WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING LATELY

Talking To Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown, $36.99. How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus assaults on the rise? And why do so many interactions end with tragic, unanticipated consequences?

Using examples from history, psychology and pulling cases straight from news headlines, Malcolm Gladwell asserts that this is because we are unable to make sense of people we don’t know.

He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, cases of pedophiles who got away for years, and suicides in police custody, and says this happens because we don’t know how to talk to strangers. That when we can’t decipher the signals we are receiving, we default to what we think or want to believe, sometimes against all evidence to the contrary. Presenting gut-wrenching evidence in case after case, he poses this question: Why can’t we tell when the stranger in front of us is lying to our face? Because, he asserts, “we believe that the information gathered from a personal interaction is uniquely valuable”.

Gladwell quotes from a study conducted by Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan and others that compared the rulings of judges with “rulings” that a computer fed with the facts of the case came up with. The judges released a certain number of people awaiting trial and the computer released a certain number, too. But the people on the computer’s list were 25 per cent less likely to commit a crime while out on bail. Could it be that sometimes, personal interactions get in the way of us making sense of the signals we are receiving? Gladwell also brings in that enduringly popular show, Friends. The actors’ faces portray their emotions so accurately that even those who don’t understand a word of the language get the plot. But the danger lies in thinking that everyone will perform in a similar manner in a similar situation. Life is not Friends, he cautions.

Translated From the Gibberish by Anosh Irani, Knopf Canada, $24.95. The stories of a swimming instructor in Mumbai; a famous Indian chef who breaks down on a New York talk show; a gangster’s wife; an illegal immigrant in Vancouver and a kindly sweets-shop owner are bookended by pages from Irani’s own life between worlds – “I have two homes, and I have neither” – blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

Twenty years ago, Anosh Irani had left India for Canada, a country completely foreign to him, believing he would reinvent himself as a writer. I was on my way to becoming a flammable object. That’s what writers are. And I knew I had it in me, this innate ability to combust.

He did just that, publishing critically acclaimed novels and plays. But he adds a cautionary note for young people:

Please think hard before pursuing a career in the fine arts. There’s nothing fine about it. All things fine – fine wine, fine food, fine homes, fine cars, fine art, especially fine art – are enjoyed by other people, people who listen to their parents and to society.

And at the end of the book, this: No one in my family reads my work either. They buy my books as gifts to give to others, as one would a T-shirt or a perfume.

There are truths in the other stories, too. Of the illegal immigrant Abdul, who imagines what being Canadian would feel like.

To be able to sit at Tim Hortons and have a doughnut without feeling like a thief... to afford an iPhone, to call Fido, as Qadir bhai did, and give his full name and address and date of birth and make a complaint, or demand a better deal.

A lot of truths in a few short stories.

Hippie by Paulo Coelho, Knopf, $34.95. Drawing on the rich experience of his own life, Paulo Coelho takes us on a journey through South America, Europe and then on the fabled hippie trail to Nepal.

Everything in the book really happened, he writes in his brief intro, but Coelho describes the adventures of a young Paulo in the third person in order to give characters their unique voices.

Each of the characters is fascinating, with their own stories. Like Rahul, who compares him to Arjuna and then lets him off the hook.

Okay, Paulo, you’re not Arjuna, the all-powerful general who feared wounding his enemies because he was a good man, and Krishna didn’t like what he was hearing because Arjuna was granting himself power that wasn’t his to take. You are Paulo, you come from a distant country, you have moments of bravery and moments of cowardice, as we all do.

The Poetry Remedy by William Sieghart, Viking, $27. You don’t need to be a poet to find solace in poetry, William Sieghart writes in his introduction, describing how it came to his rescue when he was an unhappy little boy in a boarding school.

The founder of the Poetry Pharmacy prescribes poems that are the perfect cure for any situation or feeling. Readers will find old favourites from Pablo Neruda, Maya Angelou and Rudyard Kipling, as well as a host of other poets.

For Loneliness, he prescribes My Brilliant Image by Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky:

I wish I could show you,

When you are lonely or in darkness,

The Astonishing Light

Of your own Being!

The perfect remedy for February blahs.

The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee, Vintage, $21. Calcutta, 1967. A brutal prologue that reads like a Satyajit Ray screenplay leads into the story of Supratik Ghosh who, unnoticed by his family, has become dangerously involved in political activism.

Compelled by an idealistic desire to change his life and the world around him, all he leaves behind before disappearing is a note.

The others are people who are nothing, “whose lives are nothing, who have nothing”.

Has The West Lost It? by Kishore Mahbubani, Penguin, $19.99. In this slim book – barely 90 pages – Kishore Mahbubani posits that the West has refused to adapt to the times. That while “enormous improvement in the human condition is a result of a slow process of Western ideas and best practices seeping into other societies,” there is currently, a blindness of Western elites. He prescribes a simple dose of Machiavelli.

The Joyous Science by Friedrich Nietzsche, Penguin, $22. In my university days I picked up Fried-rich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra because it was fashionable to do so. Much of it was unfathomable to my teenage mind, but when I picked it up again later in life, it offered valuable lessons. The Joyous Science, which Nietzsche described as a “book of exuberance, restlessness and April showers”, is another inspirational read.

Ice Boy by David Ezra Stein, Candlewick, $21.99. What happens to Ice Boy when he doesn’t listen to his parents? He discovers whole new states of being!

My Name Isn’t Oof! by Michael Calligan, Illustrated by Jeremiah Trammel, Little Bigfoot, $17.99. A fledgeling’s first attempt to fly results in a resounding “oof!”. Other forest animals give him lots of helpful advice. But will Warren try again?

Lauren Neil’s Teen Review of I Do Not Trust You by Laura J. Burns and Melinda Metz, Wednesday Books, $15.32. This is an adventure novel that is both interesting and annoying at the same time.

On the one hand, I found its focus on the archaeological side of ancient cultures and mythology rather interesting and unique. I found the premise of decoding long dead languages and uncovering mythical artifacts different from most stories that bring ancient mythologies into the modern world. Its fast pace also ensured engagement.

However, Memphis, the main character, was absolutely obnoxious. She was pretentious, rude and egotistical. She was also stubborn, to the point that she would ignore evidence right in front of her so that she didn’t have to change her worldview, which was strange since we were led to believe that intelligence was one of her biggest strengths. It was as though the authors were so focused on making her powerful, capable and strong-willed that they forgot to make her likable. Usually, one bad character may not seem capable of ruining an entire book, but she is the main character, you have to put up with her in nearly every scene, and it gets tiresome .

But I managed to get past that, and if you can as well then the book is worth a read

• Lauren Neil is a grade 9 student and a member of Brampton Library’s Teen Library Council.