Pronto

I have been aware of Elmore Leonard for several years now, due to praise in magazines for his crime writing, the mention of his name in an Old 97's song, and because he created the character upon which the TV show Justified is based. However, I had not yet had a chance to read any of his work.

I chose Pronto, because I knew that it featured his character Raylan Givens, the lead from FX's Justified. As I was already familiar with the character, I thought it might be a great introduction to Elmore Leonard. The book was actually pretty great.I thoroughly enjoyed Leonard's writing style - it is casual and descriptive, reminding me of the way people actually observe the world.

The story centers around Harry Arno, a Miami bookie, with ties to the Mob. The Feds want an in to the Mob, so they spread rumors about Arno so that the Mob will make a move on him and the Feds can move in.This doesn't exactly work, but does in fact put a hit out on Arno. Aware of this, he flees to Italy, where he had previously served during the great war. Raylan is a figure in the story, as he was the US Marshal assigned to protect Arno. He gives chase to Italy in an effort to protect Arno and bring him back to the US. The end of the book actually ends with the beginning scene of Justified.

Pronto

Creating Campus Community: In Search of Ernest Boyer's Legacy

As we are rapidly approaching the end of the academic year, I have been doing a lot of reflecting on the work that we have done in the HRC so far. We came in with very ambitious ideas and have accomplished many of them. One of these is that of creating a strong community. As I start to think about next year, I have been thinking about ways to bolster what is already a robust community, in an effort to make it sustainable after those of us who started this endeavor move on to other tasks.

To this end, I have been thinking a lot about community and wanted to start reading a bit more about it. The first book I read was Creating Campus Community: In Search of Ernest Boyer's Legacy, by William McDonald (editor). This volume showed many examples of how various institutions have worked to construct community on their campuses. Each of the five campuses have recognized the impact that strong community has on student learning and invested resources to building community to that end. It posed some good points upon which to reflect, but probably the most inspiring aspects were the foreword and afterword by Parker Palmer.

Ironically, I was able to meet Dr.William McDonald the day after I finished reading the book, as he was at a table adjacent to ours at The Placement Exchange.

Creating Campus Community: In Search of Ernest Boyer's Legacy

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Having just finished Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, I was excited to read Douglas Adams’ follow up, The Long Dark Tea-Time of theSoul. While I thought the first book was fairly interesting, I found Tea-Time to be much funnier.

This novel focuses on Dirk Gently, far more than the previous book named after him. This book spends much more time on Dirk’s character. The novel itself focuses on the mystery of an explosion at an airport, the death of one of Dirk’s clients, and the Norse gods. Surprisingly, all of these stories come together into one unique plot.

As usual, Adams included plenty of funny observations, descriptions, and one-liners. I laughed aloud at several points during this book, something that reminded me of Adams’ Hitchhiker books. It is definitely worth a read if you enjoy Adams' writing and humor.