Secrets of the Seven Smallest States of Europe: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City

#964
Title: Secrets of the Seven Smallest States of Europe: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City
Author: Thomas Eccardt
Publisher: Hippocrene Books
Year: 2004
360 pages

Eccardt gives good coverage without too much repetition to comparisons, contrasts, and descriptions of the 7 European microstates. I enjoyed reading the whole book, though others may want to use it as a reference work. Though Eccardt provides airport and road graphics, I'd have enjoyed an itinerary or two.

The chapter on language has several less-coherent passages, suggesting the utility of consultation toward a future edition. There are also pages here and there that seem under-edited by the evidence of multiple grammatical and typographical errors, as well as sudden outbreaks of repeated and unnecessary occurrences of "actually" and "of course." With Pope Benedict's abdication, the book will shortly be two popes behind, so it may be time to revise and update. A section on Esperanto, one of Eccardt's other areas, would be useful, as would information on gay rights, gun ownership, and other issues of potential interest. 

[Little Fuzzy]

#963
[Title: Little Fuzzy]
Author: H. Beam Piper
Publisher: Ace
Year: 1962/1976
174 pages

**SPOILERS**
  Re-read in order to compare with Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation. I read Little Fuzzy sometime in my adolescence, and it's funny to see my highlighted paragraphs (all of which concern language as evidence for sapience). I enjoyed re-reading it, though as an adult reader I am somewhat chilled by the happy colonialism of the ending, which is presented uncritically as a good thing and not presented ironically or as a cautionary parallel to slavery or colonial practices. Though the Fuzzies are declared to be sapient, the protagonist and others are "adopting" Fuzzies "of their own," moving them out of the forest and into their houses, and generally improving them (in the colonial sense). The Fuzzies are described as cognitively similar to a preadolescent, and as indigenous in the positive-sounding language often used in racist and colonial descriptions of primitive (sic) races (sic). And they're so happy! (Gosh, I've learned a lot from the noble savage!) For their part, the Fuzzies are glad to move into the wonderful big house and become domesticated, so that's okay, right? The flavor of the text hovers between Fuzzy-as-pet and Fuzzy-as-indigene who requires benevolent protection from the civilized overlords. Protected from what, since until the book's action they were a successful sapient, language-using, tool-creating species? Why, protected from the bad colonizers, as opposed to "Pappy Jack" and the good colonizers.

Zero and Other Fictions

#962
Title: Zero and Other Fictions
Author: Fan Huang
Translator: John Balcom
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Year: 2011
152 pages

Taiwan. The fault may be in the translation, or I may not be sufficiently immersed in Taiwanese culture from 1980 to the present, but this collection struck me as fairly forgettable, though my understanding is that many of this author's works have been significant departures from Taiwanese standards. The best story of the four was "How to Measure the Width of a Ditch," which uses memories of historical, cultural, and personal artifacts as a way to talk about the melancholic aspects of progress and aging. Would that the rest of the collection were as strong.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

#961
Title: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Author: Katherine Boo
Publisher: Random House
Year: 2012
288 pages

A useful and very depressing book for anyone involved in international aid, loans, or service. I'll consider grouping it with a book about the Grameen Bank and something about best practices in international aid for an advanced course on ethics and hope. 

Buddha

#960
Title: Buddha
Author: Karen Armstrong
Publisher: Viking
Year: 2001
240 pages

A biography of the Buddha that provides useful historical context for both his distress and his subsequent teachings. Armstrong situates the Buddha's ideas and practices in the preceding religious cultures, the shift from agricultural/pastoral society, and the Axial shift of world view occurring in some cultures of the region in that epoch. She brings alive the suffering and restlessness of the era, describing issues such as the rise of a merchant class and the changing faces of religious observance, caste boundaries, and types of poverty that are still very much evident in contemporary India elsewhere.

Armstrong does a good job of describing the differing goals of biographers of different eras and pointing out aspects of the Buddha legend that, while not true by the contemporary Western standards for biography, either were true in the world of the Buddha's biographers or were true in the sense that they reflected established tropes for narratives of this type. Armstrong's cultural, linguistic, and philosophical explanations contribute to this book's utility and the reader's enjoyment.

For context, read these in this order: The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War for a taste of pre-Axial, pre-Buddhist and more role-stratified, less-individual society; Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity for contemporary problems identical to those of Buddha's time; this book (Buddha) as commentary on the previous two and an introduction to the Buddha's teachings; and the 14th Dalai Lama's How to See Yourself As You Really Are, which is an excellent and accessible introduction to the empirical practices of Buddhist philosophy. 

The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong

#959
Title: The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
Author: Laurence J. Peter & Raymond Hull
Publisher: HarperBusiness
Year: 1969/2009
192 pages

An entertaining, though dated (sexist, racist, homophobic) business/management guide, presented as humor but in its central premise, that we are promoted to the level of our incompetence, spot on. 

Skippy Dies

#958
Title: Skippy Dies
Author: Paul Murray
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Year: 2010
661 pages

4.5, rounded up, though I'd have liked an emotionally crisper ending. In the many reviews I've read, there's not a lot of mention of the novel's structure, which is obvious at times but doesn't feel too lock-step because Murray uses humor to make parallelism entertaining rather than mechanical. The characters are believable, the emotional content becomes increasingly nuanced, and there's a great deal that's funny and dramatic without a lot of pathos. I was friends with people like many of these boys, though most of them didn't die at the time.

When I consider this novel in relation to the criticism Rowling received for sex, drugs, teen angst, obscenity, and small-sphere politics in The Casual Vacancy, I'm more convinced than ever that the criticism was about that book not being Harry Potter. Skippy Dies is like blending The Casual Vacancy with a handful of rock and roll, a copy of Hustler, and just a pinch of Lord of the Flies. Characters from this book and Rowling's would easily understand the structure and rules of each others' communities.

The audiobook was a delight, with clear reading by multiple narrators.

Lawn Gone! Low-Maintenance, Sustainable, Attractive Alternatives for Your Yard

#957
Title: Lawn Gone! Low-Maintenance, Sustainable, Attractive Alternatives for Your Yard
Author: Pam Penick
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Year: 2013
192 pages

Received from NetGalley as an ARC.

When I moved into my current house, the first thing I did outside was to dig up all the grass and shift the landscaping to reflect the natural character of the yard (wet on one side, dry on the other) and to increase native plantings, including bird attractors and deer inhibitors. A decade later, it's hard to imagine that there was ever a hard-to-mow lawn with wet sinkholes and dry clay outcroppings. I was greatly helped, both in imagining possibilities and in practical matters, by gardening manuals on hard-to-plant areas, but I would have loved a well-illustrated book devoted to replacing the whole lawn.

Lawn Gone! is a terrific source of ideas for non-lawn yards. It features a large number of attractive, clear photos of alternatives to basic grass surroundings for the home. Penick begins with answers to the question of why one might want a different kind of yard. These include issues such as maintenance, environmental considerations, visual texture, and the use of local plants, all of which appeal to me. In addition to many how-to sections (including very useful advice on how to negotiate with Home Owners' Associations and other covenant-generating entities), she provides numerous examples and stories.

Among the major subjects covered are using different ecological lawn mixes; planting ornamentals (with attention to the problem of invasive species), ground covers, shrubs and perennials; hardscapes (and their drainage); ponds; and child-friendly features. Penick provides sufficient coverage of tasks such as solarizing, or planning bed edging, though some instructions (such as "Use a tamper or vibrating plate compactor to compact the paver base" [p. 101]) are over-technical yet would require more detail to be useful.

In addition to the pros and cons of different materials, yard aesthetics, decreasing pests, and fire safety, Penick includes an entire section on the politics, health, and safety of lawn-free yards. I haven't seen this covered so well in other landscaping manuals.

Penick doesn't devote a lot of space to mixing food plants into the landscape. While most of my fruits and vegetables are inside a deer-deterring fence, I do have neighbors in the non-deer parts of town who have converted their whole lawns to vegetable garden-as-landscaping, and many more who grow artichokes and other dramatic food plants as their primary landscape plants. Perhaps Penick will consider including more coverage of this alternative in subsequent editions. 

My Arab Spring

#953
Title: My Arab Spring
Author: R. Zain
Publisher: Lulu.com
Country: [Replacement for Bahrain]
Year: 2012
108 pages

This self-published memoir/essay is certainly heartfelt at times, but I found it extremely confusing and much in need of further editing. The author describes, in somewhat to very abstract language, aspects of the Bahraini Arab Spring phenomenon. This leads into tales of her (I presume "her"--the author is "R." and the 1st person protagonist is "Sara") business entanglements with some unpleasant and problematic people, though this seems only marginally related to the financial upheaval accompanying the political unrest. There's a lot about the author's articles and Twitter posts that I couldn't follow because it again became too abstract and seemed to have documenting the problematic behavior of an employee as its focus. The sections in which the author/protagonist is trying to get to work, or pick up her daughter at school, or drive through checkpoints, seemed most relevant and were the most vivid and emotionally compelling sections. I come away from this having met my goal of learning more about Bahrain, but I could have learned much more if this had been more coherently presented.

Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4)

#952
Title: Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4)
Author: John Scalzi
Publisher: Tor
Year: 2008
335 pages

 Retells the story of The Last Colony from Zoe's point of view. This allowed Scalzi to clean up some missing or too-implicit information from that book, but unlike Bean's stories of Ender from a different perspective, where I admired Card's ability to build a story behind and supporting Ender's, I didn't feel like Zoe's voice or position added much to my experience of John and Jane's. Throughout, I had a sense of déjà vu rather than of revelation or deeper understanding. I did learn more about Zoe, and there was some entertainment to be had in learning how she went about obtaining what the colony needed in its fight against destruction, but I might have preferred that as a short story rather than a novel.

Wool # 1-5

#950
Title: Wool (Wool #1)
Author: Hugh Howey
Publisher: Broad Reach
Year: 2011
49 pages

I'll review the whole series below at #5. Of #1, I'll say that normally I wouldn't count something this short as a "book," but since #2-5 are of novella or book length, I'll count it.

#951
Title: Proper Gauge: (Wool #2)
Author: Hugh Howey
Publisher: Broad Reach
Year: 2011
106 pages

 Of this one I'll say, what's with the wool motif? Wool doesn't figure much at all in #1 or #2, unless the idea is "pulling the wool over their eyes."

#954
Title: Casting Off (Wool #3)
Author: Hugh Howey
Publisher: Broad Reach
Year: 2011
122 pages

I'll review the series at book #5. To this installment I say, Okay, "pulling the wool over their eyes" does indeed appear to be the active wool-related image. And I don't buy the narrative of why certain people have wound up in their jobs. Not in this society. But more of that at #5.

#955
Title: The Unraveling (Wool #4)
Author: Hugh Howey
Publisher: Broad Reach
Year: 2011
166 pages

I will say here that squeaky cute child-voices infuriate me in an audiobook. Just read the book aloud. Don't do extreme voice characterizations. There's a man in this one with a distinct New England accent. Not going to happen in this book's universe.

#956
Title: The Stranded (Wool #5)
Author: Hugh Howey
Publisher: Broad Reach
Year: 2012
254 pages

**SPOILERS**
2.5 stars for the series overall. There are several important flaws that I can't get around. I'm not much of a video watcher, in part because the problems with this series are ubiquitous in film and television. Like Cowboys & Aliens, this moves right along and there's a lot of action, which I'm sure is sufficiently engaging for many readers. However, my pleasure in reading fiction, especially science fiction, is directly related to effective world-building. This, Wool fails to provide.

For example, argon is extremely cold and can cause frostbite even in small-scale industrial accidents. The first danger faced by anyone staying in the airlock would be freezing, not burning. Freezing badly--the boiling temperature of argon is -302.5°F. Since a similar suit made the person wearing it begin to become hypothermic in uncontaminated groundwater, with a temperature far warmer than negative numbers, I expect that even with a homemade (anti-)heat blanket, the person would be highly insufficiently insulated. Next come the flames. We don't know what gas they use, but its temperature is hot enough to sterilize and char portions of a suit--not the ineffective heat tape on the suit, but the suit itself. Wrapping oneself up in a homemade heat shield, even if one's feet are tucked under, just doesn't seem like sufficient insulation. Perhaps it would decrease burns, but I'm not convinced that the exposure described wouldn't roast you in your own juices. As for re-entering the silo, this ranks among the greatest of this character's many irresponsible, community-jeopardizing acts. If she does successfully fight the flames with her homemade blanket, wouldn't that mean that she'd protected whatever was on her suit from the cleansing fires of the airlock? Is it too hopeful to suppose that she'd be smart enough to consider that the airlock is constructed as it is to kill agents of biological warfare? Agents that might help account for the total destruction of, it appears, pretty much everything? Apparently she's not that smart. She has to get home to the silo that exiled her. Why would she think she wouldn't be shot on sight? Also, in the giant bubbling, ashy mess of a human exposed to this airlock, I highly doubt that she would recognize Bernard's diminutive hands.

There's a lot about the basic premise I don't believe. Despite explanations, the cleaning process seems inexplicable, cumbersome, needlessly complex, and wasteful of valuable and perhaps irreplaceable resources. In terms of careers, I thought it quite unlikely that a society that was otherwise so regimented, and that had a system of "casters" and "shadows" (it's Plato's Cave, dude) would choose untrained, unskilled law enforcement personnel from outside the legal apprenticeship track, especially someone who was a very skilled mechanic and thus presumably needed elsewhere. Surely of the thousands (?) of people in the silo, there was at least one journeyman cop. The same might be said of choosing the evil puppeteer overlord's trainee. Shouldn't Bernard already have a shadow, if not several?

I didn't feel much identification with the characters. I found in their decision-making processes some evidence that life in the silos lowers IQ, and I didn't believe most of the decisions made in Silo 17 believable. Really,  some ickle orphants clang your manchild companion over the head with his own wrench, concussing him to near-death, steal your gear/clothes/food/water, and cut your air supply while you're an hour below that level and under water so that to survive you have to suck air bubbles from the ceilings of each flooded level of the silo (avoiding the bends, also a neat trick, as is the fact that the bubbles collect on the ceilings, but from above you can stick your knife into what I think is the floor grating to prop open a door); then you chase them up multiple levels (the mere descent of which almost killed your previous mayor and the ascent of which was a source of great complaint by you even when not suffering from extreme exhaustion and dragging said manchild behind you), find the punks hiding with a wee wittle baby, awww, order them to help you, then leave your concussed friend in their care?

This slapdash writing may not bother some readers, but it really bugs me. If I want to read a comic book, I'll read a comic book.

Please don't bother writing a comment saying that I'm nitpicking. I have merely scratched the surface of the world-building and plot issues here, to say nothing of the profusion of wooden yet often blubbery, inexplicable characters. For me, construction of a plausible world with interesting protagonists is the essence of fiction. Without it, I'm only disappointed.

For a much more claustrophobic, and realistic, look at life and death in a post-apocalyptic silo, read Mordecai Roshwald's dated but still classic Level 7. For rousing fights between the levels of a closed environment, with many similar themes and concerns, plus mutants, which is always a bonus, read Robert Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky.

The Selfish Gene

#949
Title: The Selfish Gene
Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1976/2006
384 pages

Perhaps the best use of the audiobook medium I've heard for non-fiction, with Dawkins and the narrator switching back and forth to indicate quotes and footnotes.

The central motif is the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), which Dawkins explains and explores throughout. It reminded me very much of the only perpetual SimLife scenario I was ever able to construct, which included only wolves and sea turtles but ran indefinitely.

Some sections seemed oversimplified; there is what seems like an over-reliance on game theory modeling, which is highly stripped of other variables and makes some assumptions that seem to conflate money with procreation as a reductive explanation of all evolutionary behaviors. These may be useful preliminary models, but seem lacking in real explanatory power.

I'd have liked to hear Dawkins's thoughts about left handedness and homosexual/bisexual behavior, both of which are present in animals as well as humans, and persist over the history of species.

Sweet Promised Land

#948
Title: Sweet Promised Land
Author: Robert Laxalt
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
Year:1957/1997
Country: Basque Country
198 pages

A very sweet, poignant memoir/travelogue about Laxalt's father and a trip they took together back to Basque Country, where his father grew up. Well-written in deceptively simple language considering the complex emotional experiences depicted.

Could be used for Nevada or Basque country in geographical challenges.

[The Hobbit: Pocket Edition]

#947
Title: [The Hobbit: Pocket Edition]
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 1937/2011
276 pages

This is an attractive little hardback pocket edition. The type, though small, is very clear, and there's something fun about a hobbit-sized book.

This was a re-read of The Hobbit, which I first read at 7 years old. It was the second chapter book I read, and my first adult novel in terms of vocabulary and themes. I reread it several times as a child and adolescent, then not again in its entirety until now. Having read better books in subsequent years--for example, books with any female characters whatsoever--I still admire its role in the genre, the shadowy evidence of Tolkien's scholarship in philology and northern epics, and the ways in which this is a bildungsroman about going to war and longing for home. The return home elides over larger problems, such as what Bilbo might do with this Ring. Fortunately, Tolkien took care of that little plot element elsewhere.

Rolling Thunder (Red Thunder, #3)

#946
Title: Rolling Thunder (Red Thunder, #3)
Author: John Varley
Publisher: Ace
Year: 2008
344 pages

The plot picks us slowly in this third of the series, but I thought it was worth it for character development and world-building. The threat to Earth in this installment seemed more Niven than Heinlein. The conclusion, which acknowledges the unresolved arcs, points to a fourth novel, and indeed, Varley is apparently busy writing Dark Lightning. Varley's extra-story fun here is to weave in the titles of a number of Heinlein's juvenile and transitional novels, as well as something of the tone and character style. The character "Jubal" is joined by protagonist "Podkayne."

Varley's recent writing has the feel of a movie treatment, so it's not a surprise to read on his website that he is indeed working on a couple of novel-based screenplays.

From Darkness to Darkness (Loka Legends, #2)

#945
Title: From Darkness to Darkness (Loka Legends, #2)
Author: Jay Bell
Publisher: Smashwords
Year: 2012
290 pages

**SPOILERS**
The sequel to Bell's first loka book, The Cat in the Cradle, set in the same universe and with most characters returning. In a story that is thematically similar to the previous book, a young man, Cole, is manipulated by a powerful, malevolent force, which must be fought though it is seemingly invulnerable. This force is again opposed by a coalition of loka wielders and their allies. Bonus for fans of giant talking cats: Kio gets it on. 

The Republic of San Marino: The Oldest and Smallest Republic of the World

#944
Title: The Republic of San Marino: The Oldest and Smallest Republic of the World
Author: Giuseppe Rossi
Publisher: Governmental Tourist Body, Sport and Spectacle, of the Republic of S. Marino
Country: [San Marino replacement]
Year: 1976
64 pages

See that tag in the upper left of the image? Thanks for the book, Inter-library Loan!

San Marino, replacement for or adjunct to Guida fotografica di San Marino.

An oversized photo "tour" of San Marino that provides a much better sense of the country's history than did the Guida fotografica, though it is still scant.

The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of Wa

#943
Title: The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War
Author: Anonymous & Barbara Stoller Miller
Publisher: Bantam
Year: 500 BCE/1986
176 pages

A philosophical treatise presented as a discourse between Arjuna, a reluctant archer or the brink of war, and his chariotman, who turns out to be Krishna. Krishna gets most of the air time. The Bhagavad Gita was probably a separate discourse that was interpolated into the Mahabharata.

On the positive side, the Bhagavad Gita provides some religious/philosophical context for the Buddha's teachings, and shows why they were such innovations. On the down side (and I'm not criticizing anybody's beliefs but speaking for myself), its emphatically stated and restated tropes include the impossibility of change and the futility of trying to do so, because your fate is sealed; that you should keep to your place in the social hierarchy and that doing your ordained job poorly is better than doing a job you weren't assigned well; shut up and kill those other guys already, Arjuna, because they're bad guys (so forget your scruples that they're your friends and relations) and anyway both you shooting them and their deaths are preordained so do as you're told. The main "action" of this discourse, such as it is, could be used as an illustration of Milgram's findings in his obedience studies: Do as you're told because I'm the Big Guy and I say it's the right thing to do. Your empathy is an impediment and based on false premises. Even though you think you know your compatriots, I gave them lots of chances to be good guys and they blew it, so shoot already, Arjuna.

All this fixity begs the question of why one should strive to be better--is it simply a matter of snagging a better reincarnation? It can't be enlightenment, because it's made clear that only really great men can get off the wheel, and you aren't one of them.

Red Lightning (Red Thunder, #2)

#942
Title: Red Lightning (Red Thunder, #2)
Author: John Varley
Publisher: Ace
Year: 2007
355 pages

Mars's autonomy is threatened in a story that borrows some elements from the US's response to 9/11. The second book in the sequence, following Red Thunder. Similar to Heinlein's late juvenile and transitional novels in scope and tone (with more, though mostly not shown, sex, drugs, and swearing, and a lot more liberalism). It's easy to see some of the themes Varley returned to in Slow Apocalypse. There's some hard science, though it's not the focus even when it's important to the plot. The emotional centers of the book are interpersonal and societal.

I knew immediately what was in the box, but not quite how it had been managed.

Slow Apocalypse

#941
Title: Slow Apocalypse
Author: John Varley
Publisher: Ace
Year: 2012
438 pages

This appears to be intended for a broader audience than Varley's typical writing. I'm currently reading his Red Lightning, where similar post-disaster themes are played out.

I like post-apocalyptic science fiction, and always find it interesting to see how the author outfits his characters, and what they do in their restructured world. For example, in Pfeffer's The Last Survivors series, the characters rush to do laundry every time power is briefly restored. In Varley, there's a lot of description of objects (ammunition, hay, canned food) and some preoccupation with not using up food, but surprisingly little concern about using up gasoline, which is a central aspect of the book.

The Body Artist

#940
Title: The Body Artist
Author: Don DeLillo
Publisher: Scribner
Year: 2001
128 pages

**SPOILERS**
I've been trying to decide if this would have been a better novel if it had remained tightly interior, omitting the expository/explanatory news articles. Though I enjoyed and admired it, I think it would have been better if the narrative had stayed closer to the protagonist, which would have made it more ambiguous and heightened the question of whether her visitor existed or was an enactment of her grief for her husband. 

The History of Mary Prince

#939
Title: The History of Mary Prince
Author: Mary Prince, Sara Salih (Editor), et al.
Publisher: Penguin
Country: Bermuda [British overseas territory]
Year: 1831/2001
160 pages

The Penguin Classics edition includes multiple related texts and explanations, making it easier to put Mary Price's narrative of her slavery in the West Indies and surrounding islands into context. Importantly, this narrative is mediated by the transcriber/editor and there is a reasonable amount of discussion of how that mediation may have shaped the way the story was told in order to serve abolitionist ends. Prince's story is usefully compared to other narratives by slaves, and notes and appendices fill in a bigger picture.

A Short Stay in Hell

#938
Title: A Short Stay in Hell
Author: Steven L. Peck
Publisher: Strange Violin Editions
Year: 2004/2012
108 pages

An entertaining riff on Borges's Library of Babel. The library is the hell to which the narrator is assigned. The joke is that the true religion is Zoroastrianism; however, the hell described isn't consonant with Zoroastrian beliefs, and the most salient aspects of the library described are Borges's. The story doesn't come to a satisfying conclusion. However, I enjoyed the writing. 

God Is Not a Christian: And Other Provocations

#937
Title: God Is Not a Christian: And Other Provocations
Author: Desmond Tutu
Publisher: HarperOne
Year: 2011
256 pages

  A collection of excerpts from Tutu's letters and speeches, nicely contextualized and sequenced. It's a good introduction to his themes and suggestions.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

#936
Title: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
Author: Mindy Kaling
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Year: 2012
240 pages

 Enjoyable humor in the Fey/Handler style. The revenge fantasies while exercising bit is an especially fine concept.

Eugene (Images of America)

#935
Title: Eugene (Images of America)
Author: David G. Turner
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Year: 2012
127 pages

Great fun reading this and seeing not only places but even people I know. We don't have this kind of history in the community where I grew up! 

The Birds of America

#934
Title: The Birds of America
Author: John James Audubon
Publisher: Sterling
Year: 1947/2012
448 pages

Purchased on sale at Barnes and Noble for a ridiculously low price.

A beautiful book, created by taking apart original materials and digitally photographing them. I can see the difference compared to earlier books that include Audubon prints. The colors and lines are clear and the paper stock is pleasingly thick. Audubon's bird portraits not only represented a shift toward naturalistic depiction, but are in some cases lovely enough to make me tearful.

Ornithology nerds will enjoy comparing Audubon's Latin and common names to contemporary nomenclature. 

The Rapture of the Nerds: A Tale of the Singularity, Posthumanity, and Awkward Social Situations

#933
Title: The Rapture of the Nerds: A Tale of the Singularity, Posthumanity, and Awkward Social Situations
Author: Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross
Publisher: Tor
Year: 2012
351 pages

Amusing light science fiction with interesting things to think about without a lot of heavy lifting required of the reader.

The Cat in the Cradle (Loka Legends #1)

#932
Title: The Cat in the Cradle (Loka Legends #1)
Author: Jay Bell
Publisher: Swimming Kangaroo Books
Year: 2010
257 pages

**SPOILERS**

 This YA fantasy with a gay adolescent protagonist manages to do a pretty good job of fantasy as well as its coming of age theme. The hero needs to take the risk of acknowledging his love in order to fully find and use his magical powers. The fantasy elements hold together pretty well, though I didn't feel entirely identified with the main characters, perhaps because the narrative told rather than showed. A little sexist decision-making toward the end annoyed me, especially since the female oligarchs wielded considerable plot-changing power. It also struck me as too easy that the villainous oligarch was the only person to denigrate Dylan's love. Still, it's nice to see a matter-of-fact treatment of homoeroticism in a YA fantasy.

Fahrenheit 451

#931
Title: Fahrenheit 451
Author: Ray Bradbury
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Year: 1953/1991
190 pages

Re-read, as an audiobook because that's funny. Read many times in the past. I am the first several chapters of Beowulf and an anthology of poetry, including John Donne and e.e. cummings.

Read by Ray Bradbury. 

The Mystery of the Kaddish: Its Profound Influence on Judaism

#930
Title: The Mystery of the Kaddish: Its Profound Influence on Judaism
Author: Leon H. Charney & Saul Mayzlish
Publisher: Barricade Books
Year: 2006 (publication date for audiobook unknown)
236 pages
Narrated by George Guidall
5 hours, 13 minutes


Received as a free review copy from Audiobook Jukebox.

Guidall's narration is clear and pleasant to listen to. His phrasing makes complex sentences easy to follow. His Hebrew and Aramaic pronunciation is crisp and, so far as I can tell, accurate.

While I found this exploration of the Kaddish interesting, it was not primarily a book about the evolution of the Kaddish, nor did it appear to include a great deal of new information. What I take from the book is that not a lot is actually known about the Kaddish, or at least, not a lot is known that can be well-verified by interviewing a selection of people around the world. I was expecting a more scholarly exploration of the Kaddish’s origins, changes in text and function over time, and perhaps contemporary variations. While the historical and informational sections were indeed very interesting, they formed a disappointingly small portion of the book. This material might better have been presented as a long article.

A great deal of the book was anecdotes and suppositions, some related more directly to the Kaddish and others peripheral. Woven throughout were conversations and reflections that were not well-integrated into the overall structure of the book. At times I felt that I was reading a mystical religious exposition, not a fact-based history. A more descriptive title and a reorganization of the sections would clarify the book's genre and flow.

I didn't find the Hebrew, Aramaic, or cultural information difficult to follow. However, someone who is not Jewish might have a harder time understanding the narrative or points being made. In the print version this would be less pronounced, but as an audiobook this might be difficult to follow for someone without the linguistic and cultural context. It's probably best for a reader familiar with Judaism and Jewish prayer who is most interested in how the Kaddish's history may contribute to its personal and emotional relevance.

The Woman Who Changed Her Brain: And Other Inspiring Stories of Pioneering Brain Transformation

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Title: The Woman Who Changed Her Brain: And Other Inspiring Stories of Pioneering Brain Transformation
Author: Barbara Arrowsmith-Young
Publisher: Post Hypnotic Press
Year: 2012
288 pages

Narrator: Lisa Bunting
Length: 9 hours, 13 minutes

Free review copy provided by Audiobook Jukebox.

This is a tremendously interesting and hopeful book about brain plasticity, and it's no surprise that Norman Doidge (The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science) wrote the introduction. Like Doidge, Arrowsmith-Young uses both life stories and more technical material to tell stories of opportunities to improve cognitive functioning for people with serious to severe learning disabilities, brain damage, and other forms of brain-related disability. Arrowsmith-Young incorporates her own stories throughout the book. Her descriptions are clear and evocative in the style of the best of Oliver Sacks's neurological case studies.

Over the course of the book, the reader learns about the newer and more hopeful model of plasticity and relearning (or differently learning), not to accommodate problems so much as to address the deficits that lead to them. A variety of exemplar stories are included, most about pupils at Arrowsmith-Young's school. There are intriguing glimpses of the actual interventions used. I would have enjoyed more technical detail, but the inclusion of that material may have made the book more difficult for a non-professional to read, especially in audiobook format. Indeed, some examples were hard to follow as a listener rather than a print reader. Lisa Bunting reads clearly and that clarity helped me to follow examples that would have been easier on the page.

Recommended for readers who enjoy popular biological science, those who have a family member with a cognitive deficit (or have one themselves), and educators. While not a self-help book, it may well stimulate further exploration and lead a person to new resources.

Surinam: Stumbling Through the Dark Heart of South America's Forgotten Jungle

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Title: Surinam: Stumbling through the Dark Heart of South America's Forgotten Jungle [The Riverbones: Stumbling After Eden in the Jungles of Suriname]
Author: Andrew Westoll
Publisher: Old Street Publishing
Year:2008/2009
Country: Suriname
349 pages

My last country for reading the world. The book was also published as The Riverbones: Stumbling After Eden in the Jungles of Suriname. It doesn't quite meet my 2-year author residency requirement, but I'll follow up with Mark Plotkin, who is featured in absentia here as well.

Mostly but not entirely a quest memoir, this follows Westoll as he hangs around in Surinam experiencing inchoate longings and, in the process of searching for what he's searching for, loses a relationship. Those there is some focus on the okopipi (Dendrobates azureus, blue frog), the purpose is to find meaning and identity, not just the frog. See his website, http://www.andrewwestoll.com/