Infidel: My Life

#748
Title: Infidel: My Life
Author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali 
Publisher: Pocket Books
Year: 2007/2008
375 pages

Audiobook + book.

A well-told, useful memoir that grounds Ali's beliefs about Islam in her history as a woman from Somalia. The introduction by Christopher Hitchens has a weird, brittle tone that's absent in Ali's writing.

Taiwan Folktales: Proverbs, Folk Sayings, and Folktales from Taiwan

#747
Title: Taiwan Folktales: Proverbs, Folk Sayings, and Folktales from Taiwan
Author: Fred Lobb
Publisher: BooksfromTaiwan.com
Year: 2011
Country: Taiwan (Republic of China, disputed)
123 pages

Ebook.

Taiwan. An enjoyable collection of Taiwanese folk tales, well-rendered and with useful explanatory notes that include origins, variants, and source materials.

The Man Who Loved Attending Funerals and Other Stories

#746
Title: The Man Who Loved Attending Funerals and Other Stories
Author: Frank Collymore
Publisher: Heinemann
Year: 1993
Country: Barbados
178 pages

Barbados. Marl-hole = clay-digging hole. Dunk = jujube. BG = British Guiana. B'adian = Barbadian. Epergne = a form of multi-branched centerpiece, but I should know that.
 
Collymore's short story style isn't to my taste. The tone of most of the stories could be characterized as "suspense lite," sometimes shading into what would be horror if it weren't predictable. The pleasure in these stories isn't in theie plots, which abound with dead spouses, murders, angst, and light supernatural touches, but in the details of class and race relations in Barbados in the mid-20th century.

The Gray Wolf Throne (Seven Kingdoms, #3)

#745
Title: The Gray Wolf Throne (Seven Kingdoms, #3)
Author: Cinda Williams Chima
Publisher: Hyperion
Year: 2011
528 pages

As some reviewers have noted, there's not a lot of action here as regards with whom Raisa will romantically partner, but the point of this penultimate volume is not to resolve that tension but to increase it. From a mechanistic plot perspective, Chima has to get Raisa from the Borderlands to Fellsmarch, move her friends and enemies into place for the finale, and provide both some resolutions and some complications to keep the reader engaged and guessing.

It's interesting to compare this series to George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. The struggle for the throne, the political intrigues and machinations, the wolves, the female warriors, and the land with dragons across the sea, though muted. Chima foregrounds the shifts in narrative perspective, the romantic dilemmas, the magic, and identification with characters. While some of these are staples of the genre, Martin and Chima's choices may provide examples of how those components are pitched to the particular audiences of their subgenres. 

2011 stats and list

Number of books: 174
Number of pages: 54,585
Mean pages/book: 313.71
Audiobooks: 72
Books of the World challenge: 17
(Eritrea, Swaziland, Liechtenstein, Gambia, Cameroon, Sudan, Malawi, Namibia, Guam, Cyprus, Ivory Coast, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Lesotho, St. Croix)
Books to date (2006-2011): 804
Pages to date (2006-2011): 227,625

January (3583 pages)
1. The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography: Tetsu Saiwai (224)
2. An Abundance of Katherines: John Green (227)
3. Extreme Hotels: Birgit Krols (192)
4. Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World: Pico Ayer (200)
5. The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment: A.J. Jacobs (256)
6. The Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China: Peter Hessler (528)
7. The Fire Cat: Esther Averill (64)
8. The Mind's Eye: Oliver Sacks (288)
9. The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles #1): Rick Riordan (516)
10. Homer and Langley: E. L. Doctorow (224)
11. Heart of Fire: Senait Mehari [Eritrea] (268)
12. Weeding the Flowerbeds: Sarah Mkhonza [Swaziland] (180)
13. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters: Julian Barnes (320)
14. [Suzuki Beane: Sandra Scoppettone] (96)
February (2908 pages)
15. The Story of India: Michael Wood (319)  
16. Zero History: William Gibson (404)
17. Burmese Days: George Orwell (279)
18. Leviathan: Scott Westerfeld (440)
19. The Men Who Stare at Goats: Jon Ronson (240)
20. Birds of Thailand: Roland Eve & Anne-Marie Guigue (178)
21. The State in the Third Millenium: Reigning Prince Hans-Adam [Liechtenstein] (222)
22. How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming: Mike Brown (256)
23. In Transition: Contemporary Cambodian Artists (Curator: Ly Daravuth) (79)
24. The Windup Girl: Paolo Bacigalupi (359)
25. Storytelling in Cambodia: Willa Schneberg (132)
March (3813 pages) 
26. The Name of this Book Is Secret: Pseudonymous Bosch (384)
27. Pygmy: Chuck Palahniuk (256)
28. B. R. Myers: The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters (208)
29. Kate Atkinson: Case Histories (312)
30. Phyllis Wheatley: Poems on Various Subjects: Religious and Moral [Gambia] (80)
31. Calixthe Beyala: The Sun Hath Looked Upon Me [Cameroon] (120)
32. Peter Hessler: Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (512)
33. Junot Díaz: Drown (208)
34. [Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange] (~160)
35. Jack Weatherford: The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire (336)
36. Peter Laufer: The Dangerous World of Butterflies: The Startling Subculture of Criminals, Collectors, and Conservationists (288)
37.  Scott Westerfeld, Keith Thompson (Illustrator): Behemoth (Leviathan #2) (489)
38. Michael Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (460)
April (6760) 
39. Cherie Priest: Boneshaker (416)
40. Vikas Swarup: Slumdog Millionaire [Q & A] (326)
41. Jonathan Stroud: The Ring of Solomon (410)
42. Siddhartha Mukherjee: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (592)
43. Suzanne Collins: Gregor the Overlander (Underland Chronicles #1) (315)
44. Sarah Rose: For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula of the World's Favourite Drink (272)
45. Susan Beth Pfeffer: This World We Live In (252)
46. Tina Fey: Bossypants (277)
47. Nicholson Baker: The Anthologist (250)
48. Pittacus Lore [James Frey & Jobie Hughes]: I Am Number Four (440)
49. Suzanne Collins: Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane (Underland Chronicles #2) (317)
50. David Maine: The Preservationist (256)
51. Dan Koeppel: Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World (304)
52. Suzanne Collins: Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods (Underland Chronicles #3) (358)
53. Suzanne Collins: Gregor and the Marks of Secret (Underland Chronicles #4) (343)
54. Suzanne Collins: Gregor and the Code of Claw (Underland Chronicles #5) (416)
55. Amitav Ghosh: The Glass Palace (552)
56. Benjamin Deng, Alephonsion Deng, & Benjamin Ajak, with Judy A. Bernstein: They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan [Sudan] (334)
57. Josh Kilmer-Purcell: I Am Not Myself These Days (330)
May (3764)
58. Helen Simonson: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (364) 
59. Graham Greene: Our Man in Havana (252)
60. Larry Herzberg & Qin Herzberg: China Survival Guide: How to Avoid Travel Troubles and Mortifying Mishaps (160)
61. Tiyambe Zeleza: Smouldering Charcoal [Malawi] (191)
62. R. Douglas Fields: The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries about the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science (384)
63. [Elyn R. Saks: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness] (352)
64. Diane Duane: A Wizard of Mars (Young Wizards #9) (558)
65. Haruki Murakami: Kafka on the Shore (467)
66. Rick Riordan: The Throne of Fire (Kane Chronicles #2) (460)
67. Michael Scott: The Warlock (Nicholas Flamel #5) (391)
68. Neshani Andreas: The Purple Violet of Oshaantu [Namibia] (185)
June (4541)
69.  Piers Marchant: How to Be Pope: What to Do and Where to Go Once You're in the Vatican (128)
70. Maryanne Wolf: Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (320)
71. Paul Collier: The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (224)
72. Connie Willis: Blackout (512)
73. Rick Riordan: The Lost Hero (The Heros of Olympus #1) (557)
74. Connie Willis: All Clear (643)
75. Peace Corps: A Life Inspired: Tales of Peace Corps Service (183)
76. [Robert A. Heinlein: Citizen of the Galaxy] (253)
77. Philip Caputo: A Rumor of War (378)
78. John Sack: Report from Practically Nowhere (248)
79.  Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell: The Alchemist and the Executioness (200)
80. Patti Smith, David Greenberg, & John W. Smith: Strange Messenger: The Work of Patti Smith (79)
81. Adam Mansbach & Ricardo Cortés: Go the Fuck to Sleep (32)
82. Leila Aboulela: The Translator (208)
83. Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (576)
July (4193 pages)
84. George R. R. Martin: A Game of Thrones (A Song of Fire and Ice #1) (835)
85. Barbara W. Tuchman: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (704)
86. James W. Gleick: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (527)
87. George R. R. Martin: A Clash of Kings (A Song of Fire and Ice #2) (1010)
88. Anthony Bourdain: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook (304)
89. Oliver Sacks: Oaxaca Journal (120)
90. Guðleif Fríður Sigurjónsdóttir: Treasured and Delicious Icelandic Recipes (45)
91. Völundur Snær Völundarson: Delicious Iceland - Special Edition (Tales of Unique Northern Delicacies) (157)
92. Matt Harding: Where the Hell is Matt? The Story Behind the Internet Dancing Sensation (144)
93. Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad (347)
94. Donald Miller: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life (288)
August (3272 pages) 
95. Ursula K. Le Guin: The Wild Girls (128)
96. Angela Eagan & Rebecca Weiner: Culture Shock! China: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! China) (304)
97. Shaun Tan: Tales from Outer Suburbia (96)
98. Paolo Bacigalupi: Pump Six and Other Stories (239)
99. Roz Chast & David Remnick (Introduction): Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected, and Health-Inspected Cartoons, 1978-2006 (400)
100. Xu Xin: The Jews of Kaifang, China: History, Culture, and Religion (209)
101. Carl Hoffman: The Lunatic Express: Discovering the World...Via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains, and Planes (297)
102. Joe Jackson: The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire (420)
103. George R. R. Martin: A Storm of Swords (A Song of Fire and Ice #3) (1179)
September (5580 pages)
104. David Axe: War is Boring: Bored Stiff, Scared to Death in the World's Worst War Zones (128)
105. David Sedaris: Holidays on Ice (172)
106. Augusten Burroughs: You Better Not Cry: Stories (222)
107. Speak: Laurie Halse Anderson (240)
108. Douglas Edwards: I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 (432)
109. Amos Oz: How to Cure a Fanatic (104)
110. Paula Ann Lajan Quinene: A Taste of Guam [Guam] (122)
111. George R. R. Martin: A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4) (1060)
112.George Orwell: Down and Out in Paris and London (213)
113. Per Petterson: I Curse the River of Time (233)
114. Stavros Panteli: Place of Refuge: A History of the Jews in Cyprus [Cyprus] (192)
115. Anne Carson: Nox (192)
116. Alexandra Fuller: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood (315)
117. Kouassi Pascal Soman: Abongui My People Cote D'Ivoire My Country America My Home: The Ethno-history of a Small African Kingdom [Ivory Coast] (218)
118. Mark Salzman: Iron and Silk (224)
119. Irene J. Taafaki, Maria Kabua Fowler, Randolph R. Thaman: Traditional Medicine of the Marshall Islands: The Women, the Plants, the Treatments [Marshall Islands] (300)
120. Ian Fleming: Quantum of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories (304)
121. Oliver Sacks: Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (381)
122. Jeffrey Steingarten: The Man Who Ate Everything (528)
October (4885 pages)
123. Christina Dodwell: In Papua New Guinea [Papua New Guinea] (256)
124. Maria Balinska: The Bagel: A Cultural History (288)
125. Kristin Hersh: Rat Girl: A Memoir (336)
126. Samuel Johnson & James Boswell: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (~160)
127. Rick Riordan: The Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus #2) (513)
128. Kay Ryan: The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (288)
129. Lev Grossman: The Magician King (The Magicians #2) (400)
130. Michael Levy: Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China's Other Billion (256)
131. Jillian Lauren: Some Girls: My Life in a Harem (352)
132. Trevor Corson: The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice (256)
133. Michael Ondaatje: The English Patient (302)
134. John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come, Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream (385)
135. Carlos Ruiz Zafón: The Shadow of the Wind (500)
136. Ann Patchett: State of Wonder (353)
137. Robert C. O'Brien: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (240)
November (5075 pages)
138. Octavio Latorre: The Curse of the Giant Tortoise: Tragedies, Crimes, and Mysteries in the Galapagos Islands (6th Ed.) [Ecuador] (243)
139. Barbara Ehrenreich: Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America (256)
140. Paolo Bacigalupi: Ship Breaker (336)
141. John Milton: Paradise Lost (276)
142. Mary Roach: Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (319)
143. Nick Bakalar: The Medicine Cabinet of Curiosities: An Unconventional Compendium of Health Facts and Oddities, from Asthmatic Mice to Plants that Can Kill (240)
144. Joan Didion: Blue Nights (188)
145. Angie Sage: Darke (Septimus Heap, #6) (641)
146. Peter Godwin: When a Crocodile Eats the Sun (416)
147. Neal Shusterman: Unwind (Unwind, #1) (335)
148. Roz Chast: What I Hate (64)
149. Jon Krakaur: Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way (96)
150. Ann Patchett: The Magician's Assistant (368)
151. Stephen Batchelor: Confession of a Buddhist Atheist (302)
152. Scott Westerfeld: Goliath (Leviathan, #3) (543)
153. Ernesto Che Guevara: The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey (175)
154. Alan Dean Foster: Star Trek [2009 Movie Tie-in] (274)
December (6211 pages)
155. Arika Okrent: In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and The Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language (342)
156. Dave Eggers: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (530)
157. Cinda Williams Chima: The Demon King (Seven Realms, #1) (528)
158. Julian Barnes: The Sense of an Ending (144)
159. Eli Pariser: The Filter Bubble (304)
160. Sarah Macdonald: Holy Cow! An Indian Adventure (298)
161. Bruce C. Morris: Open Road's Best of Panama: Your Passport to the Perfect Trip! (248)
162. Richard Garrigues & Robert Green: The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide [Costa Rica] (408)
163. Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels (~318)
164. Dava Sobel: The Planets (270)
165. Jon Ronson: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry (288)
166. Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran (356)
167. Ninni Holmqvist: The Unit (272)
168.  Mpho M'Atsepo Nthunya & K. Limakatso Kendal: Singing Away the Hunger: The Autobiography of an African Woman [Lesotho] (186)
169. Mohammed Hanif: A Case of Exploding Mangoes (320)
170. Steve Martin: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life (207)
171. Cindy Williams Chima: The Exiled Queen (Seven Realms, #2) (586)
172. Oliver Sacks: Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf (208)
173. Jon-Jon Goulian: The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt (326)
174. Florence Lewisohn: Divers Information on the Romantic History of St. Croix [St. Croix, USVI] (72)

Divers Information on the Romantic History of St. Croix: From the Time of Columbus until Today

#744
Title: Divers Information on the Romantic History of St. Croix: From the Time of Columbus until Today
Author: Florence Lewisohn
Publisher: St. Croix Landmarks Society

Year: 1964
Country: St. Croix (USVI)
72 pages

St. Croix (USVI). This 1964 book provides a little history (with timeline) and short essays, with visual ephemera, on plantations, sugar mills, rum production, and other historical aspects of colonial and post-colonial life on the island. I mention the publication date because, though the author does a better job of describing slavery in relation to the islands than some in 1964, there are other aspects of her description that are not, shall we say, consonant with a 21st century perspective. 

The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt

#743
Title: The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt
Author: Jon-Jon Goulian
Publisher: Random Hous

Year: 2011
336 pages


I've shelved this under lgbtq, because Goulian isn't entirely straight, though he's not gay. He's genderqueer for sure.

Goulian is a good enough storyteller, but I found myself reading less from a literary than clinical perspective. Goulian's not-unreasonable family keeps asking him "why?" and Goulian isn't able to answer. In his last chapter, he tries to answer, giving, as most of us do, a psychodynamic explanation for his self-presentation and actions. However, I don't think it's a sufficient answer, not because I doubt Goulian's intentions and effort, but because I don't think the issue is psychodynamic or even, at its core, psychological. Goulian strikes me throughout (and I emphasize that I'm not diagnosing, but articulating an impression) as somebody with a psychiatric (physiologically-based) problem. I'm not referring to the content that may grab attention, such as his non-gender-conforming clothes, obsession with his body, and sexual experiences. Rather, what I notice is his intense rumination, difficulty making decisions, emotional paralysis, and fear. I notice that he has a hard time understanding or even rationalizing his own behavior over time. I notice his own sense of oddness, his understanding that social interaction is much more difficult for him than for other people. His sense that there is a meaning but that he can't grasp it. I notice the timing, that his life became puzzling to him in early adolescence (a time that's not only socially, but also biochemically significant). Thus, though I do think he has some obsessions and anxieties, I find myself wondering if he's ever had a good evaluation. I wonder if Paxil (which decreases social anxiety as well as depression) would make a positive difference for him. I wonder if the underlying problem is in the schizoid range. Even so, wonder if he's had a good (and smart) therapist, and if an existentially-based men's support group would help even if there's an underlying biochemical problem. I find myself glad for him that he's able to spend his time gardening and writing, and wonder what he might turn to after telling his own story and thereby, perhaps, giving a good-enough answer to the question, "What happened?"