If you've had transformative moments reading Joseph Campbell, Aldous Huxley or Huston Smith, or if you identified with the eccentric spirituality of J.D. Salinger's Glass family, you were touched by Vivekananda whether you realized it or not.
One is especially hungry for Twain's kind of transformative complexity after reading Randall Kennedy's thorny book, "Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word" (Pantheon; $22).
In his presentation, Wiegand will draw from his recently published book Part of Our Lives: A People's History of the American Public Library to focus on the transformative experiences of reading popular fiction that public libraries have routinely provided patrons over the past 150 years.
"[It] is a celebration of our 10th year of promoting the quiet power of literacy, which transforms lives and makes our world a better, safer, more peaceful place". Erin, a former second grade teacher, truly believes in the transformative power of reading.
As the CEO of Reach Out and Read, an early literacy pediatric initiative that impacts 4 million mothers annually, and as someone who's witnessed the transformative effect of reading on my life as a child born into foster care, I was glad Soledad O'Brien found time to chat with me about the importance of early literacy and to share tips for new moms.
We may succeed in raising test scores by relying on these methods, but we will fail to teach them that reading can be transformative and that it belongs to them.
In the early 1960s, when the writings of Jorge Luis Borges were first published in English, reading his work was a transformative experience.
The English Department at Duke helped focus my reading skills, sharpen my ability to communicate, and understand what I was reading in a significant and transformative way.
It would have been a transformative agreement, one that would shift payments for reading journal articles into payments for publishing them, and publishing them open access.
I was a volunteer for Obama as were many of you reading this and you know what a transformative experience it was so many.
