Made a quick trip to Hawaii this past week. The first thing to do when I get to Hawaii….POG (Passion-Orange-Guava).

75 degrees and beautiful

From my room.

Hibiscus, one of my faves:

Then there is Kai Coffee –

Check out this 11-second video. The traditional Diamond Head hike:

And the 16-second early morning before sunrise, still dark beach walk:

Check out this 9-sec sunset video captured from a boat.

Good morning California.
It is January 3, 2026.
A good day to be a Community College Champion

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Every year I post a few of the books I read. Here is the 2025 list….

2025 Books

The Greatest Sentence Ever Written
By: Walter Isaacson

To celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, Walter Isaacson takes readers on a fascinating deep dive into the creation of one of history’s most powerful sentences: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Drafted by Thomas Jefferson and edited by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, this line lays the foundation for the American Dream and defines the common ground we share as a nation.

Isaacson unpacks its genius, word by word, illuminating the then-radical concepts behind it. Readers will gain a fresh appreciation for how it was drafted to inspire unity, equality, and the enduring promise of America. With clarity and insight, he reveals not just the power of these words but describes how, in these polarized times, we can use them to restore an appreciation for our common values.

*****

Mother Mary Comes to Me
By: Arundhati Roy

Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as “my shelter and my storm.”

“Heart-smashed” by her mother Mary’s death in September 2022 yet puzzled and “more than a little ashamed” by the intensity of her response, Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen, “not because I didn’t love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her.” And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author’s journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today.

*****

Looking at Women Looking at War
By: Victoria Amelina

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Victoria Amelina was busy writing a novel, taking part in the country’s literary scene, and parenting her son. Now she became someone new: a war crimes researcher and the chronicler of extraordinary women like herself who joined the resistance. These heroines include Evgenia, a prominent lawyer turned soldier, Oleksandra, who documented tens of thousands of war crimes and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, and Yulia, a librarian who helped uncover the abduction and murder of a children’s book author.

Everyone in Ukraine knew that Amelina was documenting the war. She photographed the ruins of schools and cultural centers; she recorded the testimonies of survivors and eyewitnesses to atrocities. And she slowly turned back into a storyteller, writing what would become this book.

On the evening of June 27th, 2023, Amelina and three international writers stopped for dinner in the embattled Donetsk region. When a Russian cruise missile hit the restaurant, Amelina suffered grievous head injuries, and lost consciousness. She died on July 1st. She was thirty-seven. She left behind an incredible account of the ravages of war and the cost of resistance. Honest, intimate, and wry, this book will be celebrated as a classic.

*****

Pariah
By: Dan Fesperman                                                                                            

Hal Knight, a comedian and movie star-turned politician, is no stranger to controversy. But after an embarrassing and humiliating encounter on set, Knight resigns from Congress, quits social media, and disappears to the tiny Caribbean island of Vieques to drink dirty martinis and nurse his wounds. Shortly after his arrival, he is approached by a trio of CIA operatives hoping to recruit him to infiltrate the power structure of Bolrovia—a hostile, Eastern European country whose despotic president, Nikolai Horvatz, happens to be a longtime fan of Knight’s adolescent male humor. Knowing that Horvatz plans to invite the disgraced star for an official visit, the CIA coaxes Knight to accept. Skeptical, but with little to lose, Knight accepts the challenge, sensing this might be his one chance to do something worthwhile, even if no one else ever finds out.

*****

Idea Man
By: Paul Allen

In 2007 and 2008, Time named Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft, one of the hundred most influential people in the world. Since he made his fortune, his impact has been felt in science, technology, business, medicine, sports, music, and philanthropy. His passion, curiosity, and intellectual rigor-combined with the resources to launch and support new initiatives-have literally changed the world. 

In 2009 Allen discovered that he had lymphoma, lending urgency to his desire to share his story for the first time. In this classic memoir, Allen explains how he solved problems, what he learned from his many endeavors-both the triumphs and the failures-and his compelling vision for the future. He reflects candidly on an extraordinary life. 

*****

Iron Flame
By: Rebecca Yarros

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

*****

Fourth Wing
By: Rebecca Yarros

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

*****

Source Code
By: Bill Gates

Everyone is programmed a little differently, and Bill Gates’ unique insight led to business triumphs that are now widely known: the twenty-year-old who dropped out of Harvard to start a software company that became an industry giant and changed the way the world works and lives; the billionaire many times over who turned his attention to philanthropic pursuits to address climate change, global health, and U.S. education.

Source Code is not about Microsoft or the Gates Foundation or the future of technology. It’s the human, personal story of how Bill Gates became who he is today: his childhood, his early passions and pursuits. It’s the story of his principled grandmother and ambitious parents, his first deep friendships and the sudden death of his best friend; of his struggles to fit in and his discovery of a world of coding and computers in the dawn of a new era; of embarking in his early teens on a path that took him from midnight escapades at a nearby computer center to his college dorm room, where he sparked a revolution that would change the world.

*****

State of Terror
By: Louise Penny and Hilary Rodham Clinton

After a tumultuous period in American politics, a new administration has just been sworn in, and to everyone’s surprise the president chooses a political enemy for the vital position of secretary of state.

There is no love lost between the president of the United States and Ellen Adams, his new secretary of state. But it’s a canny move on the part of the president. With this appointment, he silences one of his harshest critics, since taking the job means Adams must step down as head of her multinational media conglomerate.

As the new president addresses Congress for the first time, with Secretary Adams in attendance, Anahita Dahir, a young foreign service officer (FSO) on the Pakistan desk at the State Department, receives a baffling text from an anonymous source.

Too late, she realizes the message was a hastily coded warning.

*****

The Vegetarian
By: Han Kang. Translated by Deborah Smith

Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself.

Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.

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And a look back at some of the books I’ve read in the previous years –

2024 Books

» Read my January 4, 2025 Blog: Happy New Year 2025

• The World’s I see. By Fei-Fei Li
• Something Lost Something Gained. By: Hillary Clinton
• Swann’s Way. By Marcel Proust
• Algorithms of Oppression. By Safiya Noble                                                                                            
• Why we are polarized. By Ezra Klein
• AI for the Rest of Us. By Phaedra Boinodiris and Beth Rudden.
• Sitting Pretty: A view from my ordinary, resilient broken body. By. Rebekah Taussig
• The Bird Hotel. By Joyce Maynard

2023 Books

» Read my January 6, 2024 Blog: Happy New Year 2024. Seize Every moment of every day.

• The Covenant of Water.  By: Abraham Verghese
• The Last Animal.  By: Ramona Ausubel
• One Hundred Years of Solitude.  By: Gabriel García Márquez
• I Love Learning; I Hate School.  By: Susan D. Blum
• Superintelligence.  By: Nick Bostrom
• How to Know a Person.  By: David Brooks

2022 Books

» Read my January 8, 2023 Blog: Rain bathing California in glee

• Cry of the Kalahari by Mark and Delia Owens
• The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs by Madeleine Albright
• The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• The Distance Between Us: A Memoir by Reyna Grande
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa Yoko Ogawa
• The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang
• The Art of Living: Peace and Freedom in the Here and Now by Thich Nhat Hanh
• Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs by Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker

2021 Books

» Read my January 8, 2022 Blog: KCCD CEOs welcome you to the new semester

• The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
• Count the Ways by Joyce Maynard
• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
• Unwinding Anxiety by Judson Brewer
• Post Corona by Scott Galloway
• The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris
• Divided we Fall by David French
• Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon
• Untamed by Glennon Doyle
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• The Guest List by Lucy Foley
• Deadliest Enemy by Michael Osterholm
• Grace and Grit by Lilly Ledbetter

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Remember – our greatest challenges enable us to do our greatest work.

That’s all for today.
See you next Saturday!

With much hope and joy, 

Your Chancellor,
-sonya

#OurTimeisNow
#NuestroTiempoEsAhora

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