The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

This book is the story of Lia Ling, a Hmong child from a Laotian refugee family. Lia was diagnosed as having severe epilepsy (the title comes from the translation of her disease). Her family and her medical team struggled to over come the culture clash between them in order to treat her condition, but without much success. Factors such as difficulty finding translators (the Hmong people have not integrated as fully as many other groups), the fact in Hmong culture western medicine has been embraced for short time fixes such as antibiotics, but not for long term conditions (so her parents don't understand why she needs her medication forever), and mistrust on both sides ultimately result in heartbreak. The book is a great cultural study of both our culture and the Hmong and raises the question of how so many well intentioned people could have gone so wrong.

Learning to Bow

This book is an account of Bruce Feiler first year as teacher in rural Japan. He signs on to teach English to Junior High students as part of Japan's (then) new Living English program- to teach students true conversational English, rather than just memorization. Feiler writes about Japanese culture both in and out of school-- from daily mandatory school cleaning by students and teachers alike, to the transition away from arranged marriages and toward love matches. A lot has undoubtedly changed in Japan since this book came out in the early 1990s, given the shake up in their economy, but the book is still an interesting comparison of cultures and a fast read.

Sweet and Low

What if your mother's family invented Sweet 'n' Low? And what if your entire branch of the family was cut out of the will? ("to Ellen and her issue I leave nothing"). The Answer is write a memoir and spill all of the family secrets. This book documents the invention first of the sugar packet (which, never having been patented is stolen from the author's grandfather) and then of Sweet 'n' Low, along with documenting the rise and fall of various artificial sweeteners and the federal investigator that sent several high ranking executives from the family business to prison. The family story is interesting but a bit repetitive and the author loves digression and some times throws in too much personal asides. Overall however, the book is engrossing and you will never look at the little pink packets the same way.

Paris to the Moon

Sorry this wasn't up yesterday. Paris to the Moon was a book club pick and in the spirit of full disclosure, some people found it boring, but I really enjoyed it. The book is memoir of the years the author, his wife, and preschool age son spent in Paris. The book does not try delve into the lives of the French, but merely recounts how the differences between French and American culture and society effected them. His essay about the crush his son develops on a little girl he meets in the Ritz swimming pool is very memorable as are his misadventures with French electronics, particularly Christmas tree lights. I am not sure why the reviews are so hostile on Amazon, but I disagree with the readers who find him self centered. To me it seemed like he was writing about what he knew, which was his own experience. This book inspired the author of Ella in Europe, who writes about taking his dog to many of the places Gopnik visits in the book.

The Devil in the White City

I know, I know, lots of people have read this already. In fact, (book snob alert) in December when reading this book on the train to Chicago I kind of felt self-conscious, as if the other people on the train would be thinking "Has she been reading that for a year or what, what's taking her so long?". But its a worthwhile read, the story of the 1893 World's Fair Colombian Exposition intertwined with the story of a serial killer who took advantage to the fair to find victims. In retrospect while I enjoyed both halves of book in some ways the fair was more interesting. It's almost impossible to envision the White City of the fair over the face of modern Chicago, whereas creepy serial killers are all over CourtTV. Right now, Chicago is trying to be selected to host an Olympic games and the debate parallels the debate over the fair. The book was interesting and quite well written and I'd like to read more by Erik Larson.

Television Without Pity

I love TV. It's kind of embarrassing for an adult to get as excited about a new episode of Lost or How I Met Your Mother as I do. But the good people at the Television Without Pity understand where I am coming from. The website which features entertaining show recaps and forums where people like can obsess about how much they hated Dawson in each individual episode now has its own book. Much like the Roger Ebert Movie Glossary this book features funny entries on various characters (Dawson- for example) shows such as 90210 and various TV phenomenon such as "News, Crappy Local" all the while living up to their motto of "Spare the Snark, Spoil the Network"

The Cosmo Girl's Guide to the New Etiquette

Time travel with me back in time to 1971, when this sadly out of print book was published. It's a time when women needed advice on matters like how to keep your wig on when you go water skiing or what countries will allow an unmarried couple to rent a room (USA is a no). Some of the advice is still quite useful, like pronunciations and explanations of various foreign food, and of course you can never go wrong with a warning against rhinestones and satin pumps in the office (whoops!) An entertaining book full of vintage advice. PS Unlit candles at a party? Tacky.

The Bookseller of Kabul

This book, written by a western journalist (a woman), gives the reader a look inside life in Afghanistan shortly after the fall of the Taliban. By living with Kabul bookseller Sultan Kahn for approximately three months, she gets the family to let down their guard and show their true selves. Kahn, the bookseller, fancies himself an open minded intellectual, but forces his sons to work in the family business rather than pursue an education and treats his daughters and wives as servants. Because he is well read and western in some respects I found myself wondering if other families were even worse. The book is fascinating, recounting everything from the physical condition of the homes, (usually without furniture, the result of bombings from Afghanistan's many wars, to the treatment of women, (much as you'd expect with many personal stories of their loss of freedom and low status) to Afghani rituals such as weddings and pilgrimage. The book pulls no punches, and led to a lawsuit. Clearly, the author brings her own set of biases to the table but the book is a quick read and far more engrossing than Reading Lolita in Tehran.

Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary

This book is a dictionary of film cliches. The entries are written by Roger Ebert and people who have written to his column. Usually the best ones, such as The Far-Off Rattle Movies "Movies in which the climatic scene is shot in a deserted warehouse, where far-off rattles punctuate the silence". This is a fun book to pick up when you have a few minutes to kill (I was reading it while drying my hair the other day), because it's so easily picked up and put down.

My Detachment

This is the second Tracy Kidder book I have blogged about, but I felt it was so different from his other work it was really worth mentioning. My Detachment is a memoir that tells a little of his childhood and college years, but mainly focuses on his year in Vietnam as a Lieutenant in a intelligence unit. He talks about the usual "war" stuff, the interaction of the men in his unit, the genuine fear they all felt a few times (being in the rear boredom was much closer to their daily experience) but most significant is his unflinching criticism of himself. He recounts lies told to his family in letters about the (non-existent) Vietnamese children he was befriending, how he manipulated his childhood sweetheart into dating him again by playing the "I'm going to Vietnam" card, and how he congratulated himself heartily for the things he should do automatically, like treat his men well. In the conclusion, Kidder talks about how he is accused of making the real people he writes about sound too perfect, and how he is so conscious of his own short comings he does not feel comfortable drawing attention to those of others. Very interesting but also very dark.

The Feminine Mystique

When I was a junior in high school I bought this book at a garage sale. The premise of the book is some women would find jobs outside the home fulfilling and even be good at them, an idea that was revolutionary at that particular moment in American history. Reading this book in the 1990s showed me how far we had come and how much stereotyped gender roles are still everywhere. The book talks about how women were being programed through their education, through society and so on, to get married, have children and devote every cell of their being to cleaning, cooking and child care for the rest of their lives. Betty Friedan discusses how household cleaners and other products are marketed to women as being items that give women a sense of accomplishment and how women's magazines trended away from stories about women having any adventures but romance (no more learning to fly a plane for example). Bright high school girls were discouraged from going to college or sent there solely to find a husband asthe average age at marrriage for women was dropping. This book has been accused of focusing solely on the plight of white privileged women, which is true, but this is still an important book. Friedan never belittles being a mother or a homemaker, but merely points out women are capable of other accomplishments, in addition to or instead of a "traditional" woman's role, and shouldn't be barred because of their gender. Thanks Betty.