
Continue readingBook Review – Latin America: The White Rose
The White Rose” by B. Traven Reviewed by Mark D. Walker B. Traven is a masterful storyteller who injects his worldview and philosophy, which focuses on the plight of the poor, especially the indigenous, rural population in Latin America, Asia and Africa into his novels. He’s written twelve novels, one non-fiction publication and several short stories, in which the sensational and adventurous subjects combine with a critical attitude towards capitalism. Although I’d heard of his best-known work, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, I had no idea who the author was, and after some investigation learned of a good deal […]
Continue readingBook Review – Latin America: The Mosquito Coast
The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux Reviewed by Mark D. Walker I recently came across an interview of Paul Theroux in “New York Times’” “By the Book” in which he reveals that ”The Mosquito Coast” was his favorite most personally meaningful book. He goes on to say, “…Over a period of two years, knowing it was a great idea and plot, I wrote confidently in rainy cold sedate London , and it is of course a book set in sunny warm anarchic Honduras,” at which point I realized that although I’d seen the movie, I’d never read the book! I’d […]
Continue readingBook Review – Non-fiction: The Line Becomes a River
The Line Becomes a River By Francisco Cantu Reviewed by Mark D. Walker I met the author at the “NONFICTIONNOW” conference late last year where over 400 non-fiction writers, teachers, and readers from around the world gathered to explore the past, present and future of nonfiction. Cantu was the keynote speaker and was interviewed at the iconic Orpheum Theater in downtown Phoenix. Listening to Cantú, it became obvious that the border was in the blood: his mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest. Driven to understand the hard realities […]
Continue readingBook Review – Latin America: The Guatemala Reader: History, Culture, Politics
The Guatemala Reader: History, Culture, Politics Edited by Greg Grandin, Deborah Levenson & Elizabeth Oglesby Reviewed by Mark D. Walker The Guatemala Reader is an impressive compilation of 200 texts in a broad, comprehensive introduction to Guatemala’s history, culture, and politics. I wish I had this when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the early 70s, or when studying for my Masters at the Institute of Latin America at the University of Texas later in the decade, not to mention over eight years working with different organizations, as these materials provide a wealth of insights into the beauty and […]
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