Recent Reading

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE: A MEMOIR OF WAR, DISASTERS, AND SURVIVIAL By Anderson Cooper

Anderson Cooper's surprisingly personal and often gruesome account of the tragedies both in his own life and that which he covered as a foreign correspondent over the years: Somalia, Niger, Bosnia, Rwanda, Israel, Iraq, Tsunami, Katrina. Cooper witnessed some of the most horrific events in human history and many of the detailed descriptions of the plight of those he met and the condition of the corpses he had seen are hauntingly disturbing and disturbingly haunting. As a Vanderbilt, he certainly grew up rich and comfortable but also continuously puts himself at the front lines and in some of the most harrowing corners of the world. He also revealed in this book the deep sadness he feels for the deaths of his father and older brother and dedicated considerable length of this not-lengthy book recounting his childhood memories of them.

Memorable Quotes:

"[I]n truth, the world is constantly shifting: shape and size, location in space. It's got edges and chasms, too many to count. They open up, close, reappear somewhere else. Geologists may have mapped out the planet's tectonic plates - hidden shelves of rock that grind, one against the other, forming mountains, creating continents - but they can't plot the fault lines that run through our heads, divide our hearts. The map of the world is always changing; sometimes it happens overnight. All it takes is the blink of any eye, the squeeze of a trigger, a sudden gust of wind. Wake up and your life is perched on a precipice; fall asleep, it swallows you whole."

"To my mom and dad, and the spark of recognition that brought them together."