A list that includes those previously read (but want to read again) and new books yet to be opened, the traveling bookshelf's genres span art, anthropology, memoir, social science and religion.

Anyone interested in starting a Skype book club?

Pick your poison (I'm open to doing one art book and one literature book at the same time):

Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison

The Wretched of the Earth
Frantz Fanon

Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective
Amina Wadud

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Ishmael Beah

The Karma of Brown Folk
Vijay Prashad

Frida Kahlo: Song of Herself
Salomon Grimberg

Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography
Zora Neale Hurston

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
William Kamkwamba

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf
Ntozake Shange

Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora
Michelle M. Wright

Jose Marti Reader: Writings on the Americas
José Martí

How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America
Moustafa Bayoumi

Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa
Dambisa Moyo

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, A Toltec Wisdom Book
Miguel Ruiz

One Day My Soul Just Opened Up: 40 Days and 40 Nights Toward Spiritual Strength and Personal Growth
Iyanla Vanzant

Femmes du monde
Titouan Lamazou

Frida Kahlo: The Paintings
Hayden Herrera

One of the four books I read during my two week stay in Masca, Honduras last March was Dr. Muhammad Yunus' Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty. An autobiography published in 2003, the book details how Yunus developed the idea of microcredit in his native country of Bangladesh.

Within the first few chapters of this book, I was immediately humbled by Yunus' simple solution to help the disenfranchised of Jobra, a small village just north of Chittagong, Bangladesh.

In 1976, Yunus, an economist with a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and a professor at Chittagong University, started down the road that would lead to the founding of his microcredit institution Grameen Bank by loaning, from his own pocket, what amounted to a meager $27 to local crafts people.

I wanted to help these forty-two able-bodied, hard-working people. I kept going around and around the problem, like a dog worrying a bone. People like Sufiya were poor not because they were stupid or lazy. They worked all day long, doing complex physical tasks. They were poor because the financial institutions in the country did not help them widen their economic base. No formal financial structure was available to cater to the credit needs of the poor. This credit market, by default of the formal institutions, had been taken over by the local moneylenders. It was an efficient vehicle; it created a heavy rush of one-way traffic on the road to poverty. But if I could just lend the Jobra villagers the twenty-seven dollars, they could sell their products to anyone. They would then get the highest possible return for their labor and would not be limited by the usurious practices of the traders and moneylenders.

It was all so easy. I handed Maimuna the twenty-seven dollars and told her, “Here, lend this money to the forty-two villagers on our list. They can repay the traders what they owe them and sell their products at a good price.”

“When should they repay you?” she asked.

“Whenever they can,” I said. “Whenever it is advantageous for them to sell their products. They don’t have to pay any interest. I am not in the money business.”

Maimuna left, puzzled by this turn of events.

Often we think we can only contribute to the greater good through large initiatives that require great amounts of money.  However, Yunus' book gives proof to how a small gesture can easily change the life course of many.  A minute gesture can lend itself to another.  Thus becoming the key that creates the domino effect that becomes global transformation.

Read a chapter from Banker to Poor at www.bankertothepoor.com.

Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
Muhammad Yunus
Published by PublicAffairs, 2003
312 pages

The next book from my Masca reading list will be Kindred, a deeply emotional, beautifully written historical novel, considered to be science fiction author Octavia Butler's masterpiece.

A summary from eNotes:

On her twenty-sixth birthday, Dana, the protagonist of Kindred, is overcome by nausea and finds herself on the bank of a river. When she sees a young boy drowning in the river, she jumps in and saves him. She is shocked when the boy's father points a gun at her head; it is clear that he is suspicious of Dana, a young black woman. Suddenly, she finds herself back in her living room. Although she was by the river for minutes, she has been away from home for only a few seconds.

Traumatized by the event, she calms down and begins to recover her wits. Suddenly she finds herself next to the same boy, named Rufus, in a burning bedroom. As she saves him again, Dana realizes that Rufus is calling her when his life is in danger. She discovers that the year is 1815, and although he is a white, Southern slave-owner, he is the future father of the first woman listed in her family records—Hagar Weylin. The woman listed as Hagar's mother, Alice Greenwood, is a free black child and Rufus' friend. Dana realizes that she has just saved the life of her ancestor.

Dana decides to visit Alice, but ends up watching as patrollers drag Alice's father out and whip him. He is a slave, and has come to visit his family without permission. A patroller grabs Dana and tries to rape her. She hits him and returns to her life in 1976. When she shares her experiences with her husband, Kevin, he has a hard time believing her. He realizes that Dana can only come back to the present when her life is in danger.

Included are historical manuscripts along with secondary literature describing them—translated into seven different languages. The library includes scanned documents from 27 libraries in 19 countries—and there's more to come.

I had been holding on to Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time for several months. Due to a busy schedule and a lack of concentration, I kept putting it off reading the book. But this was the first book I decided to dive into during my stay in Masca.

The biography of a ordinary man who was divinely lead to his purpose, Three Cups of Tea tells the story of how Mortenson built more than fifty schools for girls in remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In 1993 Mortenson was descending from his failed attempt to reach the peak of K2. Exhausted and disoriented, he wandered away from his group into the most desolate reaches of northern Pakistan. Alone, without food, water, or shelter he stumbled into an impoverished Pakistani village where he was nursed back to health.

While recovering he observed the village’s 84 children sitting outdoors, scratching their lessons in the dirt with sticks. The village was so poor that it could not afford the $1-a-day salary to hire a teacher. When he left the village, he promised that he would return to build them a school. From that rash, heartfelt promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time.

Three Cups of Tea is an unforgettable adventure and inspiring story of how one person can change the world. Don't believe it can happen? I challenge you to read the book and not feel motivated to take on any form of global injustice.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
Published by Penguin, 2007
368 pages

Next up from my March 2009 reading list is Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Grameen founder Dr. Muhammed Yunus.

Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Politics of Women's Resistance
By Simona Sharoni
Published by Syracuse University Press, 1995
Original from the University of Virginia
ISBN 0815602995, 9780815602996
199 pages

Once Intrepid Warriors: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Cultural Politics of Maasai Development
By Dorothy Louise Hodgson
Edition: illustrated
Published by Indiana University Press, 2004
ISBN 0253214513, 9780253214515
333 pages

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood
By Fatima Mernissi
Published by Basic Books, 1995
ISBN 0201489376, 9780201489378
242 pages

Somehow, life caught up with me and confiscated my prime reading time.  However, I have set a goal to get back in the habit by dedicating myself to setting aside at least an hour every day to read a book.

Hopefully this will help me re-prioritize my time and an hour will lead to two hours to five hours to eight hours to an entire day (and my always on point thought process will remain sharp).

I'll keep you updated on my progress.

First up

The first book up to bat is Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunus.

From the publisher:

Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in "putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long." The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business.

Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
Muhammed Yunus
PublicAffairs
2003