Reviewer's Guilt

1. I haven't updated my reviews all term. I can blame my crushing workload, but it's also that it turns out that under stress, I'd rather read than write.
   
2. I hate writing bad reviews--I don't mind thinking them, but to write and publish them in response to someone's earnest efforts is a bummer. I especially hate it when the book is self-published (which I'm all for) or small press (ditto) and is riddled with typos and grammatical errors. Even worse is when it really needed more editing, both for focus and organization. I want to contact the authors and say, "Surely you know someone who writes well and would be willing to edit for you! Surely you would be willing to accept feedback from that person!"
3. Example A: A writer reports saying, "Me yamo...." No, "Me llamo."
4. Example B: A writer reports that it was so cold that dead people were turning blue. Not in that part of Cambodia they weren't. While 70F feels terribly cold to a Cambodian, it's not nearly cold enough to turn a body blue.
   

Synchronicity

In addition to all sorts of overlaps and parallels in the content and structure of my random vacation reading pile, tonight I had the pleasure of encountering the "turtles all the way down" meme in two books within 20 minutes (Grossman, The Magicians and Cathcart & Klein, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...).

Books of the World: The gift of countries

New countries acquired for my reading queendom:

• Bhutan: Queen Of Bhutan Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck: Treasures of the Thunder Dragon: A Portrait of Bhutan
• Botswana: Peter Allison: Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide
• East Timor: Luis Cardoso: The Crossing: A Story of East Timor
• Gambia: Phyllis Wheatley: Poems on Various Subjects: Religious and Moral
• Grenada: Richardo Keens-Douglas: The Nutmeg Princess
• Liechtenstein?: Gustav Wilhelm: The Journey of the Liechtenstein Gallery from Vienna to Vaduz
• Liechtenstein (alternate): Gerda Lerner: Fireweed: A Political Autobiography
• Luxembourg: Edward Steichen: The Family of Man
• Malta: Professor Sir Themistocles Zammit: Prehistoric Malta: Tarxien Temples and Saflieni Hypogeum
• Mauritania (if better can't be found): Samuel Cotton: Silent Terror: A Journey Into Contemporary African Slavery
• Namibia: Neshani Andreas: Purple Violet of Oshaantu
• Paraguay: Maureen Burn: Outcast but Not Forsaken: True Stories from a Paraguayan Leper Colony
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: Basil Warner: Killing Time Between Buses
• Tunisia: Aicha Ben Abed: Tunisian Mosaics: Treasures from Roman Africa
• Tuvalu: Gerd Koch (ethnographer): Songs of Tuvalu

Thanks, friends and family!

Books of the World--Halfway Mark

I've summitted Books of the World, with 50% of countries "visited" yesterday according to Travel Buddy. On a rough count, I read about half of them in the less-than-11 months since I began, while the rest I'd read before. Technically, I could count countries like Cambodia for this year since I've read books from those authors recently, but the ones I wanted to list I had read further in the past.

There's no definitive list of "countries," and Travel Buddy lists quite a few independent-yet-dependent countries like Greenland. Not Guadalupe, though, nor Palestine (and there's a South Pacific country missing from their list). I'm being flexible and reading books from places like French Polynesia as I can.

I know that some of the books I've read in the past are at my office (The God of Small Things, for example), but some seem to be missing. Where is North, or Sonnets to Orpheus, or the Amos Oz that I know I owned? A mystery.

Now I'm off to a city with a big bookstore.

International Orders and Reading Skills

For my ongoing Books of the World challenge, on June 1st I ordered seven books from IPS Publications in Fiji. On June 8th, DHL made a delivery attempt, and I was able to get the package on June 9th.

I spent the morning of the 9th marveling that a box of books could get to Oregon from Fiji in a week.

When I opened the package, the cost listed was about twice as much as their stated prices (online and in the confirmation e-mail) for goods and shipping. I sent an inquiry to them (which bounced back) and the shipper (University of the South Pacific Book Centre, another Fijian seller/publisher with an overlapping inventory) and took screen shots of the posted prices and shipping rates on both sites in case I had to pursue it through my credit card. Even allowing for fluctuating currency exchange, one does not want to pay $94 for a paperback on traditional medicine of the Marshall Islands. "Caveat emptor," I thought.

In fact, "caveat lector." The mystery was solved within a few hours by a kind e-mail from Fiji. A tiny sentence in the invoice reads "NB BILLED IN FJD EQUIVALENT TO USD," which initially cryptic but ultimately intelligible phrase means "N.B.: Billed in Fiji Dollars Equivalent to US Dollars." I'd read it (quickly) as meaning the reverse--that FJD had been expressed on the invoice as USD. I am very fortunate that even in a lousy economy, $140 is cause for annoyance, not alarm.

Some are faintly mildewed, but a month in the freezer should take care of it. It's exciting to have a set of related but distinct books (3 poetry, 1 ethnography, 1 sociology, 1 memoir, and 1 medical reference) from from countries and other governments that I don't encounter very much.

The quality of the writing is also varied, but if I were reading only for high quality I'd just buy more Pamuk and be done. Part of the pleasure of the Books of the World game is the different voices, and wondering how the work was received in its own community, and what the author is doing now. Yes, it smacks of the Intentionalist Fallacy, but I like to know about the authors' lives and intentions.

Orson Scott Card

When reading Orson Scott Card, I often feel a twinge of unease (most recently while reading Ender in Exile). There's a subtext about secrets and boys that emerges now and then and sets off my child abuse alarm. In Ender in Exile it's more explicit than usual, with Ender and the (Asperger-y?) boy Abra exploring the contours of the giant man's body (you know what I mean if you've read the books) while Ender asks Abra to keep a secret for the rest of his life. Well, the enemies are called "buggers."

Books and the Law: Southeast Asia Edition

In Cambodia I always encounter kids or adults with disabilities selling books. These are in English (though I imagine if I asked for French or German they'd be quickly located and offered up) and are about the country, the country's history, or fiction about the country. These are illegal copies, printed, as far as I know, in Thailand. The print quality is sometimes good enough that it's hard to know that they're knock-offs. I've bought one or two, but try to replace the pirated copy with a licit one when I get home.

Meanwhile, Cambodia has what seems like a greater-than-average share of legitimate publications without identified publishers. I have to assume these are self-published or published by an organization, but not identified as such for whatever reason--cultural difference? tax liability? It makes it hard to cite them or tell others where to get them.