The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sheryl WuDunn discusses the book she’s co-written (with Nicholas Kristof), A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity (Knopf, 2014), with Joseph Planta.

A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (Knopf, 2014). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: A Path Appears

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

A new book out now, A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity, provides much food for thought in terms of how to make a difference in the world. We’re very often saddled with the bad news around the world, and often though we think we’d like to help, it can get overwhelming. In the book Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn offer examples of philanthropic innovation across the world. The ideas shared on how to combat problems like inner-city violence, sex trafficking, poverty, homelessness, and poor early-childhood education, are interesting and inspirational. There aren’t just examples in the book, but also reporting from the frontline and scientific research. Sheryl WuDunn joins me from her in Vancouver today, to talk about the book that she’s written with her husband. I’ll get her to share some of the stories in the book, as well as perhaps some of the things we can do now, stuff we can do in minutes that will make a difference around us and/or beyond. Also that science is telling us that philanthropy and altruism is good for us, that volunteerism can result in lower mortality and fewer symptoms of depression and pain. Sheryl WuDunn is in the banking industry. Before that she was a business editor at the New York Times, where she was also a correspondent in Asia. She and Nicholas Kristof, who’s an op-ed columnist at the Times, shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for their coverage in China. Their previous book, Half the Sky was a big bestseller. The website for more is at www.apathappears.org. And the book will be accompanied by a four-part PBS series airing this winter. The book is published by Knopf. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Sheryl WuDunn; Ms. WuDunn, good morning.

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