2013 totals

2013 totals

Books: 132

Pages: 36,277

Average pages/book: 275

1. Steven L. Peck: A Short Stay in Hell (108)

2. Mary Prince, Sara Salih (Editor), et al.: The History of Mary Prince Bermuda [British overseas territory] (160)

3. Don DeLillo: The Body Artist (128)

4. John Varley: Slow Apocalypse (438)

5. John Varley: Red Lightning (Red Thunder, #2) (355)

6. Anonymous, Barbara Stoller Miller: The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War (176)

7. Giuseppe Rossi: The Republic of San Marino: The Oldest and Smallest Republic of the World [San Marino] (64)

8. Jay Bell: From Darkness to Darkness (Loka Legends, #2) (290)

9. John Varley: Rolling Thunder (Red Thunder, #3) (344)

10. J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit: Pocket Edition (276)

11. Robert Laxalt: Sweet Promised Land (198)

12. Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene (384)

13. Hugh Howey: Wool (Wool #1) (49)

14. Hugh Howey: Proper Gauge: (Wool #2) (106)

15. John Scalzi: Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4) (335)

16. R. Zain: My Arab Spring [Bahrain] (108)

17. Hugh Howey: Casting Off (Wool #3) (122)

18. Hugh Howey: The Unraveling (Wool #4) (166)

19. Hugh Howey: the Stranded (Wool #5) (254)

20. Pam Penick: Lawn Gone! Low-Maintenance, Sustainable, Attractive Alternatives for Your Yard (192)

21. Paul Murray: Skippy Dies (661)

22. Laurence J. Peter & Raymond Hull: The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong (192)

23. Karen Armstrong: Buddha (240)

24. Katherine Boo: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (288)

25. Fan Huang: Zero and Other Fictions [Taiwan (Republic of China)] (152)

[26. H. Beam Piper: Little Fuzzy (174)]

27. Thomas Eccardt: Secrets of the Seven Smallest States of Europe: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City (360)

28. Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion (420)

29. Erin L. Hawkes: When Quietness Came: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey with Schizophrenia (246)

30. Marjane Satrapi: Chicken with Plums (84)

31. Arthur Phillips: The Tragedy of Arthur (368)

32. Julie Holland: Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R. (320)
33. Penn Jillette: God, No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales (231)
34. William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope [Malawi] (270)
35. Yann Martel: Life of Pi (319)
36. Haruki Murakami: 1Q84 (945)
37. Deborah Fallows: Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language (208)
38. Tahir Shah: The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca [Morocco] (368)
39. John Scalzi: Fuzzy Nation (303)
40. Peter Moore: The Little Book of Pandemics (144)
41. Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking (290)
42. Vikram Seth: From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (192)
43. Sergio Atzeni: Bakunin's Son [Sardinia (autonomous region of Italy)] (82)
44. Karen Armstrong: The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (336)
45. Gregory David Roberts: Shantaram (936)
46. John Scalzi: The Human Division (432)
47.  Charles Palmer: Living in the Turks & Caicos Islands: From Conchs...to the Florida Lottery [Turks and Caicos (British Overseas Territory)] (146)
48.  Martin Booth Golden Boy: Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood [Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China)] (352)
49. Karen Lord: The Best of All Possible Worlds (308)
50. John Scalzi: The God Engines (136)
51. Christopher Hitchens: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (307)
52. Angie Sage: Fyre (Septimus Heap, #7) (720)
53. Lois Lowry: The Giver (179)
54. Matthew Goodman: Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World (480)
55. Anne Elizabeth Moore: Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh (96)
56. R. Crumb: The Book of Genesis (224)
57. Louise Erdrich: The Round House (321)
58. Barbara Kingsolver: Flight Behavior (436)
59. Rémi Carayol, Soeuf Elbadawi, Kamal'Eddine Saindou: Une suite à Moroni Blues [Comoros replacement] (56)
60. Tahmima Anam: The Good Muslim (320) [Bangladesh]
61. Roberto Bolaño: Nazi Literature in the Americas [Chile] (260)
62. Robert D. Lupton: Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (208)
63. Paul Theroux: A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta (288)
64. Madhur Jaffrey: Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India [India] (320)
65. China Miéville: Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, #1) (623)
66. Anonymous: The Upanishads [excerpted] (144)
67. Sharma Bulbul: The Ramayana [loosely adapted] (~180)
68. Mike Resnick: Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge (46)
69. David Finch: The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband (255)
70. Kathleen Winter: Annabel (480)
71. John Scalzi, Jack Campbell, Robert Charles Wilson, Mike Resnick, Elizabeth Bear, Allen Steele, Daryl Gregory, Lavie Tidhar, Mary Robinette Kowal, James Patrick Kelly: Rip-Off! (~360)
72. Xiaolu Guo: UFO in Her Eyes [People’s Republic of China] (208)
73. Salman Rushdie: Joseph Anton: A Memoir (636)
74. Neil Gaiman: The Doll's House (The Sandman #2) (232)
75. Khaled Hosseini: And the Mountains Echoed [Afghanistan] (404)
76. Alan Dean Foster: Star Trek Into Darkness (Star Trek: Movie Novelizations #2) (312)

77. Alexander McCall Smith: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #6) (233)
78. Alexander McCall Smith: Blue Shoes and Happiness (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #7) 256)
79. Scott Westerfeld: The Risen Empire (Succession #1) (352)
80. Karen Joy Fowler: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (310)
81. Alexander McCall Smith: The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #8) (213)
82. Scott Westerfeld: The Killing of Worlds (Succession #2) (336)
83. Neil Gaiman: Dream Country (The Sandman #3) (160)

84. Christopher Hitchens: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (98)
85. Kiera Van Gelder: The Buddha and the Borderline: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder through Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Buddhism, and Online Dating (248)
86. Jo Walton: Among Others [Wales] (302)
87. Cinda Williams Chima: The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms #4) (598)
88. Peter Sís, Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār: The Conference of the Birds [Iran] (160)
89. Neil Gaiman: Season of Mists (The Sandman #4) (192)
90. N. J. Dawood (Tr.): The Koran (456)
91. Neil Gaiman: A Game of You (The Sandman #5) (192)
92. Robert Galbraith [J. K. Rowling]: The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike #1) (455)
93. Miss Lasko-Gross: Escape from "Special" (136)
94. Angie Sage: The Darke Toad (Septimus Heap #1.5) (96)
95. Salman Rushdie: Haroun and the Sea of Stories (216)
96. Peter Pringle: Experiment Eleven: Dark Secrets behind the Discovery of a Wonder Drug (288)
97. Rabindranath Tagore & William Radice: Particles, Jottings, Sparks: The Collected Brief Poems [India] (214)

98. Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, & Fréderic Lemercier: The Photographer (288)
99. George R. R. Martin: A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire #5) (1016)
100. Francesco Marciuliano: I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats (112)
101. Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon: Birds: Mini Archive with DVD (288)
102. NoViolet Bulawayo: We Need New Names (298)
103. Christina Thompson: Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story [New Zealand] (288)

104. Oliver Sacks: Hallucinations (352)
105. Reza Aslan: Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (327)
106. H. G. Wells: The Time Machine (104)
107. Jeffrey A. Lockwood: Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War (400)
108. Neil Gaiman: Fables and Reflections (Sandman #6) (168)
109.  Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: Heat and Dust (192)

110. Neil Gaiman: Brief Lives (Sandman #7) (168)
111. H. G. Wells: The Island of Doctor Moreau (160)

112. Gary Snyder: Passage through India: An Expanded and Illustrated Edition (152)

113. Uwem Akpan: Say You're One of Them (358)

114. Sarah Vowell: Unfamiliar Fishes (238)

115. Karen Armstrong: The First Christian: Saint Paul's Impact on Christianity (192)

116. James Cook: Hunt for the Southern Continent (Great Journeys) (120)

117. Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson: The One Minute Manager (111)

118. Paul Bowles: Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World (240)

119. Susan Ee: Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days #1) (247)

120. Salman Rushdie: The Enchantress of Florence (355)

121. John Price: Notes from the Jungle - Teaching Abroad in an International School [Brunei] (274)

122. Diane L. Goeres-Gardner: Oregon Asylum (Images of America) (128)

123. Neil Gaiman: Odd and the Frost Giants (128)

124. Belle Sukraw: Teaching Mustafa and Other Young Terrorists [Qatar] (126)

125. Veronica Roth: Allegiant (Divergent, #3) (544)

126. Huy Vannak: Bou Meng: A Survivor from Khmer Rouge [Cambodia] (86)

127. Chum Mey: Survivor: The Triumph of an Ordinary Man in the Khmer Rouge Genocide [Cambodia] (108)

128. Susan Ee: World After (Penryn and the End of Days, #2) (320)

129. Khamboly Dy: A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979) [Cambodia] (84)
130. Paul Garrigan: Muay Thai Fighter: A Farang's Journey to Become a Thai Boxer [Thailand] (223)

131. Philip Roth: The Human Stain (384)

132. Charles Stross: Saturn’s Children (336)

36277

275

Saturn's Children

#1068
Title: Saturn's Children
Author: Charles Stross
Publisher: Ace
Year: 2008
336 pages

<- A good reason to retain control of your covers.

The background idea is that at this point in history, there are no longer any biological creatures. Everyone, regardless of degree of sentience, is a robot/created being. Against this very interesting backdrop, Stross sets a fast-paced potboiler-y tale of intrigue, not-knowing, double-dealing, and sisters who are not sisters. It's fun (including the homage a everyone in SF), though the worldbuilding is ultimately more interesting than the plot.

The Human Stain

#1067
Title: The Human Stain
Author: Philip Roth
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2001
384 pages

This surprising novel from Roth is like being at the surf line. The water, though in motion, has a calm, unbroken surface. Then suddenly something snags, or accumulates, or breaks its surface tension. It foams, bubbles, gushes, gnashes. If you're standing in it, you might be knocked down, dragged under, your ears filled with its roar as you tumble and scrape to the sudden calm liminal edge, emerging filthy with blood and seaweed, sand in your hair. That's what it's like to read this, and though it can be anticipated, the shock of the sudden chaotic surge never normalizes. I read along. Zuckerman; fine. I know Zuckerman. Then things tip just a little and I'm in someone else's point of view. That's okay, it's indirect discourse; no, not I'm really in it rather than having Zuckerman broker it for me. Now there's a growling, seething upswell of emotion, a torrent of personal information, a dislocation from the previous narrative, a searing, a pounding, a scouring--and back to the shallows with mud in my eyes and horrible crustaceans scuttling off. Sappho said, "If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble." This is only and entirely beach rubble, yet magnificent.

As to the plot, the plot is entertaining and witty. That's not what captivated me, though. It was the sustained and undulating and crashing waves, Portnoy's final rant fractally enhanced to become the whole world.

Highly recommended as an audiobook.

Muay Thai Fighter: A Farang's Journey to Become a Thai Boxer

#1066
Title: Muay Thai Fighter: A Farang's Journey to Become a Thai Boxer
Author: Paul Garrigan
Publisher: Maverick House
Year: 2012
223 pages

The title is a misnomer that I wouldn't pick at except that Garrigan identified the distinction between being a fighter and training. This is in some ways a shaggy dog story, in that Garrigan in fact never fights. "Muay Thai Training" would be a more accurate title. What happens here isn't a lot, and it could have been had Garrigan shifted his focus when it became clear that he wasn't actually going to fight. I think he could have had more to say about  his relationship to Muay Thai, its effect on his life philosophy, and how, in the end, not fighting might be an anodyne to the all-or-nothing thinking that he notes as part of his addictive approach. Not-fighting as a triumph of moderation is an interesting story. Not-fighting because so then I didn't fight after all isn't.

A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)

#1065
Title: A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)
Author: Khamboly Dy
Publisher: Documentation Center of Cambodia
Year: 2007
84 pages

Written at a high school/intro college level, this volume describes the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge using photographs and explanatory text. Generally clear, though additional sources of information might be useful for novices to this history, and valuable for the detail and immediacy provided by the photos.

World After (Penryn and the End of Days, #2)

#1064
Title: World After (Penryn and the End of Days, #2)
Author: Susan Ee
Publisher: Skyscape
Year: 2013
320 pages

This second installment advances the story through both action and information.

The reader learns more about angels and their politics, as well as the utility of strong relationships. Penryn matures over the compressed time scale covered here, evincing greater empathy and continuing to articulate her relational needs to herself. This, against a foreground of fast-paced events and sword-mediated flashbacks, demonstrates that it is possible for lovestruck teens in urban fantasy dystopias to enact their angst without artificially intruding on and disrupting the urgent momentum of the story's events.

Survivor: The Triumph of an Ordinary Man in the Khmer Rouge Genocide

#1063
Title: Survivor: The Triumph of an Ordinary Man in the Khmer Rouge Genocide
Author: Chum Mey
Publisher: Documentation Center of Cambodia (Documentation Series #18)
Year: 2012
108 pages

As is true for Bou Meng's book as well, this is one of three more-or-less first-person narratives from the group of 7 survivors rescued from Toul Sleng (S-21), a Khmer Rouge prison in Phnom Penh, when the Vietnamese retook the city. Chum Mey's account is somewhat less-well edited than Bou Meng's, but his book includes his confession (sic), as recorded by his interrogators.

Like Bou Meng, he describes his life, incarceration, torture, and preservation by the Khmer Rouge. Like most people held and interrogated in this prison, he has little idea why he was suspect.

Chum Mey sells copies of this book in the courtyard of the prison. He is politically active in Cambodia. For more information, see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/world/asia/17cambo.html?_r=0

Bou Meng: A Survivor from Khmer Rouge Prison S-21

#1062
Title: Bou Meng: A Survivor from Khmer Rouge Prison S-21
Author: Huy Vannak
Publisher: Documentation Center of Cambodia (Documentation Series #15)
Year: 2010
86 pages

One of, I think, three more-or-less first-person narratives from the group of 7 survivors rescued from Toul Sleng (S-21), a Khmer Rouge prison in Phnom Penh, when the Vietnamese retook the city. (More than 7 survived Toul Sleng, but the others seem to have been early releases.) Bou Meng's account, which forms the core of this volume, appears to be an edited oral account. With the additional explanatory matter included, it is coherent and easy to understand, if not to fathom. Bou Meng describes his life, incarceration, torture, and preservation by the Khmer Rouge. Like most people held and interrogated in this prison, he has little idea why he was suspect.

Bou Meng sells copies of this book in the courtyard of the prison. For more information, see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/world/asia/17cambo.html?_r=0

Allegiant (Divergent, #3)

#1061
Title: Allegiant (Divergent, #3)
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Year: 2013
544 pages

Better than the first two in the series, this concluding volume explodes the narrative's assumptive frame and answers some of my earlier concerns about reductive culture-building, revealing this to be a structural element of the story rather than a failure of the writing. Good job, Roth!

I haven't read any other reviews yet, but I assume that all teen readers everywhere feel ripped off and angry that Tris and Four's love cannot conquer all. Them's the breaks in a non-wish-gratifying dystopian tale. Again, good job! Roth escapes the genre in the end. That, too, is frame-breaking.

Teaching Mustafa and Other Young Terrorists

#1060
Title: Teaching Mustafa and Other Young Terrorists
Author: Belle Sukraw
Publisher: CreateSpace
Year: 2006
Country: Qatar
126 pages

A disorganized, culturally-suspect memoir of teaching in Qatar. The inflammatory title is used as a teaser that never actually delivers an anecdote. The book contains a number of grammatical errors, which is especially problematic for an English teacher. Disappointing and, I imagine, offensive to her former students and  their families.

Odd and the Frost Giants

#1059
 Title: Odd and the Frost Giants
Author:  Neil Gaiman
Illustrator: Brett Helquist
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2009
128 pages

A sweet little story that has its scary aspects (for the reader age group) but no real creepiness, Odd and the Frost Giants is not only a fun tale that includes Norse mythology, but also manages to include some important points about human differences without being preachy or pedantic. A fine middle reader from Neil Gaiman, one I wouldn't hesitate to give as a gift to a bright 8-12 year-old.

Oregon Asylum (Images of America)

#1058
Title: Oregon Asylum (Images of America)
Author:  Diane L. Goeres-Gardner
Publisher: Arcadia
Year: 2013
128 pages

I enjoy this series very much. Presenting a chronology through historical photos is extremely engaging. This volume falls somewhat short on organizational coherence, with two major problems: Material presented out of sequence, and a number of captions that are unrelated to the image they accompany. This is confusing and simply raises more questions. The author has another book about Oregon State Hospital, which may be better organized as it is free of the pictorial-based format constraints of the Images of America series.

Notes from the Jungle - Teaching Abroad in an International School

#1057
Title: Notes from the Jungle - Teaching Abroad in an International School
Author: John Price
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Year: 2010
Country: Brunei
274 pages

Although Price has some interesting anecdotes and ideas, he also has a lot of negative characterizations of his colleagues and educational systems. I can't speak to the issues of British international schools, but little that he describes resonates with my experience teaching in an American international school.

The Enchantress of Florence

#1056
Title: The Enchantress of Florence
Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Year: 2008
355 pages

I am of mixed opinions about this ambitious novel. On the one hand, there is Rushdie's always-clever, always-engaging language, a plot intertwined with world-shaping epics, interesting characters, and a puzzle. On the other hand, there's a sagging quality to the narrative at times, a distance from the characters (who grow wearying rather than more complex), and a conclusion that doesn't seem entirely worth the effort.

I might feel differently if I'd read it as a book rather than listened to it. I ranged from 2 stars to 5 stars in different sections, so we'll call it 3.

Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days #1)

#1055
Title: Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days #1)
Author: Susan Ee
Publisher: Feral Dream
Year: 2011/2012
247 pages

Young adult postapocalyptic fantasyish/science fictish, urban fantasy? Angels have invaded and they're not very nice. The love interest is pleasingly constrained, cosidering the genre, and there are some nice plot elements, like the protagonist's schizophrenic mother.

This has some potential; the question is whether the series will rise to it, or fall to its genre.

Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World

#1054
Title: Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World
Author: Paul Bowles
Publisher:  Harper Perennial
Year: 1957/2006
240 pages

Bowles manages to seem both prissy and racist in this half-century-old volume of travel pensees. Replete with noble and ignoble savages, the collection works best when Bowles discusses music or music and culture; it fares considerably worse when he pontificates on culture alone in what I assume was meant to be a jocular manner.

The One Minute Manager

#1053
Title: The One Minute Manager
Author: Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
Publisher: William Morrow
Year:1981/2003
111 pages

Wildly popular (though already dated) in its day, a management allegory that really needs only 5 pages at most to make its point. I have my undergraduates writing updates and making it relevant, and must say, while giving credit to Blanchard and Johnson for the idea, that my students' adaptations are more interesting than the original.

Hunt for the Southern Continent (Great Journeys)

#1052
Title: Hunt for the Southern Continent (Great Journeys)
Author: James Cook
Editor: Philip Edwards
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1774?/2007
120 pages
Excerpted from Cook's longer work, this is one in a Penguin classical travelogue series. Cook's spelling is preserved. It's interesting to watch Cook diligently crisscross the South Pacific and Antarctic waters looking for a continent that must be there, but which eludes his efforts to find it. Read with Thompson's  Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story for two views of Cook's purpose and effects.

The First Christian: Saint Paul's Impact on Christianity

#1051
Title: The First Christian: Saint Paul's Impact on Christianity
Author: Karen Armstrong
Publisher: Macmillan
Year: 1983
192 pages

Karen Armstrong's relatively early work on Paul. Armstrong usefully explains the different purposes of biography or hagiography (as she did in her life of Buddha) and articulates reasons why Paul was disinterested in the historical Jesus. She describes the role of his visions and mission to the gentiles, not neglecting his possible epilepsy but seeing it as a potential mechanism for sacred hallucination.

Useful for filling in around and at times for contrasting with Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.

Unfamiliar Fishes

#1050
Title: Unfamiliar Fishes
Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Riverhead
Year: 2011
238 pages

Much better than The Wordy Shipmates. An often enjoyable, sometimes slightly tedious history of the US takeover of Hawaii. Especially poignant for the quotations from letters and documents written by Hawaiian royalty as they watched the inevitable unfold. Read with any of the James Cook books I've reviewed recently, and next time you're in Hawaii, visit the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

Say You're One of Them

#1049
Title: Say You're One of Them
Author: Uwem Akpan
Publisher: Little, Brown
Year: 2008/2009
358 pages

This collection didn't work for me in many ways (not even including the very accented readers for some selections on the audiobook). There was entirely too much telling and not enough showing. Several of the narrative child voices seemed contrived and overly expository. Overall, this seemed like a writing workshop thesis. That's a fair place for a writer to start, but it feels like it got big play because it's about how terrible life in Africa is, not because it's written well.

Passage through India: An Expanded and Illustrated Edition

#1048
Title: Passage through India:  An Expanded and Illustrated Edition
Author: Gary Snyder
Publisher: Grey Fox Press
Year: 1983/2009
152 pages

A delightful and sometimes deep travelogue of Snyder's visit to India. Spare language and targeted details make this narrative, which was written more or less as a letter based on his journals, both insightful and poetic even when the prosaic is being described. Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky figure, as do a certain number of drugs and a reasonable amount of gastric upset. There's one photo of a Buddha statue that I could look at for hours--and have.

The Island of Doctor Moreau

#1047
Title: The Island of Doctor Moreau
Author: H. G. Wells
Publisher: Bantam
Year: 1896/1994
160 pages

Fascinating less for the story (which is entertainingly horrifying and must have been quite scandalous in its day) and more for the pseudoscientific tone, including the disclaimers and apologies of the narrator. This might be usefully compared to Atwood's Oryx and Crake as a cautionary tale about how humans paradoxically degenerate when they play god.

Sadly, as with Paolo Baccigalupi's halfmen, I can't help but picture McGruff the Crime Dog at times.

Brief Lives (Sandman #7)

#1046
Title: Brief Lives (Sandman #7)
Author: Neil Gaiman et al.
Publisher: Vertigo
Year: 1993/2011
168 pages

Perhaps the best so far, this is the family drama volume. Delirium is sheer visual pleasure and a contrast to the always somber Morpheus. More back story on Morpheus and Orpheus; much loss and sadness, well-portrayed and emotionally deep.

Heat and Dust

#1045
Title: Heat and Dust
Author: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Publisher: Counterpoint
Year: 1975?/1999 (reprint)
192 pages

Somewhat mannered, somewhat overwritten, and perhaps with too much parallelism, yet I still enjoyed this exercise in comparing and contrasting two women's lives in India across generations. The unnamed contemporary woman's experience seems like a somewhat tawdry version of Olivia's, but I suppose it is progress of a sort for exoticism to yield to the prosaic, and for one woman's Nawab to be another woman's anxious civil servant.

Fables and Reflections (Sandman #6)

#1044
Title: Fables and Reflections (Sandman #6)
Author: Neil Gaiman
Publisher: Vertigo
Year: 2011 (new edition)
168 pages

These are stories loosely linked by the help or meddling of Morpheus over a long span of time. Notable in introducing Orpheus, of whom more later.

Six-legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War

#1043
Title: Six-legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War
Author: Jeffrey A. Lockwood
Publisher: Oxford
Year: 2009/2010
400 pages

In The Simpsons, Season 7, Homer finds occasion to taunt: "Or what? You'll release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with bees in their mouths so when they bark they shoot bees at you?" At its best, Six-legged Soldiers is very much about dogs with bees in their mouths so when they bark they shoot bees at you. Or at least, about bee and hornet nests catapulted over the parapets. Or the biblical plagues of Egypt understood through the lens of causal insect action. Or scorpions in overhead trap doors. Or torture involving fleas and lice. Or the refinement of insect-delivered diseases, or the development of insectoid weapons. This is all riveting. Unfortunately, Lockwood's writing drags and bogs down at times, even with such exciting subject matter. It's worth working your way through it, though there isn't really a conclusion or climactic payoff. Still, despite the sometimes-slog, you'll learn a lot about attempts to weaponize bugs.

The Time Machine

#1042
Title: The Time Machine
Author: H. G. Wells
Publisher:Unknown
Year: 1895
~104 pages

Re-reading Wells's classic after many years, I'm struck by the "scientific" style, also used by Poe for his science fiction. The learned exposition about physics or the material world; the careful articulation by the protagonist of the limits of his expertise or possible lack of objectivity at times; the proofs that lead to the suspension of disbelief; the citing of authorities (here, though unnamed, Darwin plays a major role)--I just love the tone and the techniques used to reel the reader in.

Strip away the science and you've got a story which, although ostensibly about the future degradation of human nobility, reads very much like a colonial tale about the debased indigenes. This makes me think about how much of science fiction follows this model, though the noble rather than monstrous savage sometimes takes center stage.

I can poke some holes in the plot, but why bother? It's still a good story and in its day must have galvanized many readers.

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

#1041
 Title: Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
Author: Reza Aslan
Publisher:Random House
Year: 2013
327 pages

Like many books about Jesus (or, for that matter, HIV), the reviews are reasonably shrill, accusatory, and polarized. Aslan does a good job of contextualizing the period in which Jesus preached and making is accessible to the non-technical reader. I can't evaluate his contention that Jesus's activities can be understood as emerging from and buttressing the framework of zealotry, in its technical sense; I think he makes a case for this, but as I'm not a biblical scholar, I can't critique the argument. I felt that his analysis made more sense than most interpretations I've read, particularly his discussion of post-crucifixion politics and Paul's reinterpretation or reinvention of Jesus.

Read well by the author, but hunt up a visual copy for the end notes.

Hallucinations

#1040
Title: Hallucinations
Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2012/2013
352 pages

 Enjoyable, as Sacks always is, but more episodic than some, with modular chapters that don't really build on each other. Sacks here identifies and characterizes a variety of processes, ailments, damage, and poisons that can lead to different forms of hallucination (with a delusion or two thrown in for good measure). Sacks references many of his previous books; for a fun look at how his storytelling style has developed, read with his first book, the outdated but scholarly and highly annotated Migraine.

Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story

#1039
Title: Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story
Author: Christina Thompson
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year: 2008
288 pages

A good effort to interweave personal and cultural histories. Thompson, an American graduate student in Australia, meets and marries a Maori New Zealander. She alternates between and blends the story of their relationship with the story of European first and later encounters with Maori, analyzing some of the assumptions underlying the European view of the Maori. What's less well explored is her own feelings. I finish the book having enjoyed it, but with little understanding of what attracted her to her future husband "Seven," what their relationship was like, why they moved to the U.S., and what happened as they became a more established couple. All of this is in the story, but it doesn't have an emotional underpinning. Thompson tells anecdotes that purport to use the relationship as a parallel or springboard to the examination of European-Maori dynamics. I was ultimately left wanting more depth.

We Need New Names

#1038
Title: We Need New Names
Author: NoViolet Bulawayo
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Year: 2013
298 pages

Linked short stories generally follow Darling, a Zimbabwean girl, from her hungry, conflict-saturated childhood in Africa to her dislocated/relocated young adulthood in the U.S. Most of the sections worked well, though the end point of some didn't resonate or satisfy. There are some intrusions of a poetic narrator, best understood as Darling's philosophical future self, perhaps. They add complexity and perspective, but are at times heavy-handed and detract from the intensity I imagine the story would have had if it stayed tightly connected to the developing and acculturating protagonist.

A creditable first novel. Nicely read by Robin Miles.

Birds: Mini Archive with DVD

#1037
Title: Birds: Mini Archive with DVD
Author: Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon
Publisher: Harper Design
Year: 2011
288 pages

 A pleasing collection of bird paintings. It's interesting to compare these rather stiff renditions with sometimes-inaccurate body types to those more lifelike portraits painted by Audubon. The book comes with a DVD of the images, which is fun. Also fun is reading the end matter, since the names at the time of initial publication sometimes don't correspond with contemporary common name, genus, or species.

I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats

#1036
Title: I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats
Author: Francesco Marciuliano
Publisher: Chronicle
Year: 2012
112 pages

There are books you acquire by intent, and books you are given. This falls into the latter category.

Cute enough poems that remind one somewhat of Archy and Mehitabel. Illustrative kitty photos. Marciuliano writes the Sally Forth comic strip, so he's a practiced writer and most of these poems aren't clunky.

A 1-bath book.

A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire #5)

#1035
Title: A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire #5)
Author: George R. R. Martin
Publisher: Bantam
Year: 2011
1016 pages

We knew going into this that it wasn't likely to advance the storyline much, since it covered much of the same time as the fourth book. However, it does complicate the plot nicely and fill in a lot of the simultaneous action. I'd argue also that, as does the long "camping" scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the drawn-out nature of the narrative here conveys to the reader the enormous stretches of time it takes for non-fictional action to occur (such as moving an army across a country through the snow).

With enough contract negotiation to make Fifty Shades of Grey look speedy and impulsive, A Dance with Dragons reinforces the importance of alliances and agreements, and adds several factors other than strength of arms or strategic leadership that influence the outcomes of a conflict. One is bankruptcy, and its collateral implication that if your enemy outbids you or can pay the bills, s/he can buy your army (or your bank). Since Westeros has no Jews to slaughter, I'll be interested to see whether House Lannister declares war on the Iron Bank of Braavos to obliterate its debt. Another strategy, revealed at the end of this installment, is (view spoiler). Also, (view spoiler) doesn't do wonders for your popularity.

I continue to enjoy Tyrion and Arya most. I find Daenerys increasingly annoying. Identity and loyalty to ideals are key themes, strongly stressed.

Let's get to winter already.

The Photographer

#1034
Title: The Photographer
Author:  Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, & Fréderic Lemercier
Publisher: First Second
Year: 2003/2009
288 pages

An excellent use of pastiche, with many very wordy pages broken up through the use of both photos and photo-based illustrations. The narrative was engaging and the images really brought it to life. A great addition to your graphic memoirs/non-fiction shelf.

Particles, Jottings, Sparks: The Collected Brief Poems

#1033
Title: Particles, Jottings, Sparks: The Collected Brief Poems
Author:  Rabindranath Tagore & William Radice
Publisher: Angel Books
Year: 2004
214 pages

The prefatory material provides a useful introduction and places the work in the context of the author's life and other works, reporting as well on contemporary literary responses.

Particles (Kanika): Very short poems, often taking the form of a dialogue or near dialogue between paired opposites, generally ending with a reply that provides a twist of perspective and rebuke or statement of contentment with the second entity's experience. My favorite:

81. Beyond All Questioning
'What, O sea, is the language you speak?'
'A ceaseless question,' the sea replies.
'What does your silence, O Mountain, comprise?'
'A constant non-answer,' says the peak.

The problem with rhyming translation, even of a rhymed original, is that where the rhymed original's word choice at its best seems inevitable and the rhyme simply a serendipitous confirmation, the translation sounds, as many of these do, jangly and forced (despite Radice's use of some slant rhymes). These are structured song forms, but they are more clangy than lyrical in this translation.

Why "sea" is lower case and "Mountain" upper, I couldn't say.

Jottings (Lekhan): This collection is typically more haiku-like in feel, though more explicit in the poems' messages (sometimes to the point of banging one over the head with their moral, though this is mostly true only of the abstract poems). The nature imagery is more pronounced, or perhaps more obvious here. This may be due to the use of repetitive imagery across multiple poems. Stars, moon, sun, clouds, mountains, ponds, ocean, flowers, trees, and a musical instrument called the veena) recur, as does the theme of love (though these love couplets seem to me to be the weakest poems in this set). The emphasis on light and darkness compels one to read this as a group of albas and nocturnes.

4.
Dreams are nests that birds
In sleep's obscure recesses
Build from our talkative days'
Discarded bits and pieces.

110.
My pilgrimage does not aim at the end of the road.
My thoughts are set on the shrines on either side.

Sparks (Sphulinga): Less enjoyable, perhaps because many of the poems are abstract, religiously inclined, or appear to be invocations, salutations, or valedictions. As a group, they seem more occasional and specific than universal in their address. Those that remain focused on image and sensation are generally repetitive of the previous two collections, or unsubtle. There are many setting suns, faded cloud, ending roads, wilting flowers.

73.
The sea wants to understand
The message, written in spray,
That the waves repeatedly write
And immediately wipe away.

82.
That travelling cloud
About to disappear
Writes only its shade
As its name on the air.

The appendices include Tagore's explanation of the provenance of many of these short poems, interesting notes about the production of a handwritten collection using aluminum plates, thoughts on short poems, and the history of the creation of Lekhan; thoughts about Japan and the "extreme economy of self-expression"; a recollection by the woman who rules the lines on the aluminum plates; thoughts on modern English poets; and a different version of a poem.

All in all, well worth reading, but I'd still like to see an unrhymed version, especially of my favorite, Lekhan.

Experiment Eleven: Dark Secrets behind the Discovery of a Wonder Drug

#1032
Title: Experiment Eleven: Dark Secrets behind the Discovery of a Wonder Drug
Author: Peter Pringle
Publisher:Walker and Company
Year: 2012
288 pages

 The "dark secrets" of the title are, as one might expect, ethico-legal. However, they're about attribution of scientific discovery, order of precedence in publication, and the sometimes-nefarious behavior of institutions rather than dark secrets in the style of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, Henrietta Lacks, or the infection of children with Hepatitis B. It would be a good text to have graduate students read in order to understand why some professional ethics codes are very specific about the requirement for discussions of authorship and attribution. It might also be a good one to have faculty read with the preventative question, "What seemingly innocuous behaviors might we be engaged in that could lead to faculty and students having discrepant understandings of our relationship and work together?"

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

#1031
Title: Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1990/1991
216 pages

A YA novel that is delightful in and of itself for its story, language play, and relationships. However, knowing that Rushdie wrote it for his son while he was in hiding, and why he was in hiding, adds additional levels to the reader's appreciation. 

The Darke Toad (Septimus Heap #1.5)

#1030
Title: The Darke Toad (Septimus Heap #1.5)
Author: Angie Sage
Publisher: Katherine Tegen
Year: 2013
96 pages

A novella slotted between the first and second Septimus Heap books. It's fun to read after finishing the series because it reminds us of Septimus's vulnerability, and Marcia's affection and concern for him. It also pokes fun at DomDaniel, which is never unenjoyable.

Escape from "Special"

#1029
Title: Escape from "Special"
Author: Miss Lasko-Gross
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Year: 2007
136 pages

An interesting graphic novel/autobiography (or, perhaps, graphic short story/short "essay"). It's more disjointed than many, but I found that this storytelling/storyshowing style underscored the protagonist's cognitive differences and evoked in the reader a similar frustration about communication. I would think that many kids who were seen as weird or different by others, while seeing themselves as unique but not extraordinarily weird, would empathize with her. In some ways, this is Suzuki Beane Goes to School (And How Other Children and Schools Destroy One's Spirit).

The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike #1)

#1028
Title: The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike #1)
Author: Robert Galbraith [J. K. Rowling]
Publisher: Mulholland
Year: 2013
455 pages

Harry Potter's appeal made more sense to me when I realized that the core of the novels was the detective/mystery genre, so I assumed Rowling would give us something in this arena at some point. Here, a noirish/hard-boiled detective and a pretty good mostly-closed room mystery. As was the case in the later Potter books, Rowling's conclusion is more complex than necessary and relies on more luck and circumstance than I prefer, but it's better than many in its genre and adds societal elements such as class, assumptions based on presumed identity and status, and critiques of paparazzi techniques that recollect those around the time of Princess Diana's death as well as the more recent hacking scandals.

A Game of You (The Sandman #5)

#1027
Title: A Game of You (The Sandman #5)
Author: Neil Gaiman
Illustrators: Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, Bryan Talbot, George Pratt, Stan Woch, Dick Giordano
Publisher: Vertigo
Year: 1992/2011
192 pages

A mirror of the previous volume, which was grand and mythological. Though broad in implications, this is a more humble perspective--that of a dreamer and her worlds. Read Delany's introduction afterward. It's worth reading, but is filled with spoilers and lit crit-dense.

The Koran

#1026
Title: The Koran
Author: Anonymous
Translator: N. J. Dawood
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 621/2004
456 pages

This is not a review of the text, but of the Audiobook reader. This is a person who cannot pronounce many words, including these frequently repeated ones: Scourge, respite, Job, God ("Gaaawd").

Season of Mists (The Sandman #4)

#1025
Title: Season of Mists (The Sandman #4)
Author: Neil Gaiman
Illustrators: Kelley Jones, Malcolm Jones III, Mike Dringenberg, Matt Wagner, Dick Giordano, George Pratt, P. Craig Russell
Publisher: Vertigo
Year: 1991/2011
192 pages

Morpheus must acknowledge and correct an old wrong, and Lucifer makes a surprising decision with entertaining ramifications.

A pissy little intro by Harlan Ellison, without whose commentary one might arguably be better off.

The Conference of the Birds

#1024
Title: The Conference of the Birds
Author: Peter Sís, Farīd al-Dīn ʻAṭṭār
Publisher: Penguin
Country: Czech Republic
Year: 2011
160 pages

Lovely use of the poem, lovely artwork, beautiful production. A great pleasure.

The typeface used, and some of the smaller illustrations, give it at times a strange resonance with Edward Gorey's work. 

The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms #4)

#1023
Title: The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms #4)
Author: Cinda Williams Chima
Publisher: Hyperion
Year: 2012
598 pages

A satisfying wrap-up of most elements in the series, though at times a little neat and convenient. Highlight for spoilers: For example, wouldn't it be better to keep a little tension at the end of the story by keeping Fiona alive?