I’m Thankful for Books: Part 2

Part 2 of our series about what books we’re thankful for this Thanksgiving… We hope you’ll share what books you’re thankful for in the comments below.

(You can read Part 1 here.)

“My Friends, The Wild Chimpanzees” by Baroness Jane Van Lawick-Goodall and Hugo Van Lawick, photographer (National Geographic Society, 1967)
from Becky Meloan, Author Recruitment Committee
I am most grateful for this book which introduced me to Jane Goodall and her work with chimpanzees. I checked it out of the library when I was in high school, and reading it transported me from my living room in Toledo, Ohio, to the jungles of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. I developed a passion for anthropology, and went on to major in it in college. Jane Goodall’s single-minded dedication to her causes of conservation and animal welfare has inspired me my whole life. I admire the way she has trail-blazed a path for women in both her study and her activism. Her work has not been without controversy. Some say by doing things like giving her subjects names instead of numbers she anthropomorphized them, and compromised her research. I say I am grateful she did, and wrote a book that captured my imagination and taught me about another world.

A Trio of Thanks
from Gene Taft, Author Recruitment Committee
I’m thankful for good coming-of-age novels: “A Separate Peace,” “Great Expectations,” and “Sometimes a Great Notion.”

I loathe bad coming-of-age novels: “A Catcher in the Rye” and “The Secret History.”

I am also thankful that I didn’t go see the new movie version of “The Great Gatsby,” one of my other favorite novels.