Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other Side of Autism

#94
Title: Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other Side of Autism
Author: Kamran Nazeer
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year: 2006
Genre: autism, memoir
230 pages

An interesting and enjoyable memoir from an author with high functioning autism (he does not call it Asperger's, and since he had language delays Kanner's autism seems more accurate). Nazeer interviewed two of his former classmates from a school for autistic children, the parents of another, and two of their teachers. In addition to the poignancy of the narrative, Nazeer's speculative digressions are an interesting demonstration of the organization of autistic thought.

Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs

#93
Title: Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs
Author: Morton Meyers
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Year: 2007
Genre: Medical, science, history
390 pages

Meyers's contention is that scientific discoveries of the paradigm-shifting sort are not generally made by rote testing of compounds (for example), but by serendipitous accidents that are recognized as significant. His examples generally, though not always, support this position. It's clear from the degree to which he becomes exercised that cancer research was the impetous for this book.

Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish

#92
Title: Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be AmishAuthor: Tom Shachtman
Publisher: North Point Press
Year: 2006
Genre: Anthropology, Religion
286 pages

The Amish are an Anabaptist sect, so members must make a decision to join rather than be baptized at birth. "Rumspringa" refers to a period in Amish adolescence when the teen must decide whether to join the church. This decision may include exploration of the "English" comunity (i.e., everyone else), including driving, substances, and sex. Contrary to the book's assertion that this is a coming of age rite, it seems more accurate to understand it as a developmental period--it is protracted, it is not engaged in by all Amish teens (and perhaps not even by most), and many families seem to protest it.

The book is oddly U.S. majority culture-centric. The author tries to bring developmental theory into the mix, but uses theories that for the most part are out of date, not empirically validated, or see adherence to U. S. majority values as the only successful outcome. He implies that Amish youth are psychologically underdeveloped, ignoring the reality that most of the world's youth live in collectively-oriented cultures and have even less than the Amish youths' 8th grade education. The book is best when it sticks to anthropology; when it tends toward pop psychological interpretation, it is less compelling.

I kept wondering what it's like to be a gay Amish youth who holds traditional Amish values. That's a book I'd read.

Your Disgusting Head: The Darkest, Most Offensive and Moist Secrets of Your Ears, Mouth and Nose

 #91
Title: Your Disgusting Head: The Darkest, Most Offensive and Moist Secrets of Your Ears, Mouth and Nose
Author: Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-on-Whey
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 2004
Genre: Humorous, medical
63 pages

The Haggis-on-Wheys, modern colossi of intellect and talent, in this slender yet richly illustrated tome fail to shy from the realities of mucus, shark's teeth, the sub-maxillary ganglion, and the near-sighted river otter. So ought you.

Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Parody

#90
Title: Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized ParodyAuthor: Michael Gerber
Publisher: Fireside/Simon & Schuster
Year: 2001
Genre: Humorous, Harry Potter
176 pagesYou don't really need to read this unless you're compelled to read everything related to Harry Potter. Mad Magazine's parodies of the films are funnier, albeit in a different genre. This parody certainly has its amusing points, and benefits from Gerber's affection for Harry Potter, but it's a mild parody of the content and the commercial exploitation of the books. There is no attempt to poke fun at Rowling's writing style (for example, there is not capitalized ADOLESCENT ANGST!), unlike the otherwise-weak Doon or the robust and still-entertaining Bored of the Rings. Still, Gerber's book manages to be something of its own as well as a parody, and is

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

 #89
Title: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Author: Mary Roach
Publisher: Norton
Year: 2003
Genre: Medicine, natural history
304 pages

Roach's enjoyable inquiry into the history and uses (and misuses) of human cadavers, while not exhaustive, explores emblematic activities (cremation, research, etc.). Roach is a genial guide, willing to endure a great variety of smells, body parts, and activities most of us prefer not to watch in order to pursue her narrative. She tells the tales entertainingly yet respectfully, and with obvious affection for both the living and the dead.

Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

#88
Title: Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't AvoidAuthor: Lemony Snicket
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2007
Genre: Humourous, Young Adult
168 pages
A little book of aphorisms, which I presume is intended either to be sincere but wry, or a parody of the little-book-of-pensees genre. Since the volume is attributed to Snicket, whose ouvre is extensive and whose voice is distinctive, it is regretable that the majority of these large-type entries are neither funny nor apt. Some simply read like bland, generic self-help aphorisms. I expect more from the man who introduced the word "cakesniffer" to my vocabulary.

Powers (Annals of the Western Shore)

#87
Title: Powers (Annals of the Western Shore)Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: Harcourt
Year: 2007
Genre: Fantasy & Science Fiction, Young Adult
502 pages
The third in the Annals of the Western Shore series following Gifts and Voices. These are ostensibly young adult novels, though Le Guin's work seems to get this label whenever the protagonist is a child or adolescent, regardless of the themes or sophistication of the narrative.

I recently had the opportunity to hear Le Guin read from Powers at Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing. Before reading the first seven pages, she compared the book to "a jointless chicken" or "baby back ribs" because it lacks structural points that make it easy to start and stop an excerpt. This jointlessness is characteristic of Le Guin's more recent work, which has a deceptive simplicity and clarity of language and story. (She also remarked that she has stories but is not sure that she has plots.) Le Guin's writing often embodies or evokes the Tao (the link is to her translation and commentary). It is subtly complex yet straightforward.

Like the protagonists of the previous books in the series, Gavir has a secret gift--in his case, he remembers events that have not yet happened. The action is somewhat picaresque, through also psychologically developmental. I was reminded through most of it of Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy, which it reflects/distorts/revises nicely. I strongly suggest that you read the Heinlein, then the Le Guin, in the same way that you'd pair Heinlein's Starship Troopers (the book, please, not the film) with Haldeman's The Forever War.

Beyond Birdwatching: More Than There is to Know about Birding

#86
Title: Beyond Birdwatching: More Than There is to Know about BirdingAuthor: Ben, Cathryn, & John C. Sill
Publisher: Peachtree
Year: 1993
Genre: Birding, humorous
80 pages
The third parody of birding and birders from these authors, the current volume is in the form of a birding magazine. It includes not only notes on seldom-seen birds, but also articles, ads, and editorials. Not a sleek as the previous two, but it's still pretty funny.

A Field Guide to Little-Known and Seldom-Seen Birds of North America

#85
Title: A Field Guide to Little-Known and Seldom-Seen Birds of North AmericaAuthor: Ben, Cathryn, & John C. Sill
Publisher: Peachtree
Year: 1988
Genre: Birding, humorous
92 pages
The precursor to this book. Their styles are similar, with similarly beautiful and funny illustrations and the same affectionate fun poked at birding manuals.

The Lost Executioner

 #84
Title: The Lost ExecutionerAuthor: Nic Dunlop
Publisher: Walker & Co.
Year: 2005
Genre: Asia, Cambodia
343 pages

Dunlop's biography humanizes Comrade Duch without diminishing the horrifying impact of his actions. He illuminates some of the internal politics that make the Khmer Rouge's contradictory policies so confusing.

Though the account is engrossing, some of the writing is uneven and awkward. Some sentences don't seem to relate to their contexts. He repeats himself. He assumes that the reader knows the basic history of Cambodia, so there are gaps that detract from the reader's ability to follow the narrative easily.

Dunlap is ambivalent about photography, finding it distancing and aesthiticizing of suffering, yet it was a photograph that moved and motivated him to conduct this investigation. Similarly, he wants people to visit the Toul Sleng prison museum, but also denounces it as a "commercial enterprise" (p. 226). His ambivalence doesn't trouble me, but he frequently gives strong, contradictory opinions without developing the relationship between these points of view.

Dunlap's resources are good, but he does not seem to be aware of Vann Nath's A Cambodian Prison Portrait: One Year in the Khmer Rouge’s S-21 Prison.

Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters

#83
Title: Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family DisastersAuthor: Annie Choi
Publisher: Harper
Year: 2007
Genre: Autobiography, humor
242 pages

There's nothing wrong with this book, which is a collection of aurobiographical stories about growing up as a first-generation Korean in the U.S. There also isn't much to make the book exceptional. With the emphasis on the family's purportedly hilarious yet incessant sniping and bickering, it is somewhat monotonous. Where Choi manages to bring some emotional complexity to the work, in recounting some of the events related to her mother's health, she is a pale imitation of Amy Tan, who told very much the same story but in a much more compelling manner in 1989's The Joy Luck Club. Choi is not a bad writer, but despite a certain gloss, she comes off as a young writer. Since she is young, perhaps her style will mature. She has the misfortune to have come of age in an era in which prematurely world-weary authors posture about what their 26 years on the planet have taught them. It is ultimately tiresome.