The Throne of Fire (Kane Chronicles #2)

#637
Title: The Throne of Fire (Kane Chronicles #2)
Author: Rick Riordan
Publisher: Hyperion
Year: 2011
460 pages

Carter and Sadie, plus old and newly introduced gods &c., plus the Kanes' new students, continue their quest, which is a standard beat the bad gods/prevent apocalypse deal. I continue to enjoy the story while still disliking the narrative voices of the protagonists' "tapes." Perhaps I'd do better to read the 3rd as an audiobook for verisimilitude.

Kafka on the Shore

#636
Title: Kafka on the Shore
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2002/2006
467 pages

Audiobook

"Symbolism and meaning are two separate things." --Ms. Saeki

That pretty much sums it up. In the last 600+ books I've rarely stopped so frequently (which in the case of an audiobook means not only stop reading, but sometimes stop walking) to write notes about the book, but is there an ultimate thematic message? Maybe, maybe not. The story creeps back into its symbolic/mythic/thinning between universes hole and that is that. The resolution is more symbolic than at the plot level. Moving far beyond magical realism into frank Jungian/fantasy/spiritual slippage, this is a novel that is more alien to Western thinking than it might first seem. This includes how easily the characters accept the permeability of their reality, and their fatalistic understanding that they may not understand, and will not understand, what they participated in or what processes made use of them for a while. It's a clever, fun, engaging novel, read well by Sean Barrett and Oliver Le Sueur.

A Wizard of Mars (Young Wizards #9)

#635
Title: A Wizard of Mars (Young Wizards #9)
Author: Diane Duane
Publisher: Sandpiper
Year: 2010/2011
558 pages

Long and a little slow, but not so bad in this regard as compared to some of the more recent installments in this series. There is more character depth and development, with some attention to ways that development and maturity relate to wizardry other than the peaking and dwindling of powers. Kit's experiences in a Burroughs chapter weirdly echo aspects of Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.

The series has generally slowed its subjective time for each episode. This makes it more picaresque in feel, with less sense of the overall story arc.

[The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness]

#634
Title: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness
Author: Elyn R. Saks
Publisher: Hyperion
Year: 2007
352 pages

Audiobook

A re-read underscores how fragile Saks's ability to function is, and how tenaciously she works for it. The effort leaves me exhausted. This is an excellent autobiography for professionals who work with people with psychotic disorders to read. It is clear, nuanced, personal, and, as Saks acknowledges, not representative of everyone's capacity to overcome aspects of extreme mental illness.

The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries about the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science

#633
Title: The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries about the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science
Author: R. Douglas Fields
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 2009
384 pages

Audiobook

Though slightly repetitive and sometimes a bit overboard with speculations expressed as if they were facts, this is still a very interesting and useful overview of the parts of the brain that may have been unknown or overlooked when you were in school. The descriptions are generally clear and presented at a useful, functional level. There's a certain amount of breathless catastrophic thinking at times, but it's more than balanced by the utility of the bulk of the book. 

Smouldering Charcoal

#632
Title: Smouldering Charcoal
Author: Tiyambe Zeleza
Publisher: Heinemann
Year:1992

Country: Malawi
191 pages

This very tense and informative novel provides a brief but vivid entree to the unfortunately typical post-colonial stresses and government corruption so crushing to the people of many newly-independent states. The narrative has some stylistic issues, with jumps in point of view and over to minor characters, which are not only jarring but diffuse the tension in a way that detracts from the story.

China Survival Guide: How to Avoid Travel Troubles and Mortifying Mishaps

#631
Title: China Survival Guide: How to Avoid Travel Troubles and Mortifying Mishaps
Authors: Larry Herzberg & Qin Herzberg
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
Year: 2008
160 pages

The tone of the humor here hits me wrong most of the time. The introduction asserts that China is better than most people expect, but does so in a way that grates on me. Then, in a contradictory move, the rest of the book discusses mild to horrific mishaps that are expressed as if they're hilarious, which to my mind they're really not. Perhaps 1/4 to 1/3 of the book is directly useful (e.g., what to expect in a Chinese hospital). The rest is perhaps better expressed as a memoir rather than as travel advice.