Howard W. French (http://www.howardwfrench.com)

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A Continent for the Taking

Africa first captivated New York Times journalist Howard W. French more than twenty-five years ago, but his knowledge of and passion for the continent has the depth of a lifetime association. His experiences there awakened him as nothing before to… read more

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Edible insects. Taoism as a cure for Buddhism. Night markets. Sex tourism. Medical tourism. Visa runs. A girlfriend named Porntip.
It’s all here.
A very quick read, and an enjoyable one, too. Osborne doesn’t condescend to his subject, and although he covers familiar ground, he admirably avoids cliché.

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Long avoided, much enjoyed.
The raving about the use of language, the wealth of colloquialisms, more than well deserved.

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I’ve been doing a lot of reading about photography, both in gearing up mentally for the end of winter (hopefully soon) and a busy season of new work in the spring, as well as because of some new teaching I’ll be doing in the summer.
This is one of the most interesting titles I’ve come across, and although it is aimed primarily at photographes, its insights are readily applicable across a variety of documentary forms, including reportage and writing.
Coles’s thinking is particularly acute on the psychology, politics and ethics implicit in the relationship between “author” and “subject.”

In his own words, he describes the books as: “a look at what happens to those of us who venture into streets not our own in pursuit of the awareness those streets (one hopes) can offer — what happens morally and psychologically within us, and what subsequently happens to us as writers, photographers, filmmakers, or academic researchers.”

In a brief but intense book, Coles delivers.

Learn more about "Doing Documentary Work"

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A great stylist brings rural Pakistan stunningly to life. Mueenuddin’s stories are absolutely first rate.

Learn more about "In Other Room, Other Wonders"

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More famous perhaps, but not as absorbing as the Iliad (which I “read” over Thanksgiving). I cheated and listened via audiobook on the ride to and from Virginia for Christmas.

Learn more about "The Odyssey"

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I read this recently, along with Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State, by Yasheng Huang.

Here’s my review of the book.
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Learn more about "When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World"

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One of three books I’m reading for an essay I’m working for on oil. “The others are Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil,” by Peter Maass and “A Swamp Full of Dollars: Pipelines and Paramilitaries at Nigeria’s OIl Frontier,” by Michael Peel.

Essay forthcoming.

Learn more about "The Squeeze: Oil, Money, and Greed in the 21st Century"

Posted at 6:39 PM · Comments (0)

I’ve been enjoying losing myself in the past this winter (see my other recent entries). This book, though a little dense at first, became thoroughly absorbing once I got over the hump. Learned and for the most part highly reasonable (and well-reasoned) assessment of Jesus’ life, drawing heavily on the Gospels. One needn’t be religious to savor this.

Learn more about "Jesus: A Life"

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Sometimes after reading a novel, a blessing in itself when its good, the words of praise one can find seem trite.
Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland is just such a novel. I read it in three sittings, quaking, shivering, and half-expecting tears in many passages. Here one finds real life and real feeling, and a kind of thoughtfulness and care with language that is rare. I’ll be posting a quick excerpt here soon.

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There’s been a lot of attention to this ancient book, driven by the appearance of a new translation. I’ve bee reading the Meredith McKinney version, which was first published in 2006 from Penguin, and is accompanied by a very astute essay by the translator.

What is most striking for me about this book is the power of observation exhibited in Shonagon’s writing. The author, a 10th century lady of the court in what is now Kyoto has one of the most acute eyes for setting and for clothing a reader is likely to encounter, and she consistently conveys a sense of atmosphere that is infused with poetry.

There are no outright politics, such as we would recognize them, in this work, but there is something very particular occurring throughout that flows from the author’s own deep wellsprings of culture and intelligence. In what was a deeply unequal society, we have a wry and powerful statement about the capabilities and wit of women.

Learn more about "The Pillow Book"

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Brief, luminous and wise. Revisiting a classic 1953 text that depicts the process of apprenticeship with a Zen master archer.

“As soon as we reflect, deliberate, and conceptualize, the original unconsciousness is lost and a thought interferes.We no longer eat while eating, we not longer sleep while sleeping. The arrow is off the string but does not fly straight to the target, nor does the target stand where it is. Calculation, which is miscalculation, sets in.”

Learn more about "Zen in the Art of Archery"

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As mentioned elsewhere here, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the countryside in Virginia, at the family home where most of my books are kept. This library, consisting of books read between high school and my life in Tokyo, which spanned 1998-2003.
One of my deepest pleasures of the last year has come from opening the storage boxes filled with books and tucking into familiar old titles. This weekend, I read large chunks of these three, each very different, but all of them favorites. A very brief excerpt from Lévy-Strauss follows. I’ll return to the other two titles in a future comment.

“Freedom is neither a legal invention nor a philosophical conquest, the cherished possession of civilizations more valid than others because they alone have been able to create or preserve it. It is the outcome of an objective relationship between the individual and the space he occupies, between the consumer and the resources at his disposal. And it is far from certain that an abundance of resources can make up for a lack of space, and that a rich but overpopulated society is in danger of being poisoned by its own density, like those flour parasites which manage to kill each other at a distance by their toxins, even before their food supply runs out.”

Camera Lucida
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Tristes Tropiques
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Viceroy of Ouidah
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I’ve neglected this spot on my page lately - for several months now, in fact. That is in large part due to the fact that I’ve done a lot of book reviewing in the last year, for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, and others. I still read plenty of books for my own pleasure, though, as well as quite a few in relation to other types of non-reviewing work.

Having done a lot of driving back and forth from New York City to Virginia in the year since I’ve relocated to the States, I’ve renewed my acquaintance with another kind of book enjoyment: the audio book. One thing I’ve always enjoyed about long flights, train and bus rides (or even the 1/2 hour daily subway commute each way when I lived in Tokyo) was opportunity for deep reading. I’ve found that with a little patience, the audio book achieves much the same for me and I now count myself as a convert, if only for the purposes of long road trips.

My choices have centered on books that I somehow figure I would have little time or inclination to read in their traditional form. This says nothing of their worthiness as literature, only that they lose out in the mix of things I need or want to read in book form. Today, during a 5 1/2 hour drive, I listened to the Iliad, which has languished on my bookshelves for an eternity, occasionally producing feelings of guilt, as unread books often do in me. It was a delicious experience, and I’m looking forward already to my next trip south in order to complete it.

The book tagged for mention here, though, is Steven Pinker’s title, which I found learned, predictably enough, quirky and highly entertaining, covering everything - vividly - from the subject of generative metaphors to the uses of the word “fuck.”

Highly recommended.

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Learn more about "The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature"

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A slim and stunning volume, available in a reprint that could hardly be more timely. Galbraith spends the first sections of the book recounting the events of 1929 in a hard bitten, semi-journalistic voice, and he sustains a terrific narrative. The final section explores the causes for the Great Depression, including but not limited to the crash. Very perceptive, and the echoes of our day - sharply rising inequality, unbridled greed, fraud and a government of the elite and for the elite - still ring very true.

“Speculation on a large scale requires a pervasive sense of confidence and optimism and conviction that ordinary people were meant to be rich. People must also have faith in the good intentions and even in the benevolence of others, for it is by the agency of others that they will get rich. In 1929 Professor Dice observed: The common folks believe in their leaders. We no longer. We no longer look upon the captains of industry as magnified crooks.Have we not heard their voices over the radio? Are we not familiar with their thoughts, ambitions, and ideals as they have expressed them to us almost as a man talks to his friend? Such a feeling of trust is essential for a boom. When people are cautious, questining, misanthropic, suspicious, or mean, they are immune to speculative enthusiasms.”

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Learn more about "The Great Crash - 1929"

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This is an amazingly smart and timely look at one of the most ambitious international development efforts ever undertaken in Africa — by China, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, no less.
Jamie Monson is a tireless researcher and insightful thinker who writes with grace.
I read it in late manuscript. Forthcoming from Indiana University Press.

Learn more about "Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania"

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A look at the enormous transformations underway in China from a sharp-eyed and engaging Indian journalist. Her take is often very different — refreshingly so — from the standard Western reporter’s look at the same landscape.

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Learn more about "Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China"

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Inside the invisible demi-Holocaust of the Congo. Powerful and brilliant. Highly recommended.

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Learn more about "The Rebels’ Hour"

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Sounds trite, perhaps? Sophocles in an African village. The end of cultural sovereignty comes to a corner of West Africa. As smart and poignant as just about anything you can read on the continent. I’ve just re-read it for the third or fourth time.

Learn more about "Things Fall Apart"

Posted at 10:16 PM · Comments (0)

Buy it. Read it. I’m going to teach it. First 100 or so pages is as good an introduction to the last 25 years in China as just about anything I’ve read.

Learn more about "Beijing Coma"

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A terrific and concise account of the Congo’s disintegration at the end of the 20th century, with very well explained historical context, and an unblinking look at the roles played by all the external actors.

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Learn more about " The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality"

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