Customer Comments

I admire this series. In the previous arc, Riordan taught young readers about Greek mythology. Now he's teaching Roman mythology, and about differences between the cultures, without being pedantic. The books are fast-paced and entertaining for young and adult readers alike.

Received as an advance reader copy. I think it's reasonable to give the spoiler that while this second volume in the series that began with The Game of Sunken Places stands alone in terms of resolving the immediate plot points that it introduces, it ends on a cliffhanger betokening a third novel. Brian and Gregory, having won the game of sunken places, are now in charge of designing the next game--that is, Brian won, and Gregory is somewhat testy about this. However, it seems that someone isn't playing fair, and the boys find themselves in a Vermont suburb, built with surprising rapidity on the ground where the previous game was played. While this volume has some of the horror elements present in the first book, it is better read as a parody of the genre, with many of Anderson's typically clever comments and asides leavening the mood. While Gregory's surliness is somewhat inexplicable, it does not detract from the action, which is, though somewhat more superficial than the first book, far more hilarious.

A problematic but potentially useful memoir. Swiller recounts his time in Zambia, where as a Peace Corps volunteer he appears to have violated ethical principles, flouted standards of cultural sensitivity and appropriateness, and generally been a cowboy. I say that the book is "useful" because I am going to use it in an ethics class as a casebook of how not to behave as a professional representing a service organization. That Swiller is deaf raises interesting questions about intersection of disability, identity, and behavior. Unfortunately, these questions aren't answered here.

Amusing, light, and fun if you sometimes wonder why your friends are raving about some piece of unfortunately published fluff or drek. I found it enjoyable until near the end, which I thought was rushed and the protagonist's epiphany unearned.

Although I liked most of this novel, I can only give it three stars because I didn't think the conclusion was the best of the narrative possibilities. I liked the detail and characters, and I figured out most of the plot pretty early on. I thought the protagonist's final dilemma wasn't adequately developed. I would have preferred that her action wasn't successful, which still could have resolved her psychological impasse. I question whether someone of her character would have engaged in this behavior. To say she would suggests a profound moral breakdown, not an illuminating catharsis. In addition, her insistence on that school for that applicant utterly undermines the sincerity of her and others' heretofore consistent assertions that there are many fine schools that might be a better fit for a given applicant.

an Geldermalsen's memoir of meeting a Jordanian Bedouin when she was traveling in her early 20's, marrying him, having children with him, and their life in a cave in Petra. He sold souvenirs; she became a medical assistant. A matter-of-fact recollection told in a straightforward manner, without a great deal of emotional depth. Still, it's very interesting for its details of daily life as a young New Zealander adapting to living in a very different culture.

A dystopian "sidequel" to Oryx and Crake; that is, it recounts others' lives and actions that are parallel to (or intersect with) those of Snowman and Crake. While not as lyrical as the first book, it's still engaging, with vivid descriptions and lively characters. It takes the reader to the point at which Oryx and Crake ended, and a little farther. Although I found Snowman to be a frightened, passive schmuck in the first book, this was important to the joke of the narrative, to the extent that the climax could be a joke. Here, Snowman seems simply pathetic and confused, though arguably this is due to his delirium. The protagonists' stories are more intimate but seem less important and I found the book overall to be less engaging. This troubles me given that the first book was the men's experiences, while this one was the women's. Overall, the narrative seemed to fill in more details rather than add new, significant plot elements. Reviews by Jeanette Winterson and Ursula Le Guin that were published in major newspapers included surprisingly big errors or misunderstandings of Atwood's plots. If these were poor writers or reviewers not familiar with speculative fiction I'd leave it alone, but with such luminaries behind the misrepresentations, I was troubled.

As the characters mature, they gain in power and have more complex relationships. I'm sad to say that I found this installment rather wearying. I wondered where the story was going, and also had a hard time caring. This made for a more passive reading experience. I found myself wondering what this book contributed to the series story arc, or whether it was more picaresque than anything else. I hope not; I want these details gathered up and nicely integrated in the remaining two books.

Obama's autobiography to 1995. It's a little dry at times, though all of the content is interesting. Since he wrote it before his presidential bid, it's much less guarded/sanitized than it could have been if written later. He describes a lot of the phenomena associated with being black or multiracial in the U.S., and some of the ways that colonialism affected Africans. I could see teaching with it in a graduate diversity course.

This is a series of chapter-long travelogues on the themes of getting to know people of different cultures. Steves's suggestions are what you'd expect if you've watched his show--talk with people in the places you're traveling, stop and sit awhile at a little restaurant or cafe, try to learn about a country from the people who live there. Steves does a pretty good job of articulating some of his dilemmas while traveling--the difficulty of reconciling national security with an appreciate for others' autonomy, for example. The photos are plentiful and the book, printed on heavy stock, feels substantial. What it's not is a manifesto; rather, it's a set of related narratives.

I like Gawande and I liked this book when I read it a few years ago. The audiobook, which is abridged, was less enjoyable for me. Not having the physical book in front of me when I listened, I can't say where the abridgments took place, but I did notice that at a number of points, I thought, "That's an oversimplified explanation" or "That's a romantic interpretation of that data." Perhaps the boring scientific stuff, which is what makes a book like this for a reader like me, is what was cut. Or perhaps the cuts were elsewhere and the lacunae jumped out because the speaker goes through the material so much more slowly than I read that there was more time for me to notice thoughts that seemed incomplete. Or maybe I've hit that point in academia where I follow the logic more than the passion. I'll say this for listening to the book: It's a great diet aid. I can read a phrase like "I sliced firmly with my scalpel into the glistening yellow fat" and not have much response. (That's a made up sentence, though Gawande does like his fat to glisten). Hearing it aloud, though, turns out to be viscerally distressing. This makes me want to get a lot of medical narratives on CD so I can listen to a segment every time I want dessert.

In the 1980's, Dorris visited refugee camps in Zimbabwe in his role as a board member for Save the Children. This little book of Dorris's pensees includes factual material, emotional reactions, and descriptive sketches. It's surprisingly effective as an evocation of the circumstances, the camps, and the helplessness one can feel even while being helpful.

There's a lot of nice language in this 1937 novel by Kurban Said. This is a pseudonym for Lev Nussimbaum--or is it? Though the novel stands nicely on its own, half the fun is the mystery of its authorship. The novel itself is about Ali Khan, an Azeri Muslim, and his love, Nino Kipiani, a Christian Georgian girl. Their relationship is emblematic of both the fruits and strain of the meeting of Europe and Asia. Said does a good job of beginning with a simple narrative from the perspective of a youth and gradually increasing the complexity as he ages and as his city of Baku, Azerbaijan is pulled into the Bolshevik Revolution.

Received as an advance copy from the publisher. Rosalynn Carter's most recent book about mental health care in the U.S. provides a useful, broad picture of the relative lack of progress the nation has made in some areas, notably by cutting corners on Kennedy's plan for dinstitutionalization. However, it also suffers from highly problematic omissions. Carter's overview is good enough to be used as an introductory text for, say, an undergraduate or master's level class in applied psychology, social work, or public policy. However, it paints with a very broad brush and would require active engagement and questioning to be a useful and accurate resource. Carter correctly critiques the relatively brief training in psychology received by medical doctors, but almost completely elides over psychologists, social workers, and other mental health clinicians. As a psychologist, I am dumbfounded by this omission. Psychology and social work are among the mental health professions working assiduously to develop better community-based services that use social, not pharmacological, interventions. Though psychiatrists are at the top of the allopathic hierarchy, it is ward clerks, milieu counselors and nurses who spend most of the day with patients in a residential or day treatment facility. Treatment teams that include all of the staff who interact therapeutically with clients, and truly value all of their perspectives, will better comprehend clients' experiences and be better situated to act in the clients' best interest. All the more so for treatment teams that include the client in treatment planning. This takes time, money, humility, and service delivery structures that do not give the final word to one person, but to the team. Teamwork is a poor fit with the U.S.'s the increasingly capitalistic and individually-focused culture. There is a larger social critique to be made here, in an era where providing for the welfare of others is blasted as "socialism," which apparently is a bad thing. I've worked as a trainee, mental health clinician, and psychologist in a reasonable number of public and private mental health facilities. All had their deficiencies and all were situated within a broader cultural context that lacks adequate wrap-around and gap services, and in some cases, even necessary primary care services for poor people or for everyone. However, in every setting there were more dedicated, concerned staff than otherwise. In most we were poorly paid and tangible and intangible benefits were few. Still, the vast majority of social service, psychology, social work, nursing, and medical staff I've known (and I've known a lot through work at the state and educational level as well as on the ground) have been concerned, kind, conscientious workers. This spirit of diligent kindness and service, especially in contexts where even the best effort will fail due to lack of resources, is not reflected in Carter's book. In those situations where clients and patients have been poorly served, ill-used, and exploited, which certainly also happens with appalling regularity, Carter's main solution seems to be funding. As is well-demonstrated in the literature on infrastructure development, funding is very helpful and a terrific panacea for many problems, but needs to be targeted to the right problems in order to change societal mores, such as stigma. The book is also overly broad and potentially confusing for lay readers in terms of the individual solution of medication. Carter says, incorrectly, that we now know that the major psychiatric conditions are the result of deficient brain chemistry. This is an overly simplified and inaccurate statement, though it's understandable why she lands there; it is a problem of correlation versus causality. We do not know whether a chemical imbalance causes major psychiatric disorders. If we did, there would be a test of, say, dopamine levels that would accurately predict the presence, absence, or potential for a manifested psychiatric disorder. (This is where Carter's analogy of diabetes reaches its limit--a person with diabetes indeed has a measurable deficit of insulin production or cellular capacity to utilize insulin.) Instead, what we know is that in some proportion of cases, by no means all, of a given disorder (e.g., depression, schizophrenia), some people are helped for a period of time by giving them a medication containing or affecting one or more neurotransmitters, in much larger quantities than would be found naturally in the average brain. We also know that not all medications work for people with the same symptoms, and that some cease to work over time (e.g., "Prozac poop-out"). For that group of people for whom the medication works, we find that it addresses the symptoms. Whether it addresses an underlying biological root problem is not clear. To say it another way, we may not be treating a cause of the disorder. To use an analogy, if I am awake for 36 hours and I'm tired, a cup of coffee might make me less tired and more alert, but it doesn't address the cause of my tiredness. It medicates the symptom. Carter is very clear on her belief in the utility of medications, and while I'm all for medicine as one option for potentially drastically reducing human suffering, some of the research literature Carter cites is contradicted by other research literature (e.g., there is dispute about the utility of using versus not using medication to treat an initial psychotic episode). In addition, though she touts medication, many of the interventions she praises are systemic and interpersonal, not biochemical. She correctly identifies the diathesis-stressor model of illness/decreased function (though not by that name), noting the concept that some problems require a physiological vulnerability plus an environmental stressor. However, this does not account well for problems of, say, returning veterans. A person can certainly develop PTSD without a head injury or a biological vulnerability to stress. My two cents: Psychiatric disorders, as we currently construe them, probably arise from a variety of causes and have a variety of courses, even if they are manifested by similar constellations of symptoms and signs. Carter's assertion that the problem is that we know what works and don't speedily implement it has some traction, but not much, since knowing something works in one study doesn't mean it works universally, or even in a second study. On the one hand, it's maddening when lack of funding slows either replication studies or dissemination of viable interventions. On the other hand, I live in a community where there have b3een a number of dangerous cases of mumps and measles because parents didn't vaccinate their children because of Andrew Wakefield's bogus 1998 study "proving" that the MMR vaccination was linked to autism. As MSNBC notes, "vaccination rates have never fully recovered." Science is slow, and not without its share of unintentional errors and data cooking. We really need to guard against biological reductionism, which is both inaccurate and obscures interpersonal causes of distress (like child abuse) and societal causes (like poverty or racism). Managed care and the titration of services are largely missing from Carter's book as a targeted and explicitly identified contributor to inadequate services, though from my perspective, this is a major ethical and cultural problem that contributes to lack of services. Again, this primarily but not exclusively affects poor people. Carter argues for comprehensive services, as do I. This means interventions in addition to or instead of medication, and that requires a shift in the medical paradigm common to the U.S. and Europe. It also requires more attention to the kinds of interpersonal and community interventions that Carter gives as examples, but somehow doesn't attribute sufficiently to psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals. In summary, this is a valuable and potentially useful book, but it has some significant omissions and errors that need to be discussed to make it an accurate tool to effect change.

These cards are terrific. I've given several sets to therapists and people who work with young women. They're effective not just for counseling, but for personal exploration or even for teaching. They've been a big hit in my classes and the students always want to know where they can get a set.

I was congratulating myself on my ability to escape Powell's at under $15. This had never happened before, and as it turned out, it didn't happen this time, either. Since I figured that the martini and Thai take-out dinner I was heading to wouldn't get around to any food for several hours, I went to the Powell's cafe for a cookie. That's where the graphic novel section is. On the end cap was Sandell's The Impostor's Daughter: A True Memoir. I notice it because the cover was bright and interesting, and because it was in the graphic novels section and the subtitle is "A True Memoir." "True" is inserted with a caret, so I knew that truth and memory would be an issue. Given the cover illustration, in which Sandell depicts herself with face obscured by a photo of her father, it seemed that identity would be a focus as well. I flipped through the book. The appealing interior illustrations are also brightly colored in the palate of the dust jacket. They were engaging and the lettering was easy to read. The flap promised a good story. I bought it. At least I left Powell's at under $40. The Impostor's Daughter is about Sandell's father and his profound effects on her life. Sandell does a terrific job of representing her passionate, larger-than-life father and herself as an adoring child. Over time, odd things happen and discrepancies creep in. Just as Jeannette Walls so eloquently described the crumbling of a child's idealization of her parents in The Glass Castle, so Sandell shows the reader the erosion of her trust in her father's professed life story. As the evidence mounts that he is not what he says he is, Sandell moves from passive discovery to active uncovering, investigating the "facts" of her father's life and finding them at best grandiosely distorted; at worst, fabricated. The article she wrote about this process is available at Esquire (but read it after you read the book). This story of disillusionment co-occurs and intersects with her own adult development, where telling her father's stories stands in for telling her own stories, where her romantic relationships are ambivalent, and where she must eventually come to terms with her growing addiction to Ambien. I'd have wished for a last panel that didn't show Sandell beginning to write the book, but this is a minor complaint. I read until the martini and Thai take-out dinner started. Toward the end, when conversation flagged, I read a little more when I thought I could get away with it. I read when I woke up not many hours later to go to a meeting. I read during breaks at the meeting. I did not read on the highway, though I thought about it. I did not read until I got back home, at which time, although I was exhausted from the martinis, the meeting, and the trip back home, I refused to do anything else until I'd finished this book. Read The Impostor's Daughter with The Glass Castle, or with other graphic memoirs such as Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, and Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers for an interesting range of graphic styles and subjects.

This lengthier review supplements my other comment. I have had H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N on my mind for several weeks as I read books that evoke him. Hyman, an immigrant, takes beginner's night English classes and speaks like your immigrant forebearers did if they were Ashkenazi Jews in New York or New Jersey before 1950. Hyman is an earnest yet immovable object. Reading this as a child, I saw him as the bane of his teacher's existence. Reading it now, having taught or worked in educational settings for most of the intervening years, I took in that Hyman's teacher, Mr. Parkhill, understands that Hyman is both a burden and a genius. This, I think, is something that differentiates this episodic comedy from others that rely exclusively on the trope of the dumb greenhorn's hilarious mispronunciation and mangled grammar. Hyman's misunderstandings provide a fresh vision of English, revealing hitherto unseen facets of the language and forging new connections. For me, the shining and ineffable utterance, the pinnacle of Jewish philosophy's efflorescence, is Hyman's assertion, "Mine oncle has a gless eye." You'll have to read the story to see why this simple (and untrue) statement is such a hilarious emblem of Talmudic reasoning paired with the Jewish stubbornness necessary to survive in world that seeks to quash the Jewish spirit. I read The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N at my grandparents', at about the same time as I read Roth's Portnoy's Complaint and Idries Shah's Mulla Nasrudin tales. This is a useful trio, of which Ross/Rosten is the fulcrum. Hyman brings Yiddishkeit to the New World, not just through his language, but in his attitude, world view, and exuberance. His is the optimism of the Jew in the promised land. While he bears the burdens of tsars and World War I, his is not the generation of Hitler's particular horrors. Portnoy holds the angst of post-Holocaust American Jewry, which must wrestle with how much to accept and how much to reject the pessimism of such active anti-Semitism. Portnoy would find Kaplan naive, but see this as contemptible, whereas the Mullah Nasrudin might find Kaplan companionable, another blessed fool whose nonsense makes reasonable sense, if one is willing to really hear it.

Be aware that the audiobook reader sounded like a cross between Jerry Lewis and Stephen Hawking--he has very strange intonation. I read this by alternating between the book and the audiobook so that In could see orthography and hear pronunciation. Ideally I'd have done these simultaneously, but in fact I alternated media. I enjoyed about the first 6 chapters, which included topics such as the titular kvetching. Though they included a heavy dose of diachronic linguistics, the balance of language, anecdote, and culture worked well. The latter half of the book took some slogging, perhaps because it became a vocabulary lesson (which, don't get me wrong, I enjoy) without sufficient leavening humor. I could appreciate the scholarship, but it was no longer very fun. Oddly, the sections on relationships and sexual terminology were relentlessly heterosexual. As a person who has heard neo-Yiddish terms like faygeleh, which has a fun etymology (derived as a phonetic play on vogel) quite a bit, I wonder how the author would propose one navigate around it in conversation. By same means as one uses not to support grandma's use of schwartze? Sadly, Wex does not illuminate this fairly ubiquitous term, or any others related to homosexuality. .וואָס אַ שאָד

An exquisite volume of photos of Central Park's birds, including many sublime, larger than life shots. It's hard to imagine the patience Vornberger must have to capture such lovely, balanced images. The Blackburnian Warbler on page 58 takes my breath away.

I enjoyed this personal reflection/discursus on Buddhist practice versus philosophy. However, it was often a struggle to continue reading given the author's two very obnoxious habits: Insulting and disparaging any form of Buddhism or related practices with which he does not agree, and putting these and other insulting and offensive commentary on others' thoughts and practices into the mouths of his conversation partners rather than claiming them as his own. I don't disagree with many of Asma's statements when they're stripped of their gratuitous contempt and vitriol, but I hope never to express disagreement with others the way that he does. An interesting book, but almost devoid of enjoyment for this reviewer, also a Buddhist-thinking, Cambodia-going, professor.

It may seem like an oxymoron to call this middle reader title a sweet little dystopian novel, but that's what it is. This first in a series of four introduces Ember, an underground city developed and populated in the face of potential holocaust to safeguard a tiny fraction of the human race. In this it is reminiscent of Mordechai Roshwald's classic Level 7. Unlike Roshwald's tragic Officer X-127, DuPrau's Lina is a young adolescent with a community, a job, and relationships. Here the threat to the underground safe house is not related to the war but to the failure of the physical infrastructure. The actions of a greedy leader several generations before led to the misplacing and later mangling of the revelatory document that would have explained events and provided egress instructions to the denizens of Ember. Lina and Doon, a boy about her age, discover evidence of more greed and misuse of power, while also following clues that may save themselves and their community. A theme that is present in at least the first three books but not elaborated upon is that small-scale individual greed, corruption, or suspicion of others may have dire consequences for large numbers of people.

I'm not great at figuring out mysteries, and that's not why I read them. This means that I'm usually disappointed if I can immediately see the major plot point. I immediately saw the major plot point here. I enjoyed reading it well enough, but I thought that the story would have been stronger if it remained ambiguous. The ending could have kept the reader in a state of confusion while still showing what was about to befall the protagonist, which is distressing enough whether it's warranted or part of a conspiracy.

Well-constructed and well-crafted, this is a highly engaging and poignant novel in three interwoven strands. These three stories of depression and suicidality are related by Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway--the writing of it, the reading of it, and the becoming of it--across the 20th century. This description doesn't do justice the the elegance and precision of the telling. Especially enjoyable for those familiar with Woolf's works and life.

At its heart, this is a novel about attempting to overcome one's own haemartia, or tragic flaw. The Greek audiences of Aristotle's time found the hero sympathetic because of his important error. Setting aside the complexities of the term itself, it would seem that by the time in which Marlow narrates Jim's tale, the tone is a combination of horror, amused contempt, and pity. Were Jim not "one of us," an often-repeated sentiment, I assume there would have been more Schadenfreude than pity. If the story and highly predictable plot about seeking first escape from, then redemption for, one's misdeeds are set aside, the more interesting aspect of the novel is the question of "one of us" versus one of them and how identification or rejection of commonality affects Marlow's storytelling. In some ways "one of us" is a theme for Conrad's The Secret Agent as well. Since Marlow's narration is the frame for several of Conrad's novels (including Heart of Darkness), it would be interesting to compare his reasons for and degree of relationship to the people whose stories he animates.

The City of Ember concludes with Lina and Doon having reached the surface from the cavern in which their city is built. They have written a note explaining how to leave Ember and flung it through a fissure far above the city. Now, joined by many of their compatriots, they travel across an empty land, eventually encountering the village of Sparks. Fortunately, the war feared by Ember's creators was, though horribly devastating, not the complete conflagration they had feared. There are some villages in the former California, Sparks being the most prosperous. The leadership and people of Sparks must contend with the unexpected drain on their resources posed by the larger group of Emberites, and both groups struggle to make sense of the other. Though there are plot lines about particular people and discoveries about the world, the story is centered on the ways in which economic tension increases in-group/out-group problems and leads to racist or exclusionary policies based on fear. The novel ends with a triumphant rediscovery and the promise of further emotional development for both Lina and Doon.

As in The People of Sparks, here we see well-intentioned but rigid people make things worse and inadvertently threaten their community while attempting to protect it. The third volume in the Ember series is a prequel, though nominally so: We learn at the end what protagonist Nickie's relationship is to Ember, and the terms for Lina's visions of the magnificent city are set by the Prophet's vision and subsequent speculations about nearby parallel universes. Other than that, the novel is reasonably self-contained, and other than a few pages at the end that fast-forward to the Ember period, it could stand alone. I would argue that it should have been allowed to do so; a prequel that's thematically related but has a separate plot is a much more interesting proposition. However, I'm not the target audience, and I can't say whether I'd have liked a prequel that separate when I was 8-12 years old.

Long ago in my Philosophy of the Arts class, we read and argued a great deal about the Intentionalist Fallacy. This is the assertion that the artist's intentions don't matter, that what matters is the meaning conveyed by the art product. I find authors' intentions interesting, but try first to understand the meanings that are present in the text. I usually enjoy this more, because the creators' intentions are often feverishly asserted but not realized in the art. Atwood claims that science fiction is about "talking squids in outer space," and that that's not what she writes. Margaret, you write about GMO humanoids in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. I see how that's not science fiction at all. :rolleyes: I suppose I could also say ":snap: What-EVAH!" For pretty much the rest of us, Oryx and Crake is science fiction, a thematic category in which Atwood does some lovely work. So don't bother finding the insulting authorial exegesis, but instead proceed directly to the book. Oryx and Crake is poignant, poetic, and emotional, which is no small task with a not-very-sympathetic and schlubby protagonist, grandly catastrophic actions, and a wide-ranging narrative that includes an errant mother, rakunks (raccoon plus skunk), the sexual trafficking of children, biochemical attacks, gated compounds, and the aforementioned genetically modified humanoids. The story follows Snowman, who grew up as a comparatively average guy surrounded by geniuses. While not passive-aggressive, Snowman is passive, or hesitant, or uncertain, or unable to take a stand for his convictions, at many times from his childhood to adulthood. His reminiscence, often painful and self-loathing, supplies the story of how he comes to find himself wrapped in a sheet, in the tropical fringe of a beach with a not-so-human tribe, making up answers to their many irritating questions. Atwood is a wordsmith, and like Ursula Le Guin, writes a deeply satisfying, smart narrative. Atwood is a master of world-building. Sure, some of what she proposes is far out, but this is, like The Handmaid's Tale, a cautionary fantasy. I remember hostile critiques when The Handmaid's Tale was first published, arguments that Atwood's near-future dystopia was unrealistic and wacked out. The intervening shifts in politics and culture make the idea of a fundamentalist religious government in the U.S. seem not so much an absurd speculation as a matter of degree. (Robert Heinlein, of course, gave us his own version of a military theocracy in his 1940 story "If This Goes On--.") As I check my food labels for GMO notices, read articles about the development of gene-spliced fluorescent cats, and discover that the Internet knows where I live even when I use someone else's computer, I find myself wondering if the Atwood is all that far off.

Kritzler's portrait of the Jewish pirate, and more broadly, the Jewish entrepreneur of the period of Europe's mass expulsions and pogroms, has all the elements of a great tale, immediately evoking Chabon's novel of swashbuckling Jews, Gentlemen of the Road. However, Kitzler's book is hard to read, repetitive, switches tenses, and otherwise pulls the reader out of the narrative and into an irritated search for previous statements, chronology, and gist. If you can work around the problematic delivery, you should find this a fascinating account of how Jewish and converso merchants, spurred by the threat of the Inquisition, helped determine the political fate of the Caribbean and other New World colonies. I've read some complaints that Kritzler doesn't apologize for the involvement of Jews in the slave trade. Actually, he describes it as limited and does provide some commentary, though long after his first mention of this activity. However, this criticism seems to me to be beside the point--Kinzler neither defends nor reprimands his subjects for any specific actions. While the general tone is admiring, the overall style is reportage.

Adam Fifield's family wound up fostering Soeuth, a Cambodian refugee whose first foster family was not a good fit. This memoir recounts Adam's experiences of and with Soeuth and Adam's biological brother, interspersed with stories from Soeuth's experiences during the Khmer Rouge period and in adulthood. I particularly enjoyed Fifield's account of accompanying Soeuth to Cambodia, which took place after the country was back under more normal Cambodian governance, but while the Khmer Rouge were still active in the Northern and more remote areas of the country. This was a quick memoir to read, and because Fifeld is telling the American family's version of the foster family experience, an interesting companion to books by Cambodian foster children, such as Loung Ung's First They Killed My Father and Lucky Child. Editors and proofreaders: Do you really not know that "numb chuck" is, at best, a slang rendition of "nunchuck"? Do you not see several words incorrectly used by Fifield? Cleaning this stuff up is your job!

Aficionados of Homes's seductively creepy novels and short stories will enjoy her memoir, which is in many ways no less weird than her fiction. The first half describes how Homes, at that point an adult woman, learns that her birth mother wants to be in touch. Homes's part of the back story, and her speculations, hopes, and fears about this unknown mother who asserts her motherness, will be familiar to those who have gone through this experience themselves (and to their friends, who have heard these anxious concerns before). The uncovering of just who these biological parents were and what they are now to the author is riveting. The drive to know, plus the drive to buffer the experience and any potential commitment, explains the second half of the book. Critics have found this section less engaging, but I enjoyed it more, because here we see Homes at work, sleuthing and poking and fantasizing. She portrays herself as both obsessed and resistant, creating a parallel experience for the reader. We see the psyche from whom her strange, compelling fictional characters arise, the bizarre tangents that are their genesis. We see her enter into a world of genealogical and internet research and expose both the voyeurism and frustrations that any amateur genealogist has encountered. We ultimately encounter the insoluble riddle: Who am I if other people control the proof of my identity? This memoir makes me want to re-read all the Homes I have, and go find even more.

Frimtzis's memoir chronicles his experiences as a child and adolescent during World War II and its aftermath. After detailing a long interval as a Displaced Person, Frimtzis describes life in the U.S. from late adolescence to the present. It's very interesting to read a memoir by a Jew whose family fled further into the USSR. Though still beset by anti-Semitism, they were comparatively safer in the far Eastern portion of the Soviet empire. Ultimately, however, they returned to their home, and then travelled to the West. While central to Frimtzis's life story, both Tajikistan and the moon are somewhat peripheral to the narrative. "From Tajikistan" does not refer to his departure from his original home in Romanian-occupied Bessarabia, followed by the family's arduous flight across the USSR to Tajikistan, where they lived for over two years. Rather, Tajikistan is the starting point for the journey of return and beyond, culminating in his engineering work that contributed to the Apollo moon landing. This is a self-published memoir, which shows in the difficulties with verb tense, long asides that disrupt the chronology, and the inclusion of what seems to be every detail the author remembers about his youth. Much of this is only of personal interest. I would have liked more description of the environs in which he lived and through which he traveled. There's a lot of it, but this is the part that I can't picture and with which I'm unfamiliar as a reader. The story picks up speed in the U.S. section; unfortunately, this material is less engaging for the American reader because we are familiar with the settings and themes of the immigrant's narrative. Nonetheless, Frimtzis's memoir grew on me and I appreciate it as a good addition to my understanding of the Jewish experience of World War II and its aftermath.

This seventh and concluding volume in the Keys to the Kingdom series has two tasks: To wrap up the action of the first 6 books, and to depict adolescent struggles with identity and responsibility. As to the former, there is plenty of swashbuckling, giant pointy bugs, explosions, and the like. The plot points are resolved, though some characters and their motives remain a mystery. Why, for example, have none of the Trustees done more than allude to what they fear will happen when the Will of the Architect is re-assembled? The thematic business is captured by Arthur's shift from a human boy to an otherworldly Denizen as he uses his power. Who is Arthur? This question, which has recurred throughout the series, is answered in Lord Sunday. As the mortal children Arthur and Leaf take on more burdens and responsibilities, they are both nostalgic for the sense of safety they experienced before these events, and willing, though not always glad, to take on adult roles. I was pleased that this included real choices and sacrifices, both developmental and interpersonal.

Devlin is no stylist, but his account of his tenure as CIA Chief of Station, Congo (Kinshasa) will still hold your attention. Devlin was transferred to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a period of great and swift turmoil. Later, his superior attests that he has a skillful, excellent operative in the post. As Devlin comments, what else could he say? That in fact, he had installed a relatively unexperienced chief at a station that was supposed to be a sleepy backwater? Devlin's narrative style is methodical, a straightforward recounting of events with only superficial commentary or analysis. When he does comment, it is typically to add a piece of evidence to his contention that though he was ordered to assassinate Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, he did not do so. I can't evaluate the veracity of this claim, but note that whatever Devlin's protestations, he gives numerous unsurprising examples of collusion, cover-ups, and pragmatic lies on the part of all of the agencies involved. That there should therefore be a cover-up of a political assassination is not that great a stretch. However, Devlin says he finds the idea of assassination morally repugnant, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. That doesn't mean another U.S. or Belgian agent didn't do it. I disagree with many of Devlin's political ideals, but appreciate his effort to articulate them. It says something about his ability to do so that I enjoyed reading this information-dense memoir.

Banerjee provides a useful introduction to the Peace Corps experience in a series of 74 short, FAQ-like answers to questions like "Can I bring my pet overseas with me?", "What i