Swimming in Uncharted Waters: Reports from Cambodia

#927
Title: Swimming in Uncharted Waters: Reports from Cambodia
Author: Gina Wijers
Publisher: AnyPress, The American Book Center
Year: 2009/2011
177 pages

    A collection of essays based on letters home (or perhaps simply those letters) from a development worker in Cambodia. The author raises many useful questions and explores pertinent issues. A little more editing would enhance the English edition.

Title: Ambassadors Before They Knew It: Song Kosal and Tun Channareth of the Cambodia Campaign to Ban Landmines 1994-2011

#926
Title: Ambassadors Before They Knew It: Song Kosal and Tun Channareth of the Cambodia Campaign to Ban Landmines 1994-2011
Authors: Hannah Cole, Molly Mullen, Tess O'Brien, Denise Coghlan
Publisher: Jesuit Refugee Service
Year: 2011
63 pages

A montage of photos, reports, brief speeches, and other ephemera related to Cambodian activists' work toward establishing a worldwide landmine ban. The collection is well-organized and is moving to read.

The True Meaning of Smekday

#925
Title: The True Meaning of Smekday
Author: Adam Rex
Publisher: Hyperion
Year: 2007/2009
423 pages

A very funny, often arch YA F&SF novel of alien invasion. Rex plays with typical expectations for both content and form, resulting in an enjoyable and sometimes surprising story. I enjoyed the ending, though [highlight for spoiler] it was a little too The Trouble with Tribbles to be completely excellent.

The Trivia Lover's Guide to the World: Geography for the Lost and Found

#924   
Title: The Trivia Lover's Guide to the World: Geography for the Lost and Found
Author: Gary Fuller
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Year: 2012
288 pages

    Entertaining geography trivia, with related digressions. Since the chapters are short and self-contained, it's a good choice for an airplane, which is where I read it.

Afakasi Woman: A Collection of Short Stories from a "Real Samoan Woman"

#923
Title: Afakasi Woman: A Collection of Short Stories from a "Real Samoan Woman"
Author: Lani Wendt Young
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Year: 2012
Country: Samoa
92 pages

A collection of short stories and essays by a Samoan writer. It provides a good look at daily life and tensions.Some are very funny or astute; some portray aspects of culture even though they are not as well-constructed.

This is Our Georgia

#922
Title: This is Our Georgia
Author: John Simpson (Ed.) & Kutaisi Third School Students
Translator: Tinatin Kutivadze
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Year: 2012
Country: Georgia
55 pages

I'm trying to find a cover photo, though this seems to be available only as a Kindle book. This is a collection of folk narratives, history, and daily practices written by Georgian students. I found it informative, and the profit goes to help students.

I read this when I gave up on Sandro of Chegem, where the punchlines or points of the stories often seemed inexplicable.

Legion

#921
Title: Legion
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Year: 2012
88 pages

Very disappointing. The problem isn't the basic idea, which is fun and interesting to explore. It's that this isn't a novella. It isn't even a long short story. Rather, it reads like an excerpt of a longer work. Despite the fun ideas, there turns out to be no plot. Oh, there's action--things happen, and they're engaging. Then Sanderson just stops. I had to double-check online to make sure I didn't have a defective copy. When I say there's no plot, I mean that the action doesn't resolve. This is not a post-modern narrative that plays with form, but a conventional story that appeals to the reader, has what appears to be rising action and character development, then ends with not even a whimper. If this is an excerpt, market it as such. If it's supposed to be a novella, somebody needs to sit Sanderson down and explain what a "novella" is.

Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya: The Great Classic of Central American Spirituality, Translated from the Original Maya Text

#920
Title: Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya: The Great Classic of Central American Spirituality, Translated from the Original Maya Text
Author: Allen J. Christenson & Anonymous
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Year: 1701 (Popol Vuh)/2007
Country: Guatemala
327 pages

An engrossing religious and historical document, well-contextualized and commented upon by Christenson. Lots of linguistic and explanatory notes, as well as anthropological material. I confess to skimming the lists at the end, but I got the gist.

People are almost Soylent Green, in that they were created from maize.

The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws

#919
Title: The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws
Author: Margaret Drabble
Publisher: Mariner Books
Year: 2009/2010
368 pages

A somewhat rambling, somewhat structured memoir/history of the jigsaw puzzle. I see the intent but it didn't work quite as well as I hoped. While I enjoyed reading it, it was also a slow read and I'm not sure why.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

#918
Title: Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
Author: Susannah Cahalan
Publisher: Free Press
Year: 2012
264 pages

A very good account of physiologically triggered psychosis and dementia that illustrates the importance of good clinical interviewing to determine etiology and, therefore, appropriate treatment. As Cahalan points out, without a good differential diagnostic process, she probably would have wound up on a back ward and, had the illness continued to progress, probably would have died young.

Cahalan does a good job of reconstructing her experiences. I appreciate her comments about the nature of memory. I'd have liked more medical data, but she outlines her situation coherently.

My only criticism is that she has a throwaway line about Sybil that uncritically repeats Nathan's claim, which is far from well-substantiated and is contested. If Cahalan weren't a journalist I wouldn't mention this, but it was jarring in that context.

Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal

#917
Title: Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal
Author: Conor Grennan
Publisher: William Morrow
Year: 2011
294 pages

One of the better exemplars of the callow-youth-becomes-activist genre. Don't be put off by Grennan's initial pages, where, though I think he intends to present himself as brutally honest, he instead comes off as a guy who is ill-prepared and not very funny. After the book gets rolling, though, he does a much better job. Later in the story, I appreciated his honesty about not really knowing how to set up a US-based non-profit organization, and here the self-deprecating humor rang more true.

This is intended to be a balance of coming of age and social service narrative. The balance sometimes works and sometimes does not. At its best, Grennan describes a transformative experience.

Snares without End

#916
Title: Snares without End
Author: Olympe Bhely-Quenum
Publisher: Longman Group United Kingdom
Year: 1982
Country: Benin
230 pages

This edition has a long, explanatory forward that includes multiple spoilers. Read it after reading the novel.

The first half of the novel flows nicely and is both coherent and somewhat existential. The latter portions are more disjointed, make less sense, and seem sloppier rather than suddenly artfully shifted to a different genre. As a whole, it reads as if the author set aside the manuscript for some time, then picked it back up and finished it without much reference to the style or tone of the first section. I found this problematic and uneven.