Brother, I'm Dying

#1093
Title: Brother, I'm Dying
Author: Edwidge Danticat
Year: 2007/2008
Publisher: Vintage
Pages: 282

Danticat's recent family history personalizes the reader's understanding of tensions in Haiti (which proceed the 2010 earthquake). She draws a portrait of a vital family, sundered by economics, local violence, and hard decisions, culminating in a helplessness (sadly, much of it at the hands of the US) that prefigures on a family scale the larger narratives of Paul Farmer and others.

I read this to improve my understanding of west Dominican culture and history, since the two DR travel/culture books I read were both focused on the majority Hispanic-derived people.

Kushiel's Dart (Phèdre's Trilogy #1)

#1092
Title: Kushiel's Dart (Phèdre's Trilogy #1)
Author: Jacqueline Carey
Year: 2001/2003
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 912

Before I picked this up, I read many reviews raving about it as well as many raving against it. I'd call it a 3.5. The protagonist has her heavy Mary Sue-ish qualities, and there are parts that just seem stupid, but I did find myself thinking about it afterward and while reading other novels. I'm not talking about the sex which, like the yawnfest that is Fifty Shades of Grey, is neither edgy nor hot, but how the personal quests intersect with and are amplified at times by larger, mythic constituents. Hyacinthe's outcome is a good example.

I couldn't follow all the humans and action, but if A Game of Thrones has taught me anything, it's that sprawling, pseudo-Medieval fantasy epics will recap who is who and did what to whom as necessary, so elaborate family trees and notes are unneeded.

May I note retrospectively that I'm still mystified by how many people apparently have Phèdre's tattoo? I mean, I'm all for literary tattoos, but it seems excessive: http://www.jacquelinecarey.com/gallery_tats.htm

(May I also say that "Love as thou wilt" contains an unfortunate double entendre?)

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

#1091
Title: The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
Author: Norman Doidge
Year:2007
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 448

 I'd have liked to read this as a print book so I could check facts. There's evidence for some of the author's assertions but evidence against others. Without being able to see references, it's hard to read critically--a common problem for me with audiobooks.

Doidge's assertion (also made by one of his informants, Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, in her The Woman Who Changed Her Brain: And Other Inspiring Stories of Pioneering Brain Transformation) is about our contemporary understanding of brain plasticity and generally unidentified or underutilized ways to build interventions based on the brain's ability to re-circuit or reconstruct itself. I believe some of this to be true, but I'd like to review the studies so I can evaluate which parts are accurate and which are the neuro version of "when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Girl with Glasses: My Optic History

#1090
Title: Girl with Glasses: My Optic History 
Author: Marissa Walsh
Year: 2006
Publisher: Gallery Books
Pages: 192

 I don't know what to say about this except that it's not very  funny or edgy. The author attributes rather a lot to wearing glasses that I would attribute to being a child who doesn't quite fit in. The structure is weak and doesn't contribute anything.

It bears repeating that this isn't very funny. Had it not been free from Audible, I'd have returned it, especially because the reader is pretty awful as well.

MaddAddam (MaddAddam #3)

#1089
Title: MaddAddam (MaddAddam #3)
Author: Margaret Atwood
Year: 2013
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Pages: 416

The third and concluding volume of the trilogy beginning with Oryx and Crake.  Unfortunately, although each has its cleverness, Oryx and Crake was electrifying and though-provoking, while The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam are average works. Here, a formerly bad-ass female character become a soppy, mooning, and rather inadequate lovesick drudge. The charm is in the telling of stories to the Crakers, and the joke shared between author and reader about how the story of the bygone world and Crake and Snowman is mythologized. It's enough to read it for, but not enough to make this the sort of stellar novel Oryx and Crake was.

Around the World in 72 Days

#1087
Title: Around the World in 72 Days
Author: Nellie Bly
Year: 1890/2013
Publisher: Heraklion Press
Pages: 213

The original cover, not the Kindle one.

Having read a book about Bly's race around the world (Goodman's Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World), I thought I'd read the account by her. The two together tell a nicely rounded story of her trip, and have inspired me to download Bly's Ten  Days in a Mad-House as well.

It's fun for me as a female traveler to learn about Bly's luggage, interactions, and preoccupations, and as a travel blogger to see how she constructs her journalistic narrative and what she chooses to emphasize or include.

Alas, Babylon

#1086
Title: Alas, Babylon
Author: Pat Frank 
Year: 1959/2012
Publisher: J. B. Lippincott/Brilliance Audio
Pages: 323

Filling in my historical post-apocalyptic science fiction reading, I decided it was time for Alas, Babylon. "Alas" I agree with. Moralistic, priggish, male-centered, and conservative, it's like bad Heinlein without the warm yet crusty fellow who makes you care about the action. Recommended only for historical purposes; it has not aged well.