Aww yeah, up to 35 now. Except that's not good because I'm running out of books again and I just visited the Peace Corps office twice. #nerdsgonewild
35. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide- Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wu Dunn
Horrible stories of female suffering, inspirational stories of perseverance despite all odds.
However, I am really not a fan of Wu Dunn/ Kristof's writing. Not totally sure I buy their opinions or their prescriptions to right the injustices described, although they present the positives and negatives of most things. Also, they're way too into the white man's/rich people's burden thing, which as a volunteer working in a foreign country I can't really get uppity about, but still. I also personally took offense at the way they kept describing the women they were profiling. For example, describing the founder of Women for Women International, Zainab Salbi: "Zainab Salbi is thin with olive skin and close-cropped black hair framing large, luminous eyes. She looks like central casting's idea of a free-spirited Middle Eastern princess..." GAH. Would Salbi's life and work be less awesome if she weren't conventionally beautiful? If the founder of the organization was a man, would you describe him that way? Also, that next line is so rife with Orientalism I don't even want to deal with it. You're writing a book about women's rights and you don't bother to proofread it to make sure you're not being obnoxious? Yes, it's hardly up there with Female Genital Mutiliation, throwing acid on people, or depriving women of economic opportunity, BUT COME ON, SERIOUSLY? Clearly, Peace Corps service is accentuating my cynical, grumpy person qualities.
34. The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS- Elizabeth Pisani
Written by an epidemiologist who's worked on AIDS internationally for many years, this was an interesting read with some very strong ideas about how money can best be spent on AIDS, and a good explanation of why it often is not: politics, religion trumping science, squeamishness about dealing with drug dealers and prostitutes, duplication of effort, or attempts to not duplicate effort that create counterproductive competition, etc.
33. Eat, Pray, Love- Elizabeth Gilbert
I got this book from the Peace Corps library because I figured I should try and read something fun and light for a change. Shouldn't have bothered because it just made me grumpy. I would just like to point out how for all her talk of being spontaneous and living life, Gilbert was being PAID to go write about mucking about, eating delicious things and having a lot of sex, which is pretty much the least spontaneous thing I can think of. But maybe I' m just jealous because of my own lack of gelatto (hell, I can't even get a proper ice cream cone most of the time), spiritual fulfillment and romantic love. One thing I will give her credit for was acknowledging that Bali's history is far from the rosy, lackadaisical paradise that has been marketed to tourists. Grump Grump Grump.
32. Reservation Blues- Sherman Alexie
Magical realism meets rock and rock and Native Americans. Good stuff, enit?
31. The Year of Magical Thinking- Joan Didion
A beautiful, raw portrait of the irrationality of grief.
30. The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey- Salman Rushdie
This was one of the best books I've read about Nicaragua, because it manages to capture in rich, poetic language so many things about the culture of this country, both funny and profound, in a little over a 100 pages. Also, the revolutionary period in Nicaragua in the 1980s is pretty fascinating and I think he does justice to its bright and dark spots. I also thought the author's perspective as someone who understands both the Global North and the Global South provided a really fascinating lens through which to view a country like Nicaragua.
29. Rayuela (Hopscotch)- Julio Cortazar
Re-read. This book is amazing as a literary creation; you can read the first two books sequentially (as I did this time), or you can read the entire thing in a hopscotching fashion.
I personally find it too esoteric and complicated to actually enjoy in my second language, but I suppose I get some bragging rights for having read it, and understanding most of it this go round.
28. Residencia en la Tierra- Pablo Neruda
Re-read. I've read this poetry collection a bunch of times, and it's always something I can come back to, to take shelter and solace in. If only we can free ourselves from the chains of linear time, we can find freedom in the eternity of nature.
27. Angela's Ashes- Frank McCourt
Frank McCourt is a great writer and did a great job creating a portrait of a really dire situation, but I just couldn't really get into this. I don't know if it was because I wanted a break from thinking about poverty (although I don't exactly think about poverty that much here, which could be a subject for another post entirely), but just can't rave about this the way a lot of people have.
26. The Gulag Archiepelago (Books I and II)- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Man, reading about people being tortured in Soviet prisons sure made for a fun spring break! Super fascinating stuff though, especially the way he introduced the reader to the language of the prison system. I wish I had the books and the stomach to read the entire saga but that might be too soul sucking.
25. Chasing the Flame: One Man's Fight to Save the World- Samantha Power
Mixed thoughts on this book, which profiles the life of humanitarian, long time UN employee, Sergio Viera deMello. I kind of have a problem with Samantha Power's tendency to fangirl about famous men in IR, but again that's probably a longer rant than I have time or space for. The book raised a lot of really fundamental questions about peace-keeping, but because it was so tied to the narrative of Viera deMello's Life, I didn't feel like it really explored them adequately. Then again, it was already a long book, and it wasn't intended to be a technical IR treatise or anything, so I should probably tone down expectations.
24. Norwegian Wood-Haruki Murakami
As normal as Murakami gets, but still unmistakably marked by his style. A really enjoyable read about the frailty of human relationships.
23. The Devil and the White City: Murder, Madness and the Fair that Changed America- Erik Larsen
Great historical fiction, looking at Chicago's World's Fair and a grisly mass murderer from the same era. It's really cool to think about the way America has developed in the last century, and the role that architecture had in shaping urban destinies and imaginations. Very meticulously researched. My one complaint is that there wasn't more of an attempt to weave subaltern histories into the account, but that's probably a fault of the historical record. As interesting as it was to hear the stories of the powerful men who planned the fair, I would have liked to hear more from the workers who toiled to bring it into reality, especially as that era was such a critical moment for labor rights.
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