Reading Reviews 9

Woefully behind! Doing twitter style reviews again.

2013
December
104. Blue Nights- Joan Didion
Poetically expresses the desperation of getting old and loss. A wee bit first world problems-y though...

2014
January
105. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao- Junot Diaz (RR)
Blows me away every time. Probably in my top 10 of all time.

106. The Accidental Billionares: The Founding of Facebook- Ben Mezrich
Melodramatic. I also feel people play up the "Facebook was founded by social outcasts and has caused us to be really weird" angle too much. We love founding myths far too much.

107. Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools- Jonathan Kozol
Crier. Outdated although I doubt the issues have changed a whole lot.

108. Love in the Time of Cholera- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
My host mom reminds me of this story's female protagonist Fermina because she loves pets.

109. The Land of Naked People: Encounters with Stone Age Islanders- Madusree Mukerjee
An interesting look at the history of interactions between Andaman islanders (who live off the coast of India) and the rest of the world. I wish Mukerjee had written more about the intersections of the politics of decolonization and indigenity, because that was most interesting in my opinon.

110. Stuff White People Like
Don't read this during Peace Corps, you will become nostalgic for all of the delicious things to eat and cool places to go.

111. Galapagos- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Mehhh, not his best.

112. The Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love- Oscar Hijuelos
Definitely too sensual to read during the lonely times of Peace Corps.

February
113. The Best American Travel Writing of 2013- Edited by Elizabeth Gilbert
Really solid collection.

114. El Peregrino (Diario de un Mago)- Paulo Coehlo
Weird magic stuff + El Camino de Santiago (an obsession of mine)= came out to a strange whole

115. The Descendants- Kaui Hart Hemmings
Well constructed plot.

116. The Dinner- Herman Koch
Upper class Europeans have never looked sinister.

117. Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace or War- Mary B. Anderson
Ch 7, roughly, things aid workers do that have intended effects is really brilliant.

118. El General en su Laberinto (The General in his Laberinth)- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Simon Bolivar's last river trip was a little circular for my taste, by really well written.

March
119. The Expats- Christopher Pavone
Could a plot be more over the top? Luxembourg? CIA? Balkans? Mexico? Demasiado.

120. Brief Encounters with the Enemy- Saif Sayrafiezadeh 
Short stories on the eve of a war suspicious like Iraq.

121. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius- Dave Eggers
It was, pretty much.

122. Push- Sapphire
All of the emotions.

123. Dance Dance Dance- Haruki Murakami
All the elements of a good Murakami story: weird sex with prostitutes, a man in a sheep costume, a weird relationship between a dude and a teenage girl and a strange building. Yet somehow it doesn't seem too far fetched to be readable.

124. Blow Up and Other Stories- Julio Cortazar
Dark.

125. Nicaragua without Illusions: Regime Change and Structural Adjustment in the 1990s- Thomas W. Walker (ed)
A dense academic read, but really interesting for making sense of what Nicaragua was like in the 1990s.

126. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies- Jared Diamond
Lots of interesting theories and explanations on a global level, but glossed over a lot when it came to the case of specific regions.