A Game of Character: Review and Giveaway

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”
~Michael Jordan

I am always eager to learn more about President Barack Obama. In the early days of my blog, I read and reviewed two of his books, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope. When I found out that the President's brother-in-law, Michelle Obama's older brother, college basketball coach Craig Robinson had written a book, A Game of Character, I was immediately drawn to it. Additionally, this book, a memoir published in 2010, is a NY Times bestseller which is touted as inspirational, so I was definitely not going to miss reading this one. Since childhood, I've enjoyed reading books about successful people, and often find them fascinating and inspiring, stocked with ideas that I try to incorporate into my own life. A book by the First Lady's brother was required reading, as far as I was concerned.

"To the best of my knowledge, my parents never consciously set out to develop a game plan for educating their children as to the importance of character. Nor, for that matter, would Marian or Fraser claim to have had any special knowledge or inherent parenting gifts for creating what I believe was the greatest start in my life that my sister and I could ever have wanted. And yet, the more time passes, the more amazed I am by how much they really did seem to know what they were doing."
~A Game of Character, Craig Robinson

Craig Robinson is an articulate narrator who talks honestly about his life and how he became involved with basketball, first as a player and later as a coach, and how the game of basketball continued to shape and refine his character. Born in 1962, he grew up in the Southside of Chicago, and learned about the importance of education, hard work, and discipline from his loving parents, Marian and Fraser. He excelled academically and in sports--basketball in particular--and attended Princeton University in the 1980s. Using basketball as a backdrop in his book, he discusses valuable life lessons, in chapters such as Meet the Home Team, Learn the Game, Not Just Your Position, and Luck Is Just Another Word for Hard Work, and infuses the book with intelligence and wisdom (which seem to go hand in hand). It truly is a brilliant book.

Having read A Game of Character, I now know that I'd sincerely enjoy meeting the Robinson family and the Obama family. In a sense, I do feel as if I've "met" them, due to this book, which is written in a friendly and down-to-earth manner, and features some family photos. I relished hearing about the Robinson family's initial impressions of Barack Obama, who had begun dating Michelle; they approved of our future president, who played basketball "with guts", right from the start. It's wonderful and reassuring to know that there are such caring, incredible families and people around, because strong family and personal values are at the core of character, on and off of the basketball court. Even if you don't know the "x's and o's, the nuts and bolts", of basketball, there is so much to learn from this book, and so much to be inspired by, that it shouldn't make any difference at all. Coach Robinson uses his life's passion, basketball, to talk about the development of character, and he does so in a very thoughtful and organized manner, making this a thoroughly enjoyable memoir!

Exciting news! Penguin is generously offering a giveaway for a copy of A Game of Character (U.S./Canada only).

• To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment.
• For another chance at winning, become a follower of this blog, or let me know that you're already a follower, or that you subscribe in Google Reader.
• For an additional chance, post about this contest on your blog, Facebook, or Twitter.

Enter by 5PM PDT on Monday, June 13. One winner will be chosen randomly and announced on Tuesday, June 14. Good luck!


Special thanks to Lisa from TLC for sending me this book. For more reviews of this book, please visit the other stops on TLC's A Game of Character book blog tour.

Perfectly Untraditional: Review and Giveaway

Having read some poetry penned by Sweta Srivastava Vikram, Because All is Not Lost and Kaleidoscope: An Asian Journey of Colors (during which I experienced a breakthrough and started to finally understand contemporary poetry better, and even attempted to write some of my own), I was excited to have the opportunity to be among the first to read Perfectly Untraditional, the debut novel by this author, published in 2011 in New Delhi, India.

Perfectly Untraditional is the narrative of a young woman, a daughter, Shaili Kapoor, who has grown up in India. As the title suggests, there is something untraditional about Shaili, the protagonist, although her Indian name means 'tradition'. The book begins and ends at Pashan Lake in Pune, India. In this novel, Shaili, a 37-year-old writer based in NYC, returns to India because her mother, Meena, has drowned herself in the lake. When Shaili was younger, the lake was a favorite destination for Shaili and her mother, who would often go there together, without the knowledge or company of her father, Suresh, or her younger sister, Tanisha.

"Shaili had dreamed of chopping off her father's tongue and arms one night when he was asleep. She stormed out of the living room and sat on her bed grumbling. Mrs. Kapoor followed her inside while Tanisha stood uninterestedly int he kitchen speculating if her arms needed waxing."
~Perfectly Untraditional, Sweta Srivastava Vikram

At Pashan Lake, Shaili meets her father in an attempt to comprehend her mother's suicide and to work toward a reconciliation with her father. Armed with two friends, Supriya, a longtime Indian friend, and Leila, a Persian friend from NYC, Shaili confronts her father for the first time in many years. It is a meeting fraught with tension and emotion. All along, she has had problems with her father while growing up, as she hated his treatment of her mother, which became brutal whenever he drank too much. The book goes back in time, and tells Shaili's story in the third person, although I felt as if I were experiencing Shaili's journey with her, and I rooted for her happiness and success.

Throughout the novel, Shaili is finding out things about her family and herself that were previously hidden. This process, as we know, is not always easy and often murky. In the book, Shaili has mixed feelings about marrying Sadhil, an extremely handsome Indian man her father has "found" for her to marry. Although Sadhil is very nice and would provide Shaili with an exciting new life in NYC, something does not feel quite right to Shaili. Her parents don't exactly force her to marry Sadhil, yet Shaili struggles intensely with her feelings and balks at the idea of marriage to this seemingly ideal man--and she is not sure why.

Sweta Srivastava Vikram presents a sensitive portrait of a young woman who is discovering who she is within and beyond the context of her family. The Kapoors are a traditional family in India, and Shaili herself is traditional in certain ways. For example, she expresses her love through food and cooking, which is especially important to Indian women. But, in other ways she is decidedly untraditional, and as she realizes that she's different, she also realizes that a traditional life is not in store for her.

Perfectly Untraditional is an enthralling, passionate novel about a young woman from a country and culture that I enjoyed learning about. I read it quickly over the course of a few nights, and recommend it to those who like character-driven fiction with strong female characters.

In celebration of the release of her first novel, the author is graciously offering an autographed copy of Perfectly Untraditional as a giveaway to a reader (U.S. only).

• To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment.
• For another chance at winning, become a follower of this blog, or let me know that you're already a follower, or that you subscribe in Google Reader.
• For an additional chance, post about this contest on your blog, Facebook, or Twitter.
• For yet another chance, mention why you'd like to read this new novel.
  

Enter by 5PM PDT on Monday, June 13. One winner will be chosen randomly and announced on Tuesday, June 14. Good luck!

Special thanks to Sweta Srivastava Vikram for sending me her novel.