Tropics' 1010 Challenge

Discussie1010 Category Challenge

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Tropics' 1010 Challenge

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1tropics
Bewerkt: okt 6, 2010, 12:13 pm

A modest undertaking of six books in 10 categories, with a primary goal of choosing at least 50 from my TBR piles. The remaining ten can be bought or loaned from the library (I have starred them).

1. Memoir

(1) The Caliph's House: A Year In Casablanca - Tahir Shah (read March 2010)
(2) Born Naked - Farley Mowat (read August 2010)
(3) Searching For Hassan: A Journey To The Heart Of Iran - Terence Ward
(4) Driving Over Lemons - Chris Stewart
(5) The Storyteller's Daughter - Saira Shah (read May 2010)
(6) The Daily Coyote: A Story Of Love, Survival And Trust In The Wilds Of Wyoming - Shreve Stockton
(7) In Arabian Nights: A Caravan Of Moroccan Dreams - Tahir Shah (read April 2010)
(8) The Farm On The River Of Emeralds - Mortiz Thomsen (read June 2010)
(9) Far Away And Long Ago - W.H. Hudson (read June 2010)
(10) Ruined By Reading: A Life In Books - Lynne Sharon Schwartz (read August 2010)
(11) Greene On Capri: A Memoir - Shirley Hazzard (read August 2010)

2. History

(1) Salt: A World History - Mark Kurlansky
(2) Asylum: Inside The Closed World Of State Mental Hospitals - Christopher Payne * (read August 2010)
(3) Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing The Hidden Contradictions In The Bible - Bart D. Ehrman *
(4) Herodotus: The Histories (with plans to join GROUP READ)
(5) The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History Of America And Its People - Tim Flannery *
(6) Baghdad Sketches - Freya Stark (read January 2010)
(7) Life On The Mississipi - Mark Twain (read June 2010)
(8) Legends Of The American Desert: Sojourns In The Greater Southwest - Alex Shoumatoff (read September 2010)

2tropics
Bewerkt: nov 9, 2010, 7:20 pm

3. Travel

(!) Finding George Orwell In Burma - Emma Larkin
(2) Travels In The Congo - Andre Gide
(3) Stolen Figs And Other Adventures In Calabria - Mark Rotella
(4) An Egyptian Journal - William Golding
(5) A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush - Eric Newby (read January 2010) *
(6) The Light Garden Of The Angel King: Travels In Afghanistan With Bruce Chatwin - Peter Levi (read February 2010)
(7) The Road To Oxiana - Robert Byron (read May 2010)
(8) American Notes - Rudyard Kipling (read June 2010)
(9) Ghost Train To The Eastern Star - Paul Theroux (read July 2010)
(10) Sun After Dark: Flights Into The Foreign - Pico Iyer (read July 2010)
(11) The Great Hill Stations Of Asia - Barbara Crossette (read November 2010)

3tropics
Bewerkt: okt 6, 2010, 12:09 pm

4. Politics

(1) Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook For Post-Bush America - Eric Alterman * (read January 2010)
(2) American Theocracy - Kevin Phillips (read February 2010)
(3) Armed Madhouse - Greg Palast *
(4) War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning - Chris Hedges *
(5) The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein
(6) The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism At The Heart Of American Power - Jeff Sharlet (read January 2010)
(7) Snow - Orhan Pamuk (read August 2010)
(8) American Fascists - Chris Hedges (read October 2010) *

4tropics
Bewerkt: okt 30, 2010, 12:34 am

5. Modern Society

(1) Bowling Alone: The Collapse And Revival Of American Community - Robert D. Putnam
(2) The Big Sort: Why The Clustering Of America Is Tearing Us Apart - Bill Bishop *
(3) The Geography Of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places - Gary Paul Nabhan *
(4) Larry's Kidney: Being The True Story Of How I Found Myself In China With My Black Sheep Cousin And His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting The Law To Get Him An Transplant - And Save His Life - Daniel Asa Rose
(5) One Square Inch Of Silence: One Man's Search For Natural Silence In A Noisy World - Gordon Hempton * (read October 2010)
(6) The Geography Of Bliss: One Grump's Search For The Happiest Places In The World - Eric Weiner (read July 2010)
(7) The Unwanted Sound Of Everything We Want: A Book About Noise - Garret Keizer (read October 2010)

5tropics
Bewerkt: okt 6, 2010, 12:15 pm

6. Medicine, Environment, Nature

(1) Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death And Sleepless Nights In A Surgeon's First Years - Michael J. Collins, M.D.
(2) n A House Of Dreams And Glass - Robert Klitzman, M.D.
(3) Suburban Safari: A Year On The Lawn - Hannah Holmes (read February 2010)
(4) Cadillac Desert: The American West And Its Disappearing Water - Marc Reisner
(5) Antipode: Seasons With The Extraordinary Wildlife And Culture Of Madagascar - Heather E. Heying
(6) The Moon By Whalelight - Diane Ackerman (read February 2010)
(7) The Anthropology Of Turquoise - Ellen Meloy (read April 2010)
(8) Gracefully Insane: Life And Death Inside America's Premier Mental Hospital - Alex Beam (read August 2010)
(9) Darwin's Ghost: The Origin Of Species Updated - Steve Jones (read October 2010)

6tropics
Bewerkt: jul 15, 2010, 2:33 pm

7. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (male authors)

(1) Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
(2) Candide - Voltaire
(3) Main Street - Sinclair Lewis (read June 2010)
(4) The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
(5) Love In The Times Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(6) Christ Stopped At Eboli - Carlo Levi
(7) Cannery Row - John Steinbeck (read February 2010)

7tropics
Bewerkt: jul 15, 2010, 2:35 pm

8. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (female authors)

(1) Emma - Jane Austen
(2) Surfacing - Margaret Atwood
(3) Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
(4) The God Of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
(5) Faces In The Water - Janet Frame

8tropics
Bewerkt: jul 27, 2010, 8:34 pm

9. Humor

(1) Snobs - Julian Fellowes
(2) Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food And The Supersizing Of America - Morgan Spurlock *
(3) Deaf Sentence - David Lodge *
(4) Hullabaloo In The Guava Orchard - Kiran Desai *
(5) Beauty Tips From Moose Jaw - Will Ferguson
(6) Reading The OED - Ammon Shea (read February 2010)

9tropics
Bewerkt: jul 21, 2010, 5:55 pm

10. Biography

(1) The Professor And The Madman - Simon Winchester
(2) Nureyev: His Life - Diane Solway
(3) D.H. Lawrence: The Story Of A Marriage - Brenda Maddox
(4) Leonardo da Vinci: Aspects Of The Renaissance Genius - Edited by Morris Philipson
(5) Mary Renault: A Biography - David Sweetman
(6) Saint-Exupery: A Biography - Stacy Schiff
(7) Daisy Bates In The Desert - Julia Blackburn (read July 2010)

10kristenn
nov 21, 2009, 8:00 pm

I really enjoyed The Big Sort.

11tropics
Bewerkt: feb 11, 2010, 7:46 pm

1. A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush - Eric Newby

Sadly, Eric Newby is no longer with us (see obituary at TimesOnLine):

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment...)

Wonderful British writer, with a brilliant, self-effacing sense of humor. Loved his On The Shores Of The Mediterranean and When The Snow Comes They Will Take You Away. Must chase down every word ever written by him.

He was 35 years old when, in 1956, he joined his indefatigable friend, Hugh Carless, an "Asia hand", on a fantastic trek into the hinterlands of northern Afghanistan, where, with the able assistance of hired locals, they attempted to climb 20,000 ft. Mir Samir. Later, their foray into mysterious Nuristan provided, for me, the most absorbing part of the journey. The author's descriptions of the inhabitants are unforgettable.

My reading enjoyment was further advanced by consulting a map of Afghanistan. Also, it is while reading about far flung places that I'm reminded of the value of the Internet, with its ready references and images. The book itself contains numerous black-and-white photographs documenting their adventures.

12VisibleGhost
jan 13, 2010, 6:14 am

I like the MEV category. And the Modern Society also. I'll check in periodically to see your thoughts.

13tropics
Bewerkt: jan 13, 2010, 9:55 pm

2. Baghdad Sketches - Freya Stark

Baghdad Sketches is a collection of this courageous, pioneering woman's essays penned during the four years in which she lived in Baghdad, beginning in 1929, when Iraq was governed under a British mandate. Having prepared herself for travel in this region by attending the School of Oriental Studies in London, she set off alone, prepared to further her studies in Arabic and Farsi. She arrived here by car from Beirut. It was in Baghdad where she launched herself into a lifetime of hazardous journeys through remote areas. These would eventually be recounted in two dozen books.

"To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. You have no idea what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it."

Freya Stark died in 1993 at the age of 100.

14tropics
Bewerkt: jan 23, 2010, 6:04 am

3. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism At The Heart Of American Power - Jeff Sharlet

A frightening account of the author's successful efforts to infiltrate the domain of right-wing fundamentalist power brokers in Washington who subversively seek to amass power for the "Christian" elite while at the same time orchestrating submission of the rest of us.

15tropics
Bewerkt: feb 8, 2010, 11:27 am

4. Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook For Post-Bush America - Eric Alterman

Eric Alterman is a Distinguished Professor Of English, Brooklyn College, City University Of New York, and Professor of Journalism at The CUNY Graduate School Of Journalism. In this engaging book he eloquently describes the major issues which form the great divide in American politics.

16tropics
Bewerkt: feb 8, 2010, 3:47 pm

5. Reading The OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages - Ammon Shea

Yes, the author spent a year, 10 hours a day, reading this massive tome (actually 20 volumes). And fortunately for us, he took voluminous notes. Humorous, self-deprecating notes. A delightful read. The following are some favorite words shared with readers:

Paracme - the recognition that we are past our prime (sadly, yes, in my case).

Empleomania - a manic compulsion to hold public office (an observable, regrettable phenomenon, even in our local homeowner's association).

Philodox - a person in love with his own opinion (manifested by various tiresome political hacks).

Tacenda - things not mentioned. Matters that are passed over in silence (you've been there, as while being assaulted by the bad breath of a "close talker").

Futilarian - one who is devoted to futility (in my case, making repeated resolutions to stop buying more books).

Deteriorism - the attitude that things will usually get worse (an understandably widespread attitude in America - and elsewhere - today).

17tropics
Bewerkt: feb 8, 2010, 11:55 am

6. American Theocracy: The Peril And Politics Of Radical Religion, Oil, And Borrowed Money In The 21st Century - Kevin Phillips

The title says it all. Although this book was published in 2006, it is even more relevant today, following the recent severe financial meltdown.

This is a superb resource for understanding how the U.S. has been damaged by the debt-driven machinations of the financial industry, continuing dependence on foreign oil, political polarization, and a growing religious fervor, with increasing intrusion of fundamentalist/evangelical beliefs into the halls of Congress.

Religion aggressively drives U.S. Mideast policy. A 2003 Pew Survey revealed that 63% of white evengelical protestants called the formation of the state of Israel a fulfillment of the bliblical prophecy of the second coming of Jesus. Millions of conservatives favor U.S. military intervention in the Middle East to promote the fulfillment of "end times". Some 40% of Americans believe that the "antichrist" is alive and already here.

Individuals who reshuffle money and debt have replaced those who make actual goods. Manufacturing - and with it, the Middle Class - continues to shrink. Millions of job continue to be sent overseas. Between 1981 and 2001 medical-related bankruptcies (the second leading cause of bankruptcy) increased by 2,200%.

18tropics
mrt 16, 2010, 6:50 pm

7. The Moon By Whalelight: And Other Adventures Among Bats, Penguins, Crocodilians, And Whales - Diane Ackerman

The author's longstanding and well-deserved fame as a nature writer is readily discernible in this delightful book. Traveling to remote places in the company of some of the world's most famous naturalists who have made it their life's work to study the above-named animals, she encourages the reader to care about their plight as well.

I read The Moon By Whalelight during my husband's and my recent unforgettable stay on the Baja Peninsula of Mexico, where we arranged two offshore excursions to see, photograph and yes, TOUCH, wintering gray whales in two Pacific lagoons.

19tropics
Bewerkt: mrt 16, 2010, 8:54 pm

8. Cannery Row - John Steinbeck

Upon finishing this wonderful book, with its brilliant characterizations, I felt regret that no one of Steinbeck's ability was present to capture for posterity the oddball characters and winos who inhabited my own home town in northern Ontario, circa-1955. At least one of my uncles would most assuredly have provided a wealth of material for several chapters.

Having read Steinbeck's The Log From The Sea Of Cortez in which the reader is introduced to the marine biologist, Ed Ricketts, I was delighted to discover him playing a pivotal role as "Doc" in Cannery Row.

20tropics
Bewerkt: mrt 22, 2010, 12:52 pm

9. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

I was motivated to read Wide Sargasso Sea upon learning that the author grew up on the Caribbean island of Dominica, which my husband and I have thought of visiting. Although I admired Ms. Rhys' ability to describe the Caribbean's sultry ambience and the inevitable interracial tensions during the early 19th century post-slavery era, the book struck me as belonging to the "bodice ripper" genre. I found the changing points of view confusing. My preference would be to read an actual historical account of disenfranchised former slave owners.

Not having read Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, to which Rhys' book is described as being a "prequel", I remain disinclined.

21tropics
Bewerkt: mrt 22, 2010, 12:47 pm

10. Suburban Safari: A Year On The Lawn - Hannah Holmes

This engaging science and travel writer spent a year carefully observing the activities of an array of species populating her two-tenths acre yard in South Portland, Maine. Her goal: To learn how to best manage this space in the best interests of its various inhabitants. The results of her investigations fascinate, inform, and delight. Who knew - certainly not me - that sow bugs carry their eggs, and then their fresh-hatched babies, in a pouch. Or that male squirrels insert a copulatory plug in the female (which she may then remove and mate again with a different partner). Or that deer mice, if live-trapped, will return "home" after being released a mile away.

Cheeky the chipmunk, Babette the spider, the crow family......unforgettable characters.

22tropics
Bewerkt: mrt 21, 2010, 12:02 am

11. The Light Garden Of The Angel King: Travels In Afghanistan With Bruce Chatwin - Peter Levi

Such a pleasure it was to travel vicariously (in 1970, before the Soviets invaded) throughout the farthest reaches of Afghanistan in the company of this gifted author, an Oxford professor of poetry and an ex-Jesuit priest who, sadly, is no longer with us, having died at age 68 on February 1, 2000. By means of rich, poetic detail, he entices the reader to follow him and his friend Bruce Chatwin through a time-worn landscape littered with the shards of ancient and modern history, where its suffering inhabitants resolutely endure. And all along he notices and names the birds, perhaps the least afflicted of beings in this endlessly war-ravaged region.

Regretting having arrived at the end, I immediately returned to page one.

23karspeak
mrt 19, 2010, 10:20 am

Suburban Safari looks very interesting, I've added it to my list, thanks!

24tropics
Bewerkt: mrt 29, 2010, 1:12 am

12. The Caliph's House: A Year In Casablanca - Tahir Shah

Tahir Shah is the author of more than a dozen books and several documentary films. He is the son of the well-known Sufi teacher and writer Indries Shah.

As this wonderful book lightheartedly reveals, not only do jinns (invisible spirits) continue to insinuate themselves into the lives of Moroccans, they are also given to antagonizing foreigners newly arrived from London. Prevailing upon the patience of his wife, and eager to plunge his young children into a more life-enhancing milieu, the author buys Dar Khalifa, a long-abandoned villa in Casablanca. Renovations lurch forward and backward as negotiations are attempted with the building's superstitious caretakers, traditional artisans, sorceresses, and local "fixers", but eventually the stupendously beautiful restoration is completed.

See photos and details for guest accommodations here: http://web.me.com/tahirshah/Dar_Khalifa/Home.html

25deebee1
mrt 29, 2010, 9:02 am

i didn't know that Dar Khalifa is now open to staying guests! thanks for sharing the link -- those rooms are just sumptuous, even better than i imagined them to be when i read the book.

if you enjoyed The Caliph's House, you will definitely like In Arabian Nights, which is sort of a sequel, but with even more memorable stories in it.

26tropics
Bewerkt: mei 5, 2010, 3:57 pm

13. The Anthropology Of Turquoise - Ellen Melloy

Beautifully-rendered descriptions of landscapes through which the author traveled, studied, and painted. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction in 2003.

Sadly, she died in 2004 at age 58 in her beloved Utah: http://www.ellenmeloy.com/tributes.html

Ironically, she wrote of a yearning to die before the American Southwest desert's wild heart was lost so that she would not have to witness it.

27tropics
Bewerkt: mei 9, 2010, 3:52 pm

14. In Arabian Nights: A Caravan Of Moroccan Dreams - Tahir Shah

Unwilling to limit myself to just one of Tahir Shah's intertaining books, I eagerly sought out this continuation of his Moroccan adventures and was not disappointed. He begins with a horrifying case of mistaken identity, whereby the author was arrested, imprisoned, and psychologically tormented while passing through Pakistan en route from India to Afghanistan. As a British citizen with a Muslim name, he had the misfortune to be traveling abroad shortly after the terrorist bombing in London on July 7, 2005 and because of this had attracted suspicion. After several harrowing weeks, during which he listened helplessly to other prisoners' sceams as they were tortured, he was freed following the intervention of his sister, a journalist and documentary filmmaker.

Back at the by-now-exquisitely-renovated Dar Khalifa in Casablanca, events unfold much as they did in The Caliph's House. The staff continues to be preoccupied by ongoing supernatural events. Angry, capricious jinns evidently remain unmoved by attempted exorcisms and a goat sacrifice. A sorceress is believed to have been responsible for mysterious geometric shapes and numbers inscribed on the front door. The caretaker Oman's mentally ill brother savagely attacks a visiting mason, slashing him with his false teeth which he removes and wields as weapons. Zohra the maid makes frequent use of her poisonous tongue. Tahir stumbles into yet another crisis by inviting the storyteller Murad to stay at Dar Khalifa.

He escapes the chaos by spending long hours at the local cafe, chatting with the community's alleged "henpecked" husbands. He hears stories dear to the hearts of Moroccans and recounts them to us, his readers.

The Berbers believe that people are born with a story inside them, locked in their heart. The story protects them. Some people find their story right away. Others search their entire lives and never find it. Tahir travels widely throughout Morocco, searching for his.

28tropics
Bewerkt: mei 31, 2010, 7:54 pm

15. The Storyteller's Daughter: One Woman's Return To Her Lost Homeland
- Saira Shah

This is the eleventh book about Afghanistan that I've read since the U.S. invasion of 2001 and one which I highly recommend.

Saira Shah is the daughter of renowed Sufi writer, Indries Shah. She is also the sister of writer Tahir Shah. While the family's roots are in Afghanistan, their history also includes land in northern India bequeathed by the British to a famous, heroic ancestor who sacrificed six sons in battle to secure a Delhi fort. Saira's grandmother was Scottish.

Despite having grown up in comfortable circumstances in "the leafy glades of Kent", Saira was imbued with a romanticized appreciation of her "royal" heritage in a far-off land where the family's estates had been long since devastated by warfare. Growing up, she was taught that Islam is a tolerant philosophy, that her ancestors had arrived in Afghanistan with Arab invaders in the 8th century, and that imagined dark patches on her insteps were hereditary stirrup sores.

Saira first traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan in 1981, when she was 17, on the occasion of the wedding of an extended family member. The Russians had invaded Afghanistan several years earlier and her relatives, including many thousands of other Afghans, had fled to Pakistan, where the poor and uneducated among them were relegated to grim refugee camps. It was then that she began to truly immerse herself in the lore of her origins.

Four years later she returned to the region as an idealistic young reporter, arranging to travel through the northern regions with the warlord Zahir Shah who shared his name with the exiled king of Afghanistan. By way of Pakistan and China the U.S. had clandestinely been supplying the mujuhadin ("freedom fighters") with guns and other equipment with which to fight the Russians. Saira disguised herself as a young man and accompanied Zahir and his fighters as they scrambled through the steep, daunting terrain of the Hindu Kush, prevailing upon the locals for food and shelter. Returning to Peshawar, and establishing herself as a free lance reporter, she made this city her base, becoming increasingly involved in the intrigues of the factional divisions.

As the years passed, the Afghan countryside became littered with butterfly mines dropped by the Russians and countless citizens were killed or maimed. The U.S., with its own strategic goals in mind, continued to surreptitiously arm the "freedom fighters", who exacerbated the carnage. In 1987 the U.S. began providing Stinger missiles. Later it is revealed that the CIA and Pakistani intelligence gave most of the Stingers to extremist factions. Some of these missiles were sold to Iran.

Saira became a pariah after having written an article for a British newspaper revealing the Stinger sales to Iran. She was marked for death for having impugned the honor of the mujuhadin, withdrew into isolation, and slept with a gun under her pillow before fleeing Peshawar.

The last of the Russian troops left Afghanistan in defeat in 1989. leaving behind a ruined landscape, 1-1/2 million Afghan dead, and 4 million refugees in neighboring Pakistan.

Inevitably, in this vacuum power struggles increased between various warlord factions, most prominently between Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Tajik Ahmad Shah Massoud. With the Russians gone, the warlords now turned their guns on each other. Much of Kabul, the capital, was reduced to rubble following incessant rocket attacks. Into this morass stepped the Taliban, who took over in 1995.

In 2001 Saira and her crew traveled to Afghanistan to film "Beneath The Veil", a documentary revealing the appalling suffering of women under the heavy boot of radical Islamists.

Given that the book was published in 2003, we must turn to other sources for details of the continuing suffering of the Afghan people and the intractable war in which the U.S. (another casualty of hubris) has unwisely insinuated itself.

29tropics
Bewerkt: mei 31, 2010, 7:42 pm

16. The Road To Oxiana - Robert Byron

In Bruce Chatwin's touching introduction to this entertaining book, he writes of the author:

"Were he alive today, I think he would agree that, in time, the Afghans will do something quite dreadful to their invaders."

And so they have. And will continue to, whether they be the British, the Russians, the Americans, or NATO forces.

Oxiana refers to the region surrounding the Amur Darya River which flows along Afghanistan's northern border. In ancient times, the river was known as the Oxus.

In 1933 the exceptionally intrepid Robert Byron and his friend Christopher Sykes set out on a lengthy search for the origins of Islamic architecture in Iraq, Persia (now Iran), and Afghanistan. Thankfully, the author was not oblivious to the natural environment in which these ruins stood in varying states of decay. Long after I've forgotten about the horrendous predations of the Mongol Hulagu and the vast destructive powers of Timur, I will still remember the author's exquisite descriptions of the natural environment upon which so much bloodshed and horror have been visited.

"While the cadent sun throws lurid copper streaks across the sand-blown sky, all the birds in Persia have gathered for a last chorus. Slowly, the darkness brings silence, and they settle themselves to sleep with diminishing flutterings, as of a child arranging its bedclothes."

As for the copiously described ruins themselves, interested readers can conveniently visit them on numerous Internet sites.

30tropics
Bewerkt: jul 15, 2010, 2:24 pm

17. Main Street - Sinclair Lewis

Away from home and trapped indoors by inclement weather, I found myself with few options other than to listen to this classic of American literature, published in 1920, which I had loaded to my MP3 player. It is one of the titles recommended in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

Odd that this "feminist" work should be written by a man, and in this instance, also narrated by a man. Why would Carol Kennicott, the central character, blessed with all the benefits of a university education, move to small town Middle America? This strains credulity.

An excruciatingly long, boring slog, alleviated only by insights into the then perceived threat of "socialism", fears of which prevail in today's right-wing/left-wing American political arena.

31tropics
Bewerkt: jul 15, 2010, 1:40 pm

18. American Notes - Rudyard Kipling

This is another book "read" on my MP3 player during a lengthy period of foreign travel. Written in 1891, after Kipling, then a young man, had completed a tour of America, beginning in San Francisco, California and ending in Buffalo, New York. His caustic observations provoked outrage, but provided keen insights into the politics, religion, and unbridled growth of a nation in the process of absorbing wave upon wave of immigrants.

32tropics
jul 15, 2010, 2:20 pm

19. Life On The Mississipi - Mark Twain

Another book available for downloading to my MP3 player and "read" while traveling abroad.

Mark Twain at his storytelling best, recounting his adventures as a river boat pilot which came to an end in 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War. In 1882 he returned to the river as a passenger, boarding in St. Louis, traveling to New Orleans, then returning north all the way to Minneapolis.

33tropics
Bewerkt: jul 17, 2010, 4:59 pm

20. The Farm On The River Of Emeralds - Moritz Thomsen

The author, a World War Two veteran and failed California hog farmer, joined the Peace Corps in 1969 at age 48 and was sent to the poverty stricken northern Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas. After a stay of four years he returned to the U.S. only briefly before returning to Esmeraldas to continue his friendship with Ramon, his young black friend, and to buy an abandoned farm, which they both aspire to manage. The book is a dispiriting, powerfully written account of well-intentioned efforts to wrest a living from the land in a forgotten region inhabited by the impoverished descendants of escaped slaves.

34tropics
Bewerkt: okt 30, 2010, 12:41 am

21. Ghost Train To The Eastern Star: On The Tracks Of The Great Railway Bazaar - Paul Theroux

Fans of Paul Theroux who read 109206::The Great Railway Bazaar, published decades ago, will not be disappointed by this engaging account of his return to many of the places described in the earlier book. Once again, the author proves that traveling by rail can be one of the most revealing forms of travel, although he does not hesitate to wade into the teeming masses of overpopulated Asia or venture out in rickshaws and boats.

35tropics
jul 21, 2010, 5:56 pm

22. Daisy Bates In The Desert: A Woman's Life Among The Aborigines - Julia Blackburn

The author cleverly weaves fact and fiction while portraying the life of this unusual woman, an Irish immigrant to Australia, who, in 1913, at the age of 54, withdrew from white society, choosing instead to live in a tent in the wilderness near her subjects of study, the Aborigines.

36tropics
Bewerkt: okt 30, 2010, 12:40 am

23. The Geography Of Bliss: One Grump's Search For The Happiest Places In The World - Eric Weiner

After a decade of traveling the world as a foreign correspondent for NPR, covering tragic events in some of the least happy places, the author, a self-described unhappy person (although in enviable possession of a Bill-Bryson-like wit), sets out on an international search for "bliss". Somewhat curiously he visits The Netherlands, Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Thailand, India, Great Britain, and Moldova.

He first visits a researcher in the Netherlands (a country famous for its liberal drug laws) who rates countries on a "happiness" scale. Doctor Ruut Veenhoven has established The World Database Of Happiness and determined that the Moldovans are the least happy of all, having fallen through the cracks in a post-Soviet era, without a clear sense of nationhood. Corruption and mistrust are endemic. Without trust, it's impossible to be happy. U.S. Peace Corps workers stationed there can't wait to leave.

The king of Bhutan, meanwhile, has embarked upon an admirable goal of increasing the happiness of his subjects - Gross National Happiness, as it is called. This is a mountainous Buddhist/animist country which only recently opened itself to the outside world, and then in only a limited way. Carvings of penises are still used to ward off evil spirits. Life expectancy, although still only 64 years, has improved considerably. Tobacco has been banned. There are more monks than soldiers. And the soldiers are in charge of making beer.

The conservative Arabian Gulf country of Qatar is a nation built on wealth derived from its vast sources of natural gas. Very few people who live there are Qataris (and few are amenable to being interviewed). The rest are servants - Nepalis, Indians, Filipinos. Does sudden wealth make people happy? Not necessarily, although the author didn't find many Qataris willing to be interviewed.

During his stay in Iceland the author discovers that its citizenry seems to thrive on the "provisional" nature of life on an island prone to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Many Icelanders demonstrate an experimental approach to life and entertain what some would describe as a delusional outlook regarding their capabilities. However, self-delusion has been found to be an important ingredient in a happy outlook and is clearly manifested in some of the art and music produced there.

Thailand's reputation as a playground for middle aged Western men with beer bellies is well known. Sexpats, they're called. "Don't think too much" is a popular credo, which is probably a good idea (especially if you're a prostitute).

We are led to believe that the Swiss thrive on regimentation and strict rules such as not flushing toilets after 10:00 p.m. There can be contentment in boredom.

As for India, with its caste system, no matter how low one is on a rung, there is always someone beneath. Hinduism teaches that striving is self-defeating. Yet Westerners flock to ashrams, evidently striving to find themselves while ignoring or rationalizing the widespread extreme poverty.

The British maintain a stiff-upper-lip approach to life, eschewing self-revelation and sparing themselves disappointment.

Ultimately, it becomes clear that happiness means different things to different people, but is largely an outcome of close relationships with family, friends and community.

37tropics
Bewerkt: okt 30, 2010, 12:39 am

24. Sun After Dark: Flights Into The Foreign - Pico Iyer

This well-known author is someone whom readers have come to rely upon for valuable insights as he travels, often repeatedly, to the more exotic and often troubled corners of the world. Born in Oxford, England to East Indian parents who were both philosophers, he has established a reputation as a true internationalist. growing up in California and maintaining a home in Japan. He first struck out for foreign lands (South America) when he was 18. Later, after finishing college, he would hone his skills as an observer of the foreign by writing for the "Let's Go" series of guidebooks. His essays have been featured in numerous publications and assembled in several books, including Video Nights In Katmandu and Tropical Classical.

Sun After Dark: Flights Into The Foreign is another collection of his essays, penned in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Closer to home, it includes a visit with the poet, author and songwriter Leonard Cohen during his extended stay in a Zen community in the San Gabriel Mountains of California. Much further afield, we follow him to Haiti, Bolivia, Tibet, Bali and India. He revisits the exiled Fourteenth Dalai Lama, a cherished personal friend. Heartbreaking in every respect is his portrayal of the horrors that have been visited upon blood-soaked, demon-haunted Cambodia during the last fifty years. Coincidentally, this morning I learned that one of the most egregious mass killers of his countrymen, an individual known as "Dutch", who was belatedly apprehended in 1999, is finally standing trial in front of a U.N.-backed Cambodian war crimes tribunal. Professing to have converted to Christianity, he arrived in court carrying a Bible.

38tropics
Bewerkt: okt 30, 2010, 12:39 am

25. Far Away And Long Ago: A Childhood In Argentina- W.H. Hudson

Written in old age in 1917 while living in England, the author, a keen observer of nature, muses nostaligically about his seemingly idyllic childhood on the Argentine pampas.

He is perhaps most famous for his novel Green Mansions.

39tropics
Bewerkt: okt 30, 2010, 12:38 am

26. Asylum: Inside The Closed World Of State Mental Hospitals - Christopher Payne

From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, over 250 institutions for the mentally ill were constructed throughout the U.S. By 1948 they housed more than half a million patients.

As a retired R.N. and someone whose training required spending three months in one of Canada's versions of a State psychiatric hospital, I was especially moved by author's photographs of these largely abandoned institutions. Movies such as "The Snake Pit" and "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" have led the general public to believe that these places were the embodiment of evil. Ironically, their creation was well-intentioned, the belief being that a spacious, peaceful environment and a structured setting providing work, exercise and cultural activities was a responsible approach. Unfortunately, few medications were available to ameliorate symptoms until well into the 1960s and many of these were associated with disturbing side effects. Their introduction coincided with serious overcrowding in these institutions where many patients had spent their entire lives. At the same time there arose a well-meaning widespread belief that the mentally ill would be best served by community based facilities that would include close folllowup and careful medication adjustment where indicated. Whereas these programs do, indeed, exist in such manifestations as group homes and outreach clinics, there aren't nearly enough of them, with the sad result that many mentally ill patients now end up in jail, prison or wandering the streets.

This book contains an insightful essay by Oliver Sacks, author of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" and "Awakenings", who worked at a State mental hospital in the Bronx for 25 years.

40tropics
Bewerkt: aug 16, 2010, 3:56 pm

27. Snow - Orhan Pamuk

This Turkish author of several acclaimed books won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. This was no doubt a politically motivated win, given the controversy that he provoked within Turkey for his statements in an interview about the ongoing plight of Kurdish dissidents and the early-20th-century slaughter of Armenians. In 2005 he was put on trial, accused of insulting "Turkishness". Charges were dropped in 2006. He is currently a visiting professor in the Humanities at Columbia University.

One would think that since this novel has sold more than seven million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages that I would find it more engaging. I did not. Reading all 463 pages proved to be a tough slog. I threw it aside at page 215, left it alone for several days, decided to skip to the last chapter, then forced myself to back up to page 215 and continue until the end (madness, I know, but this year I'm determined to finish what I start). Having followed recent events in Turkey in the media fairly closely (the head scarves in schools controversy, delayed acceptance to the EU, disastrous outcome of flotilla challenging Israel's Gaza embargo, etc.) and having read several other books about this region, the book wasn't an edifying experience for me. I found the central character, Ka, impossible to like and the convoluted plot unbelievable in several respects.

41tropics
Bewerkt: okt 30, 2010, 12:38 am

28. Gracefully Insane: The Rise And Fall Of America's Premier Mental Hospital - Alex Beam

The author, Alex Beam, a writer and Boston Globe journalist, spent several years conducting research, interviewing staff and occasionally patients in order to write this intriguing biography of McLean Psychiatric Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. He also provides readers with a general history of the often-macabre treatment of the mentally ill in pre-modern times. McLean is perhaps the best known of the U.S.'s psychiatric hospitals because of the famous people who underwent treatment there - James Taylor, Sylvia Plath, Susanna Kaysen, and Robert Lowell, to name a few.

(Readers of "The New Yorker" may have noticed the discreet advertisement regularly calling attention to "unparalleled psychiatric evaluation and treatment" available at The Pavilion, an upscale facility for the wealthy at McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School Affiliate.)

The hospital's bucolic 250-acre setting, dotted with Tudor mansions, was planned by Frederick Law Olmstead, the landscape designer famous for the creation of New York's Central Park. McLean has existed at its present location since 1895, when its patients were transferred by horse and buggy from the original hospital built in Charleston in 1816. While mentally ill members of the upper classes were sequestered and pampered at Mclean, the poor had been redirected to Worcester State Asylum and Boston Lunatic Hospital. Later, Massachusetts Mental Center became available in 1912.

Much has changed since the advent of psychiatric drugs, the sharply rising cost of care, and the severe restrictions placed upon prolonged inpatient treatment by insurance companies. Necessary downsizing has resulted in a significant sell-off of the property. Some of the Tudor mansions have been torn down or stand empty.

42tropics
Bewerkt: okt 7, 2010, 2:26 pm

29. Ruined By Reading - Lynne Sharon Schwartz

A brief (119 pages) and mildly interesting read, chosen because it purports to be a book about books, which it is, but with extraneous asides. It did inspire me to search my memory for favorite childhood books, comparing them to those cherished by the author. Did I too once read the sad poem "Little Boy Blue"? I can't recall. I was certainly moved to tears by some of Hans Christian Anderson's stories, and "The Little Mermaid" may have been among them. "The Fir Tree" certainly was.

The author, who is a book reviewer and well known in her own right for The Fatigue Artist and Disturbances In The Field, reminds us that "books read at the wrong time can prove as noxious as Mozart blaring from next door at two in the morning".

43tropics
Bewerkt: okt 7, 2010, 2:26 pm

30. Born Naked - Farley Mowat

Farley Mowat can be addicting. Readers who enjoyed The Dog Who Wouldn't Be and Owls In The Family will almost certainly be delighted by this book in which he shares other details of his childhood adventures, first in southern Ontario, then in Saskatchewan. In some respects this was an enviable era during which children tended to be much less closely supervised by parents than is the case today. Additionally, nature was much more readily accessible, whether it was a vacant lot, a nearby lake, river, or forest. The events described take place in the 1930s, a period of great suffering for multitudes of North Americans, but one in which the Mowat family thrived and enjoyed an unusual degree of freedom to travel and explore.

44AHS-Wolfy
aug 27, 2010, 3:24 pm

@43, I've only read one of his works so far, Never Cry Wolf, but really do want to read some more. Thanks for the reminder.

45tropics
Bewerkt: okt 7, 2010, 2:25 pm

31. Greene On Capri - Shirley Hazzard

Upon finishing this absorbing memoir (with photos) by the acclaimed author of Transit Of Venus I realized that I was actually less interested in the idiosyncracies of her friend Graham Greene and considerably more captivated by her descriptions of the history and dramatically beautiful landscape of Capri (four miles long, in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coast of southern Italy). I was also intrigued by her profiles of the various writers and various international exiles who gathered there. The Roman Emperor Tiberius maintained a villa here more than 2,000 years ago, from 27 to 37 CE. Its ruins endure.

46tropics
Bewerkt: okt 7, 2010, 2:24 pm

32. Legends Of The American Desert - Alex Shoumatoff

Read recently while traveling, all 502 pages. Having since learned that the original manuscript approached 1,000 pages, I regret not having had access to what was eliminated.

The author, whose aristocratic grandparents fled Bolshevik Russia in 1917, is well-known, having published ten books and written for The New Yorker and Vanity Fair Magazines. His blog is here: http://blog.dispatchesfromthevanishingworld.com/?author=3

This is my favorite kind of travel book, wherein the author describes pivotal incidences of history while he travels and lives in the area where the events unfolded, in this case the American Southwest and northern Mexico. His travels extended over a period of 25 years, beginning in the 1970s. Topics of study included the spirituality of various indigenous peoples, the Spanish incursion, the Pueblo revolt, issues of water distribution, habitat loss, the arrival of the Mormons, the cowboy era, the Manhattan Project, and modern-day Albuquerque.

47tropics
okt 7, 2010, 2:23 pm

33. Darwin's Ghost - Steve Jones

The author is a Professor Of Genetics at University College London who has made numerous appearances on British TV and radio and who has written a very successful BBC TV series called "In The Blood". He is widely regarded as a British Carl Sagan because of his success as a populizer of science.

Of the many interesting points made in this book, he states that John Milton was the last man to know "everything" and that Charles Darwin was the last biologist who could claim that. So great is today's knowledge base that there are no Miltons even of biology.

In this book he salutes Charles Darwin's discoveries and discusses the ways in which we can observe evolution unfolding before our eyes (as while viewing the AIDS retrovirus under the microscope - genes and time coming together on a human scale).

He describes evolution as "genetics plus time". Descent always involves modification. And modification can happen in many ways. Natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations. It can act only by very short, slow steps.

He also addresses the growing anti-science phenomenon in the U.S. and elsewhere and describes the creationist movement as part of a "triumphal New Ignorance"

48tropics
Bewerkt: okt 7, 2010, 2:46 pm

34. American Fascists - Chris Hedges

This is a particularly dispiriting time to be reading American Fascists, with less than a month remaining before the U.S. general election, a time when partisan vitriol and lies are saturating the airwaves.

Chris Hedges' father was a Presbyterian minister. Chris himself graduated from seminary at Harvard Divinity School. For two decades he has worked as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and other publications. He is also the author of War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and Losing Moses On The Freeway.

In this book he addresses the politicization of faith in America, the growing influence of the Religious Right and the "prosperity gospel" movement. The Creation Museum in Kentucky is an especially horrifying manifestation of widespread willful ignorance, with its scale model of Noah's Ark, showing how dinosaurs fit into the three levels of the vessel.

49tropics
Bewerkt: nov 2, 2010, 9:47 pm

35. One Square Inch Of Silence: One Man's Search For Natural Silence In A Noisy World - Gordon Hempton

The author is an acoustical ecologist who has published more than 60 albums of environmental "soundscapes". He lives in a small town in Washington State, near Olympic National Park, where he hikes frequently. For years he has called attention to the intrusive overflights of airliners and helicopters in a natural area which he believes should be free of noise pollution. His goal is to "preserve silence". A laudible goal indeed. At this time Rocky Mountain National Park is the only American park where airborne sightseeing tours are prohibited. Grand Canyon National Park, meanwhile, is besieged by them.

He asks the reader to consider "Does a place have a soul?"

Although he admits to having learned the wisdom of "staying put", part of the book describes a roadtrip across America undertaken in his aging VW bus, a roadtrip to document the pervasive noise associated with modern life. In Livingston, Montana he connects with Doug Peacock, an environmental author famous for his advocacy of safeguarding habitat for grizzlies. Passing through Wyoming and Colorado, he sounds the alarm about the impact of natural gas drilling rigs on populations of sharp-tailed grouse, greater prairie chickens, and sage grouse.

On page 195 he shares with the reader an excerpt from Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' which reflects that author's extraordinary (and beautiful) listening skills. He visits one of Twain's childhood haunts.

He's a fan of AmericInn Hotels which provide rooms that are quieter than other chains.

One of the loudest work places is on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Noise seekers are drawn to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway; the more noise, the better, evidently.

Along with amplified music, leaf blowers are one of the most annoying of modern conveniences.

50tropics
okt 30, 2010, 12:31 am

36. The Unwanted Sound Of Everything We Want: A Book About Noise - Garret Keizer

This book brims with interesting facts about human society and its relationship with noise, even including a timeline of noise history. For example in the 1500s wife-beating was prohibited after the hour of 10:00 p.m. in Elizabethan England. The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was perhaps the loudest sound ever heard by humans.

For centuries the loudest human-produced sound in the Christian world was the ringing of church bells. The Industrial Revolution brought extreme noise pollution in the form of steam whistles, belts and pulleys, pistons, and the slamming of metal presses.

Whereas most of the developed nations had the advantage of accommodating to noise incrementally, such is not the case in developing economies such as China and India, where the din is constant and extreme.

Public lands in the U.S. have increasingly become the domain of "thrillcraft" such as ATVs, ORVs, snowmobiles, and jet skis. Noise seems often to accompany grossly harmful environmental effects. Each summer Sturgis, South Dakota plays host to the "world's largest" motorcycle rally. In so doing it becomes "the very heart of loud America". Loudness is powerful. And obnoxious. And many of us are its victims.

51tropics
Bewerkt: nov 9, 2010, 8:40 pm

37. The Great Hill Stations Of Asia - Barbara Crossette

This well-traveled American author and former New York Times foreign correspondent takes the reader on an entertaining and instructive journey to colonial hill stations transformed by time and inevitable environmental destruction.

52tropics
Bewerkt: jan 3, 2011, 3:04 am

I read the following during a one-month stay (kayaking, mostly) in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico. Brief commentaries to follow:

38. A Time Of Gifts - Patrick Leigh Fermor

39. Ali And Nino - Kurbain Said

40. The Tortilla Curtain - T.C. Boyle

41. A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway

42. No One Left To Lie To - Christopher Hitchens

Sadly, Christopher Hitchens is gravely ill, undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer. I first became aware of his erudition back in the '90s, when I happened upon him as he was holding forth, wreathed in cigarette smoke, at a podium on C-Span. At any rate, I was transfixed by his way with words, some of which eluded me (that accent) and immediately set out in search of his books. Whereas my views on Bill Clinton aren't as venomous as his, I found this retrospective of the triangulated Clinton years quite illuminating. Horrifying in the extreme is the thought of Dick Morris as puppeteer backstage at the White House.

43. A Burnt-Out Case - Graham Greene

44. The Human Factor - Graham Greene

45. Cadillac Desert: The American West And Its Disappearing Water - Marc Reisner

53tropics
Bewerkt: jan 1, 2011, 11:47 am

46. Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived - Penelope Lively

47. Flight To Arras - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

54tropics
dec 27, 2010, 9:47 pm

48. In Xanadu - William Dalrymple

55tropics
dec 29, 2010, 10:20 pm

49. The Elephant's Journey - Jose Saramago

56tropics
dec 30, 2010, 12:16 pm

50. The Postman - Antonio Skarmeta