Margaret Mead: Coming of Age in Samoa

This book is a classic. Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was one of the most influential women of our time. In this book she puts forth the idea that adolescence does not have to be a stormy time of rebellion against authority. She describes how the culture of Samoa at that time (around 1928) allowed the young women to experiment socially, how they therefore took a more casual attitude toward sex, and how they were not neurotic. It sounds like paradise! 

Some people in later generations have insisted that Samoans were never that permissive, but this book is probably describing a transitional state of affairs that did not last long in Samoan history. Margaret Mead happened to go there at the right time to make some remarkable discoveries about culture and psychology.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tart

In this work of fiction, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is bombed by 'cultural terrorists.' A young boy stumbles out of the wreckage with a masterpiece concealed in a plain bag. I should have known this book was going to be both dark and sad. The book is 771 pages long. I gave up on page 288.