The Cure for Everything

#1077
Title: The Cure for Everything
Author: Severna Park
Year: 2013
Publisher: Author via Createspace
Pages: 288

Includes the author's eponymous Nebula Award-winning short story. While most of the eleven stories don't reference each other, many thematically revolve around wishes for something better, or for relief from vulnerability. Some of these stories have more explicitly SF/anthropological element than others; some are simply slightly uncanny. While my preference is for novels, Park deftly evokes character, setting, and stories that show glimpses of their larger, untold narratives.

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

#1076
Title: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (No. 1 Ladies Detection Agency #10)
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Year: 2009
Publisher: Pantheon
Pages: 212

The death rattles of her white van perturb Mma Ramotswe, while
Mma Makutsi faces a threat from her nemesis, Violet. Against this backdrop, they investigate whether someone is deliberately losing soccer games. As alas, this is more about the reader's relationship with the characters than it is about the plot.

Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

#1075
Title: Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt
Author: G. R. Reader
Year: 2013
Publisher: Author via Lulu
Pages: 211
Available: 

http://www.lulu.com/shop/gr-reader/off-topic-the-story-of-an-internet-revolt/ebook/product-21280970.html

 

"It’s looking to me that Goodreads is swatting very specific users, and backing it up with confusing, badly considered “policy changes” that aren’t so much changes as after-the-fact justifications" (77).

Extremely interesting and illuminating. This is a very useful book for both historical and philosophical purposes. 

Culture Smart! India: The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture

#1074
Title: Culture Smart! India: The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture
Author: Becky Stephen
Publisher: Kuperard
Year: 2010
168 pages

Another generally useful pocket guide. As they all are in this series, it's a bit light on the customs and a bit heavy on the kind of history I could find in Wikipedia. Good for an initial orientation, but requires additional resources to fill it out effectively. 

Stranger in the Forest: On Foot across Borneo

#1073
Title: Stranger in the Forest: On Foot across Borneo
Author: Eric Hansen
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1988
286 pages

An enjoyable adventure, for no deeper purpose than the author's desire. I enjoyed the narrative and description, as well as very pleasing evocations of the people and jungle. As with Rory Stewart's The Places in Between, I sometimes wondered why the author needlessly, to my mind, endangered himself, but this is a trope in masculine adventure memoirs.

The Miracle at Speedy Motors (No. 1 Ladies Detection Agency, #9)

#1072
Title: The Miracle at Speedy Motors (No. 1 Ladies Detection Agency, #9)
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Pantheon
Year: 2008
240 pages

More plot and more psychology than previous volumes. This one feels like it moves the characters along, and the resolution of the dilemmas, crises, and cases is better than adequate.

Codex Seraphinianus (2nd ed.)

#1071
Title: Codex Seraphinianus (2nd ed.)
Author: Luigi Serafini
Publisher: Rizzilli
Year: 1981/2013
396 pages

An extremely delicious illustrated encyclopedia of a not-quite-existent world. It is bettered by both its deeply amusing illustrations and its pages of unreadable but very official-looking text. All manner of persons, places, and things have their sections. Think Edward Gorey meets Shaun Tan meets Diderot meets De rerum natura. We may speculate much, but confirm little, about the world by the organization of illustrations and intriguing but ultimately unfathomable diagrams within the text. If we know the mind of G-d through the structure of the Law, perhaps we could know the mind of something through the structure of whatever this Codex may be.