2009 Stats

Number of books: 163
Number of pages: 40,762
Mean pages/book: 250.07
Books of the world (first book for the country, and read in 2009): 57 + indigenous Australia

1. Outhine Bounyavon; Bounheng Inversin and Daniel Duffy (Eds.): Mother's Beloved: Stories from Laos (Laos)

2. Dar Penney, Peter Stastny, Lisa Rinzler (photographer): The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic

3. Marjane Satrapi: Embroideries

4. M. T. Anderson: The Game of Sunken Places

5. M. T. Anderson: The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen

6. Cecilia Manguerra Brainard: When the Rainbow Goddess Wept (Philippines)

7. Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot: The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag

8. Neil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book

9. M. T. Anderson: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 2: The Kingdom on the Waves 

10. Barack Obama: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

11. Warren Fellows with Jack Marx: The Damage Done: Twelve Years of Hell in a Bangkok Prison (Thailand)

12. Michael Chabon: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

13. François Bizot: The Gate

14. Banana Yoshimoto: N.P.

15. Nakagawa Kasumi: Gender-based Violence During the Khmer Rouge Regime: Stories of Survivors from the Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979) (2nd ed.)

16. Richard Totman: The Third Sex: Kathoey--Thailand's Ladyboys 

17. Somaly Mam: The Road of Lost Innocence

18. Nophea Sasaki: Walking away from the Killing Fields: How a Hopeless Boy Became a University Professor in Japan 

19. Nakagawa Kasumi: More Than White Cloth? Women's Rights in Cambodia

20. Daniel Mont: A Different Kind of Boy: A Father's Memoir about Raising a Gifted Child with Autism

21. Xiaolu Guo: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers 

22. Cullen Thomas: Brother One Cell: An American Coming of Age in South Korea's Prisons  (South Korea)

23. Stephen Levine: A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

24. Michael Webster and Chew Yen Fook: A Photographic Guide to Birds of Thailand

25. Peter Davidson: A Photographic Guide to Birds of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos

26. Elinor Burkett: So Many Enemies, So Little Time: An American Woman in All the Wrong Places

27. Chingiz Aïtmatov: Jamilia (Kyrgyzstan)

28. Barbara Cervone (Ed.): In Our Village: Kambi ya Simba through the Eyes of Its Youth

29. Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin: Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time (Pakistan)

30. Max Barry: Jennifer Government

31. Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves: Interworld

32. Cory Doctorow: Little Brother

33. Robert Mankoff (Ed.): The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest Book

34. Orson Scott Card: Ender in Exile

35. Ron Kovic: Born on the Fourth of July

36. Stanley Karnow: Vietnam: A History

37. Bertil Lintner and Michael Black: Merchants of Madness: The Methamphetamine Explosion in the Golden Triangle

38. Bibish: The Dancer from Khiva: One Muslim Woman's Quest for Freedom (Uzbekistan)

39. Abdourahman A. Waberi: In the United States of Africa (Djibouti)

40. Daniel Defoe: A Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials of the Most Remarkable Occurrences, as Well Public as Private, Which Happened in London During the Last Great Visitation in 1665. Written  a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London. Never Made Public Before

41. Nu Nu Yi: Smile as They Bow (Burma/Myanmar)

42. Alexandre Najjar: The School of War (Lebanon)

43. Pramoedya Ananta Toer: The Fugitive (Indonesia)

44. Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale

45. M. T. Anderson: Thirsty

46. Fanj Andriamialisoa, Ian Sinclair, and Olivier Langrand: A Photographic Guide to the Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands: Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Reunion and the Comoros (Madagascar)

47. Eve Brown-Waite: First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life

48. Dave Eggers: What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel (Sudan)

49. Rosita Arvigo with Nadine Epstein and Marilyn Yaquinto: Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer (Belize)

50. Stephenie Meyer: Twilight

51. Omar Khayyam and Edward FitzGerald: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

52. Stephenie Meyer: New Moon

53. Jaan Kaplinski: The Wandering Border (Estonia)

54. Jose da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino; Paul Collins (Ed.): English as She Is Spoke: Being a Comprehensive Phrasebook of the English Language, Written by Men to Whom English Was Entirely Unknown

55. Stephenie Meyer: Eclipse

56. Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977 (Vatican City)

57. Doris Pilkington: The Rabbit-proof Fence (indigenous Australia)

58. Nancy Mankins: Hostage: The Incredible True Story of the Kidnapping of Three American Missionaries (Panama)

59. Anne Best: The Monk, the Farmer, the Merchant, the Mother: Survival Stories of Rural Cambodia

60. Unknown: Guida fotografica di San Marino ( San Marino)

61. Albert Wendt (Ed.): Some Modern Poetry from the Solomon Islands (Solomon Islands)

62. Hisham Matar: In the Country of Men (Libya)

63. Black Stone: Grace Mera Molisa (Vanuatu)

64. Dreams of a Rainbow (Moemoea a te Anuanua): Kauraka Kauraka (Cook Islands)

65. Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love: Myron Uhlberg

66. Mark Dunn: Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters

67. Vartan Derounian (Photographer) and Alidz Jebijian-Agbabian: Dzalabadig: Images of Survival (Armenia)

68. Blaga Dimitrova: Because the Sea Is Black (Bulgaria)

69. Ts. Bold (Ed.): Some Short Stories from Mongolia (Mongolia)

70. Julie Phillips: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon

71. Emerson Spartz & Ben Schoen with Jeanne Kimsey: Mugglenet.com's Harry Potter Should Have Died: Controversial Views from the #1 Fan Site

72. Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson: Peter and the Starcatchers

73. Zayd Mutee' Dammaj: The Hostage (Yemen)

74. Dalai Lama XIV: How to See Yourself As You Really Are (Tibet)

75. Kathryn Davis: The Thin Place

76. Elvia Alvarado: Don't Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart: The Story of Elvia Alvarado (Honduras)

77. Mohja Kahf: The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (Syria)

78. Alois Kayser: Nauru One Hundred Years Ago: 3. Games and Sports (Nauru)

79. Helene Cooper: The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood (Liberia)

80. Semisi Nau: The Story of my Life: A Tongan Missionary at Ontong Java (Tonga)

81. Jonathan Stroud: Heroes of the Valley

82. Angelina Jolie: Notes from My Travels: Visits with Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan, and Ecuador

83. Ammon Shea: Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages

84. Sarah Vowell: The Partly Cloudy Patriot

85. Stephenie Meyer: Breaking Dawn

86. Yoko Tawada: The Bridegroom Was a Dog

87. Stephenie Meyers: Midnight Sun

88. Harvey Pekar and Anne Elizabeth Moore (Eds.): The Best American Comics 2006

89. William Alexander: The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden

90. Ismail Kadare: The Palace of Dreams (Albania)

91. Steven Hall: The Raw Shark Texts

92. David Standish: The Art of Money: The History and Design of Paper Currency from Around the World

93. Michael Scott: The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

94. Alain Mabanckou: African Psycho (Congo-Brazzaville)

95. David Shipley and Will Schwalbe: Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home

96. Palau: Republic of Palau Ministry of Education: Education Master Plan 2006-2016, Republic of Palau (Palau)

97. Lev Grossman: The Magicians

98. Richardo Keens-Douglas and Annouchka Galouchko: The Nutmeg Princess (Grenada)

99. Rick Riordan: The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book One)

100. Solly Ganor: Light One Candle A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem (Lithuania)

101. Kris Holloway: Mali: Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali (Mali)

102. Edward Steichen: The Family of Man (Luxembourg)

103. Rick Riordan: The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book Two)

104. Jules Verne: Around the World in 80 Days

105. Philip Roth: The Ghost Writer

106. John Le Carre: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

107. Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

108. Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days

109. Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Notes from the Underground

110. Stieg Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

111. Amy Tan: Saving Fish from Drowning

112. Geraldine Brooks: People of the Book

113. Dan Brown: Deception Point

114. Grigore Vieru: Bread and Dew: Stories by a Moldavian Writer (Moldavia)

115. Susan Jane Gilman: Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

116. Nathacha Appanah: Blue Bay Palace (Mauritius)

117. Anthony Bourdain: Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical

118. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife

119. Lev Grossman: The Magicians

120. Bamboté: Daba's Travels from Ouadda to Bangui (Central African Republic)

121. Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger

122. Miriam H. Huggins: Miriam Gone Home: The Life of Sister Huggins (Saint Kitts and Nevis)

123. Princess Grace of Monaco: My Book of Flowers (Monaco)

124. Brian Preston-Campbell: Cool Waters: 50 Refreshing, Healthy Homemade Thirst-Quenchers

125. Rick Riordan: The Titan's Curse ((Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book Three)

126. Gertrude "Cleo" Lythgoe: The Bahama Queen: The Autobiography of Gertrude "Cleo" Lythgoe (Bahamas)

127. Hergé: Tintin in America (Belgium)

128. Thomas Beattie: Labor of Love: The Story of One Man's Extraordinary Pregnancy

129. Sholom Aleichem: The Tevye Stories and Others (Ukraine)

130. Rick Riordan: The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book Four)

131. Norma Khouri: Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern Day Jordan

132. Professor Sir Themistocles Zammit: Prehistoric Malta: Tarxien Temples and Saflieni Hypogeum (Malta)

133. Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein: Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar Understanding Philosophy through Jokes

134. Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games

135. Samad Beh-Rang: The Little Black Fish

136. Vivian Child: City of Arches: Memories of an Island Capital, Kingstown, St. Vincent and The Grenadines (St. Vincent and the Grenadines)

137. Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, Queen of Bhutan: Treasures of the Thunder Dragon: A Portrait of Bhutan (Bhutan)

138. Joseph Brahim Seid: Told  Starlight in Chad (Chad)

139. Peter Chapman: Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World

140. Benjamin Nugent: American Nerd: The Story of My People

141. Rick Riordan: The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book Five)

142. Gita Mehta: Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East

143. Liz Banks: Maldives Musings (Maldives)

144. Muriel Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

145. Samantha Weinberg: A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth (Comoros place-holder)

146. Suzanne Collins: Catching Fire

147. J. Maarten Troost: The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (Kiribati place-holder)

148. Robin McKinley: Sunshine

149. Slavko Janevski: The Bandit Wind Poems (Macedonia)

150. Michael Bell: Scouts in Bondage and Other Violations of Literary Propriety

151. Andy Behrman: Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania

152. Henry Nalaielua: No Footprints in the Sand: A Memoir of Kalaupapa

153. Terri Cheney: Manic: A Memoir

154. Ann Patchett: Bel Canto

155. George W. Staples and Robert H. Cowie: Hawai'i's Invasive Species: A Guide to Invasive Plants and Animals in the Hawaiian Islands

156. Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner and Frank Stack: Our Cancer Year

157. Oni Vitandham: On the Wings of a White Horse: A Cambodian Princess's Story of Surviving the Khmer Rouge Genocide

158. Meng-Try Ea and Sorya Sim: Victims and Perpetrators? Testimony of Young Khmer Rouge Comrades (Documentation Series No. 1)

159. Arif K. Abukhudairi: Thoughts of the Times: Introduction to Arabic Literature (Brunei)

160. Gregory Moiseyevich Levin: Pomegranate Roads: A Soviet Botanist's Exile from Eden (Turkmenistan)

161. Thomas Hollowell: Allah's Garden: A True Story of a Forgotten War in the Sahara Desert (Western Sahara)

162. Kevin Kelly: Entertaining Your Indoor Cat: 50 Fun and Inventive Amusements for Your Cat

163. Michael Chabon: Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure


Reading goals for 2010:
*104 books

*20 books already in hand as of 1/1/10

*34 Books of the World

Gentlemen of the Road

#394
Title: Gentlemen of the Road
Author: Michael Chabon
Illustrator: Gary Gianni
Publisher: Del Ray/Ballantine
Year: 2007
233 pages

First published serially in The New York Times, this short, picaresque novel follows an unlikely pair of Jewish mercenaries as they become embroiled in the power struggles of the Khazar. Readers from Christian backgrounds may not appreciate how refreshing it is to read a story in which all the main characters are Jewish and are doing something beyond, well, being Jewish. To have the assumption of characters' Christianity replaced by the assumption of their Judaism is a pleasure, and possibly more delightful than the narrative, which is delightful enough. The literary style is young men's adventure plus GRE-level vocabulary.

The book features illustrations in the style of the classical youth adventure tale; a pleasing type style; red headers, numbers, and decorative edging on the first page of each chapter; and a lovely map of the region.

from:
date: Jan. 5th, 2010 06:15 am (UTC)

This was also the joy of living in Israel; being Jewish was just ordinary, normal.

(no subject)

from:
date: Jan. 5th, 2010 03:33 pm (UTC)

Indeed. I remember the first week in Israel--Jewish cops! Jewish bus drivers! And later, even the thrill of Jewish prostitutes! Jewish pickpockets! It was marvelous to be in a community with an assumption of Jewishness. (Which is not to say there were no non-Jews there, or that the treatment of Palestinians is not an issue.)

Entertaining Your Indoor Cat: 50 Fun and Inventive Amusements for Your Cat

#393
Title: Entertaining Your Indoor Cat: 50 Fun and Inventive Amusements for Your Cat
Author: Kevin Kelly
Illustrator: Wendy Crowell
Publisher: Sellers Publishing
Year: 2008
125 pages

A cute compendium of easy-to-build toys and easy-to-engage-in activities for exercising and entertaining indoor cats. Other than referring to the Tunnel of Love before it had been described, the content was reasonably well organized. The tone is affectionate. A couple of activities seem destined to suggest to cats that it's okay to kil your house plants, but hey, de gustibus non est disputandum, right? Also, the author appears to live in a neighborhood without free range dogs; I wouldn't walk my cats on a lead or stake them out without sitting right there.

I note two important missing activities, and a missing variant on some described in the book. 1, Missing activity 1: For maximum cat activity, buy it a pet cat. Missing activity 2: There are no activities that involve prancing about while wearing the cat on your head, juicing its face in your cupped hand, or stretching it along your arm and pretending it's a semi-automatic (Rambo Among the House Plants). 2. Variant: Many of the activities can be enhanced with the "sniffing your butt" option. Any stuffed mouse, hand puppet, laser beam, etc. can approach the cat from the rear. Paired with your cry of "Oh, no! It's sniffing your butt!" this activity adds hours of fun to any game. Thank you. Mr. Meow and I will be here all week.

Allah's Garden: A True Story of a Forgotten War in the Sahara Desert

#392
Title: Allah's Garden: A True Story of a Forgotten War in the Sahara DesertAuthor: Thomas Hollowell
Publisher: Tales Press
Year: 2009
Country: Western Sahara
196 pages

It's not entirely clear why Hollowell left the Peace Corps after a short period of service. Perhaps it's because he kissed a local woman in public and was arrested; perhaps there's more. Either way, his exploration of Morocco brought him into contact with Azeddine Benmansour, a physician who was taken captive by Algerian-backed forces while serving his army time in the disputed Western Sahara. Benmansour, who was held as a POW for 24 years, related his story to Hollowell, who uses anecdotes of his own time in Morocco as a frame. Hollowell's narrative style is earnest, which is a refreshing contrast to some recent world-weary 20- and 30-something authors. Other than the ill-advised kiss, he appears to have been respectful of Moroccan mores and practices. I would have wished for more about Hollowell's experience, but recognize that he didn't want to detract from Benmansour's emotional impact.

For those unfamiliar with the conflict over Western Sahara, a good place to start, and a good point of comparison to more well-known human rights abuses in countries such as Sudan.

Thanks for the review!

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 29th, 2009 02:44 pm (UTC)

Hi  ...: Thomas Hollowell here, the author of Allah's Garden: A True Story of a Forgotten War in the Sahara Desert of Morocco. Thank you for your review of my book! It was a pleasure to happen upon it and your analysis hit the nail on the head; I would have liked to write more about my situation, but I needed to stay focused on Azeddine's plight. In any regard, thanks for reading and writing about it!

Very Best,
Thomas
tom@thomashollowell.com
http://www.allahs-garden.com

Pomegranate Roads: A Soviet Botanist's Exile from Eden

#391
Title: Pomegranate Roads: A Soviet Botanist's Exile from Eden
Author: Gregory Moiseyevich Levin
Translator: Margaret Hopstein
Publisher: Floreant Press
Year: 2006
Country: Turkmenistan
203 pages

Turkmenistan.

Combining pomegranate history and observations with his biography as a pomegranate scientist, Levin also manages to impart a great deal of information about both living through World War II and the effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union on science, scientists, and policy in former Soviet nations.

This may sound dry but it's very interesting and charming. Levin's great love for Turkmenistan and his ambivalence about leaving after 40 years make this the most poignant botany book you're likely to read.

Thoughts of the Times: Introduction to Arabic Literature

#390
Title: Thoughts of the Times: Introduction to Arabic Literature
Author: Arif K. Abukhudairi
Publisher: Fralain Art & Stationers
Year: 1985
Country: Brunei
96 pages

This is a slender compilation of the author's newspaper columns on Arabic literature while he was working in South Korea. They are interesting, and I imagine that he knows what he's talking about, but just asserting something to be true of a poem, or genre, or the status of women doesn't support its truthfulness--I wanted more examples and less simply insisting that he was right. That may be okay for a newspaper column but it wears thin over even a short collection.

I'd like to find something more Brunei-centric, so while I'll tick off the country on my list, I'm still watching for a more representative author.

Victims and Perpetrators? Testimony of Young Khmer Rouge Comrades (Documentation Series No. 1)

#389
Title: Victims and Perpetrators? Testimony of Young Khmer Rouge Comrades (Documentation Series No. 1)
Authors: Meng-Try Ea and Sorya Sim
Year:  2001
Publisher:  Documentation Center of Cambodia
86 pages

I've been looking for something like this for some time. It's collected testimony of (mostly) youth who were impressed into or volunteered for Khmer Rouge service. These young cadres describe their experiences as Khmer Rouge soldiers, farmers, and other roles before and during the Cambodian genocide. Their quotes are lightly contextualized with historical explanation and a framing narrative. There isn't much available that helps the reader understand the experience of Khmer Rouge cadres from their own perspective, so this is a very useful monograph.

On the Wings of a White Horse: A Cambodian Princess's Story of Surviving the Khmer Rouge Genocide

#388
Title: On the Wings of a White Horse: A Cambodian Princess's Story of Surviving the Khmer Rouge Genocide
Author: Oni Vitandham
Year: 2005
Publisher: Tate Publishing
200 pages

My dilemma with Oni Vitandham's narrative is that I'm not sure whether to trust it as an accurate account. I've read a reasonable number of memoirs of people oppressed by the Khmer Rouge, as well as Holocaust memoirs and war narratives, so I'm familiar with the broad genre of survivor memoir. Many seem unlikely, but that's because were it not for a series of coincidences and fortuitous events, the author would have died.

On the other hand, Vitandham's story seems too coincidental or strange to be entirely convincing. For example, she observes that "the cold air turned the decomposing bodies...blue." This is somewhere between Kompong Som and Phnom Penh, but nowhere in Cambodia does the temperature get below 70F. I've seen Cambodians shiver when the temperature drops to 80, but objectively 70 is not low enough to turn a corpse blue. There may be a plausible alternative explanation, but it's not articulated, and this statement certainly jarred me and made me wonder what other "facts" might be incorrect.

My evaluation is further eroded by her reliance on spiritual/metaphysical explanations, which I respect as beliefs but which don't bolster her objective veracity. Yet some of her less-believable explanations don't go anywhere in a way that actually makes me believe her more. For example, she reports that her father was a prince and she was sent to live in a cave as a child for her own protection. Yet in the post-Khmer Rouge era, there doesn't seem to be an attempt (or, at last, a reported attempt) to re-connect with any remnants of this royal family. She also reports essentially a religious prophesy about her return to Cambodia, but she hasn't (yet) returned.

She seems to be a person who has done good for the Cambodian people, and I don't intend to denigrate that by questioning the accuracy of her story, but until I see more support for her narrative, I can't read it as strictly credible. I would be happy to be wrong, so please send me evidence if you have it.

Our Cancer Year

#387
Title: Our Cancer Year
Authors: Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner
Illustrator: Frank Stack
Year: 1994
Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
252 pages

Another jury duty waiting room book. This is a graphic memoir of Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner's year or so during which Harvey discovered and was treated for cancer. The story is coherent enough and intertwines with one about Brabner's work (both she and Harvey are comic book writers). Frank Stack's illustrations are sometimes difficult to puzzle out and characters' expressions don't always match their affect. Still, the story and emotions will be familiar to anyone who has been intimately involved with cancer treatment, and the book length and format permit a greater range of nuance than does a standard comic book-sized memoir.

Hawai'i's Invasive Species: A Guide to Invasive Plants and Animals in the Hawaiian Islands

#386
Title: Hawai'i's Invasive Species: A Guide to Invasive Plants and Animals in the Hawaiian Islands
Author: George W. Staples and Robert H. Cowie
Year: 2001
Publisher: Mutual Publishing and Bishop Museum
126 pages

While enjoying the wait to have my juror number called so that I could be dismissed during voir dire (what with the being a psychologist and the relative of a police officer and a person who works pretty directly with state laws and all), I finally was able to read this field guide, which I picked up last December at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Staples and Cowie provide useful (if ultimately repetitive) introductory material on invasive species introduced intentionally and unintentionally to the Hawaiian Islands, beginning with the period of Polynesian settlement. They then cover the most common problematic mammals, fish, insects, crustaceans, mollusks, other invertebrates, and plants, providing a more comprehensive overview than many field guides. Good color photos illustrate throughout.

Bel Canto

#385
Title: Bel Canto
Author: Ann Patchett
Year: 2005
Publisher: HarperPerennial
318 pages

I'd call it Grade A beach reading--an interesting story, well-constructed and engaging, that holds one's attention. At the same time, it's a little silly and requires some suspension of disbelief. Still, while reading it I thought "What's going to happen next?" rather than "Why am I reading this rather than something else?" So--better than chick lit, but still a kind of genre fiction. This novel requires one to believe that opera creates an almost magical compulsion toward harmony and connection. I can buy that for purposes of a good beach read.

Manic: A Memoir

#384
Title: Manic: A Memoir
Author: Terri Cheney
Year: 2008
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
245 pages

Cheney tells her story of being bipolar as a series of non-chronological vignettes because that's what having the disorder is like for her--episodic experiences that are vivid but not always easily related. In the tradition of Jamison's An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, Cheney's account is not only frenetic at times, but also self-reflective and insightful. A sensitive and well-delivered account of how pervasively bipolar disorder can affect one's life.

No Footprints in the Sand: A Memoir of Kalaupapa

#383
Title: No Footprints in the Sand: A Memoir of Kalaupapa
Author:  Henry Kal Nalaielua with Sally-jo Keala-o-anuenue Bowman
Year: 2007
Publisher: Watermark Publishing
192 pages

As a boy, Henry Nalaielua was diagnosed with leprosy, removed from his family, and made an involuntary resident first of a hospital on Oahu, then the leper colony at Kalaupapa on Molokaʻi. His life story is linear and picaresque (and then I did this, and then I did that) but still very interesting, especially his account of daily life in Kalaupapa and the ways his life intersected with aspects of Father Damien's.

One peeve: No, you didn't say "Me yamo" to someone; you said "Me llamo." It's a small point, but it bugs me when people don't correctly represent languages they say they speak.

Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania

#382
Title: Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
Author: Andy Behrman
Year: 2003
Publisher: Random House
304 pages


Behrman doesn't tell the reader what mania is like; he shows it. Reading Behrman is exhausting in an illuminating way. The frenetic exposition enacts mania nicely. In some ways, so does Behrman's emotional flatness in recounting some of his experiences. The memoir tends toward the linear recounting of events rather than the construction of the more-complex narrative I would have wished for, and I would have preferred more self-reflection at points throughout. Still, it's a very good, unvarnished look at how intoxicating, and how debilitating, bipolar disorder can be.

Scouts in Bondage: And Other Violations of Literary Propriety

 
#381
Title: Scouts in Bondage: And Other Violations of Literary Propriety
Author: Michael Bell
Year: 2006/2007
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
96 pages

This was probably more entertaining at its genesis as a series of shop window displays over time. In that setting, the double entendres and shifts in meaning would have seemed serendipitously found and wittily presented. As a collection of book covers, however, the humor quickly wears thin. This would best be read by placing the book on a stand and turning only one page a day for view. Like dessert, too much at once ceases to be a pleasure.