"Power is of two kinds..."

The two books I read last week reminded me of this quote by Gandhi:

"Power is of two kinds.  One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love.  Power based on love is a thousand more times effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment."

Each of the following, the first a debut novel and the second a non-fiction travelogue/memoir/business-economics genre, has a lot to offer:

Wash by Margaret Wrinkle (2013)

Wash, a young slave, is followed in this story as he loves the local healer, also a slave, as he is bred by his owner for money, and as he recalls his life with his mother who was bought while pregnant with him, his destiny a fait accompli.

Richardson is the relatively kind slaveowner, Revolutionary War veteran, chosen by Wash's mother rather than the other way around.

Detail transporting you to the moment but not weighing you down makes Wash a realistic historical slave narrative.  

This novel spans West Africa and the American South telling the story from the points of view of the slaves and the slaveowners.  So many stories, voices we should never forget.


The International Bank of Bob: Connecting Our Worlds One $25 Kiva Loan at a Time by Bob Harris (2013)

This book is many things:  a travelogue, a memoir and an most interestingly, an introduction to microlending in developing countries.

When ForbesTraveler.com hired Harris to stay at various elite hotels around the world and write about the accommodations, his experience in Dubai and the juxtaposition of extreme wealth backed against dire poverty opened his eyes to the dichotomy of people drinking $136 cups of coffee just feet away from impoverished men working for under $10 a day.  He wanted to do something about it and discovered the world of microfinance.

Kiva.org, an organization that facilitates loans for individuals in countries around the globe, has a repayment rate over 98%.  The motivation for many borrowers is to be able to send their children to school, knowing the best way to get out of poverty is education.  Hard to argue with that.

Also explored are the failures of microloans and the reasons why.

Depending on your opinion of footnotes, this book could be quite enjoyable.  For me, the footnotes, although often educational, were a distraction that disrupted the flow of the book.

I read, therefore I am,
the lowercase b