Emma's War, Deborah Scroggins

I haven't made Africa a research topic, but I've nonetheless done a lot of reading abou the hopeless, heartrending situations there. I wasn't sure if I could stand another trip down "Feel Bad Lane," but my dad recommended this book to me so it ended up on the must-read list. Scroggins writes knowledgely about Africa, though with a sense of desperation and hopeslessness that wears you down. Her subject is primarily Africa, but through the lens of aid-worker turned (second) wife of a warlord, Emma McCune. McCune, an English artist attracted very young to Africa, arrived first as an aid worker who started schools. She wore mini-skirts, flirted and slept with locals, and cut an unusual and colorful figure in southern Sudan. She was became controversial when she married Riek Machar, a rebel war leader, becoming his second wife. McCune's relationship impacted her aid work, and didn't earn her favor among Machar's men, whose trust in Machar's judgment was undermined. The marriage occurred just before several years of bloody fighting, and McCune quickly lost any objectivity she might have had. She died shortly into the conflict, in a car accident.

Scroggins knew McCune first-hand, though not intimately, and she knew most of those that were part of McCune's life in southern Sudan. Though not a personal look at McCune's life, the book still conveys some of the attitudes and motivations that take aid workers into Africa and send them home again. Scroggins portrays McCune as smart, energetic and compelling, while still managing to convey that ultimately she was misguided, delusional and -- in the end -- insignificant.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883, Simon Winchester

This book would be better titled "Plate Tectonics." Simon Winchester leaves no stone unturned in his valiant effort to ensure that we understand everything (and I do mean everything) about the massive eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. Massive it was, wiping out entire towns and an estimated 30,000 people, cooling the earth's atmostphere and destroying completely the island Krakatoa. Sounds interesting, no? Too bad the book isn't. Winchester took a highly analytical, researched approach to the subject, which stook him well in chapters about how volcanos come to erupt, and very light on detail in the chapters devoted to describing the devastation caused by Krakatoa. The book cover's lurid promise is no means fulfilled. Winchester's painstaking research is obvious, and the book is peppered with footnotes adding facts that even he recognized were off-topic and esoteric. Here's my favorite:

A pair of fast ships set out from Macassar, *...

* From whence came the eponymous sweet-smelling hair oil, the bane of countless English chairbacks and the cause of the creation of the protective lace furniture shroud called, somewhat unoriginally, an antimacassar.

I expected to thoroughly enjoy this book, but was instead bored and frustrated, while still respecting the scholarship that went into producing this dry-as-dust version of one of the most exciting natural catastrophes of modern man.

Every Secret Thing, Patricia Campbell Hearst

"Every Secret Thing" is Patricia Hearst's attempt to explain what happened to her after she was kidnapped in the '70s by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a leftist militia group. The thing that made Hearst's kidnapping so bizarre (besides the fact that she was part of the Hearst family) was that she chose to join the group and, in fact, participated in bank robberies and other criminal activities. Hearst claimed brainwashing as a defense during her trial (bank robbery), which neither the judge nor the jury bought. The president (Carter), however, did, and she received clemency. Frankly, Hearst's explanation for her behavior is not all that convincing, perhaps because her defense -- brainwashing a la the kind suffered by prisoners or war -- is an intensely strange, unusual and hard to understand phenomon. Hearst, though a victim, is by no means an expert. An explanation by a medical expert would have added a lot to the average reader's understanding of why Hearst behaved as she did. In fact, I kind of think that Hearst was in a terrible position in trying to explain herself what happened. Having said all that, I now have a much better understanding of the political environment of the time, and the circumstances that led to extremist groups like the SLA. The book, overall, is boring and pedantic, poorly written and much too long. Somehow, despite her sensationalist topic, Hearst fails to engage the reader or even to create sympathy for herself.

If I Live To Be 100, Neenah Ellis

Neenah Ellis' book is an off-shoot of her NPR interviews of centenarians. I never heard any of the NPR pieces, but when I read about the book's concept, I was interested in what might be learned from people who reach such an age. Ellis, however, does a cursory job at best with the book. It's too short and vague for you to gather much insight, and actually turns out to be more of a diary of Ellis' thoughts and reactions to her subjects. Sadly, it's not a very interesting diary either. You won't learn much here about about age and experience, and very little about what it's like to live that long.

Bare: On Women, Dancing, Sex, and Power, Elisabeth Eaves

ok, this will come as a shock to you, but try to retain your grip on reality. apparently working as a stripper isn't a great job! apparently being viewed as a sex object and only a sex object all the time affects the way in which you think about yourself. apparently it affects your body image. and --this was the real kicker -- it can even have an impact on your relationships with men! "bare" is a first-person account by elisabeth eaves of her adventues working as a peep-show dancer, and her two days as a club stripper. i read a review of this book that accused eaves of dallying with stripping as a passtime, and i think there is a certain amount of valid criticism in that. eaves' book tells her story, and those of a few other strippers (many of whom were much more heavily involved in the sex industry than eaves herself). she discusses her feelings about herself and her body, and reveals a well of ambivalence for men caused in part by her experiences. ultimately the book is unsatisfying and i found myself angry with eaves' distress over her experiences. i don't buy the argument that victims are in part responsible for what happens to them, but eaves put herself by choice into a damaging industry, and she had every opportunity not to.

Debutante, Gioia Diliberto

"Debutante" is a biography of Brenda Diana Duff Frazier, Glamour Girl No. 1 in 1938. A product of a socially grasping mother and grandmother, Brenda Frazier became famous at age 17 for her beauty and fortune. Made much of by the press of the day, featured on the cover of Life magazine, set to inherit millions, Frazier was nonetheless a poor little rich girl whose home life left much to be desired. "Debutante" is the story of her unhappy childhood, adolescence and adult life. Though beautiful, rich and feted, Brenda became a drug addict and alcoholic who also suffered from anorexia and bulimia. Diliberto's book never makes a convincing case for why Frazier was considered interesting and not simply bizarre. Brenda Frazier makes a poor subject and an uninteresting story. Boring.

City of Glass: Douglas Coupland's Vancouver, Douglas Coupland

admittedly, i'm a fan of the city, but coupland's vancouver is irresistable. his city is gritty enough to be a real place, but is also blessed with surreally beautiful scenary. the photo of the yellow sulfur piles against an intensely blue sky sums it all up -- industry in paradise. coupland hasn't written a travelogue here, but something more like a photo album with really great captions. he talks about vancouver's pot enterprises, its monorail, its transient population of ultra-hip japanese teens and the ubiquity of fleece. the photography is beautiful. this book is about flavor rather than museums and walking tours.

The Hot House, Pete Earley

Reading this book has inspired me to stay out of jail, by whatever means necessary. Since the easiest way to do that seems to be to obey the law, I'll start there. Earley wrote this book after spending two years visiting Leavenworth prison, talking with prisoners, guards and management. He doesn't attempt to explain why people become prisoners or guards, but does look closely at life inside. There is a parallel universe, folks, and prison is it. Many of the prisoners Earley writes about speak of having integrity and following their principles, while saying at the same time that they have no interest in playing by the rules of the outside world. If you ever had the idea that prison could rehabilitate, this should take care of it. Disturbing, depressing, and should be required reading at a very young age.

The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo, Paula Huntley

These are selections from a journal Paula Huntley kept while teaching English in Kosovo in 1999, while her husband volunteered his legal expertise. There is so much thoughtful material to appreciate here -- Huntley's rose-tinted profiles of her students, her discomfort with America's role in Kosovo, the occasional funny moment of cultural misunderstanding, a look at a country most of us will never visit. Her faith in people is rewarded by her students' appreciation and efforts. Together, Huntley and her students read Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, a book that becomes an expression of hope for the future of the students as individuals and for Kosovo as a country.

Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, Suzanne Lacy

I'll admit that not everyone is going to be as interested as I am in public art, but if you have even the slightest desire for a book on the subject, this should be the book. Lacy has edited together a group of essays written by any number of leading public artists, administrators and critics. The essays address emerging issues in the field of public art, largely from the viewpoint of those who are unsatisfied with the status quo in the field today. Of particular interest is the introduction by Lacy, and the article Mary Jane Jacob. The essays will be a bit jargony for newcomers, but nothing is that tough to figure out. I was most interested in the writers who addressed the changes in our ideas about what an artist does.

What Should I Do with My Life? : The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question, Po Bronson

Po Bronson spends a great deal of time protesting that he doesn't know what you should do with your life and doesn't want to influence you, he then spends pages explaining how he talked with lots of lost people who were asking themselves what they should be doing and cleared that question right up for them. The book is an exploration around the idea we seem to have that we all have a vocation waiting or us if we could just figure out what it is or how to get to it. Bronson interviewed many people in an effort to explore these issues, and tells us way more than we want to know about how he himself has dealt with them. I was annoyed with Bronson's tone in this book, and with his all-knowing attitude. Moreover, the book doesn't really come to any real point, much less any conclusions. Bronson can't possibly answer that question for all the people who will read the book, but neither does he give his readers any real tools for doing so themselves.

Victoria's Daughters, Jerrold M. Packard

I knew a lot of about the long-lived, long-armed, long-loving Queen Victoria and when I read a reference to this book I was curious about about her daughters, about whom I knew nothing. "Victoria's Daughters" chronicles the lives of her five daughers, some of whom married royally and others of whom were quite retiring. The five princesses were in a bad position with an egocentric parent that never let them forget that she was the queen and also lived so long that they were never able to live independent lives. Vicky, Alice, Lenchen, Beatrice and Louise had their entire lives arranged by Victoria; Vicky and Alice were even outlived by their mother. The book is clearly sympathetic to the girls and fairly critical of Victoria's mothering skills in this fairly intimate look at the difficulties of royal life.

Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World, Sarah Vowell

I have to admit I had high hopes for this book of essays. I've heard Sarah Vaughn on NPR where she is fresh, original and so very funny. Surely a book of essays, many of them written during the same time period, would have the same dry, wry tone? It does, but ultimately Take the Cannoli is unsatisfying. Every essay leaves you wondering if you missed a page, or a paragraph. Her writing simply isn't as tight as her radio delivery. Certainly my expectations have influenced the rating I've given "Take the Cannoli," but I'm allowed to have high hopes, am I not? Still, the book is worth reading and if you aren't as familiar with Vaughn's radio work, you may find it a better read than I did.

21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com, Mike Daisey

"21 Dog Years" is a laugh-out-loud look at the insanities of working for the web's biggest retailer in the early days of the dot-com boom. Daisey began his tenure with Amazon working in customer service, where even the lowliest temp worker obsessed hourly about the stock prices of the company. He takes a humorous tone, but doesn't sugarcoat his ultimate message, which is that the economic environment in the company was highly corrupting, superficial and self-centered from the lowest to the highest levels. "21 Dog Years" is a must-read for anyone interested in the evolution of the Internet economy, Amazon itself, or the nature of the Seattle job market.