Te Korokarewe

#891
Title: Te Korokarewe
Author: Tebuai Uaai
Illustrator: Buatia Kauea
Publisher: University of the South Pacific, Institute of Education
Year: 1987
20 pages

The Gilbertese version of Cutting Toddy in Kiribati, which I'm using as my updated Kiribati book for my world challenge. Purchased at the University of the South Pacific bookstore in Suva, Fiji, visiting which had been a goal of mine since I began ordering Pacific island books online from USP several years ago. It's a wonderful bookstore and I would have browsed for hours quite happily had we not used up much of our time in Suva by walking to campus from the Fiji Museum.

Givers of Wisdom, Labourers Without Gain: Essays on Women in Solomon Islands

#890
Title: Givers of Wisdom, Labourers Without Gain: Essays on Women in Solomon Islands
Author: Alice Aruhe'eta Pollard
Publisher: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific
Year: 2000
112 pages

A set of essays on women's issues in the Solomons by a scholar and advocate who is herself a Solomon Islander. Readable, informative, and a useful glimpse into a changing culture and its challenges for women.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary

#889
Title: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary 
Author: David Sedaris
Illustrator: Ian Falconer
Publisher: Little, Brown
Year: 2010
159 pages

I generally like Sedaris, and this was an interesting idea, but I didn't enjoy it. The first piece that ended with a shocking twist was fresh, but the same mechanism was used repeatedly and reductively. I get it--people are awful and not cute and benign like little bunnies. If I want to read stories that simply provide repetitive examples of this idea, I'll read Chuck Palahniuk.

In a Sunburned Country

#888
Title: In a Sunburned Country
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Broadway Books
Year: 200/2001
335 pages

Bryson's enjoyable peregrinations in Australia, which were not only enjoyable to read while there, but also gave me something to chat about with the Australians with whom I shared a table while on tour in the South Pacific. It's true--mention funnel webs or croc attacks and you won't have to say another word for the whole meal as Aussies regale you with anecdotes about their poisonous and/or toothy creatures for hours. Bryson, like Twain and Theroux, brings in a lot of history and natural history, which I appreciate in a travelogue.

Cutting Toddy in Kiribati

#887
Title: Cutting Toddy in Kiribati
Author: Tebuai Uaai
Illustrator: Buatia Kauea
Publisher: University of the South Pacific, Institute of Education
Country: Kiribati (replacement)
Year: 1987
20 pages

Kiribati.

A basic low-level reader, made more interesting b the fact that it's from Kiribati and about toddy production. If you're not from a community that collects and ferments palm sap, this is a good illustration of how inexplicable even an easy reader can be when it's culturally incongruous.

The Full Cupboard of Life (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #5)

#886
Title: The Full Cupboard of Life (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #5)
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Anchor
Year: 2005
198 pages

Okay enough, but what would have kicked it to a 3 or 4 star book for me is if the wedding had actually been Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's idea, revealed as a surprising twist at the end of the novel. About those orphans--what are they, props? They barely figure in the narrative at all.

The Kalahari Typing School for Men (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #4)

#885
Title: The Kalahari Typing School for Men (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #4)
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Anchor
Year: 2002
201 pages

Another "eh" installment, suffering the lack of an adequate editor. What happened to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's depression? It's alluded to, but functionally gone. What about Mma Makutsi's excellent work at the garage? It just seems to disappear, as does the work ethic she appeared to have instilled in the apprentices? Why does Mma Makutsi give up on her love interest for no particular reason? And I could swear that in the second book she said she didn't like bush tea, yet she's drinking it constantly. It would be very easy to make this hang together more tightly, but I don't see that happening in this series.