So last Saturday, while my wife was at an Antiques appraisal in Beverly, I dropped off the last few boxes of clothes and Christmas decorations of my mother’s at Goodwill. Now I can’t go to Goodwill without check out the used books. I took a quick look through the books and picked up The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry, an early Cotton Mather book, a couple of others look ok. Then I looked up at the sign that said Books 4 for $ 1.00 ok I have to look a little more closely now. After the second look I found three more hardback books. Monster by Frank Peretti, an interesting horror book that I think I’ve looked at in the past in the Bargain Books at Barnes and Noble, Jacksdaws by Ken Follett because I know my wife likes Ken Follett. Of course, I bring it home and the first thing my wife says is “Is there Sex in it? No one writes sex scenes better than Ken Follett” Soon she’s reading away. Me: “You found one?” K: “yes, page 242!” 
The last book that I picked up was Stones into Schools:Promoting Peace with books, not bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea. Now I have seen Three Cups of Tea but never took the time to see what it was about – mistake. The book is about Mortenson’s quest to build a school in Korphe, Pakistan. Three cups of tea refers to a Balti saying “The first cup of tea you share with us, you are a stranger. The second cup of tea, you are a friend. But with the third cup of tea, you become family – and for our family we are willing to do anything, even die” I love it! Stones into Schools picks up where the earlier book ends in 2003 and traces Mortenson and his non-profit Central Asia Institutes’ efforts to work in a whole new country, the northeast corner of Pakistan.
One of the major aspects of the Mortenson’s quest to build schools is to help educate the girls of Pakistan and Afghanistan, for the simple reason as stated by Amartya Sen. Young women are the biggest potential agents of change in the developing world, a phenomenon known as the Girl Effect. When hearing this Mortenson was reminded of an African proverb he had heard growing up in Tanzania “If you teach a boy, you educate an individual, but if you teach a girl, you educate a community” Anyway the book reminds me of the work that Jonathan Kozol has done over the last 25 years in the South Bronx and I am really looking forward to reading it – along with the others, great finds for a buck!!
But the shopping spree did not end there! I always check out the electronics equipment and among the equipment was a Denon cassette deck. Now I’ve thrown all of my cassette decks out – mistake – when you have a lot of old cassette that can be converted to mp3s! The cost was $7.99 again worth the price. When I went to the counter to pay the girl rang up the total $5.34. Ok is that right I thought? Then I looked up and saw that anything with a white or blue tag (mine was blue) was 50% off! So for $5.34 I bought 4 hardback books and a tape deck. Not bad at all. I left a happy camper!!
