Lloyd Jones:
Mister Pip

Suggested by Mary Lyon

Mary found Pip to be a compelling story of a girl who – caught in the throes of war on the island of Bougainville – manages to survive helped by her beloved mother, by a wise teacher, and by Pip, Charles Dickens’ fictional creation.

…

David Mitchell:
Cloud Atlas

Suggested by Rosemary Day

Cloud Atlas consists of six nested stories that take us from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or watched) by the main character in the next. All stories but the last one…

On Friday, March 25th, we enjoyed the first of what may turn out to be a succession of regular, informal SRI get-togethers.

The event found ten of our members gathered for an agenda-free, brown-bag lunch at St. John’s Chapel in Saunderstown. It was a moment (actually 75 minutes) which gave us a chance to get to know each other a little better and to share…

China, The United States and 21st Cen­tury Sea Power: Defin­ing a Mar­itime Secu­rity Part­ner­ship edited by Andrew Erick­son, Lyle Gold­stein, and Nan Li. (Buy it at Ama­zon)

This is the fourth book in the series on “Stud­ies in Chi­nese Mar­itime Devel­op­ment” and looks at China’s rise to power and the restruc­tur­ing of the global bal­ance of power. The…

We recently came across this clip of an enthusiastic, young guy conducting an invisible (but audible) orchestra through Beethovens fifth symohony. We liked it so much that we thought we’d share it with you. Enjoy.