Book 14: An Affair with Africa

I downloaded this kind of on a whim because the title sounded interesting.



It was not at all what I expected, but I really ended up liking it. It was a travel book, very much from an outsider's perspective. In fact, Kistner often mentioned how they listened to conversations about various political issues and didn't comment, since they didn't have the background or experience to discuss them. I came to admire her restraint, since it seems I am always happy to shoot my mouth off about whatever I know even the tiniest fact about. The aspect of the book that I really enjoyed was her descriptions of how they made these expeditions work with their young children along, and that was quite inspiring. Long-term international travel with young children, here we come?

There was a lot of discussion of termites and ants, since Kistner's husband is an entomologist studying myrmecophiles and termitophiles (insects that live with ants and termites), and I found myself dreaming of marching ant columns a couple of times.

Book 13: Unbroken

I liked this, a lot. It's such an amazing story.



Yes, it was sometimes pretty disturbing to listen to, but there was always an element of hope throughout the whole book. Your clue to that would be the subtitle of the book, which contains the words "resilience" and "redemption". A similar book that I listened to last year (Coming Out of the Ice; also about a prisoner in brutal conditions) seemed much more distressing.

Book 12: Dear Life

This is Alice Munro's newest short story collection. Waaaaaaay back in high school, I did a big ol' research project on her work, but I hadn't read anything she'd written since then.



The stories were sometimes disturbing--I sometimes dreaded what might come next. Munro isn't prone to excessive exposition, so sometimes I had to adjust my understanding of the story in the middle when I discovered that the narrator was male, or female, or that we were at a sanitorium, or whatever I had not anticipated.

My favorite part was actually the four reminiscences at the end of the book, which are not stories, but semi-fictionalized episodes from Munro's life. They were a little window on her life and experience and I really enjoyed them.

A book that doesn't count: About Alice

This one was only 96 pages long, so it doesn't count toward my 52 books goal. But it was worth reading anyway.



Calvin Trillin wrote this little book as a remembrance of his late wife, Alice. It was lovely.

Book 11: Teacher Man

I am so glad I gave this a try. I read Angela's Ashes and 'Tis many years ago and while I appreciated Angela's Ashes, I think I was too young and ignorant to really understand 'Tis. I'm inspired to give it another try later on.



Teacher Man is about Frank McCourt's years of experience teaching (mostly) high school English. I think much of the reason I appreciated it was from my own goofy teaching experiences.

Book 10: The Panic Virus

Science! Well, with a hefty dose of politics, too. But it makes me want to read more science-y books!



This was a great lesson on cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and the scientific method. Mnookin seems to indulge in a little bit of bias himself, demonizing and mocking some of the players (David and Mark Geier, for instance) to the point that it is hard to be even a little sympathetic to their work. The families of autistic children are treated with more fairness and sympathy, though.

It is clear that science and scientific principles are not very clearly conveyed in the media, and the media are generally more interested in controversy than in presenting the results of scientific studies. There is also the problem of evaluating the quality of research design and analysis, which most ordinary people are not very well equipped to do.

Book 9: The Tipping Point

I really enjoyed this. Malcolm Gladwell can literally take part of the New York City phone book and make an interesting story out of it.



One of the ideas I found most interesting was his discussion of teenage smoking: why it is "contagious" and why it is "sticky". These ideas have implications for anti-smoking campaigns aimed at teens. Apparently, we are doing it all wrong.

Book 8: Flight Behavior

I really wanted to love this, honest. Fiction about climate change? What could be more up my alley??? Ah, yes, nonfiction about climate change.



Sadly, I didn't love it. The climate change theme was a little bit too heavy-handed, even for me. I found it difficult to be really invested in the characters. They were sort of interesting, but not quite compelling enough to really grab me.