Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped January 23, 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan. Days later he was beheaded by his captors. Because of his death, I read a great book this week–a collection of his work from the Journal.

The clips date back to 1994, and strange as it is to believe, I was not a WSJ reader in the 4th grade. What’s great about Pearl’s work is that he had beats that sound very mundane, yet broke out of the expectations to report interesting stories. A writer covering air cargo and telecommunications penned stories about children’s beauty pageants, candy cane trucking controversies, Iraqi planes stuck in Iran and the power of pharmacists in India.

Those are just the stories I marked, not encompassing the 8-year journey “At Home In The World” presents.

Because of my love for candy canes, I was naturally drawn into a story about how they are transported. It started as part of an investigation into a now-defunct government agency that set trucking rates for different products. Basically truckers argued that candy canes should not be classified as candy because they take up more room. Candy makers fought to keep them as candy, ultimately losing their battle. The twist comes as the agency in charge of setting the rates actually had no real power to enforce them, and the truckers didn’t pay much attention to their work. The best quote, “If we’re not careful, the [truckers] will drag Santa Claus before the commission for transporting candy canes at the wrong rating.” Hopefully he’ll just get a slap on the wrist.

Though the stories are anything but breaking news, there were some I had no idea about. Like the piece on Iraq demanding Iran return its planes. Apparently Iraq feared its arsenal would be destroyed in the first Gulf War and decided to try to stash them in Iran. Only when the war was over, Iran refused to allow Iraqi pilots to come and pick up the planes.

And then there’s the health care system in India. The story was written as the country was on the verge of having to enact new standards. But at the time, pharmacists were the main way that many people got medical advice. They would go to the pharmacy, describe some symptoms, and walk away with some pills. The system apparently led to pharmacists being the target of deals from drug makers, like buy 7 of these and get 1 free. Drug makers say it was to protect their market share, while pharmacists could take advantage and boost their profit margins. The criticism is that often people with no medical training were dispensing drugs with no instructions on how to use them. The biggest problem being with antibiotics, as “patients” would take the drugs but not complete the full course. That has been blamed on increasingly resistant strains of deadly diseases like malaria. Again, who knew.

Another interesting piece was on the “Saudization” of Saudi Arabia’s work force. The article says 6 out of every 7 service workers at the time were foreigners, and the government wanted to give the jobs to its own people. So they started training potential workers on an American-style work ethic so they would be capable of doing the job. The plan would also keep the current workers from renewing their VISAs, basically firing them all after a given period of time. Well there were some bumps along the way.

One of the workers in the training program was 24-year-old Saleh Fatallah. “Mr. Fattalah tried out for the McDonald’s job. But when a McDonald’s customer spilled a cup of soda, Mr. Fatallah says he asked a Filipino worker to clean up; the worker told him to do it himself, and Mr. Fatallah refused. He didn’t get the job.” Whoops.

I found the book after watching the movie “A Mighty Heart.” It takes you through the entire kidnapping and search for Pearl. I didn’t think much about those circumstances while reading the book. It’s broken up into sections with an introduction by a former colleague. She sets the stage of where Pearl was working at the time, gives anecdotes from co-workers, and describes some of the interesting stories behind the stories that led to Pearl’s writings.

Only after I finished the book did I think about the unfortunate circumstances that are the only reason this text exists. If you’re at all interested in good journalism, or a greater perspective on our world, “At Home In The World” is a good place to start.

Next up: “Everything Is Illuminated” by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Ten pages in I was cursing F. Scott Fitzgerald. I remember really enjoying The “Great Gatsby,” and coupled with a recommendation from a friend I had high hopes.

Sitting in the blazing afternoon sun while trying to get the reading project back on track, all I could think about was Hemingway’s “A Farewell To Arms.” I hated that book from the beginning and don’t think there’s any way I’ll be dipping in the Hemingway pool again.

“The Beautiful And Damned” took a different course, suddenly becoming a very engaging read after the initial drudgery with which it began. I was later reminded by The Recommender that she had warned me about the slow start. I think she made that up.

The overall tone brought back memories of Oscar Wilde, with a number of characters you don’t necessarily like but still want to follow. They begin young and idealistic without the day-to-day worry of being concerned with money. The protagonist, Anthony, is little concerned about his eventual inheritance from his aging grandfather. It’s only a matter of time in his mind that a heart will stop beating and he can go cash a check.

Unfortunately for Anthony, he doesn’t quite get to Plan B. I mean, if you see millions of dollars “surely” in your future, who wants to get a job? It must have been so awful being an aristocrat in those days. It’s certainly no fun to not have to work if you can’t sit around and play video games on your giant HD television. All they could do was have nightly drunk-off-their-face parties and spend the days recovering. Who needs a job when you could just do that?

If only he had found a wife who had a bit more drive: “I just want to be lazy and I want some of the people around me to be doing things, because that makes me feel comfortable and safe–and I want some of them to be doing nothing at all, because they can be graceful and companionable for me.”

That sounds like she wouldn’t much mind if her husband actually went out and worked for a living. Unless of course she wanted him to be in the group of doing nothing. Asked if she approved of lazy men, she said, “I suppose so, if they’re gracefully lazy.”

Now gracefully lazy is something I could get into. Just have to find a couple million dollars to cover my Taco Bell trips and child support payments. I mean, Taco Bell trips and um, miscellaneous expenditures. Yeah, we’ll go with that.

Anthony, emboldened by his wife’s enabling shows some true entrepreneurial spirit and does…nothing. Oh and then he blames her, because after all it’s definitely her fault. “As a matter of fact I think that if I hadn’t met you I would have done something,” he said. “But you make leisure so subtly attractive.”

She completely derailed his career of pretending like he was going to do something, instead leaving him with just doing nothing. If Fitzgerald were writing today, the two wouldn’t be addicted to laziness. Rather they’d be going through rehab for their codependent meth addictions, and failing miserably at that.

Should I be worried that I was completely into characters with those traits? I think I’ll go check myself into rehab as a precaution. I don’t want this to be a gateway book. But hey, if you’re looking for some “good stuff,” you might want to give it a shot. Just remember the first 10 pages are a bear, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Hugs not drugs.

Next up: “At Home In The World: Collected writings of Daniel Pearl”

“Cannery Row in Monterrey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.”

It is also a superb little novel by John Steinbeck that begins with that opening line. It is also, as Steinbeck writes in the next line, “the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop houses.”

Cannery Row is about this town, one that is full of people so ordinary even the simplest pleasure is a major event. Its key resident is Doc, a scientist who experiments with nature and holds the reverence of every single person in Cannery Row. They all owe him something, though few monetarily. Everyone seems to want to do good by Doc.

If you’ve never read Steinbeck, I wouldn’t recommend you start with Cannery Row. There are more iconic novels in his collection. But once you’ve finished with The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, I’d certainly suggest this member of the family.

Doc, in addition to being the most respected man in town, also loves hamburgers and beer. How often do those things go together?

In fact, on one of his trips to collect marine samples for his work, he makes several stops for such sustenance. He even once tries a beer milkshake for the sole reason that someone once joked he would, and he couldn’t get the idea out of his head. (Don’t try it).

After several of the beer stops (he’s driving himself hundreds of miles down California highways), he decides to pick up a hitch hiker to help pass the time. He carefully selects one who won’t talk too much and they get in the car. They drive a bit, only to stop for another beer. The hitch hiker suggests maybe it’s not such a good idea to drink and drive. Doc disagrees: “Get out of the car…I’m going to punch you in the nose if you aren’t out of this car by the time I count to ten.

It’s clear why Doc is the most respected man in town.

One of the things I love about Steinbeck is he always has chapters that have absolutely zero to do with the plot, but help give the character of the town. One in Cannery Row talks about a guy breaking his own record for ice skating on top of a pole in town. The whole town comes to watch as he stays up there day and night. Several chapters later, Steinbeck goes back to a random guy in town who can’t sleep. He’s tossing in turning, his mind churning over the possibilities of an unknown answer. So the man walks a distance into town and yells up at the sleeping skater. He wants to know how the man goes to the bathroom up on the pole. He walks back home, and climbs back in bed with his wife. “He’s got a can up there.”

Cannery Row is really a story about people trying to do well with what they have. But in the end, it’s also important to do things the right way as well. For these people who have so little, being respected–or at least as respected as they once were–is paramount.

The residents know they have to deal with one another so they accept certain realities in order to best get on with their own lives. The store owner who would like to continue his business without some thugs burning it down lets the men sleep in his extra house rent free. They talk at first about a monthly rate, but both know it is just a show.

The proprietor of the bordello pays exorbitant taxes and makes astronomical donations to every charitable event in town. She knows that’s the only way to keep the cops at bay and city leaders from banning her practice.

That’s life in Cannery Row.

Next Up: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Beautiful and Damned”

This has nothing to do with Eliot Spitzer or prostitutes.

Rather a politician who has not yet been linked to such a scandal, and hopefully never will. I just finished Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope,” which is book number four on the year if you are counting at home.

It took me a lot longer to read than I thought, mainly because of the density and thoroughness with which Obama tackles each subject. I’m certainly not complaining either, since it was nice to go so in-depth with where a candidate is coming from rather than relying on a third-party article or a soundbite.

If you don’t have the desire or the time to tackle the entire book, check it for a few days and read the chapters on Race and The World Beyond Our Borders. Obama discusses the challenges of race in America, and how the fight that reached its apex in the 1960s is far from over. He also talks about how those discussions and the outcomes of the civil rights movement are progressing into an America that is no longer a black-and-white discussion.

“Such a shift in emphasis is not easy: Old habits die hard, and there is always a fear on the part of many minorities that unless racial discrimination, past and present, stays on the front burner, white America will be let off the hook and hard-fought gains may be reversed. I understand these fears–nowhere is it ordained that history moves in a straight line, and during difficult times it is possible that the imperatives of racial equality get shunted aside.”

It took me a while to pick out a section of this chapter. But the point of history sometimes have to move laterally, or even take a few steps back before moving forward the right way captures Obama’s point. Just before that paragraph, he talks about how to best address minority problems. His solutions include “strategies that help all Americans” to go after the underlying issues making it more difficult for portions of society to break out of cycles of self-defeat. Those are people of all backgrounds who end up “stuck” in situations that make it harder to achieve “success.”

“Schools that teach, jobs that pay, health care for everyone who needs it, a government that helps out after a flood, a long with measures that ensure our laws apply equally to everyone.”

Obama argues that some domestic failure is a product of kids who aren’t prepared for the structured environment of school because of broken homes from the start. They don’t end up with the qualifications to get jobs that pay well, or end up with criminal records that preclude certain fields. Without health insurance, they can’t afford preventive care or economically catastrophic medical bills.

I can’t fully do this section justice. A lot of interesting points informed by historical and economic measures.

Later Obama turns his attention to America’s place in the world. Again, an effective history makes his arguments poignant and relevant. He uses his experience growing up in Indonesia and the United States’ policies towards that nation as a microchasm of larger U.S. foreign policy.

After several years of toxic moves in relation to America’s image and influence by the current administration, Obama’s outlook is refreshing. He says it’s hard for the U.S. to demand other countries change standards and habits when it comes to environmental policy, nuclear disarmament, human rights and hostile regimes when we don’t lead the way in making those changes ourselves.

Obama lays out what he would do in Iraq and how he would work to reestablish America as a positive influence internationally.

Even if you disagree with his politics, or at least what you know, the book is certainly worth a read to better understand his positions. Obama is a great storyteller, using a plethora of history to weave lessons of the past into arguments of today in a thoughtful fashion.

Next up, “Cannery Row” by John Steinbeck.

Any sports fan can tell you sometimes you watch a game just because you like the sport. It doesn’t matter who is playing, and thus you don’t really care who wins.

Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is like that. It’s hard to find someone to really get behind, but the event, the story is such that you still need to know what happens.

This is the first book in the project to be recommended by a friend. Well more like endorsed after I had selected it, but whatever. It’s always nice to know someone you can discuss a piece of art with, especially after you’ve invested so much energy in enjoying it yourself.

And especially when you’re trying to figure out who the “good” guy is in the story.

I can’t remember reading a book where the protagonist didn’t live up to the “pro” in his name. Maybe I’m completely blanking, but it seems to me the basic structure of effective storytelling in novels usually involves the reader’s support of the main character.

Dorian Gray is a hard guy to support. He’s rich. Everyone tells him he’s the most beautiful person they’ve ever seen. He doesn’t work. He’s moody. He’s incredibly vain. All he needs is a small dog to carry around everywhere and a catch phrase like “that’s dandy” to make him a 19th century British Paris Hilton.

And who wants to root for that? You’d be more likely to wish for his hansom to run off the side of a cobblestone street and run into a tree.

Yet Wilde creates this life for Gray and the people around him that is so intruiging you have to keep reading. Maybe it’s the fact that the obvious outcome is to have Gray or one of his cohorts to have some sort of revelation and become a good person. You want to see that happen as a confirmation that you’re on the right side of the moral fence.

If the Oscars were handed out to books in Wilde’s day, the Best Supporting Actor would go to the most pessimistic man ever written. Yet his diatribes are some of the best parts of the book:

“The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us…I have the greatest contempt for optimism. As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested.”

This is the epitome of Lord Henry. The first half of his speech is off-putting; what’s so wrong with having a positive outlook? Then he comes back with a better point about personal growth–it doesn’t matter what you are doing, just keep working at improving yourself in some way.

This is the man giving advice to “Paris.” It’s like having multiple people who are so rich they don’t have to work, who value beauty and societal stature above just about anything, who KNOW they are better than everyone and live with a complete disregard for normality all running around one of the world’s largest cities together. If only Wilde had written with a little more verisimilitude…

Quick side note, verisimilitude is one of my favorite words that you really have to try to incorporate in everyday use. That’s probably the first time I’ve ever done it. I’m excited. And to save you the trip to the dictionary website, it’s a noun meaning the depiction of reality (as in art or literature).

I took a chance in grabbing this one on a bookstore trip, expecting maybe a B experience. But Wilde delivered a solid A in one of the surprisingly good reads I’ve had in a while. If you like some of the “classic”–Dickens/Hugo-esque stuff, you’ll enjoy it.

Next up: Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope”

It’s the Year of the Book, or the YOB.

That’s the name of my project to read 20 books this year, and has a nice connotation of reading being my job with a soft j.

The effort is off to a fine start, with the first book being completed on January 6th.

First off the bookshelf was “Zlata’s Diary.” It’s the first book I’ve ever read that had the word’s “International Bestseller” on the front. The author has been described as an Anne Frank of a new generation. She noted that comparison while still writing the diary, but was dismayed by the connection. Instead she hoped there was a better ending to her situation: “[I hope] I will not suffer the same fate as Anne Frank. That I will be a child again, living my childhood in peace.”

She began writing just before her 11th birthday in Sarajevo. It was just before the term “war-torn Sarajevo” came into wide use. Even if you know nothing about the Balkan conflict, you can understand the human side of tragic events. Zlata is an optimistic young girl who talks about such very normal things that in some of the entries you forget she lives in a war zone. It’s a place where her family has to rush into a cellar for safety. A place where people run across the bridge down the street from her apartment so they are less likely to be shot by the sniper in the hills above. Yet she retains her humor–even giving a nickname to the sniper.

Talking about one of the many extended power outages (some that lasted months), she describes a scene where her family takes all the food from their freezer and cooks it before it all goes bad. After stuffing themselves she says they “had a MEAT stroke.” That’s great comedy coming from a terrible situation.

She talks about the United Nations and a pledge to make sure the events of the 1930s and 40s aren’t repeated. But as the shells rain down on her city, and radio reports of ethnic cleansing come from all corners of her country, she knows that pledge has failed. This is one of those books where unfortunately, though that specific conflict was eventually resolved, the basic story exists somewhere else. We can make connections to sectarian violence in Iraq, ethnic strife in Rwanda, and even more current class struggles in Kenya.

I know too well that on the news we can sometimes portray these conflicts in a way that can dehumanize them. They become about big, easier-to-explain reasons rather than some of the more-nuanced, underlying causes. We don’t hear from the young man in Kenya who explains how his town exploded into violence after an election. We don’t hear how it wasn’t just someone pushing the “riot” button, but instead a slower slip into moments of chaos that have been building his entire life.

I came across the book through another. I was reading “The Freedom Writers’ Diary,” which is an amazing compilation of entries from high school students dealing with way more than tomorrow’s math test. This was one of the texts their class read as a way to examine their own issues. It was a way to break through the idea of “you wouldn’t understand, you don’t know what I’m going through.” It’s an attitude that can shut out so may ideas when you feel like nobody has it as bad as you. But then you have your eyes and your mind opened to a host of other strife that can put your situation in perspective. Someone was shot in your city today. Ok. Were 2,000 people slaughtered as they tried to get bread? Have you been without power, water, or even the chance to go to school for months? Was your friend and her family blown up in a park across the street from your house for no reason?

You read in “The Freedom Writers’ Diary” how the students’ views of even their writing changes as the book goes on. It starts with a reluctance to open their worlds, and ends with them being elated to be able to meet Zlata. And her diary is no different. She begins with the happy entries of a young girl who loves going to school and describes all of the wonderful activities that are packing her days. As the war begins, she is nothing but optimistic. It will be over soon. “The kids,” as she calls politicians, will figure it out. She hits rock bottom, using sentences in full caps and exclamation points to decry the “BOREDOM!!! SHOOTING!!! SHELLING!!! PEOPLE BEING KILLED!!! DESPAIR!!! HUNGER!!! MISERY!!! FEAR!!!”

Is that what you were thinking about at age 12?

“Zlata’s Diary” by Zlata Filipovic.

I’m not sure which is more satisfying, shutting a book you really enjoyed right after you finish it or putting it back in its place on the bookshelf.

I just wrapped up “Now I Can Die In Peace,” a book largely of sports columns cobbled together from one of my favorite writers. I’ve devoured his columns for years, and I’m pretty sure I read 99 percent of them the day they were posted, yet I thoroughly enjoyed that read over the last few days.

Actually, there are few books I tackle where I don’t feel really good when I’m done. The lone recent exception is “A Farewell To Arms” by Hemingway. I hated that book from the first page. Needless to say, the name “Hemingway” has only one appearance on my bookshelf.

That brings me to my upcoming goal. After polling some people about their reading habits, and in response to a poll that 57 percent of adults in the U.S. read a book in one year (which has to be high), I’m committing to reading 20 books in 2008.

Now I could take some really lame attempt and read 20 kids books in a weekend and declare victory. But I’m taking my time in compiling my lineup to make sure I’m actually getting something out of this experience. I have exactly two weeks before I crack open the first tome.

There has to be a flow, not just the same kind of book or crushing the same author’s entire library. Different genres, writing styles, pedigrees of authors. Classics, modern novels, literary non-fiction. It’s like going on a long car trip–you can’t slam 75 mph the whole way, you have to ease off the gas once in a while.

The lineup so far:

-The Survival Game: David Barash
-The Sound And The Fury: David Faulkner
-The World Is Flat: Thomas Friedman
-Main Street: Sinclair Lewis
-The Prince: Niccolo Machiavelli
-Cannery Row: John Steinbeck
-The Picture Of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde
-Zlata’s Diary: Zlata Filipovic
-The Year Of Living Biblically: A.J. Jacobs
-The Hunchback Of Notre Dame: Victor Hugo
-The Last Juror: John Grisham
-The Best Seat In The House: Spike Lee

Ok, so that’s 12. I started writing Anna Karenina…but there’s I just couldn’t lock myself into an 800-page behemoth before I even get started. Maybe if I get way ahead of pace by July I’ll slip it in there.

I need eight more, so any suggestions are welcomed. I definitely want to leave my options open since I can’t walk out of a Barnes & Noble empty handed even though I’ve been amassing the previously mentioned books for a solid two years.

I’ll also be documenting my quest in some form. Two weeks to figure that part out too.