It's pretty easy to spot a slow month of teaching and lots of bus time in my reading patterns...almost halfway to my 100 books goal. Not halfway done with service.
36. A Thousand Splendid Sons- Khaled Hosseni
God, I think if we were to engage in the highly dangerous and ill- advised game of measuring suffering, I think Afghan women would be strong contenders for a "worst lives" prize. Heartbreaking story, pretty good at giving a quick run down of Afghan history since 1950, in a highly readable format.
37. Underworld- Don Delillo
THIS BOOK IS AMAZING. It made me, ambivalent as I am to sports, want to go watch a baseball game immediately. The writing is that good. Chock full of memorable characters. I don't think there's any writer more adept at portraying how modern American life can be so beautiful and so ugly simultaneously.
38. The Bluest Eyes- Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison attempted to do many things in this novel: depict small town American life in the 1940s, show the psychology of being black in America, critique society's narrow view of beauty, and write about childhood from a child's perspective while still trying to comment on occurences with a sophisticated, adult voice. The result was sometimes a bit jarring or overdone, but her writing is beautiful, political and heartbreaking all at once.
39. The Hidden Reality- Brian Greene
Different theories of the possibilities of multiple universes explained in relatively simple language? AWESOME. A lot of this book went over my head because I read most of it on a bus that was full of babies, filled to the gills and reeked of fish, but it was still fascinating to ruminate about how wild the universe(s) could be, without having to use much math.
40. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason- Helen Fielding
Probably I should stop trying to read chick lit thinking that I will like it. However, I hated this one less because it vaguely reminded me of my friends and I overanalyzing things. Except whereas B. Jones and Co. tended to limit their discussions to the men in their lives (or not in their lives), we overanalyze everything humanly possible.
41. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze- Peter Hessler
Classic Peace Corps memoir about working as an English Teacher in a Chinese University. I've been making an effort to read Peace Corps memoirs a lot lately, because many family members have told me I should write a book about my experiences here, and I'm trying to take notes on what's been done and how well it worked. I have a zillion reservations about whether or not this is something I actually want to do, but I certainly don't lack time to ponder post PC options. In my opinion, PCVs in China definitely have an advantage in the book writing department because China is so fascinating to Westerners, rapidly changing, "mysterious," etc: they have another angle to write about in addition to the vagaries of their service.
Despite the very different realities of our service, there were many aspects of Hessler's service that I identified with: the blessing and curse of having a sitemate, running, terrible transportation and students becoming obsessed with phrases you use in class. Overall, an interesting read, and one I'd recommend to people contemplating Peace Corps, because I think he captured the ups and downs of volunteer life pretty well.
42. In Cold Blood- Truman Capote
Classic non-fiction crime novel, ripe with details of 1950s rural Kansas life, early psychology, and with subtle commentary on the death penalty.
43. The Tiger's Wife- Tea Obreht
A short but multi-layered novel, set in the Balkans, filled with wonderful "magical realism" style story telling with war, identity politics and a girl's relationship with her grandfather as the backdrop.
44. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)- Mindy Kaling
Not the funniest memoir I've ever read, but plenty of relatable and amusing tales of how Mindy Kaling got to her role as a writer and actor on "The Office."
45. Gone Girl- Gillian Flynn
This bestseller was quite the page turner, but I got frustrated with it towards the end because the plot became too overblown, unrealistic/inconsistent and the characters became too unlikeable. I found this really unfortunate, because Flynn writes so well about modern relationships (her description of the pressure to be the "Cool Girl" was one of the [sad] funniest things I've read in a while), post- recession blues, and the polite culture of small towns. I think that writing simpler story about how a relationship falls apart post-recession would have made for a more genuine and challenging (and certainly depressing) book, but it wouldn't have the bestseller lists in the same way. I guess I only like my plots to be fantastical if there's an element of magical realism intended, so that's a serious prejudice on my part.
46. To Die in this Way: Nicaraguan Indians and the Myth of Mestizaje, 1880-1965- Jeffrey L. Gould
A really important book for Latin American studies, looking at the way Nicaraguan nationalism developed in an exclusionary way that inhibited the survival of indigenous communities and customs, enabling and enabled by the imposition of an export driven capitalist model.
While Nicaraguans are well aware of the ethnic diversity of the Atlantic Coast of the country, the dominant discourse of "we are all mestizo, and this racial mixing occurred a long time ago, harmoniously" has blinded Nicaraguans to the violence, exploitation, and scorn which undid or threatened indigenous communities on the Pacific Coast, Central Highlands and North of the country during the 19th and 20th century.
With the exception of some regions of Guatemala, many of the historical processes that Gould describes can be seen all over Central America and for that reason, I think it's really valuable in understanding Central Americans' myths about themselves, and more generally, for reflecting on the myths that nationalisms promote.
47. On the Plaza: The Politics of Public Space and Culture- Setha M. Low
On an ethnography kick apparently! This had been on my reading list for a while. Using two Costa Rican plazas as a starting point, Low traces the dual histories (Indigenous and European) of public spaces in Latin America and looks at how public spaces are used, contested and experienced. While sometimes the theories in the book were presented without a ton of depth, particularly the connection between public space and democracy, I found it to be a really interesting starting point for thinking about (urban) public space and I thought the different methods used, ethnography, history, literature survey and interviews, made for a eclectic whole.
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