From the Author of the Alchemist

The Devil and Miss Prym - Paulo Coelho
Originally published in English in hardcover in 2006(?) - Harper

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Another great parable from a master of the form. A surprising delight and equal to the Alchemist in my book. What a treat.


Amazon description - A community devoured by greed, cowardice, and fear. A man persecuted by the ghosts of his painful past. A young woman searching for happiness. In one eventful week, each will face questions of life, death, and power, and each will choose a path. Will they choose good or evil?

In the remote village of Viscos -- a village too small to be on any map, a place where time seems to stand still -- a stranger arrives, carrying with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to a question that torments him: Are human beings, in essence, good or evil? In welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village becomes an accomplice to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives.

Paulo Coelho's stunning novel explores the timeless struggle between good and evil, and brings to our everyday dilemmas fresh perspective: incentive to master the fear that prevents us from following our dreams, from being different, from truly living.

The Devil and Miss Prym is a story charged with emotion, in which the integrity of being human meets a terrifying test.

Can You Guess Where This Library Is?

If you've read my posts on great libraries of the world and/or my love of books on books (eg, Hofer's Libraries) then you are aware of my love of the monumental book repositories around the world. So you can imagine my utter delight when I stumbled upon the State Law Library of  Iowa in the capital building in Des Moines. I didnt do a double take, I did at least a triple take. Iowa? Really? And not even the University of Iowa. So awesome. So beautiful. Below are a few more pictures of this incredible collection.

An Important Book That Will Be Lost in The Shuffle

Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America - Thomas L. Friedman

Originally published in hardcover in 2008 - Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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I thought I would have questions about a journalist's ability to effectively write on the subject of sustainability (given that he cut his teeth on the Middle East) -- but that presupposition proved false. I thought perhaps Friedman's attempt would get bogged down by anecdote, too encumbered with trying to prove his point -- but here too he did not fail. And yet in the end I fear the warning bell he wishes to ring will not be heard by enough... or rather will not move enough of us, create enough inertia, to be meaningful. Oddly enough I dont blame Friedman or his book though. I'm not sure what the call to action would take on this topic. 


There is a lot of meat in this book within which to sink your teeth... a lot to discuss (as I did in a book group) and a lot to make you think, especially about our impact on Earth both as humans and as Americans. 


One of the most interesting tidbits for me, though not mentioned once by Mr Friedman, is the choice (his?) of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights on the cover. Fascinating pick given the subject matter.


Amazon description - Thomas L. Friedman’s no. 1 bestseller The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see globalization in a new way. Now Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy—both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to all of us who are concerned about the state of America in the global future. 


Friedman proposes that an ambitious national strategy— which he calls “Geo-Greenism”—is not only what we need to save the planet from overheating; it is what we need to make America healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive, and more secure. 


As in The World Is Flat, he explains a new era—the Energy-Climate era—through an illuminating account of recent events. He shows how 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the flattening of the world by the Internet (which brought 3 billion new consumers onto the world stage) have combined to bring climate and energy issues to Main Street. But they have not gone very far down Main Street; the much-touted “green revolution” has hardly begun. With all that in mind, Friedman sets out the clean-technology breakthroughs we, and the world, will need; he shows that the ET (Energy Technology) revolution will be both transformative and disruptive; and he explains why America must lead this revolution—with the first Green President and a Green New Deal, spurred by the Greenest Generation. 


Hot, Flat, and Crowded is classic Thomas L. Friedman—fearless, incisive, forward-looking, and rich in surprising common sense about the world we live in today.

From the Author of The Tipping Point

Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell
Originally published in hardcover in 2008 - Little, Brown

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Although I was corrected by a Barnes and Noble clerk recently, I do believe this is the best of his books. While granted, Tipping Point is a captivating book, I found the Outliers a bit more concrete and a tad more engaging. (The one thing the B&N clerk and I did agree on is Blink's lack of brilliance.)


Amazon description - In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?


His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. 


Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

Modern Sustainability Primer

Cradle to Cradle - William McDonough and Michael Braungart
2002 - North Point Press

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Although this book came out a handful of years ago, it's quite relevant and very thought provoking on how we consume, and more importantly, what we do with our "trash." The book leap-frogs "recycling" and is essentially a version 2.0 of the concept. The reason I say this book is still relevant is because even now the concepts proposed are both daunting and yet exciting, and I dont think have hit the mainstream yet.


Amazon description - A manifesto for a radically different philosophy and practice of manufacture and environmentalism

"Reduce, reuse, recycle" urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in their provocative, visionary book, however, this approach perpetuates a one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial Revolution and casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials it uses as waste, much of it toxic. Why not challenge the notion that human industry must inevitably damage the natural world, they ask.

In fact, why not take nature itself as our model? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we do not consider its abundance wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective; hence, "waste equals food" is the first principle the book sets forth. Products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide nourishment for something new-either as "biological nutrients" that safely re-enter the environment or as "technical nutrients" that circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles, without being "downcycled" into low-grade uses (as most "recyclables" now are). 

Elaborating their principles from experience (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, the authors make an exciting and viable case for change.

Great China Travelogue

Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost
Originally published in hardcover in 2008 - Broadway Books

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Read this during the olympics and thoroughly enjoyed the travelogue. I would give this a retroactive thumbs up to anyone wanting a good book to read during the Beijing olympics for a little background info on the host country. I also give a current thumbs up to anyone enjoying travelogues in general, but also follow this author's particular travels (eg, Sex Lives of Cannibals). 


Amazon description - The bestselling author of The Sex Lives of Cannibals returns with a sharply observed, hilarious account of his adventures in China—a complex, fascinating country with enough dangers and delicacies to keep him, and readers, endlessly entertained. 

Maarten Troost has charmed legions of readers with his laugh-out-loud tales of wandering the remote islands of the South Pacific. When the travel bug hit again, he decided to go big-time, taking on the world’s most populous and intriguing nation. In Lost on Planet China, Troost escorts readers on a rollicking journey through the new beating heart of the modern world, from the megalopolises of Beijing and Shanghai to the Gobi Desert and the hinterlands of Tibet. 

Lost on Planet China finds Troost dodging deadly drivers in Shanghai; eating Yak in Tibet; deciphering restaurant menus (offering local favorites such as Cattle Penis with Garlic); visiting with Chairman Mao (still dead, very orange); and hiking (with 80,000 other people) up Tai Shan, China’s most revered mountain. But in addition to his trademark gonzo adventures, the book also delivers a telling look at a vast and complex country on the brink of transformation that will soon shape the way we all work, live, and think. As Troost shows, while we may be familiar with Yao Ming or dim sum or the cheap, plastic products that line the shelves of every store, the real China remains a world—indeed, a planet - unto itself. 

Maarten Troost brings China to life as you’ve never seen it before, and his insightful, rip-roaringly funny narrative proves that once again he is one of the most entertaining and insightful armchair travel companions around.

Great Modern Essayist

The Botany of Desire - Michael Pollan
Originally published in hardcover in 2001 - Random House

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This book made me again think of Pollan as a great essayist more than anything else. The four "essays" in this book are quite interesting -- I just had a hard time with how he tied them together.


Amazon description - In 1637, one Dutchman paid as much for a single tulip bulb as the going price of a town house in Amsterdam. Three and a half centuries later, Amsterdam is once again the mecca for people who care passionately about one particular plant — thought this time the obsessions revolves around the intoxicating effects of marijuana rather than the visual beauty of the tulip. How could flowers, of all things, become such objects of desire that they can drive men to financial ruin?


In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan argues that the answer lies at the heart of the intimately reciprocal relationship between people and plants. In telling the stories of four familiar plant species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, Pollan illustrates how they evolved to satisfy humankinds’s most basic yearnings — and by doing so made themselves indispensable. For, just as we’ve benefited from these plants, the plants, in the grand co-evolutionary scheme that Pollan evokes so brilliantly, have done well by us. The sweetness of apples, for example, induced the early Americans to spread the species, giving the tree a whole new continent in which to blossom. So who is really domesticating whom? 


Weaving fascinating anecdotes and accessible science into gorgeous prose, Pollan takes us on an absorbing journey that will change the way we think about our place in nature.

Interior Design to the Extreme

Xtreme Interiors - Courtenay Smith and Annette Ferrara
2003 - Prestel

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I love these "cutting edge" design books in general and in particular this title because it goes from the excitingly progressive to the simply silly.


Amazon description - A sequel to "Xtreme Houses", this book steps inside today's coolest dwelling spaces to see how advances in technology and architectural creativity are transforming not just where we live but how we live. It shows how architects, artists, collectives and individuals push the envelope of what's innovative, eco-friendly and economical for today's residences. Houses that bring the outdoors in. Walls that roll up, zip and bend, "Smart" wallpaper, portable kitchen and bathroom combinations, calming closets and programmable safe rooms. The authors study the impact of computers and sensor technologies, investigate accessories borrowed from industrial and public spaces, rethink assumptions about a house's footprint and trace design shifts from rational to radical, square to open, box to blob.

Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri
Originally published in hardcover in

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If you asked for a one-word description of her newest book I would choose “nice.” This is a nice collection with at times beautiful writing, to be expected from the author of the Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies. If you allowed me a second word to describe this collection I would choose “homage” -- a devotion to the Indian transition to America, on the surface at least.


Lahiri's newest collection starts off nicely and gets stronger as I progressed through the stories. I never once thought of giving this 5 stars, though at times thought of 3 stars. I guess my gut feeling is that the stereotypical ingredients of Bengali life and post-graduate studies grew tiresome. I know writers are many times taught to write what you know, but I feel like Lahiri is capable enough of a writer to not need to reach for those tools as often. 


But in the end I highly recommend this collection, especially for those who enjoy her previous works. A must-read.


Amazon description - From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.


In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories—a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate—we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome. 


Unaccustomed Earth is rich with Jhumpa Lahiri’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom, and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is a masterful, dazzling work of a writer at the peak of her powers.

One of the Great, Subtle Humorists of Our Time

When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
Originally published in hardcover in 2008 - Little, Brown

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When I first saw this in a bookstore I thought to myself, can he do it again? Is there more scrapable hilarity clinging to the walls of his interesting life, fit to amuse and entertain his many fans? Sedaris does in fact do it again and apparently there's an endless well of funny stuffy, a font of hilarity, within this man.


This is another great collection, on par with his other works for all the Sedaris fans out there. There is one story in particular (“That's Amore”) -- or rather a character in this story -- I would love to see him write a full length piece on. Helen is too good (or bad) to be true. As with city rats, Sedaris likens her to the “type of creature [he] expected to find living in New York.” 


When apartment shopping in New York it was Hugh (Sedaris’ partner) who runs into the 70-something year old first, “[nodding] hello and as he turned to leave, she pointed to some bags lying at her feet.
“'Carry my groceries upstairs.' She sounded like a man, or, rather, a hit man, her voice coarse and low, like heavy footsteps on gravel.
“'Now?' Hugh asked.
“She said, 'What? You got something better to do?'”


As with his other collections Sedaris has a very matter of fact method for transferring his hilarious life musings to the page. And I love of his use of the word “faggoty.” Two thumbs up for anyone looking for something light and a must-read for Sedaris fans.

Seattle Times description - "David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," (The Christian Science Monitor) is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book. 

Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths. Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from "a writer worth treasuring" (Seattle Times). 

Poetry is Not My Strong Suit

Red Bird - Mary Oliver
Originally published in hardcover in 2008 - Beacon Press

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I read this in preparation for a reading a handful of years ago - I didn't quite know what to expect as I was somewhat new to Mary Oliver. Anyway, it was a beautiful night and an incredible reading. She was a bit older than I imagined and a bit more frail, but that is truly beside the point.


My original interpretation of the poems in Red Bird, perhaps due entirely to the way I read them, had a slight sensuality to them. Hearing Mary read aloud some of these poems (and from other collections) allowed me to hear them differently - an overwhelming sense of love in Mary, grounded and a bit playful at times, but a simple and profound tenderness about the world she lives in. So beautiful.


Amazon description - Red bird came all winter / firing up the landscape / as nothing else could. So begins Mary Oliver's twelfth book of poetry, and the image of that fiery bird stays with the reader, appearing in unexpected forms and guises until, in a postscript, he explains himself: "For truly the body needs / a song, a spirit, a soul. And no less, to make this work, / the soul has need of a body, / and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable / beauty of heaven / where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes, / and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart."


This collection of sixty-one new poems, the most ever in a single volume of Oliver's work, includes an entirely new direction in the poet's work: a cycle of eleven linked love poems-a dazzling achievement. As in all of Mary Oliver's work, the pages overflow with her keen observation of the natural world and her gratitude for its gifts, for the many people she has loved in her seventy years, as well as for her disobedient dog, Percy. But here, too, the poet's attention turns with ferocity to the degradation of the Earth and the denigration of the peoples of the world by those who love power. Red Bird is unquestionably Mary Oliver's most wide-ranging volume to date.

Another Great Simon Winchester Book

The Man Who Loved China - Simon Winchester
Originally published in hardcover in 2008 - Harper

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Winchester again takes a long-forgotten tidbit of trivia (Joseph Needham) and creates  quite a story around this man's intriguing life and the rediscovery of China.


I purposefully read this one also during the Olympics - and because of that am still profoundly impressed with the Chinese empire. I could not help but think while watching the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, when the fireworks create the impression of giant footprints, that we are in fact witnessing the awakening of a sleeping giant.



Amazon description - In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman ("Elegant and scrupulous"—New York Times Book Review) and Krakatoa ("A mesmerizing page-turner"—Time) brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world's most technologically advanced country.

No cloistered don, this tall, married Englishman was a freethinking intellectual, who practiced nudism and was devoted to a quirky brand of folk dancing. In 1937, while working as a biochemist at Cambridge University, he instantly fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, with whom he began a lifelong affair.

He soon became fascinated with China, and his mistress swiftly persuaded the ever-enthusiastic Needham to travel to her home country, where he embarked on a series of extraordinary expeditions to the farthest frontiers of this ancient empire. He searched everywhere for evidence to bolster his conviction that the Chinese were responsible for hundreds of mankind's most familiar innovations—including printing, the compass, explosives, suspension bridges, even toilet paper—often centuries before the rest of the world. His thrilling and dangerous journeys, vividly recreated by Winchester, took him across war-torn China to far-flung outposts, consolidating his deep admiration for the Chinese people.

A Classic Mystery

And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
Originally published a long time ago.

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My first Agatha Christie! Far, far darker than I thought, both in plot and in the main character, Mr. Hercule Poirot. But very engaging, quick reads. I might be hooked.


Amazon description - Considered the best mystery novel ever written by many readers, And Then There Were None is the story of 10 strangers, each lured to Indian Island by a mysterious host. Once his guests have arrived, the host accuses each person of murder. Unable to leave the island, the guests begin to share their darkest secrets--until they begin to die. 

One Hundred and One Beautiful Towns

One Hundred and One Beautiful Towns In France - Simonetta Griggio
2006 - Rizzoli

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Apparently this is a series of not-so-large coffee table books, surveying small towns in European (and American?) cities. These books make for a quick photographic read  and are quite enjoyable. I dont know that they are worth the price of admission, but I would pick up the whole series if I saw them on the clearance table.


Amazon description - A sequel to the highly successful One Hundred and One Beautiful Small Towns in Italy, this book expands the series to include the most enchanting hamlets of France. Gorgeously illustrated as well as informative, One Hundred and One Beautiful Small Towns of France is a journey through the French countryside, a place where the pace slows, locals engage strangers in conversation, and every town has a unique story to tell. Travel between the hilltop towns of the Central Massif and the Pyrenees to rockbound coastal fishing villages in Normandy and Brittany. Breathtaking full-color photographs create the perfect atmosphere as you discover these unexplored places, and descriptive sidebars offer invaluable information on local curiosities to indulge, unique artisanal products to buy, and age-old culinary specialties to sample. A detailed appendix is the perfect source on where to shop, sightsee, and dine—avec plaisir! Whether you are an armchair traveler or a Francophile planning another trip, this volume is the guide to the hidden treasures of France that proves once and for all that the heart of this popular travel destination lies in the countryside far from the grandeur and pomp of Paris.

More Fantasy Art

Fantasy +3: Best Hand-Painted Illustrations - Vincent Zhao

2011 - Gingko Press

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As I mentioned in my last review, I've surveyed a lot of artists monographs and genre collections of fantasy art. I must prefer the Underwood Press Spectrum books as they do a comprehensive job of getting as many fine artists in each publication. Zhao's series of fantasy art is no slouch, but I think what some see as a strength, I see as a weakness - the compilation features several works by each artists and thus is unable to survey the larger amount of artists like the Spectrum books. This is still a fine series collection.


Amazon description - While instantly recognizable in terms of theme and characterization, Fantasy+ 3 departs from the previous two volumes in the series to examine the state of hand-rendered fantasy art. Artists in the grand tradition of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo bring new visions and techniques to bear, illuminating worlds both mythic and gruesome. Digital art has become a pervasive medium and highly influential in popular culture. From the movies we see to the video games we play, we regularly immerse ourselves in realms not our own, experiencing reality through new and prismatic filters, often learning something about ourselves in the process.


Fantasy+ 3 shows how traditional fantasy art still has its place in our lives, complementing the explosion of CG art as it inspires a new wave of artists. Featured artists include: Raul Cruz, Peter Ferguson, Eric Fortune, Tom Fowler, Eric Joyner, Terese Nielsen, Adrian Smith, Shaun Tan and more.

Fantasy Art

Spectrum 17: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art  - Cathy and Arnie Fenner

2010 - Underwood Books 

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I've surveyed a handful of fantasy artists and collections, and with as many artists as there are that fall under the "fantasy" genre, this series is the best compilation. Very, very nice.


Amazon description - Challenging, controversial, educational, and irreverent, the 15th anniversary addition to the award-winning Spectrum series reinforces both the importance and prevalence of fantastic art in today’s culture. With exceptional images by extraordinary creators, this elegant full-color collection showcases an international cadre of creators working in every style and medium, both traditional and digital. The best artists from the United States, Europe, China, Australia, South America, and beyond have gathered into the only annual devoted exclusively to works of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and the surreal, making Spectrum 17 one of the year’s most highly anticipated books. With art from books, graphic novels, video games, films, galleries, and advertising, Spectrum is both an electrifying art book for fans and an invaluable resource for clients looking for bright new talent. The entire field is discussed in an invaluable, found-nowhere-else year in review. Contact information for each artist is included in a handy index. Often imitated, never equaled, Spectrum 17 continues the freshness and excellence that was established 16 years ago.

Beautifully Illustrated

The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum - Kate Bernheimer and Nicoletta Ciccoli

2008 - Schwartz & Wade

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I almost missed this one. What a beautiful little story book, beautifully illustrated. The illustrations really are captivating. 


Amazon description - Once there was a girl who lived in a castle. The castle was inside a museum. When children visited, they’d press against the glass globe in which the castle sat, to glimpse the tiny girl. But when they went home, the girl was lonely. Then one day, she had an idea! What if you hung a picture of yourself inside the castle inside the museum, inside this book? Then you’d able to keep the girl company. Reminiscent of “The Lady of Shalot,” here is an original fairy tale that feels like a dream–haunting, beautiful, and completely unforgettable.

Another Fantastic Character

Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
Originally published in hardcover in 2006 - Viking

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To me a good book can be a book that simply tries too hard. This is such a book. What I mean is that the author generously entrusts the reader with everything she has, lays it all out on the table. Or perhaps what I'm trying to say is that Pessl reaches way beyond expectations and yet you cannot help but bask in the brilliance as the aforementioned endeavor blazes past you. 

Blue van Meer is the brilliance. She is a mix of Oscar Wao (or really Diaz) and Juno (Yes, the movie. And I apologize for the reference, it's almost as reprehensible as a Potter allusion.) I am still in awe of her. 

I must admit though that at times my mind wandered - mostly during the usual sag in the middle of a novel - and I began a feeble attempt to pick apart the book. The thought entered my mind how Pessl came up with the book idea and how she fleshed it out so magnificently: in college, using absolutely all of her class notes as the meat for Blue's character (and her father's character too). Blue makes an inordinate amount of references and I couldn't help but think that these were highlights from a professor's speech or a research paper.

The plot itself though is where the book overextends itself - much too contrived and frankly quite cumbersome. Were I writing the book this is what I would greatly restructure - but alas I am not the bestselling author and Pessl is. (Man alive, is she really as good looking as her dustjacket photo?)


Amazon description - This mesmerizing debut, uncannily uniting the trials of a postmodern upbringing with a murder mystery, heralds the arrival of a vibrant new voice in literary fiction. 


Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer. After a childhood moving from one academic outpost to another with her father (a man prone to aphorisms and meteoric affairs), Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge—and is quite the cineaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the elite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah’s friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide—or misguide—her. 


Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class and containing ironic visual aids (drawn by the author), Pessl’s debut novel is complex yet compelling, erudite yet accessible. It combines the suspense of Hitchcock, the self-parody of Dave Eggers, and the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt with a dazzling intelligence and wit entirely Pessl’s own.

Not As Racy As It Sounds

Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific - J. Maarten Troost
2004 - Broadway

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Travelogues usually make for good "low-impact" beach reading, and this book is no exception. Hilarious observations of life in the Pacific. As I've said before, Troost is the Bill Bryson of the south pacific, a very entertaining observer. 


Amazon description - At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost—who had been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs—decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better. 


The Sex Lives of Cannibals tells the hilarious story of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise he dreamed of. Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles through relentless, stifling heat, a variety of deadly bacteria, polluted seas, toxic fish—all in a country where the only music to be heard for miles around is “La Macarena.” He and his stalwart girlfriend Sylvia spend the next two years battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic electricity, and a paucity of food options (including the Great Beer Crisis); and contending with a bizarre cast of local characters, including “Half-Dead Fred” and the self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Tarawa (a British drunkard who’s never written a poem in his life).


With The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Maarten Troost has delivered one of the most original, rip-roaringly funny travelogues in years—one that will leave you thankful for staples of American civilization such as coffee, regular showers, and tabloid news, and that will provide the ultimate vicarious adventure.

Getting Stoned With Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu - J. Maarten Troost
2006 - Broadway

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This is a must-read for all the cult followers of The Sex Lives of Cannibals. I've actually heard a lot of ho-hum reviews of Getting Stoned and so it took me a while to pick this "sequel" up. But eventually, and thankfully, I did. Getting Stoned is a true beach read - great for spring break. Troost, the Bill Bryson of the south pacific, pens a light and very entertaining travelogue about living in Fiji and Vanuatu with his wife and newborn son.


It's hard to beat the first in a series but I would still recommend this book. 


Amazon description - With The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Maarten Troost established himself as one of the most engaging and original travel writers around. Getting Stoned with Savages again reveals his wry wit and infectious joy of discovery in a side-splittingly funny account of life in the farthest reaches of the world. After two grueling years on the island of Tarawa, battling feral dogs, machete-wielding neighbors, and a lack of beer on a daily basis, Maarten Troost was in no hurry to return to the South Pacific. But as time went on, he realized he felt remarkably out of place among the trappings of twenty-first-century America. When he found himself holding down a job—one that might possibly lead to a career—he knew it was time for him and his wife, Sylvia, to repack their bags and set off for parts unknown.


Getting Stoned with Savages tells the hilarious story of Troost’s time on Vanuatu—a rugged cluster of islands where the natives gorge themselves on kava and are still known to “eat the man.” Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles against typhoons, earthquakes, and giant centipedes and soon finds himself swept up in the laid-back, clothing-optional lifestyle of the islanders. When Sylvia gets pregnant, they decamp for slightly-more-civilized Fiji, a fallen paradise where the local chiefs can be found watching rugby in the house next door. And as they contend with new parenthood in a country rife with prostitutes and government coups, their son begins to take quite naturally to island living—in complete contrast to his dad.

A Mystery for Book Collectors

Booked to Die (Cliff Janeway novels) - John Dunning
Originally published in hardcover in 1992 - Charles Scribner's Sons

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I cannot imagine how Dunning ran this idea by his agent: I want to write a book about a kick-butt bad-ass Denver detective who opens a successful antiquarian bookstore AND gets the ladies. But that's all history and here's the start of a successful mystery series.


Anyway, I am not a huge mystery genre fan, but I am a fan of the book collecting arts so I gave this a shot. I am so happy I did and I cannot wait to read the rest in the series. 


Amazon description - Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway may not always play by the book, but he is an avid collector of rare and first editions. After a local bookscout is killed on his turf, Janeway would like nothing better than to rearrange the suspect's spine. But the suspect, local lowlife Jackie Newton, is a master at eluding the law, and Janeway's wrathful brand of off-duty justice costs him his badge.

Turning to his lifelong passion, Janeway opens a small bookshop -- all the while searching for evidence to put Newton away. But when prized volumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. Now, Janeway's life is about to start a precarious new chapter as he attempts to find out who's dealing death along with vintage Chandlers and Twains.

For the Love of Music

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain - Oliver Sacks
Originally published in hardcover in 2007 - Knopf

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This is my first Oliver Sacks - I always meant to read the Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat but alas never got around to it.


I love Mr. Sacks' delightful anecdotal storytelling and his intellect that makes fresh and accessible the study of the brain. It *almost* makes the issues dealt with in the book pleasant.


In a nutshell, this book is about the power of music, backed by many accounts from the medical perspective of the interaction between music and the brain. It's hard to tell without a lot of background knowledge on mr sacks and his previous works, but it seems as if in part this book is a culmination of much of his previous works and observations.


A peripheral discussion that continued to dance through my head while reading this book is what is the "best" music to listen to? I kind of got the impression that classical music was most close to the primal drummings of the soul, but perhaps not. I mean mr sacks is an older fellow, and much of his observations were of patients from his earlier days practising, so is it fair to assume that classical music had a more august position in those days and was thus more clearly regarded as the truest form of music? Would any music do, any beat and rhythm that strikes a cord with the individual?


I came away from this book wanting to listen to less podcasts and more music. I came away yet again regretting that I've never tried to play an instrument in my life.  Ultimately, though, I came away with much more reverance for the power of music, more convinced that music just might be the surest and most direct path to self and the soul.


Amazon description - Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat.  But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does—humans are a musical species.


Oliver Sacks’s compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we think of our own brains, and of the human experience. In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people—from a man who is struck by lightning and suddenly inspired to become a pianist at the age of forty-two, to an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; from people with “amusia,” to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans, to a man whose memory spans only seven seconds—for everything but music.


Our exquisite sensitivity to music can sometimes go wrong: Sacks explores how catchy tunes can subject us to hours of mental replay, and how a surprising number of people acquire nonstop musical hallucinations that assault them night and day. Yet far more frequently, music goes right: Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson’s disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people whose memories are ravaged by Alzheimer’s or amnesia.


Music is irresistible, haunting, and unforgettable, and in Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks tells us why.

A True Love Story

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers - Xiaolu Guo
Originally published in hardcover in 2007 - Chatto and Windus

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What a beautiful little book. What a tragic love story. What a sexual coming-of-age tale. What a narrative on the Everyman being a broken man. What an account of the cultural differences between the east and the west. What an illustration of an asian woman in western society. 


This is a powerful book about love in a modern relationship told through a captivating narrative. 


In the beginning and in the end it is a love story - a very sad love story but a completely realistic love story, a true love story.


Amazon description - When a young Chinese woman, newly arrived in London, moves in with her English boyfriend, she decides it’s time to write a Chinese-English dictionary for lovers. Xiaolu’s first novel in English is an utterly original journey of self-discovery.