2010 totals

2010 Totals

Dec. 31st, 2010 | 09:02 pm

It's December 31--you know what that means:

• Number of books: 177
• Number of pages: 48,140
• Mean pages/book: 271.98
• Books of the World challenge: 25
• Equatorial Guinea, Seychelles, Tajikistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, [New Caledonia], Tunisia, Fiji, Gabon, Zambia, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Rwanda, Botswana, Qatar, Zanzibar, São Tomé and Príncipe, United Arab Emirates, Tuvalu, Timor-Leste, French Guiana, Venezuela, Slovenia, Bahrain, [Puerto Rico], Cape Verde
• Audiobooks: 27

Pages to date (2006-2010): 173,040

• 2010: 48,140
• 2009: 40,762
• 2008: 27,376
• 2007: 36,821
• 2006: 19,941

1. Jaed Coffin: A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants (224)
2. Kathy Hoopmann: All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome (70)
3. Donato Ndongo: Shadows of Your Black Memory (Equatorial Guinea) (180)
4. Pujita Nanette Mayeda and Friendship with Cambodia: Responsible Traveler’s Guide Cambodia (118)
5. Marc Abrahams: The Ig Nobel Prizes (250)
6. Michael Scott: The Sorceress (502)
7. Helen Bannerman: The Story of Little Black Mingo (48)
8. Laurie Sandell: The Impostor's Daughter: A True Memoir (253)
9. Leonard Q. Ross (a.k.a. Leo Rosten): The Education of Hyman Kaplan (154)
10. Cal Vornberger: Birds of Central Park (208)
11. Michael Wex: Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods (319)
12. Stephen T. Asma: The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha (272)
13. Jennifer Toussant-Cali: Meet Vannah of the Seychelles (Seychelles) (48)
14. Jeanne DuPrau: The City of Ember (The Ember Series, #1) (288)
15. Dennis Lehane: Shutter Island (369)
16. Michael Cunningham: The Hours (230)
17. Joseph Conrad: Lord Jim (271)
18. Jeanne DuPrau: The People of Sparks (The Ember Series, #2) (352)
19. Jeanne DuPrau: The Prophet of Yonwood (The Ember Series, #3) (289)
20. Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake (416)
21. Edward Kritzler: Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their
Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge (340)
22. Adam Fifield: A Blessing over Ashes: The Remarkable Odyssey of My Unlikely Brother (334)
23. A. M. Homes: The Mistress's Daughter (251)
24. Robert Frimtzis: From Tajikistan to the Moon: A Story of Tragedy, Survival and Triumph of the Human Spirit (Tajikistan) (376)
25. Garth Nix: Lord Sunday (320)
26. Larry Devlin: Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (306)
27. Jean-Claude Staudt (Ed.), Hilary Roots (translator), & island children (illustrators): Legends of New Caledonia: A Collection of Legends from
the Isle of Pines (New Caledonia) (31)
28. Nim Vantha, Ven Virak, & Sok Sotheavy: Finding Sustainable Livelihoods: A Case Study from Peam Krasaop Wildlife Sanctuary (PKWS), Koh
Kong Province, Kingdom of Cambodia (30)
29. Asian Development Bank: The Significance of Referral Systems as a Response to Human Trafficking and Unsafe Migration (35)
30. Dillon Banerjee: Insider's Guide to the Peace Corps: What to Know Before You Go (2nd ed.) (192)
31. Asian Development Bank: Broken Lives: Trafficking in Human Beings in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (54)
32. Asian Development Bank: Build It and They Will Come: Lessons from the Northern Economic Corridor: Mitigating HIV and Other Diseases (38)
33. Aicha Ben Abad: Tunisian Mosaics: Treasures from Roman Africa (Tunisia) (144)
34. Carrie Ryan: The Forest of Hands and Teeth (318)
35. Michael Chorost: Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human (238)
36. Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go (294)
37. William Gibson: Spook Country (379)
38. I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced (189)
39. Jeanne DuPrau: The Diamond of Darkhold (The Ember Series, #4) (295)
40. Suzanne Stone: Volunteering Around the Globe: Life Changing Travel Adventures (207)
41. Epeli Hau'ofa: Tales of the Tikongs (Fiji) (103)
42. Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn: Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (317)
43. Daniel M. Mengara: Mema (Gabon) (126)
44. Patti Smith: Just Kids (303)
45. Heidi Squier Kraft: Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital (256)
46. Josh Swiller: The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa (Zambia) (281)
47. Steve Hely: How I Became a Famous Novelist (322)
48. Jean Hanff Korelitz: Admission (452)
49. Marguerite van Geldermalsen: Married to a Bedouin (Jordan) (288)
50. Margaret Atwood: The Year of the Flood (448)
51. Angie Sage: Syren (Septimus Heap #5) (640)
52. Barack Obama: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (471)
53. Rick Steves: Travel as a Political Act (222)
54. [Atul Gawande: Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
(abridged audiobook) (re-read)] [~187]
55. Michael Dorris: Rooms in the House of Stone (66)
56. Kurban Said: Ali and Nino (Azerbaijan) (284)
57. Rosalynn Carter with Susan K. Golant and Kathryn E. Cade: Within Our Reach: Ending the Mental Health Crisis (193)
58. J. Maarten: Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu (239)
59. Michael Scott: The Necromancer (Nicholas Flamel, #4) (416)
60. Paul Rusesabagina with Tom Zoellner: An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography (Rwanda) (207)
61. Augusten Burroughs: A Wolf at the Table (272)
62. Michael Cunningham: Specimen Days (318)
63. Peter Allison: Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide (Botswana) (246)
64. Chris Bohjalian: Trans-Sister Radio (368)
65. Alan Gordon: Thirteenth Night (243)
66. Cory Doctorow: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (208)
67. Kristin Cashore: Graceling (473)
68. Cory Doctorow: Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present (285)
69. Habibur Rahman: The Emergence of Qatar: The Turbulent Years 1627--1916 (Qatar) (312)
70. Cory Doctorow: Eastern Standard Tribe (224)
71. Stephenie Meyer: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella (178)
72. Committee of the Board of Health: Venereal Diseases in New Zealand [1922] (84)
73. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.: The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever [1843] (40)
74. Emily Ruete [Sayyida Salme]: Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar (Zanzibar) [1907/2009] (298)
75. Rory Stewart: The Places in Between (308)
76. Donald Burness: Ossobó: Essays on the Literature of São Tomé and Príncipe (São Tomé and Príncipe) (176)
77. Denys Johnson-Davies (Ed. & Tr.): In a Fertile Desert: Modern Writing from the United Arab Emirates (United Arab Emirates) (123)
78. Gerd Koch: Songs of Tuvalu (Tuvalu) (197)
79. Amitav Ghosh: Dancing in Cambodia, at Large in Burma (120)
80. Ly Daravuth and Ingrid Muan: Tools and Practices: Change and Continuity in the Cambodian Countryside (92)
81. Cory Doctorow: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (320)
82. Scott Westerfeld: Uglies (425)
83. Scott Westerfeld: Pretties (370)
84. Scott Westerfeld: Specials (372)
85. Asian Development Bank: Under the Weather and the Rising Tide: Adapting to a Changing Climate in Asia and the Pacific (80)
86. Eleonora Hunt: My Trip Around the World: August 1895-May, 1896 (168)
87. Tanya Shaffer: Somebody's Heart is Burning: A Woman Wanderer in Africa (332)
88. Matthew Jardine: East Timor: Genocide in Paradise (95)
89. Luís Cardoso: The Crossing: A Story of East Timor (Timor-Leste) (173)
90. Brandon Sanderson: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians (312)
91. Joseph Conrad: An Outcast of the Islands (304)
92. Stephen Moses, James F. Blanchard, Han Kang, Faran Emmanuel, Sushena Reza Paul, Marissa L. Becker, David Wilson, and Mariam
Claeson: AIDS in South Asia: Understanding and Responding to a Heterogeneous Epidemic (136)
93. Ward Muir: Observations of an Orderly: Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital (249)
94. M. T. Anderson: The Suburb Beyond the Stars (227)
95. Abdourahman A. Waberi: The Land without Shadows (118)
96. Edna Fernandes: The Last Jews of Kerala: The 2,000 Year History of India's Forgotten Jewish Community (248)
97. Scott Westerfeld: Extras (417)
98. Anthony Hope: The Prisoner of Zenda (208)
99. Bruce Weinstein: Is it Still Cheating if I Don't Get Caught? (160)
100. Bruce Weinstein: Life Principles: Feeling Good by Doing Good (190)
101. Tayeb Salih: Season of Migration to the North (159)
102. Brandon Sanderson: Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones (336)
103. Laura Manivong: Escaping the Tiger (222)
104. Thomas de Quincey: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (127)
105. Alan Michael Parker (Ed.): Imaginary Poets: 22 Master Poets Create 22 Master Poets (160)
106. Olivia Gentile: Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds (345)
107. Joseph Conrad: The Secret Sharer (64)
108. Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake (291)
109. Robert Charles Wilson: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (413)
110. Allison Hoover Bartlett: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: A True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession (282)
111. Paul R. Linde: Of Spirits and Madness: An American Psychiatrist in Africa (240)
112. Michael Clinton: Global Faces: 500 Photographs from 7 Continents (352)
113. Henri Charrière: Papillon (French Guiana) (560)
114. Susan Beth Pfeffer: Life As We Knew It (345)
115. Frank Kane and John Tilsley: In the Shadow of Papillon: Seven Years of Hell in Venezuela's Prison System (Venezuela) (287)
116. David Mitchell: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (491)
117. Suzanne Collins: Mockingjay (400)
118. Harvard Lampoon: Nightlight: A Parody (154)
119. Tom Reiss: The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life (476)
120. John Elder Robison: Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's (317)
121. Shanta Rao: Stories of Women (136)
122. Slavoj Žižek: Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle (Slovenia) (188)
123. Nawal el Saadawi: Woman at Point Zero (112)
124. Ali Al Saeed: QuixotiQ (Bahrain) (192)
125. Sandra Wilkinson: Brain Death (396)
126. Susan Beth Pfeffer: The Dead and the Gone (321)
127. Nick Reding: Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town (269)
128. Cassandra Clare: City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments #1) (493)
129. Kristin Cashore: Fire (Graceling #2) (466)
130. [J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (759) (second reading)]
131. Marcel Proust: Swann's Way (474)
132. F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (48)
133. Marion Zimmer Bradley: The Colors of Space (141)
134. Marion Zimmer Bradley: The Door Through Space (204)
135. Michael Paul Masdon: Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath (314)
136. Jack Weatherford: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (352)
137. Mary Roach: Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (336)
138. Mark Vonnegut: Just like Someone Without Mental Illness Only Moreso (224)
139. Jeanette Winterson: The Stone Gods (212)
140. Wilson Smith: Just Dirt: Memoirs (131)
141. Denis Johnson: Tree of Smoke (620)
142. James Boswell, Robert William Chapman (Ed.): Selections from James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson [Oxford, 1821] (220)
143. Esmeralda Santiago: When I Was Puerto Rican [Puerto Rico] (286)
144. Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass (333)
145. Barbara Kingsolver: The Lacuna (508)
146. Walter Kirn: Up in the Air (302)
147. James Joyce: Ulysses (783)
148. Charlaine Harris: Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1) (316)
149. Emma Larkin: Finding George Orwell in Burma (304)
150. Adam Hochschild: King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror & Heroism in Colonial Africa (384)
151. John Ortved: The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History (352)
152. Amitav Ghosh: In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale (400)
153. Dante Alighieri (tr. Robert Pinsky): The Inferno of Dante A New Verse Translation (~355)
154. Cassandra Clare: City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments #2) (453)
155. John Perkins: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (250)
156.  George Obama and Damien Lewis: Homeland (256)
157. Cassandra Clare: City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments #3) (541)
158. Germano Almeida: the Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo [Cape Verde] (152)
159. Karlyn M. Ward: Visitation in a Zen Garden (64)
160. George Eliot: Scenes of Clerical Life (431)
161. Alain de Botton: A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary (112)
162. Kelsey Timmerman: Where Am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes (272)
163. Sandi Fox: Cats on Quilts (128)
164. Wang Gang: English (320)
165. Michael Flynn: Eifelheim (512)
166. Urgunge Onon: My Mongolian World: From Onon Bridge to Cambridge (162)
167. G. Michael Flieg & Allan Sander: A Photographic Guide to the Birds of the West Indies (144)
168. Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (368)
169. Peter Hessler: River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (432)
170. John Reader: The Untold History of the Potato [a.k.a. Potato: A History of the Propitious Esculent (336)
171. Martin Lloyd: The Passport: The History of Man's Most Travelled Document (288)
172. Rainer Maria Rilke: Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus (~110)
173. Richard ffrench and Roger Neckles: Birds of Trinidad and Tobago (2nd ed.) (132)
174. Nicholas Drayson: Guide to the Birds of East Africa (206)
175. Rebecca Skloot: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (384)
176. Paul R. Linde: Danger to Self: On the Front Line with an ER Psychiatrist (277)
177. Barbara Demick: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (336)

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

#571
Title: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Author: Barbara Demick
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Year: 2009
336 pages

Demick uses the life stories of several North Koreans as a framework to give shape to and personalize a history of North Korea, and the effects of that history and politics on these storytellers' lives. This creates a more intimate and nuanced account than many, rendering daily life in North Korea more accessible to the outside reader.

Danger to Self: On the Front Line with an ER Psychiatrist

#570
Title: Danger to Self: On the Front Line with an ER Psychiatrist
Author: Paul R. Linde
Publisher: University of California Press
Year: 2010
277 pages

Linde uses patient stories to open discussions of psychiatry/psychology concepts and intervention principles. It makes for a somewhat uneasy blend of story and pedagogy. The most consistent focus is on the author and his growth as a psychiatrist. This is fine; however, Linde often makes statements about philosophy and practice that he overgeneralizes to most or all psychiatric workers. I don't agree with Linde at a reasonable number of points, and would not have been troubled by this if he did not make such over-inclusive assertions. This puts me, a reader who has worked in multiple psychiatric assessment and treatment units, in the position of countering Linde as I'm reading, which distances me emotionally more than I would have thought going into it.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

#569
Title: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Author: Rebecca Skloot
Publisher: Crown
Year: 2010
384 pages
either
Skloot delivers an excellent blend of personal story and and the history that proceeds it, derives from it, and to some extent has overridden it. In its tone and interests, it is similar to Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and you Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, neither entirely condemning nor exonerating any of the people and institutions involved. Skloot brings alive the answer to the question of why we need Institutional Review Boards and Human Subjects review, invoking the Tuskeegee syphilis studies among others to illustrate the pattern of using less- powerful and more vulnerable groups as experimental subjects with inadequate consent (or, later, inadequate informed consent). Skloot does not take sides in the matter of whether Henrietta Lacks's family ought to benefit economically from the scientific use of her cell line. She facilitates each player's stand and arguments without much comment, which seems reasonable to me. It doe seem as though there is an ironic revenge in HeLa's ability to infiltrate and overwhelm other sample cell lines.

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa

#568
Title: A Guide to the Birds of East AfricaAuthor: Nicholas Drayson
Publisher: Mariner
Year: 2008/2009
206 pages

A sweet little novel, refreshing in its lack of slaughter and mayhem. The premise, that who may ask the lady on a date will be decided by bird sightings, is especially fun for birders, as is the triumphal moment of the contest. Each chapter is headed with a charming sketch of a bird.

Birds of Trinidad and Tobago (2nd ed.)

#567
Title: Birds of Trinidad and Tobago (2nd ed.)
Author: Richard ffrench and Roger Neckles
Publisher: Macmillan
Year: 2004
132 pages

I received this as a gift after standing on a mountain in Tobago and realizing that my Caribbean bird books at hand didn't include Trinidad and Tobago. Thus, I used it retroactively to look up the birds we spotted and those we could identify without a book. This is better than many bird guides as the photos are reasonably clear and the descriptions full of information. We saw and can positively identify 16 birds that don't appear in this book, but 43 that do, including the White-tailed sabrewing, Rufous-tailed jacamar, Blue-crowned mot-mot, and some gorgeous Southern lapwings. It's a good basic guide and certainly better than many of the pocket bird identification books.

Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus

#566
Title: Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus
Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
Translator: Stephen Mitchell
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1923/2009
(Audio cassette 1997 by Audio Literature)
110 pages (as audio)

Translated and read by Stephen Mitchell. I love Rilke so instead of commenting on the poems, I'll kvetch a little about some of the shortfalls of audiobooks. In book form, does this translation have an introduction? Explanatory notes? A facing page in the original German? In addition to the pretty clear sense at times of not getting the whole book, I also wonder how to convert audio duration to pages. It doesn't trouble me that much, but I find myself more drawn to novels as I peruse audiobooks. It's a nuisance to read non-fiction and then go to a bookstore or library to look at intros, afterwords, end notes, and diagrams. In any event, Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus work very well together and I enjoyed Mitchell's somewhat academic but non-intrusive reading.

The Passport: The History of Man's Most Travelled Document

#565
Title: The Passport: The History of Man's Most Travelled Document
Author: Martin Lloyd
Publisher: Sutton Publishing
Year: 2003
288 pages

A natural history of the passport. Some readers find it dry, whereas I found it very interesting. Illustrated with useful photographs and interweaving history and anecdote. It's a little dated since it was published before many of the post-9/11 infelicities of cross-border travel were firmly entrenched.

The Untold History of the Potato [a.k.a. Potato: A History of the Propitious Esculent]

#564
Title: The Untold History of the Potato [a.k.a. Potato: A History of the Propitious Esculent]
Author: John Reader
Publisher: Yale university Press
Year: 2008/2009
336 pages

Reader's sprawling natural history of the potato requires long sections on prehistorical migration to North America, the sociocultural meanings of potatoes, nutrition and birth rates versus quality of life, the blight (of course), how thieves were kept from stealing grapes, development issues in Papua New Guinea and french fries in China,  and many other spud-related topics. He doesn't just report information but takes some time to describe the methods of inquiry used to arrive at these data, which was enjoyable and helps answer my lingering dis-ease (and not lingering disease, which would refer not to me but to the potato) about non-fiction audiobooks where a person can't flip to the references. If you liked Salt, The Tulip, Rats, Tobacco, Coal, Bananas!, Dirt, or The Pencil, why, I imagine you'll like this book as well.

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze

#563
Title: River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze
Author: Peter Hessler
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Year: 2006
432 pages

Hessler, already a published travel writer in his late 20's, set out for a two-year stint in Sichuan as a college English literature instructor for the Peace Corps. Here he describes his two years and gradual acculturation. Hessler neither vilifies nor romanticizes the people with whom he interacts, and the result is a highly readable memoir/travelogue that includes both humor and insight. Read with Wang Gang's English for a semi-fictionalized Chinese perspective on English teachers and rural life in the Uigher areas of China during the cultural revolution.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

#562
Title: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Publisher: Mariner Books
Year: 2006
368 pages

Spoilers. You've been warned.

* * *

I first  read this as an audiobook, which clarifies the flow of the narrative but loses the graphic and typographic pastiche of the printed book, which I then skimmed. On the whole, I'd recommend the printed book since the pastiche parallels protagonist Oskar's book of "Stuff That Happened to Me" and other characters' letter- and journal-writing, uses typographic strategies to illuminate aspects of internal monologues and external dialogues, and uses images to underscore aspects of the text that are emotionally important to Oskar. Overall, the pastiche serves to give the reader/viewer a more immediate understanding that Oskar's world and patterns of thought are not entirely linguistic or linear, which is important because, like the protagonist of Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Oskar is not what you'd call neurotypical. Neither does he seem to be aspie, or schizophrenic, though he presents some aspects of each. The visual pastiche gives the reader a visceral door into Oskar's perceptual world, which contributes to the story's credibility and the reader's identification with him. For an added dimension, listen to the book while reading it in print, since telephone calls also figure prominently.

Like Foer's Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is less about its plot and more about grief--the great, huge, gasping, heart-wrenching grief of societal tragedy as well as the more personal astounded horror of individual loss. It's also about the ultimately inexplicable nature of Stuff That Happens To Us. Why, out of all people, was Oskar's father in the World Trade Center on September 11th? In contrast to Haddon's protagonist, Oskar's obsessive attempts to make sense of this mystery must fail. Oskar will never know if the pixelated falling man is his father, and in a way, this degree of specificity and closure, though it seems as if it will make the death more tolerable, is not useful or necessary. Oskar must emerge from the ultimately deflating search for his father with greater insight, maturity, and ability to tolerate the random and unknowable, not by filling his father's coffin with language (though he does so), but by sharing secrets and grief in meaningful human relationships. The final sequence of images, of the body flying up, is a poignant ending and holds the readers' hopes and wishes, for we, like Oskar, had to live through this loss.

RIP Jonathan Randall, d. 9/11/01.

A Photographic Guide to the Birds of the West Indies

#561
Title: A Photographic Guide to the Birds of the West Indies
Author: G. Michael Flieg & Allan Sander
Publisher: New Holland
Year: 2000
144 pages

The New Holland series of bird identification guides is uneven, but this is the best I've read so far. The photos are clear and the selection is good for common birds of the region. What distinguishes this volume is the descriptions of birds' feeding habits and other behaviors that allow for better identification. On a recent trip to the Caribbean, I was able to identify firm or con54 species, including the very weird brown trembler, using this comparatively small field guide.

My Mongolian World: From Onon Bridge to Cambridge

#560
Title: My Mongolian World: From Onon Bridge to Cambridge
Author: Urgunge Onon
Publisher: Global Oriental
Year: 2006
162 pages

Onon, a Genghis Khan scholar, here recounts his childhood and early adulthood. He lovingly evokes rural Mongolian  scenes, interwoven with folktales recounted by the people around him. Read with Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, particularly the chapters on Genghis Khan's childhood and environs.

Eifelheim

#559
Title: Eifelheim
Author: Michael Flynn
Publisher: Tor
Year: 2009
512 pages

Quantum physics, first contact with bug-like aliens, Jesuits, and the Black Death--what's not to like? Sure,  the interweaving of the contemporary and historical strands is uneven at times, and I believe in the reality of the medieval characters and aliens more than the modern-day scholars, but at its best this is the science fiction structural version of Brooks's People of the Book, though frequently more hilarious. Read with any book on the plague, or Willis's Doomsday Book for science fictiony plague goodness, or with Blish's A Case of Conscience (or Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, or Russell's The Sparrow) for further reflections on the spiritual nature and moral status of aliens.

English: A Novel

#558
Title: English: A Novel
Author: Wang Gang
Translators: Jane Weizhen Pan & Martin Merz
Publisher: Viking
Year: 2009
320 pages

This Chinese novel is presented as the narrator's coming of age story in rural Xinjiang during the Cultural Revolution. While political events intrude frequently, they shape the emotional tone of the story, not in the protagonist's response to policies and dictates, but in the fear, brutality, and betrayal that pervade most of the relationships. Though the narrator is more sympathetic than Mishima's, I was nevertheless reminded at times of the flat, calculating, cool affect of the children in The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. Here, though, the adults as well as the children are alienated, though they are more prone to outbursts of rage and despair. Love Liu sees English, and its symbol, his teacher's English dictionary, as a way out, though this abstraction ultimately fails him. Read with Hessler's River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze for an outsider's experience of teaching English in a nearby region of China or with pretty much any Yukio Mishima for cross-cultural resonance.

Cats on Quilts

#557
Title: Cats on Quilts
Author: Sandi Fox
Publisher: Abrams
Year: 2000
128 pages

Though this looks like a cute little coffee table book, and it is, it's also a surprisingly informative overview of, well, cats, as depicted on historical quilts. A number of time periods and quilt styles are represented and the text is useful and informative.

Where Am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes

#556
Title: Where Am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes
Author: Kelsey Timmerman
Publisher: Wiley
Year: 2008
272 pages

A quick, informal introduction to issues of globalization and economic considerations for people just beginning to think about the topic, through the mechanism of the author's attempting to see where his clothes were manufactured. It's fine as an introductory exploration such as might be appropriate for an undergraduate class. If you're looking for a lot of background or analysis, though, this will not satisfy you.

A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary

#555
Title: A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary
Author: Alain de Botton
Photographer: Richard Baker
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2010
112 pages

I agree with readers who found this to be lighter than they had hoped, and also with those who found it sufficiently absorbing. De Botton provides a nicely phrased but ultimately superficial pensée on his week spent in or adjacent to Heathrow. The idea of this project is a good one, though not de Botton's--he was a recipient of the opportunity. There's nothing to dislike about the narrative, and the photos provide a additional medium that is wonderfully atmospheric.

My dirty secret is that I love airports. I regularly kill up to 12 hours at international airports. If I were to be a writer in residence at an airport (and let's be frank: Many of us have spent many days trapped in a single airport), I'd have explored aspects unexamined by de Botton, such as sleeping in the airport (not at the adjacent hotel)--at a gate, in the women's room, behind an unused counter, in a car in the parking garage--, riding a baggage cart on the tarmac, eating foods I never eat,  watching rest room traffic, or determining the feasibility of visiting the other terminals, for example. I'd want to evaluate the art, see what long-term menu variety can be constructed at the shops and restaurants, try on clothes, or see how good a haircut and massage I could get. The man is in Heathrow, where I'd assuredly sample as much Scotch as God and nature permitted, perhaps purchased by strategically flying in to Terminal 5 from a trans-border point of origin so I could stock up at the World Duty Free Arrivals Store. If I were lucky they'd have my favorite, Glenmorangie Cellar 13, a 10-year-old special bottling that until recently was only available at duty free and was not exported, and to which I am extremely partial. To sip a wee dram at Heathrow, perhaps accompanied by a "luxury chocolate" from The Chocolate Box while perusing a copy of Jackson's beautifully illustrated Whiskey (acquired at WH Smith) would be a deep and quiet pleasure with no plane to catch or security queues to endure.

Scenes of Clerical Life

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#554
Title: Scenes of Clerical Life
Author: George Eliot
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1857
431 pages

Eliot's first novel is actually three somewhat related novellas in pastoral settings and with more-or-less prominent clerics. While Eliot's promise is easy to see, this early attempt seems claustrophobic, perhaps due to its structure. The tone has the carefulness and inhibited language of many debuts, though her humor (and archness) often carry the day. The plots of the novellas are, in contrast, fairly overblown and unnecessarily dramatic. As a modern feminist reader I can't get behind Janet's forgiveness of her husband, which seems to reinscribe the woman's subservient role in the treacly way that Eliot typically reserves for offensively cute little children in subsequent novels. I am left with am impression of moral simplicity rather than the moral complexity I usually enjoy in her work. My overall impression is of wearing a corset laced just a little too tightly--I can't quite get a full, deep breath of Eliot.

Visitation in a Zen Garden

#553
Title: Visitation in a Zen Garden
Author: Karlyn M. Ward
Publisher: il piccolo editions (Fisher King Press)
Year: 2010
64 pages

A very sweet essay with photos about a skulk of foxes (yes, that's the venereal term) that begin to visit her home Zen garden. Lurking (or skulking) beneath the surface narrative is the reader's awareness that the author is a Jungian analyst and must be just bursting with pleasure over the multiple archetypes evoked by the conjunction.

The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo

#552
Title: The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo
Author: Germano Almeida
Translator: Sheila Glaser
Publisher: New Directions
Year: 2004
Country: Cape Verde
152 pages

This was a fast, enjoyable book, a very funny novel whose absent protagonist leaves a will that runs to hundreds of pages. Embedded in the will and other characters' associations to it or tangents from it is the dead man's apologia pro vita sua. While sometimes he seems to be on the level, at other times there is sufficient evidence that he is engaged in image management and has spun events as best he can, perhaps even disguising his real intentions from himself.

City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments #3)

#551
Title: City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments #3)
Author: Cassandra Clare
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Year: 2010
541 pages

A reasonably satisfying conclusion to this trilogy. I figured out the key elements of Sebastian's backstory early on, but found how Clare got the reader there interesting. The action generally made sense and most immediate questions were answered. I appreciated some usefully disgusting scenes with angels.

Homeland: An Extraordinary Story of Hope and Survival

#550
Title: Homeland: An Extraordinary Story of Hope and Survival
Author: George Obama and Damien Lewis
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 2010
256 pages

The autobiography, thus far, of President Obama's younger half-brother George in Kenya. The writing is fine and George's life story is interesting. What makes this fun, though, is its points of intersection and divergence with Barack Obama's memoir Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. The constellation formed by the brothers' stories is more complex and engaging than either read alone. Any family story is enriched by multiple perspectives, and even moreso when one is a public figure.