Growth Through Reading

"My ignorance was inexcusable and it made me ashamed."

That's author Jon Krakauer speaking of himself on the penultimate page of his 2015 masterwork - "Missoula: Rape And The Justice System In a College Town". What was this smart author speaking of? His ignorance of the lasting damage done to women raped by an acquaintance, a far more frequent occurrence than women raped by a stranger. Thanks to Krakauer, my own equally inexcusable ignorance has been ameliorated a bit.

All the way through "Missoula", I kept wishing my wife and I were reading it at the same time. Her perspective would have helped me, especially when Krakauer described circumstances involving a woman and a man that occasionally struck me as murky. I pray I was more sensitive as a young man than the " ... callow ..." and "... entitled ..." men the author describes in this harrowing book. And I'm so glad my college friends were musicians and artists not football players.

Books of this caliber - even when painful - are a crucial part of my continuing education and evolution as a thinking, compassionate human being. What book most recently landed with you that way?