Tales from Outer Suburbia

#667
Title: Tales from Outer Suburbia
Author/illustrator: Shaun Tan
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine
Year: 2009
96 pages

Beautiful, weird, lovely little stories of a somewhat off-kilter suburbia, with exquisit illustrations. Really, I can't get enough of Tan. Whether this is a children's book is debatable, but a certain kind of child, and adult, will like it very much. "Broken Toys" is my favorite, a tiny netsuke of a story that implies so much more. Really, you might want to just order all of Tan's books, since that's probably what you'll end up doing, anyway.

Culture Shock! China: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! China)

#666
Title: Culture Shock! China: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! China)
Authors: Angela Eagan & Rebecca Weiner
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Corporation
Year: 2007
304 pages

I like this series, but found this volume light on customs and etiquette. The history was nicely presented, considering how vast and old China is, but there was too much emphasis on moving to China and not enough on how to behave. 

The Wild Girls

#665
Title: The Wild Girls
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: PM Press
Year: 2011
128 pages

A sort of Whitman's Sampler of UKL. The poems aren't her best, and the interview is more witty than informational. The story is the best of the bunch, though it's a nice taste of her genres. I'm not sure why they're "wild girls" in the title when they were "dirt" girls in the story; in any event, the story is a little drop-in-the-bucket narrative hinting at big culture- and world-building. 

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

#664
Title: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
Author: Donald Miller
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishers
Year: 2009
288 pages
Audiobook

Read by the author. I liked this less over time. It grew increasingly repetitive, the message increasingly religious, and the story seemed to discard its initial assertion that Miller was re-telling/re-making his life as he edited the movie of his previous autobiography. One of these problems wouldn't have bothered me, but 3 was too many. It may be that I'm trained as a narrative therapist, so I found Miller not only repetitive but reductive in his use of these techniques. Rather than opening up the story of his life, as seemed to be the premise and promise, he seems to substitute an authoritarian and limiting schema for previous aimlessness. Though taking on some of the responsibility for his experience, he moves quickly to attributions about an outside reality--god and evil forces--that wind up getting the glory (deity) or the blame (evil entity). This just seemed like externalizing, and externalizing to a well-worn, albeit heartfelt, cultural narrative. If this is what is meaningful for Miller, fine, but it's not what he said the book would be about.

A Visit from the Goon Squad

#663
Title: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Author: Jennifer Egan
Publisher: Anchor Books
Year: 2010/2011
347 pages

Unlike some readers, I quite enjoyed the shifts in time and perspective, especially those that articulated characters' future outcomes as asides. Much of the novel might be characterized thematically as "rust never sleeps," though the other pole of that theme emerges as well: Some people move on, whatever form that may take and whatever pleasures or regrets this inspires. American rock is the symbolic ground, but it could as easily be sports, or beauty pageants, or politics. Are you stuck in your childhood/teen years/early adulthood, do you change, are you happy about the changes? These are the novel's big, underlying questions.

There is much reviewer discussion of  the chapter written in PowerPoint. I understood it as a use of that medium to show how cultures shift and change with the generations. What are the great pauses or breaks in each person's life? What makes it good? The questions are still the same.

Where the Hell is Matt? The Story Behind the Internet Dancing Sensation

#662
Title: Where the Hell is Matt? The Story Behind the Internet Dancing Sensation
Author: Matt Harding
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Year: 2009
144 pages

Read as a download from Amazon. 

A fun introduction to the idea of travel that moves from personal project to a more engaged or altruistic activity. As a travelogue it's snapshot-style; like Matt's dances, it gives a moment of person with backdrop or other people, then moves on. It could be useful for discussing how a fantasy, not fully thought out, about "going abroad" or "studying overseas" might evolve from self- to other-focused.

Delicious Iceland - Special Edition (Tales of Unique Northern Delicacies)

#661
Title: Delicious Iceland - Special Edition (Tales of Unique Northern Delicacies)
Author: Völundur Snær Völundarson
Illustrator: Hreinn Hreinsson
Editor: Haukur Ágústsson
Publisher: Salka
Year: 2007
157 pages


 I am delighted by Delicious Iceland, and relieved to know that my aspic of ram testicles, potatoes, and turnips is indeed authentic. I do prefer to cook with objects of the same general shape and size. (For discussion of related matters, see my comments on the Doctrine of Signatures at my review of Jacobs's The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment). I don't anticipate preparing rot-cured shark any time soon, but a person never knows when the urge will strike. Ale and smoked eel sounds like a reasonable compromise between Völundarson's gustatory proclivities and my gourmandish propensities. The illustrating photos are beautiful, many of the dishes seem edible, and the interspersed stories are fun. I confess myself surprised by the lack of cardamom, but perhaps it is a Swedish abomination.