Tears of the Giraffe (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #2)

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Title: Tears of the Giraffe (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #2)
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Pearson
Year: 2003
233 pages

Better than the first in the series, or perhaps, now having been to Botswana, the images are more vivid and the relationships more culturally nuanced. The parallelism is a bit thick, but I was entertained. Audiobook narrator Lisette Lecat does a lovely job of differentiating characters not only by vocal tone but by how they pronounce Setswana words.

The Autobiography of Black Hawk

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Title: The Autobiography of Black Hawk
Author: Black Hawk & J. B. Patterson (Ed.)
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Year: 1975
160 pages

Audiobook from Audible. Black Hawk's story of duplicity by the US. While I assume he is disposed toward his own positive account of himself, he also acknowledges his errors at many points. Given the execrable conduct of the US government in its dealings with native people, I'll presume a reasonable degree of accuracy. Black Hawk is clear and even-handed, and I enjoyed reading this despite the sorrow provoked by its content.

The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation

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Title: The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation
Author: Mark Kurlansky
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2000
400 pages

I'm more a fan of natural history than straight up human history, but Kurlansky's Basque history forms a reasonable triptych with his Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World and Salt: A World History--Cod because of the relationship of the Basque to the cod trade and Salt because of its descriptions of pre-national Europe.

Though some sections dragged a bit (for example, the contemporary political scene, which bogged down in details), this was, overall, an enjoyable and sympathetic history, portraying the Basque as more than a furtive people with a terrorist arm who were slaughtered at Guernica. Recipes abound.

Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety

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Title: Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety
Author: Daniel B. Smith
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 2012
212 pages

Received as a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

Smith isn't just anxious, he's clinically anxious--an important distinction of quality as well as quantity. This well-written and often amusing memoir also poignantly captures the debilitating nature of his disorder.

John Dies at the End

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Title: John Dies at the End
Author: David Wong
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Year: 2009/2010
480 pages
If your idea of fun is to have a drunk, immature adolescent male making up a rambling, internally inconsistent horror story larded with body fluids while playing a video game and laughing because he thinks he's hilarious, knock yourself out. Or just knock yourself out, which might be preferable to reading this.

Old Before My Time: Hayley Okines' Life with Progeria

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Title: Old Before My Time: Hayley Okines' Life with Progeria
Author: Hayle Okines, Kerry Okines, & Alison Stokes
Publisher: Accent Press
Year: 2011
224 pages
Before reading:
Won as a first reads ARC. Author's home page: http://hayleyspage.com/

HGPS is a tragic disease that is, or resembles, or mimics, premature aging. I'm hoping the book will strike a good balance between personal story and scientific information.

After reading:
More personal than scientific, the storytelling alternates between Hayley and her mother. The writing is not highly polished, making it a good teaching text. Because there are so few people with progeria, and because Hayley has been participating in clinical trials, the book provides a unique perspective.

Trail of Feathers: In Search of the Birdmen of Peru

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Title: Trail of Feathers: In Search of the Birdmen of Peru
Author: Tahir Shah
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Year: 2003
288 pages

Shah turns a pretty phrase, even when it's about shrunken heads or disgusting food. Here he pursues the legend of the birdmen, a quest that includes colorful and sometimes alarming fellow travelers, grave robbing, hallucinogenic vines, crumbling textiles, matter-of-fact mystics, and the Nazca lines. Shah is neither a curmudgeonly character like Theroux nor a macho creep like some travel writers whom out of delicacy I shall not name. Instead, he lets the reader in on his hopes, his discomforts, and his apparently genial willingness to subject himself to traditional treatments for a variety of discomforts, including parasites in his pants, as he seeks answers to many, sometimes related, questions. Readable and quick-paced, it will cause the reader to be actively delighted that she isn't eating rat stew or picking wolf spiders out of her hair.