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Talk with Katharine Ogden Michaels at Orinda Books: Strong Ties: Barclay Simpson and the Pursuit of the Common Good In Business and Philanthropy
Join us in-person next week at Orinda Books, where Joe will speak with Katharine—his longtime colleague and friend—about the book she wrote on Barclay and Sharon Simpson, who, by virtue of their breathtaking example, inspired the creation of New Literary Project.
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
6:00 pm Orinda Books 276 Village Square
Orinda, CA 94563 Register for this event here.
Joe writes about Strong Ties:
Katharine Ogden Michaels has written a powerful book that implicitly makes the strong case for an America we ought to create, an America we could urgently use these days. It’s a book about a complicated past that Barclay (Barc) Simpson did his best to change, not because he could but because he should. Elegantly composed, vividly conceived, stirringly narrated, Strong Ties belongs on lots of bookshelves—proudly sitting alongside works on Cal, leadership, child development, education, philanthropy, business, entrepreneurship, the Bay Area, World War II, family. In other words, it belongs in every library everywhere.
Strong Ties is a first-rate, nuanced social history of a complex time and place as well as the must-be-told story of a great man and his beloved wife Sharon’s indelible impact upon the East Bay and the world beyond to which it is connected. Even so, Strong Ties will not make you nostalgic about an irrecoverable past, it will fire you up to create a more hopeful, fairer-minded future. That is the reason Barc unflaggingly embraced Martin Luther King Jr.’s insight that social injustice makes philanthropy necessary. And even if his business acumen was off the charts, that may not finally encourage you to get an MBA (not necessarily a bad thing—though he himself didn’t have one of those). Instead, it will inspire you, whoever you may be, to quote Barc’s mantra, “Do something, take a risk, take a chance.” No wonder, if there ever was a book to take a chance on, it’s this one, a sure thing by Katharine Ogden Michaels.
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