Ordered from Amazon.fr for cost shipping of around $28, beating out Amazon.co.uk and Abebooks handily. A better book for Comoros, though "better" is relative as I haven't had to read long passages in French since 1974. Fortunately, I'm easily entertained.
***
2013: Now reading. I expect it to take 1-2 months.
***
The award-winning short, poetic essay, "Moroni de mes enfances perdues" (6 pages) was originally published as "Moroni Blues/Chap II." It caused a furor occasioned, as well as I can manage the French, less by its non-traditional style than by its content, which apparently threatened the status quo in Comoros by raising questions about insularity, the relationship between parts of Comoros and the archipelago as a whole, and xenophobia/racism.

This volume collects the piece itself and several commentaries. It's a little confusing because the essay was published on its own, and there is also a theatrical piece, "Moroni Blues/une rêverie à quatre," which appears to be built on this initial essay and was published as a volume of script and photos. The reviews show that the theatrical piece is multi-media; it appears to focus on longing for the Moroni that existed mytho-historically but isn't enacted now. It is told as "une réflexion de quatre personnages sur le repli communautaire, le rejet et la peur de l'autre" (Fathate Karine Hassan in her review in Nouvelles Études Francophones, 25). Some reviewers see it as comedic. I would assume that the aspect that rankles is show more its criticism of France's occupation of Mayotte, content that has caused the author to be censored at times. This appears to be a program for "Moroni Blues/une rêverie à quatre": http://www.wip-villette.com/IMG/pdf/Moroni_Blues_2_.pdf . A video conversation with the author, which I don't have the spoken French to understand): http://www.theatre-contemporain.net/spectacles/Moroni-Blues/videos/ .
***
Here's a sample to illustrate the rhythm and the translation amusements. This is part of a mytho-historical section, describing Moroni's past. Karthala is an active volcano on Comoros:

Le Karthala en rut, pour dire les choses autrement. Un volcan si proche, mille fois maudit par nos saints en prière sur l'étendue du Bandari. Moroni sentait bon le conformisme à l'époque. Mais c'était aussi un temps exquis où l'insouciance se conjuguait paradoxalement avec la loi du plus fort. Le colon veillait dans son bel uniforme étoilé, même si ce chef-lieu du pays pouvait bruire de toutes ses lumières sans que la chicotte ne vienne semer une once de trouble dans les consciences. Moroni pouvait rire et danser, tout en se sachant sous cage pour longtemps (p. 13).
***
The ending rally: "L'heure est sans doute venue de déconstruire les héritages pesants et de redessiner l'imaginaire d'une cité au regard toujours porté sur le large" (p. 16). I construe he's talking about the community's philosophy, and not about urban renewal.
***
The piece itself is followed by several essays, which, as best my French permits me to say, address the piece primarily in terms of poetical essay harangues about the elite's stupidity, from a Marxist perspective. show less

I enjoyed this in its own right, and I enjoyed it as a prequel to Graceling. Fire is another strong female protagonist whose relationships with men are more mutual than is sometimes the case in fantasy/swords and sorcery novels. Intertwined with Fire's story is that of Leck, who appeared in an important role in Graceling. While that book focused on the lands where gracelings arise, here the story concerns beautiful monsters, of whom Fire is one.

Quite aside from the story and the writing, both of which held my interest, I want to appreciate several aspects of the story. First, the non-marital sexual and romantic relationships were nicely described without gratuitous sex scenes. Second, the existence of same-sex relationships was acknowledged neutrally and without much emphasis by the narration and characters. Third, you've got to love a young adult novel where the protagonist's travels are thwarted by her monster-attracting menstrual blood. Now that's an interesting twist.

It's heartening that this series is improving over its run. This book borrows from some of the traditions of cyberpunk, though there's a countdown at the end that makes one wonder why the Veeloxians don't compute in binary. Ah, well. Maybe it's hexadecimal. Bobby steps more clearly into his role as lead traveler and Mark and Courtney play a bigger role in the narrative as we learn more about the acolytes who support the travelers.

There are still some internal consistency problems. For example, Bobby's journal is presented through a holographic technology that doesn't exist on Earth Two, which is forbidden. Mark frets about this for a few sentences, then, without resolving the problem, ignores it. There are, as always, other large continuity/consistency problems. At the end of the book, an enormous number of earlier-threatened deaths are made no mention of. Amusingly, a large portion of the book takes place in a virtual reality where internal consistency matters and is discussed by the characters.

Saint Dane suffers from complex villain syndrome; his plans to kill Bobby and destroy territories are needlessly byzantine. Near the end, we learn that there are 10 territories, making me wonder why Earth is three of them (Earths One, Two, and Three). Ten seems lonely in the vastness of time and space, but perhaps we will learn more about this seemingly low number as the series progresses.

In some ways this is less about the actual assassination of William the Silent than about the context of his death, including the means (the relatively new wheel-lock pistol), the political climate, and the religious conflicts of 16th-century Europe. The assassination itself occupies a very small portion of this volume.

Those who did not take a survey course on European or British history or the Rennaisance, or those who had trouble understanding the political machinations that preceded those fictionalized in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, will find the first chapter useful; it provides a not-too-dry overview of the Protestant/Catholic conflicts, particularly in relation to the Low Countries. Chapter 2 treats the murder itself. After that, the order of the book is puzzling. It backtracks to discuss a previous attempt on William's life, then a discourse on the history and characteristics of the wheel-lock pistol, then two chapters with non-linear chronologies on Elizabeth I, followed by primary sources in the appendices (most notably, the fatwa against William issued by Phillip II).

The chapters that actually narrate daily events are more interesting than the chapters that present a broader historical portrait; the latter suffer as all surveys do from being a blur of names and policies. That the text is not chronological adds some confusion and difficulty orienting oneself. The author's comparisons of the events to contemporary political conflicts, while interesting, might show more better have been served up as a final chapter that emphasized both the historical import of the assassination and its contemporary relevance. Still and all, this was an enjoyable book, and I'll watch for more from Lisa Jardine in the future. show less

A little book of aphorisms, which I presume is intended either to be sincere but wry, or a parody of the little-book-of-pensees genre. Since the volume is attributed to Snicket, whose ouvre is extensive and whose voice is distinctive, it is regretable that the majority of these large-type entries are neither funny nor apt. Some simply read like bland, generic self-help aphorisms. I expect more from the man who introduced the word "cakesniffer" to my vocabulary.

The first in a series, and like Nix's Seventh Tower books, intended for a younger reader than his Abhorsen trilogy. The Keys to the Kingdom slides even further into pure fantasy, which often is not to my taste. I find fantasy often to be illogical and picaresque, and to rely heavily on deus ex machina strategies, especially when it is written for young adults. This creates a passive reading experience, since the reader cannot anticipate or predict any events or outcomes. When fantasy is well-written, the author articulates the internal logic of the world and the reader, like the protagonist, can learn the world's rules and engage more actively with the narrative. I do not yet know which direction this series will take, though by the end of this first volume some of the possible courses seem clear. The conceit is that our hero, the asthmatic 7th grader Arthur Penhaligon, will interact successively with the personages who bear the sequential names/titles of the days of the week, ultimately (and not without some twists and turns) saving all of humanity and beyond through compassion and empathy, which is pretty good for a middle schooler. How much internal coherence this tale has, and the extent to which the reader can participate rather than simply receive the story, is yet to be determined.

As always, Nix does a terrific job of worldbuilding and integrates both mythic and historic elements that are fun for adult readers to spot even if younger readers miss them. Some aspects show more of the set-up may remind readers of Robert Charles Wilson's Darwinia. For what it's worth, "Penhaligon" is an old British place name as well as surname, and means something like "Willow Top" or "Willow Hill." show less

Part 4 of the Keys to the Kingdom series. Unable to go home due to maliciousness and chaos within the House, Arthur is conscripted unwillingly into Sir Thursday's army. The Piper's Children play a larger role, the Will grows more powerful and officious, and Arthur gains more useful skills. However, each time he uses the Keys, he moves that much closer to becoming a denizen himself. Meanwhile back home, Leaf must fight a creature that has taken Arthur's form and identity.

Take a close look at the cover of this book. It shows men walking hyenas and (perhaps gibbons).

I bought this book because of the juxtaposition of the title and the cover image. It seemed to promise that the places I don't want to visit might include the situation pictured on the cover, or at least something like it. However, the cover has nothing to do with the contents of the book. The source of the image is listed as Scamorama.com. Scamorama is a site devoted to instances of advance fee fraud, e.g., those e-mails you get from Nigeria that begin "Beloved Friend" and attempt to induce you to assist with a million dollar transaction. A link from Scamorama's main page takes one to this photo and several others of Nigerian men walking hyenas. A link from that page takes one to photos and a link to an essay about a small group of entertainers who are hyena handlers. What does any of this have to do with advance fee fraud? Nothing. More to the point, what does any of this, including the photo, have to do with No Holiday: 80 Places You Don't Want to Visit... A Disinformation Travel Guide? Nothing. The reasons you don't want to travel to the 80 destinations are politics, economies, and pollution. Though a scant few reasons not to travel are related to abhorrent cultural practices (such as throwing a goat off the top of a church), these examples are not the main focus of the book. Further, the 2-page section on Nigeria has nothing to do with this photo. Why not a photo of show more something that has to do with the book? Perhaps because this photo is more interesting than the book.

Leaving aside what the book seemed to promise and focusing instead on what it is, it is still disappointing. The content is often interesting, but highly repetitive. Summary: The US, Britain, and Israel are very bad and less powerful cultures would never wage war or civil war, commit fraud against their citizens, or pollute if not seduced or coerced into doing so by countries such as the US and Britain. The subheadings that describe the focus of each section are in small print and do not always match the table of contents, nor is the prose style of the table of contents internally consistent. The photos, most of which are public domain or from Wikipedia Commons, are black and white and uncaptioned, making it difficult at times to associate them with the section they illustrate.

I've enjoyed browsing though some of The Disinformation Company's other titles, but Cohen's poor writing interferes with my reading. Here are two samples:

"In 2004 the international press picked up the story in the Swaziland newspapers of the King's latest request to the country's parliament for $15 million. Purchased in time for Christmas that same year, a Daimler-Chrysler car equipped not only with television but more importantly a DVD player, refrigerator and solid silver champagne service is truly a sight worth seeing. Even though much of the money spent on the building and upkeep of those Royal Palaces eventually goes to Swazilanders, or maybe Filipinos. Poor people anyway."

"When Serbian nationalism, historically the spark for the great bloodletting of what Europeans call 'The Great War' of 1914-18, spluttered back into life (after lying dormant under the iron rule of President Tito's communists), a lot of people preferred to 'look the other way.'"

One's fingers itch for the red pen throughout. I don't disagree with much of Cohen's data, and can usually appreciate his interpretation even if I don't agree with it. However, the book cries out for better editing. While I'm wishing, I will wish for a relevant cover photo as well. show less

A non-stand-alone novel that slots into the end of [b:Ender's Game|375802|Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, Book 1)|Orson Scott Card|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1214413570s/375802.jpg|2422333], this is enjoyable enough for Ender fans and irrelevant for anyone else. At a structural level, I enjoy the idea that a whole novel can be hidden in the interstices of another. I appreciated the detail on Ender's missing years, especially because I got bored with following Bean in the "Shadow" series (another way to hide a novel in a novel: Retell events from a collateral perspective). For people who haven't read the "Shadow" books, there's enough clunky exposition to fill you in.

The emotional tone was flat for this series, and overall the book seemed a little perfunctory. However, it was still a pleasant diversion.

Greenland.

She doesn't live in Greenland, but clearly has spent considerable time there over many years, and eaten a great deal of raw seal while crouched in the lee of a glacier, which is good enough for me.

Ehrlich's account of her multiple trips to Greenland is a bit like hallucinatory/incantatory Annie Dillard (e.g., Holy the Firm) crossed with Jon Krakauer and dusted with cocaine. Her account is sometimes lyrical and sometimes approaches word salad with associations that are difficult to follow. Most of the time, though, her train of thought can be tracked, if not anticipated, and she evokes Greenland's climate so effectively that I was shivering while I read this on Oahu.

Ehrlich has made numerous long visits to Greenland and has become familiar with the land and the people, forging enduring and deep relationships. She is a motherlode of facts and brings in other travelers' narratives (and long glosses of these in some cases, such as Rockwell Kent). As some reviewers have noted (e.g., in discussing A Match to the Heart), she makes some jarring factual errors that should have been caught by an editor. For example, she asserts, "The glacier-carved seabed was 1,000 kilometers deep" (p. 81). This is 1,000,000 meters. Since the Marianas Trench, the lowest point on the globe, is about 11,000 meters deep, Ehrlich probably meant "meters." Because Ehrlich is working in the nature/travel genres as well as the ecstatic/poetic, errors of this sort are all the more jolting.

I show more enjoyed Ehrlich's reports and musings despite some repetition borne of not revising and harmonizing segments that were first published elsewhere. She has had some magnificent adventures. I'd have liked to know more about her relationships and what her journeys meant to her personally. Though she names emotions, the text comes off as quite distanced and cerebral.

At the same time as I enjoyed the narrative, I was troubled by some of Ehrlich's behaviors and risks that seem foolhardy. These are foregrounded by the history of cold-weather exploration and sport, where small preparatory omissions and lack of planning have destroyed entire teams and expeditions. In one instance, her luggage is lost and she is wearing inadequate clothing. It appears that she simply ignores this rather than borrowing or buying, say, a good coat. This seems counterphobic, negligent, impulsive, or all three. Chris McCandless, the subject of Krakauer's Into the Wild, was soundly excoriated for much less. The difference is that he died and Ehrlich has not. That's a thin line, and I do wish she'd take better care of herself. show less

The 37-year old Dr. Taylor, a neuroscientist, was simultaneously horrified and fascinated to realize that she was having a stroke. Though many reviewers and interviewers focus on the insights she gained from her stroke, I was riveted by her descriptions of the physiological and behavioral processes she experienced in the first hours of the experience. The science is presented simplistically, which makes it generally accessible but may not satisfy a more sophisticated reader. Taylor's musings on right and left brain functions and moods are very interesting and may speak to the physiological seat of the sense of connection or oneness, whether you understand this as religious or as Freud's oceanic feeling. For me, though, the power of the narrative is Taylor's account of the stroke itself, both for her descriptions and for her ability to tell the story despite having had the experience.

For a science fiction novel that predates this book but has a long section with an uncanny similarity to Taylor's cognitive state during her stroke, read Connie Willis's Passage.

Best read in conjunction with the film, this memoir fills in details of the girls' trek that are not as explicit in the screen version. What the film provides is both a dynamism lacking in the book, and a broader context for why the Australian government would separate biracial children from their families. I was particularly fascinated by the expenditures made to recover three girls; no comparable manhunt would be mounted in our era for non-criminal escapees.

It would be interesting to compare the rationales for the general removal of native children to boarding schools in different countries, particularly the covert reasoning. The film does a better job of identifying the more pernicious aims of the program.

The cover of my edition appears to illustrate Verlac outside the observatory.

A wry and sly narrative from Conrad. It is easy to guess most of the plot fairly early on; characterization and the characters' ways of attempting to understand the situation are the more interesting reasons to keep reading. I did find myself attempting to diagnose Stevie, and comparisons and contrasts to [b:Of Mice and Men|890|Of Mice and Men (Centennial Edition)|John Steinbeck|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157748205s/890.jpg|40283]'s Lennie are inevitable.

This Peter Pan prequel/back story should be enjoyable, but I found it a slow, unengaging read. I was abstractly interested in the plot and the illustrations are lovely. It's much better written than, say Inkspell or the Charlie Bone books. It may be how interchangeable and indistinct most of the characters were, especially given that so many were demographically similar--problematic captains with dumb but loyal sidekicks who are both called "idjit," and several boys who can be told apart only because the fat one whines. There were some statements of feelings, but I never felt emotional immediacy or identification with the characters. The plot seemed overly complex for the readers' target age. All that said, however, it was an interesting enough start that I'll probably read the next one. I'm curious to know from other goodreads folks whether the series improves.

A clever novel that is probably more fun for linguaphiles than for the general reader. The premise is that a tiny island nation off the coast of the U.S. has been constituted around Nollop, the originator of the pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." The community eschews or lacks many modern conveniences (such as reliable telephone service), priding itself on its linguistic erudition. The novel is told in, and about, letters; the tiles spelling out the sentence begin to drop from Nollop's statue. The community leaders' response is more mystical than empirical and literary entertainment ensues as each fallen letter is forbidden. Though the plot mocks religious, power-grabbing governments that abrogate civil rights and freedom of expression on the basis of dogma (insert "lazy dog" joke here), it also includes much language play. As some of the citizens, including the eponymous Ella Minnow Pea, race to construct another pangram against the lipogrammatic clock, the reader may enjoy the characters' sophisticated vocabularies and circumlocutory heroics. The reader familiar with pangrams may spot the plot resolution before the characters do.

My only complaint is that I do not believe that, even with the use of exempted 7-year-olds, the attempt to construct the alternative pangrams would have been permitted by the Council.

Read with Abish's [i:]Alphabetical Africa[/i:] for a different kind of lipogram game, and with concordiform novels such as Marlowe's [i:]How to show more Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z[/i:] to increase your appreciation for the challenges inherent in presenting a coherent narrative in a linguistically constrained structure. show less

Tonga.

The "introduction" is actually about half the book. It provides a useful historical and religious context for Semisi Nau's memoir and life. Nau's document is a record of movements from place to place, plus some cultural observations. It is not very personal and not even very specific about his religious interventions. It has more in common with Ratzinger's [b:Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977|468104|Milestones Memoirs 1927-1977|Pope Benedict XVI|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175020672s/468104.jpg|456448] than with the introduction that frames it. This account is interesting for its window on internecine conflict and institutionalized racism.

Albania.

Though ultimately Kafkaesque, this novel is initially dreamier and less threatening. It serves as a critique of Soviet bureaucracy and also of the ethic this breeds--after only a week at his prestigious job in the Palace of Dreams, the protagonist is disconnected, afraid, and angry. Bitter and resentful, he quickly resorts to making things up rather than seeking more assistance in culling and interpreting the nation's dreams. As his family's fate becomes increasingly intertwined with the dreams brought to the Palace, he struggles to understand the relationships between history, politics, and the collective unconscious. The indicting punchline of this increasingly complex situation is that the protagonist, who understands so little, is not annihilated as he would be in Kafka, but rises precipitously to become the highest authority.

For a while I thought Meyer was going to pull this off. Early in the book I could see plot and structural elements that she had set up hundreds of pages before, and I was hopeful. However, this 4th installment in the Twilight series is the weakest of the group. The major flaws are these:

* The shift to Jacob's perspective was jarring and serves as an example of clumsy expository technique. Unfortunately, Jacob's voice is so much more interesting than Bella's that her return as narrator is disappointing.
* Meyer seems to be trying to respond to criticism of Bella's passivity and Edward's controlling by going to the opposite extreme. Edward and others wring their hands while Bella, aided by Rose, gets what she wants, putting just about everyone at grave risk.
* Dull writing, dull, overinclusive detail, and dull interpersonal interactions pull the book's potential away from innovation and solidly toward the romantic beach reading genre.
* Bella's fierce longing for Edward is almost immediately supplanted by her fierce longing for Renesmee (perhaps the ugliest name I've encountered in all of fantasy and science fiction). Yes, she is supposed to be even hotter for Edward afterward, but the assertion falls very flat because it is unsupported emotionally.
* There are, in fact, too many unsupported plot thread resolutions and too many inconsequential red herrings. This is not a tightly-woven narrative.
* The showdown with the Volturi is about as well written as J. K. Rowling's show more worst run-on Quidditch scene.

It's too bad that this series has garnered so much adulation when there are better teen vampire books out there. I can only hope the appeal is the sentimentality, or the message about teens not having sex until they're married, and not a cultural return to woman as object--which for all the assertions about Bella as subject, is largely what she remains. show less

This second volume in the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series can be read alone but still suffers some of the flaws of a bridging book. Character development seemed thin despite Percy's growing maturity, and the characters were less dimensional. The plot, though interesting in outline and necessary for the advancement of the larger narrative, came off as picaresque and flimsy. There was more deus ex machina with magical objects and characteristics of this world that were not adequately foreshadowed or integrated, as well as several discrepancies in world rules. For example, Percy asserts again that his magical pen always returns to his pocket, but it certainly did not in the previous book. The tone of the first-person voice was troublingly and self-consciously "teenage," bringing one of the worst elements of much middle reader/young adult literature to the series.

At his best, Riordan is poignant and astute. A speech on pp. 252-253 provides a great illustration of the conjunction of story and philosophy:

"[Y:]ou are part god, part human. You live in both worlds. You can be harmed by both, and you can affect both. That's what makes heroes so special. You carry the hopes of humanity into the realm of the eternal. Monsters never die. They are reborn from the chaos and barbarism that is always bubbling underneath civilization.... They must be defeated again and again, kept at bay. Heroes embody that struggle. You fight the battles humanity must win, every generation, in order show more to stay human."

I hope for continued moral complexity in subsequent installments. show less

Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville)

A fun antithesis to Bret Easton Ellis's [b:American Psycho|28676|American Psycho|Bret Easton Ellis|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223432558s/28676.jpg|2270060]. The misogynistic protaqonists of both books strategize about how to harm a woman, but Mabanckou's narrator is not trendy, privileged, good looking, dispassionate, or competent. The story is vividly told, interior, and emotionally on-edge. He's no Meursault, and he's ultimately no match for his own self-loathing. Lots of word play and descriptions of poverty and disenfranchisement in the Republic of the Congo. It's perhaps a commentary on the difficulty of creating an authentic African self-construct in the context of colonial history.

St. Vincent & The Grenadines.

Vivian Child, a medical doctor, wrote and illustrated a newspaper column on the architectural features, and sometimes history, of houses and other buildings in Kingstown on St. Vincent. Dr. Child has a particular interest in the form of the arches that fronted many of the early arcades. Her illustrations are both from life and from historical photographs.

I enjoyed reading this collection of newspaper columns as much for the stories about who owned the buildings and the uses to which they were put as for the lesson in island architecture. If I were to travel to Kingstown, I'd bring the book along for comparison.

Monaco.

A commonplace book on the theme of flowers, this oversized volume by Princess Grace is conversational but erudite. She describes her own garden and interests in flower arranging and dried flower compositions (with photos), then moves on to flowers in history, poetry, and the like. Enjoyable for browsing or a straight read-through.

As a boy, Henry Nalaielua was diagnosed with leprosy, removed from his family, and made an involuntary resident first of a hospital on Oahu, then the leper colony at Kalaupapa on Molokaʻi. His life story is linear and picaresque (and then I did this, and then I did that) but still very interesting, especially his account of daily life in Kalaupapa and the ways his life intersected with aspects of Father Damien's.

One peeve: No, you didn't say "Me yamo" to someone; you said "Me llamo." It's a small point, but it bugs me when people don't correctly represent languages they say they speak.

Best read as a collection of essays on related themes, not a progressive essay in parts. Mehta's classic is still highly relevant, though perhaps less startling than it would have been on publication 30 years ago. Her primary topic is the atomizing and commodification of culture, illustrated by examples of both naive and pragmatic responses by Westerners and Indians. Most of the essays are well-written and enjoyable to read; some are too divorced by time and culture from their catalysts and are therefore less explicable. If I were teaching a cross-cultural sociology class, I'd use Karma Cola as a starting point.

Equatorial Guinea.

I was quite impressed by this novel, which made me glad that I was unable to find a copy of his History and Tragedy of Equatorial Guinea. The story is narrated as two internal monologues, one voice calling itself "I," the other referring to that voice as "you," that recount the protagonist's formative years through his relationship with his tribal culture and religion as it interweaves, but does not commingle with, Spanish culture and Catholicism. The two voices, both of which alternate between storytelling and stream of consciousness reflection, capture the rift in identity that is such a ubiquitous and potent theme in narratives of coming of age under colonialism.

Ndongo's novel is fruitfully read with Somé's memoir [b:Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman|192354|Of Water and the Spirit Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman (Arkana)|Malidoma Patrice Somé|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172579143s/192354.jpg|185993] for its spiritual/alternate reality passages, Joyce's [b:A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man|7590|A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (Norton Critical Edition)|James Joyce|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1256118817s/7590.jpg|3298883] for its evocation of sin and the fear of damnation, and Roth's [b:Portnoy's Complaint|43945|Portnoy's Complaint|Philip Roth|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170240551s/43945.jpg|911489] for a much sadder and distressing show more version of Portnoy's encounter with the liver. show less

My dilemma with Oni Vitandham's narrative is that I'm not sure whether to trust it as an accurate account. I've read a reasonable number of memoirs of people oppressed by the Khmer Rouge, as well as Holocaust memoirs and war narratives, so I'm familiar with the broad genre of survivor memoir. Many seem unlikely, but that's because were it not for a series of coincidences and fortuitous events, the author would have died. On the other hand, Vitandham's story seems too coincidental to be entirely convincing. My evaluation is further eroded by her reliance on spiritual/metaphysical explanations, which I respect as beliefs but which don't bolster her objective veracity. Yet some of her less-believable explanations don't go anywhere in a way that actually makes me believe her more. For example, she reports that her father was a prince and she was sent to live in a cave as a child for her own protection. Yet in the post-Khmer Rouge era, there doesn't seem to be an attempt (or, at last, a reported attempt) to re-connect with any remnants of this royal family. She also reports essentially a religious prophesy about her return to Cambodia, but she hasn't (yet) returned. She seems to be a person who has done good for the Cambodian people, and I don't intend to denigrate that by questioning the accuracy of her story, but until I see more support for her narrative, I can't read it as strictly credible. I would be happy to be wrong, so please send me evidence if you have it.

Adam Fifield's family wound up fostering Soeuth, a Cambodian refugee whose first foster family was not a good fit. This memoir recounts Adam's experiences of and with Soeuth and Adam's biological brother, interspersed with stories from Soeuth's experiences during the Khmer Rouge period and in adulthood. I particularly enjoyed Fifield's account of accompanying Soeuth to Cambodia, which took place after the country was back under more normal Cambodian governance, but while the Khmer Rouge were still active in the Northern and more remote areas of the country. This was a quick memoir to read, and because Fifeld is telling the American family's version of the foster family experience, an interesting companion to books by Cambodian foster children, such as Loung Ung's First They Killed My Father and Lucky Child.

Editors and proofreaders: Do you really not know that "numb chuck" is, at best, a slang rendition of "nunchuck"?* Do you not see several words incorrectly used by Fifield? Cleaning this stuff up is your job!

I read this by alternating between the book and the audiobook so that In could see orthography and hear pronunciation. Ideally I'd have done these simultaneously, but in fact I alternated media.

I enjoyed about the first 6 chapters, which included topics such as the titular kvetching. Though they included a heavy dose of diachronic linguistics, the balance of language, anecdote, and culture worked well. The latter half of the book took some slogging, perhaps because it became a vocabulary lesson (which, don't get me wrong, I enjoy) without sufficient leavening humor. I could appreciate the scholarship, but it was no longer very fun. Oddly, the sections on relationships and sexual terminology were relentlessly heterosexual. Child who heard neo-Yiddish terms like faygeleh, which has a fun etymology (

This has been tagged as a young adult dystopian novel, and while I agree with "young adult," it's dystopian only in the sense that all zombie novels are dystopian--a spreading horror, present or past, destroys much of civilization. Perhaps it shades slightly more into dystopian territory, in that a character alludes to the Unconsecrated--this village's name for the zombies--having originated in scientific attempts to make people immortal. However, this aside is so tangential to the action of the story, so peripheral to the central narrative, that, while intriguing, it is not a sufficiently central point to support calling this a dystopia. It is young adult horror with science fiction elements.

There are things I can live without knowing. I don't need the whole back story; in many ways it's more interesting not to have a huge revelation about the long, long ago time and how things came to be. Perhaps some of that is filled in in the next book; perhaps not. What we should have learned: Why on earth the Sisterhood allows infected people to join the Unconsecrated rather than chopping off their heads; how or why both Mary's and Gabrielle's villages are overrun; why Mary and her group of survivors assume the members of the Sisterhood who bolted themselves into the Cathedral didn't survive; why Mary thinks that Gate I would lead to the ocean. There's more, but these are the big points. More irritating, and constituting plot disruptions/bad writing: If the zombies can pile up show more enough to get to an upstairs story, why don't they do this with the village fences? Who does maintenance on the path fences beyond the Guardians' range? If zombies can take down sturdy, braced wooden doors in a relatively short time, why can't they take down cyclone fencing even more quickly?

Psychologically, this is a novel about claustrophobia. The (seemingly) lone village, the tiny beacon holding back the unending, zombie-filled forest. The stern and secret-keeping Sisterhood, a religious order that controls the village, its inhabitants' lives, and access to historical and current knowledge. The young girl, who wants to marry for love, break out of the village's tight periphery, and re-discover this "ocean" her mother described to her in her childhood. It is also about selfishness; more specifically, selfishness rewarded. Mary, the protagonist, is cut from the same histrionic and narcissistic cloth as [b:Twilight|41865|Twilight (Twilight, #1)|Stephenie Meyer|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41BbjxCRtJL._SL75_.jpg|3212258]'s Bella. She is moody, impulsive, self-focused and self-preoccupied, willing to put her ambivalent desires ahead of (as far as she knows) the well-being of everyone in the world. Why is Travis attractive? For the same reason Edward is: Because the female protagonist says so.

If I were still back in my text deconstructin' days, I'd say that Mary's fervent desire for a particular kind of love, bolstered by the repeated symbol of the ocean (Freud's oceanic oneness, q.v.) and the image of the ocean-like forest, is what causes the village fence to be breached, admitting the endless tide of Unconsecrated who consume or infect just about everyone, converting them from individuals to an undifferentiated, oceanic mass of zombies. In psychoanalytic terms, it's the ambivalent desire to return to the pre-individuated ego state (bonus for you Kleinians: Snapping and rending included!). Since Mary's village understands the zombies in religious terms, a translation of the above might be that desire casts one out of paradise; this Mary has original sin. While Mary doesn't lust after a creature of darkness as Bella does, this theme is present, though displaced onto Mary's mother. The story is that Mary's mother allows herself to be bitten by her husband (who is now a zombie) because Mary isn't there to stop her. Mary is too busy getting creeped out by her friend and nice-guy Harry, who in a prefiguring of this zombie/ocean trope grasps her hands under water (she's doing laundry) and initiates a courtship. However, it's not clear that Mary would have prevented her mother from being bitten by her father; Mary, though devastated, also apparently finds it all unbearably meaningful and argues with the Sisterhood, and her brother, that her mother should be permitted to join her father as part of the unknowing, uncaring zombie horde. Who can say that the addition of Mary's mother and of Gabrielle (a parallel sacrifice by the Sisterhood) isn't the tipping point that allows the Unconsecrated to breach the fence?

At the end of the novel, having navigated the oceanic forest and seeing her love interest (who turned out not to be enough for her, anyway) zombified and castrated, I mean decapitated, by her, Mary reaches the real ocean. There, she immerses herself with, incidentally, a large number of zombies and chopped-up zombie parts. Then, to the lighthouse with an older man whose job is to decapitate the zombies who wash onto the beach. It wasn't her mom she wanted all along, it was her dad! Oedipal mystery solved.

Oh, and this bears little resemblance to [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267255754s/2767052.jpg|2792775], with which I've seen it compared. Instead, think [b:The Road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266449195s/6288.jpg|3355573], but with zombies instead of the charred ashes of a ruined civilization, and a whiny self-serving kid. Same ending, though: It's sad about the other(s), but now you're safe because you've found another claustrophobic enclave, where you can be protected (until the horror engulfs it as well). show less

A satisfying conclusion to this series (essentially a trilogy and and out-of-sequence prequel). As in the first book, Lina and Doon take on a quest for better quality of life based on an uninterpretable document from the Builders. Though they encounter obstacles and belligerents, one can't really say they meet enemies. A hallmark of this series is that ultimately most people, even those in opposition, are rendered benign or ineffective over the course of the story, making this a good series for people who like dystopian themes but not the distress of a true dystopia.