Our Man in Havana

#630

Title: Our Man in Havana

Author: Graham Greene

Publisher: Penguin

Year: 1958/2007

252 pages

Who knew that Greene could be so amusing? This is a satire of spy novels and a farce. Since the protagonist encodes fictional intelligence, it would be particularly amusing to read in conjunction with something like Stephenson's Cryptonomicon or Sagan's Contact, where the messages are urgently important.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

#629 

Title: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Author: Helen Simonson

Publisher: Random House

Year: 2010

364 pages

Audiobook

Beach reading about racism and classism. It won't become a classic, but it was enjoyable enough. It's not really about racism or xenophobia but about the capacity to balance restraint and flexibility, tradition and innovation. The audiobook may have been better than the print version. The reader conveyed the rueful sense of both indignation and ludicrousness, for example, as well as many other mixed emotional states. 

I Am Not Myself These Days

#628

Title: I Am Not Myself These Days

Author: Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Year: 2006

330 pages

Light in tone, though in content more despairing and absurd. It's essentially the memoir of a peculiar and failed relationship. While it was amusing in a sad way, compare to Burroughs's Dry for a different way of telling a tale of the city, relationships, gay culture, and substance abuse. While Kilmer-Purcell is more harrowing, Burroughs might be more vulnerably, and thus approachably, told. 

They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan

#627

Title: They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan

Authors: Benjamin Deng, Alephonsion Deng, & Benjamin Ajak, with Judy A. Bernstein

Publisher: Public Affairs

Year: 2006

Country: Sudan

334 pages

Audiobook

The interwoven tales of three of Sudan's Lost Boys provide a devastatingly personal look at the Second Sudanese Civil War. One of the audiobook readers was so garbled that I turned to the print edition instead. 

The Glass Palace

#626

Title: The Glass Palace

Author: Amitav Ghosh

Publisher: Random House

Year: 2000

552 pages

Audiobook

A sprawling novel of Burma and India, encompassing multiple generations. It is less about character than it is about telling history at the level of the character. This can decrease identification, but allows the reader to attend to big currents and patterns. The audiobook was well-narrated. 

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

#622

Title: Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

Author: Dan Koeppel

Publisher: Plume

Year: 2008
304 pages

Much better written than Chapman's Bananas!: How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World. The story includes the same indictments as Chapman's, but is better-told, though sometimes in less depth. There is more about bananas here, and less about governments. Read both to consolidate your knowledge.

The Preservationist

#621

Title: The Preservationist

Author: David Maine

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Year: 2004

256 pages

Audiobook

A retelling of the story of Noah. Though there were some playful elements I liked, The overall tone didn't work--it kept almost working, then not quite getting there. It was engaging enough to keep me listening, but not quite enjoyable enough to recommend.