Opinion

In My Library Peter Yarrow

The great trio Peter, Paul and Mary lost Mary Travers three years ago, but Peter Yarrow insists she’s still around. “Every time I sing a song to an audience, she’s there — not physically, but her spirit remains,” says Yarrow, who duets with Noel (Paul) Stookey. “When I sing with Noel Paul, people swear they can hear Mary singing, too.” The group that gave us “If I Had a Hammer,” “Puff the Magic Dragon” and a half-century of other songs sings again on “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring,” a new children’s book that comes with a CD. So does “Puff” have a pot subtext? “I was 20 years old when I wrote it and a hopeless square,” says Yarrow. “It’s really about the loss of innocence.” Here’s what’s in his library.

Gifts of Unknown Things

by Lyall Watson

My daughter told about this book while we were hiking in Patagonia: It was like Outward Bound on steroids! Watson’s a biologist and a wonderful author, a serious scientist who brings a sense of the paranormal into this story about a young woman who has a dialogue with all species of animals, flora — even the ocean.

The Parnas

by Silvano Arieti

This book is about a Jewish community in Italy, the Parnas, during the time of fascism, and how the head of the Parnas had a horrible phobia of animals that made him unable to leave, even as the Fascists invaded, but he was still able to be a moral force. I once had a decade of depression, and I think that, even in a psychotic state, we still have moral choices to make.

Dreams from My Father

by Barack Obama

I’ve campaigned for him but never met him. The parts where he questioned his own motivations and the legitimacy of his own position are reflective in a way that’s so unusual. He never let himself off the hook. We need to do this as a country. If we do something wrong, we need to acknowledge it.

From Beirut to Jerusalem

by Thomas Friedman

What struck me most in this book is its characterization of that era, from the 1940s on, of Beirut as a Renaissance city, filled with learning, joy and beauty. When the disparity between the way of life in Beirut and its surrounding communities became known, wars broke out . . . We all have to share, be part of each other’s well-being, or there’ll be war.