The Newcomers by Helen Thorpe

December 31, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Scribner, 2017. 416 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom”, Thorpe spent a year and a half in an English Language Acquisition (ELA) class at Denver’s South High School. The twenty-two students she shadowed arrived in America as refugees with little English comprehension from around the world, including Iraq via Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burma, and El Salvador. Over this period of time, these students struggled to adjust to […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Africa, Asia, Book Club, Education, Middle East, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, South America, Thailand, United States • Tags: Helen Thorpe

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

May 27, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Anna Fields. Blackstone Audio, 2008. Originally published 2001. 11 hours, 24 minutes. Library copy.  In an unnamed country in South America, guests arrive at the Vice President’s home to celebrate the birthday of a Japanese businessman, Katsumi Hosokawa. Eager to woo the businessman and encourage him to invest in the country, the country has invited a famous American opera singer by the name of Roxane Cross to serenade Katsumi. The party is interrupted by a […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Art, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Book Club, Fiction, South America, Women's Prize • Tags: Ann Patchett, Anna Fields

His Own Man by Edgard Telles Ribeiro

March 20, 2015 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from the Portuguese by Kim M. Hastings. Other Press, 2014. 341 pgs. Purchased. “Writing a country’s history may be difficult, but tracing a man’s story presents its own challenges. For a country, there is a vast array of information in the form of books and treaties, maps and images, leaders, legends, and archives. But a man? What kind of history does he have? Where would his secret maps be found? Or his boundaries? What might be […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Fiction, Portuguese, South America, Translated • Tags: Edgard Telles Ribeiro

The Coke Machine by Michael Blanding

November 30, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — audiobook. Read by George K. Wilson. Tantor Media, 2010. 13 hours, 3 minutes. Library copy. I am horribly addicted to Coca Cola. I can easily down six or seven cans (or, their equivalent at a restaurant) without batting an eye, which obviously places me in the “heavy user” category by The Coca Cola Company. I have tried many times over the past six years to kick the habit going cold turkey for ten weeks or ten months until […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Audiobook, Food, Nonfiction, North America, South America, United States • Tags: George K. Wilson, Michael Blanding

The Child Catchers by Kathryn Joyce

November 12, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. PublicAffairs, 2013. 352 pgs. Library copy. Entangled in the political juggernaut of reproductive rights, adoption is championed as a “win-win” compromise to a woman’s right to choice — abortion opponents “win” as the woman has not had an abortion, pregnant women “win” because they do not have to raise the fetus in question, and couples struggling with infertility “win” because they can finally become parents. Yet adoption is also entangled with serious moral and ethical dilemmas — as suggested […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Adoption, Africa, Asia, Europe, Nonfiction, North America, South America, United States • Tags: Kathryn Joyce

World War Z by Max Brooks

August 26, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Crown, 2006. 342 pgs. Library copy. Following the defeat of the zombies and the end of World War Z, the United Nations commissions a report as to the nature of the war – how did it begin?; who spread the zombie infection?; how did it end?. As the unnamed narrator writes in the introduction to this book, government bureaucracy and political correctness stepped in sanitizing the report and removing personal recollections and emotions about the war […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Asia, Book Club, China, Europe, Fiction, Israel/Palestine, Japan, Middle East, North America, Russia, South America, United States • Tags: Max Brooks

The Myth of Continents by Martin W. Lewis and Kären E. Wigen

July 14, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. University of California Press, 1997. 344 pgs. Borrowed. Subtitled “A Critique of Metageography”, Lewis and Wigen offer a critique of the way we divide the world – East versus West, First World versus Third World, the seven (or eight depending on who you ask) continents. Going beyond the argument that holding the “West” above the “East” or assigning countries into rank is racist and paternalistic, Lewis and Wigen argue that topographically the continents of the world do […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Africa, Asia, Cartography, Europe, Middle East, Nonfiction, Oceania, South America • Tags: Kären E. Wigen, Martin W. Lewis

Bananas by Peter Chapman

September 30, 2013 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Canongate, 2009. Originally published 2007. 240 pgs. Received from PaperBackSwap. I should preface this review by stating my bias against bananas. They taste rather like how I imagine cardboard would taste, and I can barely tolerate them in smoothies let alone in baked goods. But bananas are one of the most popular fruits in the United States and this book, subtitled “How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World”, ended up on the list of books I […]

Categories: 2013 Reads, Food, Nonfiction, South America • Tags: Peter Chapman

Collapse by Jared Diamond

June 27, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Penguin, 2006. Originally published 2005. 576 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”, Diamond takes readers through a series of societies — past and present — that collapsed due to environmental damage. Some of societies included are the typical examples — Mayan culture in South America, Easter Island, and forest degradation in Haiti — while others were completely unexpected. I never expected the book to start with Montana, although it’s information about agriculture and […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Africa, Asia, China, Chunkster, Genocide, Honors Project, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, South America, United States • Tags: Jared Diamond

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

April 18, 2009 by Christina

I’ve tried reading Love in the Time of Cholera at least seven times — thanks in large part to the movie — and each time I wind up putting the book back on the shelf and moving on to something else. This time, however, I told myself I was going to finish the book and knock it off my to-be-read list. *spoilers abound* Love in the Time of Cholera is supposed to be a love story; I say supposed to […]

Categories: 2009 Reads, Fiction, South America, Spanish, Translated • Tags: Gabriel García Márquez