A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage – Audiobook Review

Nov 112011

A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage, narrated by Sean Runnette
Published in audio by Tantor Audio; published in print by Walker Books, an imprint of Bloomsbury

Synopsis:

From the publisher:

A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization.

For Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again.

Thoughts on the story:

Tom Standage has a fascinating story to tell of how our history has shaped what we drink, which ends up shaping our history again. Both the book and the argument were well-laid out, progressing logically through each of the six drinks and through human civilization, as one drink gave rise to another. Different technological and cultural advances precipitated the rise of each of the six drinks, and each of them further shaped culture in its own way. It should be noted, though, that this is less a history of the world than a history of Western Civilization, beginning with the early farmers in the fertile crescent and moving ever westward. Of course the east does get a mention, particularly when tea is involved, and coffee came to Europe from the Arab world, but in both cases the use of the beverage in Western Europe is the main focus. This is not necessarily a bad thing if one is prepared for this, but at the same time it would have been nice to have a more worldwide lens based on the title.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Sean Runnette is a great narrator of nonfiction. His delivery is clear and his voice easy to listen to, with just the right amount of interest added in his inflection. There was occasionally an issue with the quality of the recording, some of the edits were noticeable, but overall they didn’t negatively affect the listening experience.

soundbytes picture Overall:

A really fascinating way of looking at our shared history. Recommended.

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Paradise Lust by Brook Wilensky-Lanford – Book Review

Sep 282011

Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden by Brook Wilensky-Lanford
Published by Grove Press, an imprint of Grove/Atlantic

When Brook Wilensky-Lanford learned that a relative of hers had, in his younger days, searched for the Garden of Eden on Earth, she was a bit perplexed. After all, her family definitely did not subscribe to Biblical literalism. As she began to dig a little further into his motivations, however, she found an entire subculture – both religious and secular – dedicated to the discovery of the Garden of Eden. Soon Wilensky-Lanford was on a quest of her own, to discover the breadth of the mania for Eden.

Paradise Lust is a comprehensively researched look at humankind’s desire to return to an Edenic paradise – whether that paradise represents unity, civilization, or progress to any given supplicant – mixed with just a hint of humor and sarcasm. The subjectivity of humor could be a problem in a nonfiction book such as this, but Wilensky-Lanford does a fabulous job of separating the historical record from her own opinions.

It is simply fascinating how many different motivations have driven people to search for the Garden of Eden, particularly the fact that there were secular, not only religious ones. Similarly fascinating is the number of Eden-seekers who have placed paradise in the New World. Columbus, for example, believed he located the Garden in Venezuela, and more than one group has claimed its existence in middle America.

Wilensky-Lanford is an engaging writer, and brings a great deal of clarity to the profusion of quests for Eden. That people continue to search for the Garden on Earth is not an idea that would have ever occurred to me, but regardless, Paradise Lust makes for an intriguing read. Recommended.

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Source: Publisher, via NetGalley.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Women of the Cousins’ War by Philippa Gregory – Book Review

Sep 132011

The Women of the Cousins’ War: the Duchess, the Queen, and the King’s Mother by Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin, and Michael Jones
Published by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

Philippa Gregory is a prolific author, but she is undoubtedly best known for her two series that take place within two consecutive periods of English history, the two that are perhaps the best well-known to devotees of historical fiction: The War of the Roses and the reign of the Tudors. This period of English history is so vivid to many readers that they crave more and more information, to know what is true and what is not. This is not, however, a question of which Gregory thinks very highly:

Some readers want to know the proportion of fact to fiction – as if fact and fiction were not combined in every form of writing, as if historical fiction were a recipe. Some readers want to identify the facts from the fiction; but this is to deny the very form of the novel: something that combines fact and fiction. -p. 11

Gregory instead argues that both fiction and nonfiction have a measure of “speculation, imagination, and creativity.” Even so, writers of historical fiction must do their research somewhere, and the lives of the women involved in the War of the Roses are particularly under-researched, having been largely ignored by their contemporary historians. Biographies of Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville do exist, thanks to their close proximity to kings, but facts about Jacquetta of Luxembourg are few and far between. In an attempt to remedy this, Gregory teamed up with historians David Baldwin and Michael Jones to write biographies of all three women.

Baldwin’s biography of Elizabeth Woodville is somewhat more entertaining and informative than Gregory’s of Jacquetta and Jones’s of Margaret Beaufort. Even so, all three biographies were remarkably consistent in tone, voice, and content. Although I am not a historian, the history presented in The Women of the Cousins’ War seems sound, the opinions drawn logical and apparently supported by fact.

Even though Gregory is somewhat dismissive of readers who want to separate fact from fiction, The Women of the Cousins’ War is a good resource for those whose readers whose interest in the War of the Roses has been piqued by Gregory’s Cousins’ War series and other similar works of historical fiction.

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Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans – Audiobook Review

Jul 292011

Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans, narrated by Kirsten Potter
Published in print by Random House, published in audio by Tantor Media

Synopsis:

In Apollo’s Angels, Jennifer Homans tells the story of 400 years of ballet’s history, a history which, until now, has been unwritten.

Thoughts on the story:

Ballet is ballet is ballet. Or so I thought, before reading Apollo’s Angels. I had no idea that there were national differences even today, or that political movements such as the French and Russian Revolutions were so expressed through the art of ballet. Weighing in at almost 700 pages in print and close to 24 hours in audio, Apollo’s Angels is certainly a commitment, but it is a pleasant one. Homan succeeds in writing a book which is informative about the history of ballet and the way that ballet serves as a mirror of social and political history, while at the same time is not overly technical. There were certainly passages here and there that lost me briefly talking about specific steps, but even though I have not taken ballet since I was five years old, I was never lost for long, and was engaged enough to stick through those technical sections to return to the history.

The one place Homan did lose me was at the very end, in which she makes an argument for the disappearance of ballet in the near future which does not seem to be hinted at or backed up in any way by the 600 odd pages that precede it. Still, though, it was a very short passage in comparison with the rest of the book, and was not enough to permanently leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Kirsten Potter did an absolutely lovely job narrating Apollo’s Angels, the casting was really just perfect for the book. For my full thoughts on the audio, please see my review for Audiofile Magazine.

soundbytes picture Overall:

I was more interested in Apollo’s Angels for the social and cultural history than for the ballet itself, but ballet was a fascinating way to impart this history. I think this would work well in print or audio, although I don’t think I’d have done as well with it in print, as I would likely have gotten bogged down in the technicalities of dance. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*

Source: Audiofile Magazine.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Alice Behind Wonderland by Simon Winchester – Audiobook Review

Jul 012011

The Alice Behind Wonderland by Simon Winchester, narrated by Simon Winchester
Published in audio by Harper Audio, published in print by Oxford University Press

Synopsis:

There exists a photograph of a young girl, taken in the summer of 1858 at Oxford. The girl is the six year old daughter of Dean Liddell, dressed in the clothes of a beggar child and looking beguilingly at the camera. The photo is somewhat disconcerting – a half-dressed girl staring with the eyes of a woman – but would be largely unremarkable if this was not the same girl who would become immortalized in literary history for a story about a young girl bearing her name who has an adventure in Wonderland.

In The Alice Behind Wonderland, Simon Winchester explores the real people behind Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Dodgson (aka, Lewis Carroll) and Alice Liddell.

Thoughts on the story:

Other than the fact that the title is slightly misleading – Winchester spends more time delving into Dodgson’s life than Alice’s – The Alice Behind Wonderland is a very informative work of nonfiction. Winchester goes in-depth into Dodgson’s life, both before and after Alice, including a fascinating aside into the early days of photography.

Thoughts on the audio production:

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I simply adore Simon Winchester narrating his own work. Really, if he decides to stop writing he could just narrate full time, nonfiction in particular. Winchester comes across as a charismatic scholar whose passion for his own research is infectious.

soundbytes picture Overall:

An intriguing story, and one that is both well organized and well narrated. Recommended.

After reading The Alice Behind Wonderland, if you are interested in more on Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell, pick up Melanie Benjamin’s Alice I Have Been for a fictionalized account of their story.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Print*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound: Print*
Audible

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Statues That Walked by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo – Book Review

Jun 292011

The Statues That Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo
Published by Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

If you have read Jared Diamond’s Collapse, you know that the natives of Easter Island caused the collapse of their own civilization in the course of building their famous statues, causing the deforestation of their island by cutting down trees to transport the giant heads. Hunt and Lipo did not set out to disprove this widely accepted truism when they ventured to Easter Island, called Rapa Nui in the local language, but disprove it they did and, in the course of doing so, they unraveled many of the mysteries surrounding Easter Island: from the true cause of the deforestation of Rapa Nui, to the social structure that supported statue building, to the statues themselves and how they were moved.

One need not be an archaeologist to find The Statues That Walked fascinating. Hunt and Lipo lay out their arguments for the past of Rapa Nui in a clear and articulate manner, providing just enough evidence to lend them credibility, but not so many technical details to lose their lay readers. Assuming their science is valid – and Hunt and Lipo give the reader no reason to assume it is not – this team seems to have made great headway in explaining the history and basic culture of the people of Easter Island, not least the explanation that the statues were moved by ‘walking’ them.

The only real problem with The Statues That Walked is the extent to which its authors inserted themselves in their story, which was either too much, or not enough. In no way did they introduce themselves or give any sense of who they were, and yet they referred to their findings, their state of mind going into the research, etc. Inserting oneself into a story such as this one can lend a greater sense of narrative flow and make it easier to engage readers, but in order to do that, an actual sense of the personality of the authors must come through. The writing was clear and engaging enough that the authors were not a necessary plot device to keep readers interested. In the end, their random insertion served only to distract from the fascinating picture of Easter Island painted by The Statues That Walked.

A solid work of nonfiction, odd insertion of the authors not withstanding. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound.*

Source: Simon & Schuster Galley Grab.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

A Covert Affair by Jennet Conant – Audiobook Review

Jun 082011

A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the O.S.S. by Jennet Conant, narrated by Jan Maxwell

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Synopsis:

Julia Child is best known as a famous American chef cooking French food. Before she knew how to make the perfect omelet, though, she was a member of the O.S.S., an intelligence agency that was the precursor to the CIA. It was actually in this agency that she met her husband Paul, while both of them were serving in the Far East. It is that period of time, from their work in the O.S.S. through their courtship on which A Covert Affair focuses.

Thoughts on the story:

I must admit that I felt slightly misled by A Covert Affair. It purports to be the story of Paul and Julia during their time in the O.S.S., but having listened to it, that is not at all how I would classify it. In my opinion, A Covert Affair looks at the O.S.S. during the war, and its place in the McCarthyism that subsequently overtook the sanity of America. In order to avoid having a 3,000 page treatise on the agency, Conant uses the Childs as a way to frame the story she wanted to tell. The audiobook opens and closes with the Childs post-war, with Julia working on her cookbook and Paul called back to the United States so his loyalty can be questioned. In the course of the questioning, the name of their O.S.S. acquaintance Jane Foster came up over and over.

It is Jane’s story that seems to be the real heart of the book. Her life with the O.S.S. is much more closely examined, from the time she signed up, through her exploits taming wild animals, to an affair of hers and her post-war marriage. Always somewhat of a leftist, and not particularly discreet, it is no surprise that she came to the attention of HUAC during the years of the Red Scare.

A Covert Affair does then close again with the Childs and their shock at the things Jane Foster is accused of, but it seemed like they were a convenient way for Conant to sell the book, with the recent interest in all things Julia after the popularity of Julie and Julia. I admit to falling into this popularity trap, it is why I wanted to listen to A Covert Affair, and why I listened to My Life in France last year.

All that being said, however, once I got over the fact that I felt a little duped, I realized that Conant did have a very interesting story to tell. In fact, I think it is quite likely that Jane is a more interesting focus during the O.S.S. years than either Paul or Julie would be. In addition, the way the story concludes makes me glad I knew so much about Jane and made it begin to feel that I had been told the story of the Childs experience with the O.S.S., if not exactly their time there.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Jan Maxwell does a very good job with the narration of A Covert Affair. She is one of those no-nonsense narrators who avoid getting overly dramatic, but simply tells the story in front of her with poise – and with enough inflection to keep the story engaging.

Overall

I remain unconvinced that A Covert Affair‘s subtitle Julia Child and Paul Child in the O.S.S. is an accurate depiction of the contents of the book, but there is a very interesting story there that deserves an audience. If you are extremely interested in the history of US intelligence, pick this up in print so you can pore over the details. If you’re more interested in a sketch of the O.S.S. and the place of the Childs and their friends, pick it up in audio to keep the story moving engagingly. As long as you aren’t reading or listening solely for news of Julia and Paul, you won’t be disappointed.

Check out Simon & Schuster’s page to listen to a sample of the audio

Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound: Audio/Print*

Source: Simon & Schuster Audio.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Convert by Deborah Baker – Book Review

May 172011

The Convert by Deborah Baker
Published by Graywolf Press

One might think that a young Jewish girl growing up during WWII in New York would, if anything, feel a strong kinship to her Jewish roots. Logic seems to suggest that the intense suffering of one’s people might make one more determined than ever to hold onto faith and cultural identity. Such was not the case, however, with Margaret (Peggy) Marcus. From an early age, Peggy was obsessed with the idea of Arab peoples and Islam. For her, the creation of the nation of Israel was an equal injustice to the people of Palestine as anything the Jews had ever suffered, the repeated lauding of Zionism by those around her was endlessly disturbing to her and, in the end, caused her to renounce her religious and cultural heritage. Before long, Peggy turned to Islam and became Maryam Jameelah, moved to Pakistan, and began producing copious writings against the tyranny of materialism and lack of spiritualism in the West. It is this transformation that Baker attempts to address in The Convert: A Tale of Islam and Extremism.

I say that Baker attempts to address this transformation, because I question the effectiveness of her approach. The storytelling was very nonlinear – from Maryam’s trip to Pakistan, to the extensive history of the man who would serve as her guardian, back to her childhood, and then through her early years in Pakistan. It seemed that this flow may have followed Baker’s own discovery of Maryam’s story, but that is not completely obvious. If it was Baker’s plan for The Convert to have a feel similar to the discovery journey approach of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, she needed to insert herself farther into the story, and give the reader a better idea of her background and biases; if it was her plan to write a more objective tale, she needed to be much less in the story. Baker directs at Maryam what can only be described as a rant at the end of Chapter 8, a moment that seemed very much out of place with the rest of the book.

The Convert is the type of book that really requires the reader to have the full story on the author. At the very end, in Baker’s note on methodology, it becomes apparent that many of the letters presented in a straightforward manner throughout the book were actually edited, and even rewritten, events moved from one letter to another, by Baker, in an attempt to make her story flow more smoothly and make more sense. She does succeed in making roughly the middle third of the book, comprised primarily of Maryam’s letters, flow very nicely, but at what cost? Without any idea about Baker’s biases and motivation, this is very problematic, as the reader is left without any idea to what extent letters were changed and to what purpose. It is hard to know how far to trust Baker, especially in light of the aforementioned rant.

The idea behind The Convert is a fascinating one: what makes a young woman of privilege drastically change her life and travel to what would to her be a very foreign country and rail against her native land? Sadly, the execution just was not there.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher, for Book Club – discussion today.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

How Shakespeare Changed Everything by Stephen Marche – Book Review

May 102011

How Shakespeare Changed Everything by Stephen Marche
Published by Harper Books, an imprint of Harper Collins

The game is up and I’m in a pickle. Perhaps I’m just being cold-blooded, but there will be no reprieve. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

I imagine you would be hard pressed to find anyone who denies the influence of Shakespeare on the modern world. Or, in the case of those anti-Stratfordians, the work that is generally attributed to Shakespeare, regardless of who actually wrote it.To begin with, he coined some 1700 words, many of which are still used today. Stephen Marche’s thesis, though, is somewhat more than a nebulous claim of general influence. He asserts that Shakespeare actually changed, well, everything. Everything from sex to racial relations to teenagers. Marche even sees Obama’s victory – and the continuing opposition to him – as being heavily influenced by Shakespearean tropes:

The fact that 18 percent of Americans still believe that Obama is Muslim, the continuing power of the birther movement despite the clear-cut evidence that he was born in America, testify to Othello‘s power as a prepared narrative. For many Americans, Obama remains a noble Moor in the mold that Shakespeare cast. – p. 21

Except I’m pretty sure that isn’t the case. I would say pure and simple racism, with a bit of overwhelming political ideology, and a heavy helping of propaganda. I really don’t buy the whole ‘inspired by Shakespeare’ thing in this case, and on page 21 of 200, that isn’t a particularly good sign. Generally Marche didn’t seem to be quite as out in left field as that, but he did have a tendency to (vastly) overstate his case. For example:

Shakespeare has improved your sex life. If you’ve had sex without shame, sex for pleasure, for fun, for any other reason than procreation within marriage – Shakespeare, more than any other single figure, is responsible for the climate of permissiveness that made it possible. -p. 39-40

Because, you know, nobody ever had sex for pleasure before Shakespeare. I’m surprised the human race even made it to the 17th century.

Not to say that How Shakespeare Changed Everything was completely without value. Certainly there were many interesting facts about Shakespeare, his work and how aspects of our modern world match up. Certainly there are have been many homages to Shakespeare in the 400 odd years since he was writing, and many of these homages have shaped our everyday lives. To grant him complete agency over sex or Lincoln’s assassination, simply because his words and creations have been co-opted by others, seems a bit unwarranted.

Interesting if you are looking for evidence of how Shakespeare continues to be important in the world (and that is right up my alley), but don’t pick it up if hyperbole annoys you.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Madre by Liza Bakewell – Book Review

Mar 252011

Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun by Liza Bakewell
Published by W. W. Norton & Company

Madre means mother, right? Well, technically. Madre may mean mother in Spanish, but it means a whole lot else besides that in Mexico. There is an extensive list of madre idioms, nearly all of which have negative meanings along the lines of disaster or whore. How can this be, when mothers traditionally hold a very high place in Mexican society, in a land where the Holy Virgin, the mother of Christ, is so venerated? What question could be more fascinating to a social anthropologist with an interest in linguistics and feminist leanings from the United States living in Mexico? It was this first question, in fact, that turned Liza Bakewell from a social anthropologist into a linguistic anthropologist with a particularly interest in madre and the intersection of gender and language.

“It can be dangerous to say madre in Mexico. Underscored and italicized. His words would blow fire across the screen. A kind of watch-out fuerte, not only powerful, but really powerful. Like a match to gasoline, or a blow to the face.” -p. 47

Out of this fascination came Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun. The subtitle of Madre is really the best description of what this book is. Far from a strictly academic treatise, Madre is more of a travelogue/memoir combo by someone who is simply very intelligent and likes to think deeply about issues of language and society. In spite of this, the chapters are organized topically within the larger subject of madre: talking about piropo and albur, the grammatical dominance of maleness even in a room predominantly female, las mentadas de madre.

Perhaps this begins to explain the origins of the symbolic dilemma of madre in Mexico. The Church believes the bride, once married, is Eve, not the Virgin. -p. 175-176

Maybe it is just me, maybe I missed my calling as an anthropologist, but I think that the intersection of gender, culture, and language is a fascinating place to linger and observe, and I’m so grateful that Bakewell brought me to this particular intersection. Even better, she does not manage to lose a non-Spanish speaking, non-linguist on her journeys. It could be occasionally disconcerting to have the very personal style interacting with the linguistic and anthropological insights, but overall it worked very well.

A very interesting book, if the concept interests you, then I can recommend Madre.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

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Devourer of Books

A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage – Audiobook Review

Paradise Lust by Brook Wilensky-Lanford – Book Review

The Women of the Cousins’ War by Philippa Gregory – Book Review

Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans – Audiobook Review

The Alice Behind Wonderland by Simon Winchester – Audiobook Review

The Statues That Walked by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo – Book Review

A Covert Affair by Jennet Conant – Audiobook Review

The Convert by Deborah Baker – Book Review

How Shakespeare Changed Everything by Stephen Marche – Book Review

Madre by Liza Bakewell – Book Review

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