In 2010 I read 138 books, fiction and non-fiction. For a complete list and reviews see Cool Reading 2010.

Favorite books read in 2010:

The Slave Girl and Other Stories by Ivo Andric
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein
The Sheltering Desert by Henno Martin
This Borrowed Earth by Robert Emmet Hernan
The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery by Steven Nicholls
China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power by Rob Gifford
The African Queen by C.S. Forester
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlof
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession by David Grann
The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm by Kenneth W. Gronbach
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life and Death by Jean-Dominique Bauby
The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antartic Expedition in the "Fram", 1910-12 by Roald Amundsen

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Books that changed me, how I see the world, and in some cases interact with it: The Big Short for showing me what happened with the financial crisis in a way that I understood and enjoyed. I'm less scared now, it got me interested in investing again after a few years of financial paralysis. Nixonland, for broadening my understanding of the nature of the left/right divide in America, it's allowed me in a few incidents to rise above emotional political debates and see the bigger picture. Murder in the High Himalaya for clarifying the terrible occupation of Tibet by China, it's like Eastern Europe during WWII, but happening right now today. Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air for showing how difficult and complex the energy problem is. This Borrowed Earth: Lessons from the Fifteen Worst Environmental Disasters around the World, about famous industrial accidents, it shows how people are usually to blame due to corruption and incompetence, and not the fault of technology or science, which is strangely reassuring. China Road for opening my eyes to the geography of China, recent developments with the country, and offering a less rosy picture of its potential future. Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery, for opening my eyes to developments in my own backyard; the post-apocalypse of the planet is already here, we just don't know it because we never saw its former glory. The Pain Chronicles has insights on the counter-intuitive nature of pain, it inspired me to do more to combat pain. AWOL on the Appalachian Trail, for showing me that I don't need to hike the AT, but I'm glad to read about others who have. The Age Curve, for giving me a scientific model for understanding demographic generational changes that isn't voodoo shucksterism, and shows Generation X in a positive light for once.

One of my favorite pursuits is to read in a pot-luck fashion old forgotten books, unhindered by the chains of popular taste or commercial interest. I found Ioan Slavici's obscure The Lucky Mill (1881) randomly browsing on Internet Archive. It contains perhaps one of the scariest Transylvanian villains in literature--yet it was written before Dracula, by a native of Romania, and doesn't need supernatural vampires to work its magic. Next, I came across a harrowing Communist propaganda pamphlet from 1934 called "The Sonnenburg Torture Camp" which details early abuses by Nazi's, a warning no one heard thus reads hauntigly today. It was uploaded to Internet Archive from someones private collection. Lastly, I read Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! (1912) by Swedish author Selma Lagerlof, the story is not that good, but it is probably the book I'm most proud of this year because I paid for a microfiche scan from the Library of Congress, a surprisingly un-beuracratic exerience. It was one of only a handful of copies available anywhere in the world, and thus perhaps the rarest book I've ever read -- but no more, since I uploaded my copy to Internet Archive for anyone to freely download. The book was the basis of a famous silent film that influenced Ingmar Bergman, but the English translation is (or was) very rare.

I noticed a new genre or theme which I call "WWII Recluse Literature". During WWII (or 1930s and early 40s) there were a number of people, who for various reasons, intentionally or by necessity, turned their backs on Civilization and went alone into the Wilderness. While the rest of the world destroyed itself in conflict, they found solitude in nature and reflected on what it means to be truly "civilized". They lived off the land with native peoples, or alone, and on the run. Books in this genre include Seven Years in Tibet, The Sheltering Desert, Kabloona, Papillon, We Die Alone and Marshal South. There are more to be added as I discover, but The Sheltering Desert is one of my all-time favorite books, and an archetype of the genre.

I read some good fiction, each in its own way. My favorite is The Slave Girl by Ivo Andric because it's just beautifully done, but other top runners include Dog Boy for its gritty portrayal of going feral. Matterhorn for the same reason. The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, an epic Nordic voyage of discovery and personal growth. Jurassic Park for its creative power, and The African Queen for character growth and transcendence. Das Boot, a Germanic voyage to pure hell with no redeeming qualities, and The Long Ships another epic Nordic voyage. Classics this year included Gerard De Nerval's Sylvie, another French novel Madame Bovary in the new Davis trans, William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience in facsimile with the original watercolors (required!), The Count of Monte Cristo (ugh!) and The Metamorphosis (again).

Favorite new authors this year, who made me want to read everything they've written: Ivo Andric, William Dalrymple, Gerard De Nerval, Michael Lewis, J. Maarten Troost (anti-depressant) and David Grann.

Of 138 books, 76 were digital (Kindle, PDF, Internet Archive, Audio), the most digital I've ever read. Of those, 40 were audiobooks and 31 were read on a PC screen (not a digital reader). Only about 5 were read on a Kindle device, which I find cold and dreary. The real(?) books included 19 Advanced Review Copies (ARC) sent free by publishers in exchange for a review. That's it for 2010, 2011 will be starting with a 700pg monster historical Danish epic.

--Stephen Balbach, January 1, 2011

Books mentioned above reprinted below from `Cool Reading`.

The Lucky Mill

Ioan Slavici (1848-1925) was an important Romanian writer. A native of Transylvania, he was a founding father of the nation of Romania's native story-tellers, active during the period when Transylvania unified with Romania, in 1918, and earlier when Romania became independent of the Ottoman Empire in 1878. Unfortunately he chose the wrong side of history - a supporter of Germany during WWI and a virulent anti-Semite - his reputation never recovered in the post-war years when he was ostracized by Romanian intellectuals. Today he is almost completely unknown in the English speaking world, which is not entirely surprising since most classic Romanian writers remain untranslated.

Slavici wrote many novels and short stories, but his best known, outside of Romania, is The Lucky Mill (1881), adapted to film in 1957 as "The Mill of Good Luck". It appears to be the only major work of his that has been translated into English, in 1919. I first came across it when a digital scan showed up on Internet Archive's daily new books feed, available here. I really enjoy discovering obscure writers by accident this way.

Like many of his stories, The Lucky Mill is about peasant life in remote mountainous regions of Transylvania, where the modern rule of law conflicts with ancient customs. "Big Men", or Chieftains, who manage roaming pig herds in the woods, rule over the local peasants with impunity, stealing and murdering. They are immune from the law, which exists for the benefit of the powerful (whom the Chieftains work for), while the peasants live by ancient codes of honor. It's the kind of story any poor person living today in Iraq or Afghanistan or Chechnya would immediately connect with, but is probably remote to modern readers living in a society governed securely by law. The story is effective at conveying the feeling of oppressive fear in ones own home, of being trapped and forced into a degrading situation and unable to do anything about it, with no one but yourself to protect your interests. The protagonists take on epic qualities, it is easy to forget they are men of little consequence and power beyond what they create by playing "the game". It's a glimpse into an old world, heroic and epic, oppressive and afraid. Overall I thought the story was atmospheric and well crafted, but at a loss for the translation which is stilted in the dialogue. It's not world-class literature, but very good regional. The evil character, a dashing Transylvanian swine herder, has a dark and brooding blood-lust, an animal sexuality, that gives the story punch, it's easy to see how Bram Stoker found inspiration in this part of the world for his most famous character.

The Sonnenburg Torture Camp

This harrowing pamphlet describes incidents of brutality by Nazi's inside the political prisoner camp Sonnenburg on the Polish frontier in 1933. It was written by an escaped prisoner and has everything we have since learned to expect from Nazi's: inhumane torture, cruelty, guards described as "brigands and adventurers", sadistic criminals. This call for help, published in the US in 1934 by a Communist group, is all the more harrowing knowing how history would unfold. The persecution of these few hundred Communist activists, so early on in the Nazi regime, would eventually engulf and mirror the experiences of millions. It is a dark prophecy, and a warning for our own era to never forget or discount human rights abuses.

Read via Internet Archive.

Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness!

When the famous Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman was asked what had influenced him the most, he did not hesitate about the 1922 silent film The Phantom Carriage directed by Victor S. He first saw it as a child, and watched it every year as an adult. Its influence can clearly be seen in his movies, in particular The Seventh Seal. The Phantom Carriage is today considered a classic among first generation films and is still widely watched, it was recently re-issued on DVD with a new soundtrack. Yet few people know this famous film which influenced one of the greatest directors of all time was based on an obscure little Swedish novel by Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlof. The novel is called Karlen (1912) and it remained untranslated into English until the release of the film in 1922, when it was published under the English title They Soul Shall Bear Witness!. The passage of time has done strange things to both novel and film.

At the time, film was considered a lesser art, or not even art at all, while literature was a well established high-art of prestige. Lagerlof hardly paid attention to Victor's request to film an adaption of her book and she was not involved with the script. Today, the film version has become an influential classic while the English version of the novel has become nearly extinct. No copies are available for sale anywhere in the world, and only four copies are known to exist in research libraries: Washington DC, London, Amsterdam and Sweden. I was able to access a digital reproduction from the Library of Congress. It's probably the rarest book I've ever read, yet written by a Nobel-laureate and the basis of a famous film!

The story itself is quite spooky. As it turns out, the last person to die on New Years Eve is tasked by Death personified (complete with sickle and robe) to operate the "Death-Cart". The Death-Cart is a beaten-down horse-drawn carriage which travels the earth to pick up the souls of the dead and take them to heaven or hell. Time stops for the carriage and what seems like a year to the operator goes by in a second for the living. Sort of like how Santa Clause is able to visit every house in a single evening, the Death-Cart is able to pick up all the years dead souls. It's a dark, atmospheric, Gothic novel. The film captures it beautifully and has some cutting edge special effects using double exposure to create ghosts that can walk through walls and, famously, a carriage that rides under the ocean to pick up the souls of drowned seamen. It is a novel of redemption. Just like Scrooge in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a selfish man leads a vice-filled life and is taken on a ghostly tour by Death to see the fruits of his sins. He repents, promises to reform, and is given grace emerging a changed and better man.

This is the 4th book I've read by Lagerlof. It received mixed reviews, some calling it great, others not so good. It would be easy to make a case either way. I recommend it for the fan of Lagerlof, the film or Bergman. It's an interesting case of one art form trumping the other in spectacular fashion: the novel has become the dead soul which the film has returned to pick up and deposit.. in heaven or hell.

I've uploaded the copy I obtained from the Library of Congress to Internet Archive. Rare no more.

The Sheltering Desert

The Sheltering Desert (1957) is a fantastic African travel/adventure book, I loved every aspect of it. Two German scientists escape into the Namib Desert to avoid incarceration by the British at the start of World War II. They survive like Robinson Crusoe for 2.5 years in a landscape of harsh beauty and danger. Everything they need they learn how to make from scratch. Like Bushmen they revert to a primitive but naturally ideal state as each day is a struggle for water, food, shelter and safety from other predators. At night, from the safety of a cave eating the days kill, they philosophize on big questions such as the merits of civilization versus hunter gatherers, the nature of evolution, all the while listening to the progress of WWII on a radio. They become highly attuned to the thoughts, emotions and habits of animals around them. For the reader armed with a map of Namibia, it's a total immersion into a place where some of the oldest humans have existed, the next best thing to going there in person, or returning in spirit. For some reason the book is well known in Namibia, most modern travel guide books mention it, but it's completely unknown outside that context. I would put it nearly on-par with contemporary classics like Kon-Tiki and Seven Years in Tibet as a work of outdoor literature, for its mix of adventure, danger, natural description and exotic locale.

The 1958 English translation appears to be in the public domain, there is no copyright renewal registration for it. Internet Archive has a copy of The Sheltering Desert online free in various formats. A German publisher has it in print, and there are some (rather exspensive) used copies on the market. There was also a film version made in 1992, but does not appear to have made it to VHS/DVD (if you have a copy, pls contact me!)

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

There is a divide in America, often called "Red State/Blue State" or simply Republican/Democrat. What is it, and how did it come about? Nixonland is a detailed re-telling of the political and social history of America between 1965 and 1972, when the divide, as we currently know it today, first emerged. As someone who didn't have the pleasure of living through the sixties, but who is heir to the era and its events, this book has been an amazing revelation. The divide continues to this day and everything can be traced back to these stormy 7 years.

Perstein's narrative technique and skill is enthralling and often humorous, he can go on for pages on a particular topic that would stand alone as a classic essay on the topic under discussion. The books is full of these, too many to recount, but some of my favorites include: Watts Riots (p.3-19); The Summer of Love (p.185+); Newark Riots (p.190-194); about the film Bonnie and Clyde (p.208); protest at the Pentagon (p.214+); Columbia University and the SDS (p.263); Democrat National Convention in Chicago (p.289-327); Cornell University protests (p.374+); Berkley protests (p.382+); Nixon and Patton (p.472); Kent State (p.479-495); Nixon and Billy Graham (p.500+); George Wallace assassination (p.660-665); Jane Fonda's Vietnam visit (p.703+); Republican National Convention 1972 (p.712-719).

Perlstein's main thesis is that after WWII and the material success of the 1950's, the Liberal left believed it had won 40+ years of fighting for the rights of the downtrodden - the middle class had emerged triumphant and most people in America had substantially better standards of living. This moment of "liberal consensus" (an illusionary one Perlstein believes) saw the creation of a new divide, one characterized by, although not created by, the personality of Nixon. This new divide was about who would control the country - the "elite" cosmopolitan liberal educated professional class - or the "silent majority", suburban/rural patriotic religious middle classes. Nixon's genius was to recognize this divide at the core and continually drive a wedge through it, to be the hero of the Silent Majority while demonizing the Loud Minorities. The arguments over Nixon, pro and con, gave us the language for this war, and it has not ended yet. Welcome to Nixonland.

Murder in the High Himalaya: Loyalty, Tragedy, and the Escape from Tibet

In 2006 a video began circulating on YouTube showing Tibetan refugee's escaping across the border into Nepal while being fired upon by Chinese army goons. In the distance a lone figure falls dead on the mountain. This became known as the Nangpa La shooting, which is the story behind investigative journalist Jonathan Green's book Murder in the High Himalaya. It seems like a minor incident now, but Green draws in many facets and people to build a gripping and important contemporary story about Tibet, and a very personal profile of exactly what "human rights abuse" means.

Green begins with a brief introduction to the history of Tibet and the Chinese occupation in 1950. He then threads a braided human interest narrative about two main characters: Kelsang Namtso, the 17-year old girl murdered on the mountain; and Luis Benitez, an American mountain climber who witnessed it and whose life would be changed forever. Each chapter switches back and forth between the two, moving forward in time until their paths finally cross that fateful day. It reads like a novel. The book then moves forward from the incident showing how it effected everyone involved.

I don't like to use the Nazi analogy, but its true, Tibet today is like occupied Europe under the Nazis. Not Western Europe, but Eastern Europe, where things were much tougher. It makes for thrilling if not chilling reading with late-night escapes, dogs, searchlights and check-points. Sadistic guards, torture, bribes, safe houses, underground railroads, etc.. it's all real and happening today. Green's book is one of the few reliable accounts since the wall of secrecy and Tibetan culture still keep most people silent.

Murder changed how I view Tibet, its clearly a very bad situation. As well it changed how I see wealthy mountain climbers who hoard the peaks every year in feats of egoistic bravo, while at their feet Tibetans are trying to escape to freedom and being shot. It makes climbing Everest seem somewhat banal and anti-climatic and strips it of its romanticism. The true story of Tibet is clearly not good business for China, or mountain climbing companies, all of whom collaborate to keep silent. The book is full of pseudonyms, people are afraid of being ostracized for speaking out, either from the tight-nit climbing community or by Chinese authorities. The book has been optioned to be made into a film for release in 2012, hopefully this powerful story will reach a wide audience.

This Borrowed Earth

The timing of Hernan's book is in perfect sync with the ongoing British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The format is simple: 15 chapters retelling 15 best known environmental disasters. Most of them I had heard of, a few were new, but none did I know the full story. Environmental disasters can take 20 or more years to play out as health impacts and law suits work through the system, so the book provides recent updates even to old affairs like Love Canal. If you were alive when these disasters happened, and followed the news, like with the current BP oil spill, you have a mental picture of the story. However for the younger of us, we've only heard about these disasters in bits and pieces and don't have a full story - this book solves that problem nicely, like watching a Frontline episode.

The 15 disasters:

Minamata, Japan, 1950s
London, England, 1952
Windscale, England, 1957
Seveso, Italy, 1976
Love Canal, New York, 1978
Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, 1979
Times Beach, Missouri, 1982
Bhopal, India, 1984
Chernobyl, Ukraine, 1986
Rhine River, Switzerland, 1986
Prince William Sound, Alaska, 1989
Oil Spills and Fires of Kuwait, 1991
Dassen and Robben Islands, South Africa, 2000
Brazilian Rainforest
Global Climate Change

The disasters I found most heartbreaking were Minamata, Japan because of the callous denial that went on for decades which destroyed nearly everyone involved. Love Canal, New York was similar, as was Times Beach, Missouri - the criminal negligence confounds belief. I was surprised that Bhopal, India was mostly the fault of inept Indian plant managers and not a US company, although they were ultimately responsible. Likewise with Exxon Valdez the captain wasn't even at the bridge when it grounded, unlike the image of a drunken sailor that surrounds him. There wasn't a disaster I didn't gain new perspective and learn something new, I highly recommend it for anyone living in our age of man-made catastrophe. Heroes, villains, triumphs and surprises fill every page.

I would normally give this book 4 stars but have added a rare (for me) extra half star because the quality of the writing is so good. It's the kind of writing I wish I could do. It's not stylistic, but simple, clear, compelling and free of politics. Also the events retold here will still be remembered 50 years from now, combined with the prose, it will remain fresh and readable for generations.

China Road

China Road (2007) is a remarkably insightful travel memoir. As Gifford traveled the length of National Road 312 from east to west, he compares it to American Route 66 of the early 20th century, where migrants traveled to the promises of California. In China's case it's Shanghai. Unlike many travel writers, Gifford didn't helicopter in for a 14-day trip for the purpose of writing a book, rather he studied China in school, speaks the language, and lived there for 6 years as a reporter, his insights are deep and well informed from experience.

China is so vast it is hard to contemplate. As I zoomed in with a gods-eyed view using Google Earth, following Gifford's trek along Route 312, I saw how every square mile of China is densely populated, an ocean of peasants and farmland. Referring to it as a country in the way we speak of Mexico or England is deceiving, it has more people than all of the 40+ countries in Europe PLUS all the countries in South America combined. In terms of people it is a large continent, yet operates as a single nation. In the end Gifford has a somewhat pessimistic view about China's future. The next 10-20 years will be key as a new generation born post-1960 take charge. Will they be able to maintain growth (peace) while allowing for more individual freedom, all the while holding a vast population together as a single nation? There are many contradictions. China Road is a great book on many levels and highly recommend, in particular in combination with Google Earth, both of which have totally changed my perceptions about China, although as Gifford says, anyone who says they understand China does not understand China - it is a dynamic place that constantly rewards new study and learning.

Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery

Five-hundred years ago in North America, at about the time of Columbus' arrival, the flora and fauna was very different from today. Using reports from early European explorers and colonizers, Steve Nicholls has been able to piece together a picture of former wealth that is almost unbelievable in abundance. Maybe you've heard of stories of buffalo herds that stretch as far as the eye can see, pigeon flocks that blotted out the sun for hours, or cod fish schools so thick they stopped boats from sailing. These stories and many others Nicholls describes with cinematic quality. This vision of past natural abundance is both amazing and sad, sad because it's now mostly all gone. Whatever natural world that still exists in North America, seemingly rich and abundant, is really a mere scrap of a former paradise. Our perspective in time, limited by short lifespans, gives a false sense of abundance compared to actual historical levels. The United States once had great natural wealth, but most people don't even it's now mostly gone. Nicholls shows what is was once like. Paradise Found is a long book and I found it somewhat emotionally hard going at times, in the way holocaust books are difficult, but I am glad to have read it and now understand how things used to be. Ignorance of the past is a sort of false paradise.

The Slave Girl and Other Stories About Women (Central European Press Classics)

Ivo Andric won the Nobel in 1961 for his stories about Bosnia. He is most famous for the novel The Bridge on the Drina, which for most readers is the main Andric experience. Yet, according to the Introduction in this volume, Andric was foremost a short-story writer and not a novelist. His novels are constructed as collections of stories, weaved together to form a whole (except for The Woman from Sarajevo which is his one work most like a traditional novel). So to fully appreciate Andric, you have to know he was a prolific short-story writer who published 6 volumes of short stories (compared with 5 novels), most of which have never been translated into English. Only in 2009 was a second collection of stories translated and published, by Central European Press under review here, using as theme those stories that have a woman as a central character. It's a hugely generous volume at over 535 pages, footnotes and glossary, two introductions (one at over 20 pages is equal to anything in a Oxford or Penguin edition). There are 22 stories total, 2 of which are 100 page novellas. Ten of the stories I think are classics and easily stand up to anything by Tolstoy or Thomas Mann, two authors he is commonly compared to. The quality of the stories, exotic setting and writing blew me away. This is a great and unexpected find, it is my first Andric and I plan to continue reading more of his "wisdom literature".

Andric mostly writes about small provincial mountain villages, kasabas, in Turkish Bosnia during the 19th century. The mixture of Christian and Muslim is well known to modern readers who have followed the wars in the Balkans in the late 20th century, here we have a taste of the origins of those conflicts. The pre-industrial rugged and colorful beauty of the landscape, dress, manners, food, etc.. are reflected in the stories of the people. Andric has a whiff of ancient tales, like old people recounting the stories of evil deeds from times past as a warning to the young (Kyser Soze!). Yet they are not moralizing. They tell how things happened with no clear answer why. Andric tells the events of what people do, but does not try to determine why, he doesn't psychologically analyze, and so people do things for no clear reason, which is really how life is. Andric is focused on what people do, and the consequences of those actions on other people around them. The cause seems to be self-evident in the texture of the background - the geography, the customs, history and political events, human foibles. It's really a simple approach, ancient in style, akin to verbal storytelling such as fairy-tales, but Andric raises it to timeless literature.

To help me remember these stories, I wrote short plot summaries of my favorites which can be read here if so interested.

Dog Boy

The twin brothers Romulus and Remus, raised by a she-wolf, were the founders of Rome. Mowgli was the hero of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. Tarzan was "King of the Jungle." Stories of feral children raised by animals have a long tradition. We are fascinated by the freedom it promises, stories of survival, man in a perfect Rousseauian natural state, but we are also repelled by the grotesque behavior and unsanitary conditions of going "feral". Such as it is with Australian author Eva Hornung in Dog Boy, a realistic recreation of the true story of 4-year old Ivan Mishukov, who lived with a pack of wild dogs in Moscow for two years, surviving winters of -20 degrees with no heat or cooked food. Although a fictionalized treatment, it probably goes further at achieving the truth. We learn intimate details of living as a wild dog: the sense of existing in the moment from one meal to the next, of the dangers from "Strangers" (foreign dogs outside the pack), marking territory, play, social hierarchies, mating and birthing behaviors, smell and memory. This is not a "talking animals" novel, it is not Watership Down, the dogs and people all act in recognizably realistic ways, it is not a fable like Animal Farm. By the novels end you have become like a dog, thinking and acting appropriately, the world of dogs opened. For that reason alone it's a great book for dog owners or anyone wishing to better understand animal human relations. It also implicitly questions mans superiority over animals. A great read for anyone curious about feral children, the wild dogs of Moscow or animal/human relations.

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (1906-7) by Swedish Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlof is one of the most popular children's books from Sweden (along with Pippi Longstocking). It has been translated into over 40 languages, plus films and animations. As a testament to its popularity, the Swedish 20 krona banknote has a picture of Lagerlof on the front, and Nils on the back; and the Swedish national children's book award was named the Nils Holgersson Award, established in 1950.

Lagerlof wrote the book at the request of the Swedish National Teacher's Society, as a school book; but rather than a dry geography text, she wrote an entertaining literary story, modeled after Rudyard Kipling's animal tales. It's been required reading in Swedish schools ever since, many children and adults read it for pleasure. A short literary history of the novel can be read at the Atlas of Sweden.

Nils is a 14-year old boy who is lazy and disobedient. When his parents leave him home alone, an elf chastises him for his misbehaviour by turning him into a tiny vulnerable imp. The smaller Nils has one new power, he can understand the language of the animals. Befriended by a flock of wild geese, he flys northward over Sweden into Lapland and back again in a series of adventures. From the air they can see a large part of Sweden and thus Lagerlof is able to include a lot of historical and geographical material into the story. Each chapter is a mini story, often a retelling of a fairy tale or myth with Nils and his animals as the protagonists. The stories weave with characters re-appearing in later episodes. Nils learns about compassion, justice and respect of nature and returns home a better person. It is ultimately an optimistic book and beloved by many. It's a long book and even though the English translation has already been slightly abridged it could be abridged further. But it leaves a strong impression and has an epic quality, it is easy to see why it is so popular.

The LibriVox recording by Lars Rolander is a perfect retelling. It is both volumes.

The African Queen

The African Queen is about a trip down a river, but it also an inner journey of growth. The main characters begin the novel somewhat oppressed - she by her domineering brother who wouldn't let her ride in cars, punished with the "silent treatment", unable to appreciate the world. He is so accustomed to doing what other people say, he becomes easily cowered into a hopeless venture. Brought together on board the boat African Queen (a noble name), they grow and become more self-assured as they overcome adversity. Dormant feelings rise to the surface: pride, manhood, womanhood, honor. Ultimately the intended quest is never achieved. Yet, they have achieved something greater, nobility where there was once compliance, and initiative where there was once insecurity. If only for trying, success can be found in ways never imagined.

Das Boot

Das Boot (German, 1973) portrays a German U-Boat during the second half of 1941 at the height of the campaign; by 1943 U-Boats would cease to be a serious threat to Allied shipping. The crew is shown in more humanistic rather than propagandist terms, the German Captain is ambivalent about the Nazi's and Hitler, the only thing the crew thinks about repeatedly are whores and sex. Bad smells, soiled clothing, wild facial hair, mold and claustrophobia are central actors. The juxtaposition of old whores and ships being blown up is effective, the banal vulgar details make the fighting scenes all the more real, and frightening. The ending is unfortunately melodramatic, but it's satisfying in a 19th century literary way. Buchheim wanted an anti-war novel that didn't glorify or mystify the German military, and from that perspective the ending makes sense, in the same way All Quite on the Western Front ends.

Since Buchheim actually served on a U-Boat during WWII, the novels verisimilitude is striking, many consider it to be the most authentic submarine novel ever written. This was re-enforced by the 1981 film version, which showed the technology of a U-Boat with great accuracy, although Buchheim criticized the Hollywood plot and hysterical acting as being overdone and cliche. He saw the film as "another re-glorification and re-mystification" of German heroism and nationalism. If you've seen the film, read the novel for a more sober and realistic look.

Sylvie

Gerard de Nerval (1808-1855) was a French Romanticist and insane Parisian Bohemian, he (in)famously walked around with a pet lobster on a leash of blue silk ribbon. He was friends and collaborator with the Romantic era A-list, including Victor Hugo, Dumas etc.. but he never found monetary success and gave up early, hanging himself to death from a Latin Quarter street banister after a series of mental breakdowns. Yet not before writing what some consider the best French romantic poetry and prose of the era, including a hashish-filled travel book to the "Orient". His life-story reminds me of Syd Barret, a crazy diamond; or perhaps William Foster Wallace. He was a man of his times who took his art beyond the safety margins.

Sylvie is a novella that Marcel Proust called a "masterpiece". Umberto Eco spent three years studying it at University and read it continuously from youth. Harold Bloom included it in his The Western Canon (1994).

It's a lyrical piece with strong Romantic elements and, amazingly for its age, proto-modernistic symbolism. Grecian allusions, Medieval landscapes, Renaissance paintings come alive. Bring your historical dictionary. It concerns love lost, namely how an un-named narrator recounts when he was a younger man and managed to screw up three opportunities to obtain three woman. The women can be seen as allegorical of course and the work takes place on multiple levels, from the romantic to the literal to the psychological to the historical. It's one reason so many very smart people have been taken in by its charms as you can keep reading it over and over. It's also just a nice story on the surface that is universal, an older man looking back at youthful loves lost, told in a charming way with exotic settings.

There are a lot of translations around, I read an old one from the 19th century (intro by Andrew Lang), which in some ways better captured the lyricism and period flavor lost in some newer ones, but was also more difficult to follow the storyline. If your willing to read it slowly and carefully I think it's a good (and cheap) option, but Penguin Classics also has a newer translation (among others), and there is one from 1922 that is freely online.

Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea

Adrift is notable because it was written by an American born post-World War II, 1952 to be exact, and the incident occurred in recent times, early 1980s. There have been older, longer and more epic castaway stories, and contrary to the publishers blurb it is not the longest survival alone at sea. It struck a chord because it happened recently, to an American Baby Boomer, making the New York Times Bestseller List for 30 some weeks. National Geographic honored it as #67 on its list of all-time greatest outdoor/adventure stories. I have yet to read a dud from the list and this is another good one.

The writing is occasionally cliche and repetitive, some of the descriptions difficult to visualize, the emotions at times piled on to over-effect. Yet we do feel as if we are there, the little details add up to a whole experience and give one a sense of the hunger, physical toil and fears of being aboard an inflatable life raft. The back-story aspect is weak, he was basically just vagabonding around; the after-story is one of capitalizing on his experience.

Some memorable experiences include a sense of vertigo with the only thing separating Steven and a 5000 feet fall to the bottom a thin rubber sheet, as items dropped overboard spiral out of site on a long journey downward. The image of his legs pushing through the rubber bottom into which sharks and fish crash. Eating raw fish eyeballs, cracking spinal bones, livers and the contents of fish stomachs. It's all very "rubbery" as he struggles to heal gashes in the rubber flooring while working to tear open fish and chew them raw while slipping and sliding inside the lifeboat. The heightened senses on reaching land where everything seemed ultra-real, and solid.

The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antartic Expedition in the "Fram", 1910-12

The South Pole (1912) is Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen's account of the first expedition to reach the South Pole and plant the "giant nail". He is most famous today as the foil or contrast to British explorer Robert F. Scott who died attempting the same journey at about the same time in a sort of "race for the pole". Much more has been written and sung about Scott whose story is very dramatic, while Amundsen's comparatively uneventful trip has mostly been forgotten. This is a shame because Amundsen is a model of preparedness, on how to do things correctly. It lacks the tragic aspect of Scott, but it has a secure feeling of confidence in the face of adversity, of a well made plan executed perfectly. After reading so many tragic Arctic and Antarctic explorer stories - Scott and Shackleton and Franklin etc. - what a delight to read about one that went well, no one died (or came close to dieing), and the goal was achieved.

As a literary work Amundsen's account is pretty good, it is vivid and never really bogs down in repetitive detail. Chapter 8, "A Day At Framheim" is particularly good. The snow-tunnel fortress will forever live in my memory. The sauna, the "crystal palace", the smell of American pancakes. The descriptions of the dogs are excellent.

If there is criticism, it is that Amundsen is somewhat aniseptic in washing out anything that would make him or the expedition look bad. As we learn in The Last Place on Earth, there was a serious problem between Amundsen and Johanseen (which eventually led to Johanseen's suicide in 1913), but it is completely excised from the book. One wonders what else was left out.

I read the book using two excellent sources. The original edition is available as a scanned PDF, which includes numerous maps and photographs that are indispensable. There is also a LibriVox audio-book version, from which I found certain chapters to be enjoyable read aloud.

The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857

This is a remarkable history. I knew almost nothing about the 1857 revolt in India and so wanted an introductory narrative account as background before I read J.G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur (Booker Prize 1973), but I think The Last Mughal may end up leaving a more lasting impression. It's every bit as dramatic as fiction, all true, all the more tragic. Dalrymple's style has been compared to Edward Gibbon -- a mixed compliment for a 21st century author -- but I think he does combine modern scholarship with the best of old school narrative non-fiction that made Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire such a remarkable work of literature. Dalrymple's style and technique brings back something that is often lost in modern history writing. The extreme characters, crazy events and exotic times are dramatic, and Dalrymple knows how to let the sources speak to effect without editorializing. By focusing on a single city and a single year, and with access to veritable library of primary source documents rarely seen before in western accounts, Dalrymple has created a richly detailed and riveting narrative about the Indian Mutiny that still has relevance today in shaping perception about that part of the world.

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Wow I loved this book. The mortgage crisis that began in 2007 (the "Great Recession") was only correctly foreseen by about 20 investors around the world. Who were they? Herein we learn about these unlikely characters, outsiders and misfits who saw the world was about to end and no one believed them. They walked away with fortunes by betting correctly against the market ("shorting"). It's larger than life, reality better than fiction. It's also a primer on what went wrong and why, an education in high finance that is entertaining, a rare combination. This book got me interested in finance and investing again after 3 years of being disgusted with the whole thing, now I have a much better understand of what happened and what to avoid in the future (investment firms, big banks, complex securities and most people from Wall Street).

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes (2010) is a collection of 12 essays by New Yorker staff writer David Grann. The essays were previously published between 2000 and 2009 in The New Yorker (9), The New York Times Magazine (1), The New Republic (1) and The Atlantic (1). It is a sort of "best of" of David Grann, and oh how good it is. He is one my favorite authors. Although best known for The Lost City of Z (2009), I think this is the better book, Grann is at his best with the essay. There is not a dud in the dozen, each is as richly told as a novel, a marvel of economy and imaginative space. Partly it is Grann's skill as writer, but largely it is his ability to find fascinating stories of people living outrageously interesting lives, and to get the people to tell their story. To give some idea how good these stories are, 3 of them have already been optioned to be made into films (not including Lost City which makes 4 Grann films currently in the works), and 5 of them previously collected in other "Best Of" book anthologies. If you've never read Grann before this represents a decade of his best work, I recommend it highly. See also the Wikipedia article for the book, which includes links to the subjects of the articles with the latest news and updates.

The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm

Generational theory has become widespread in America, most famously pioneered by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It is common with marketing consultants, since GT can predict trends, there is a lot of money to be made with the right call. Gronbach is a seasoned marketing consultant. His version of GT is based on Demographics. Everything can be explained by one simple fact: each generation is of different size, some smaller and others bigger. This creates waves in the marketplace, for example with 20 year cycles of big numbers of 18-26 year old males followed, by 20 year cycles of small numbers of the same age group. These demographic waves create and destroy markets, for example motorcycles. It's a very simple yet powerful observation that has a lot of application.

Strauss and Howe on the other hand not only describe the generations, but explain them with complicated personality characteristics loaded with value judgments akin to generational warfare. Gronbach tosses all that aside and simply looks only at the demographic size of each generation, which in many cases is enough to explain things. Generation X, which has been much maligned for a long time, only real fault is it's small size which means it has been unable to participate in society at the same level as its predecessor, the Baby Boomers. Thus the "slacker" tag.

I learned a lot from this breezy and captivating book, but there were so many questions and seeming contradictions I wish it had gone into more depth. Gronbach wears his personal politics openly and they usually fall on the side of conservatism ie. he suggests now would be a good time to "solve" the Middle East problem, namely Iran, with military measures, because of the large number of young people in Generation Y. But also fairly he takes a liberal view towards other issues like immigration. Who knew that 50% of all live births in the US are to Latino's! We would be sinking without them. He also forecasts China's economy will stall because of its 1-child policy (so much for the rise of China).

One thing I would caution about this book. Gronbach is using a "common sense" approach with a very simple tool to explain very complex phenomenon - this can be dangerous, as the world is much more complex. Still, it may be macro enough to get general trends correct some of the time, although more so in hindsight. Gronbach doesn't look at or explain things that are contrary to his theory. Gronbach is an evangelizer and visionary, the book is a manifesto, what's needed next is someone to do the hard research to see how well the theory really works.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life and Death

A beautiful memoir about paralysis and hospital life. I recently spent 6 weeks in a hospital with paraplegia and thus have an intimate sense of what paralysis is like. The useless limbs except as a source of pain, the limbs which hurt but could not tell if they are hot or cold, the empty Sundays, the staff you want to kill over small slights, etc.. obviously this book means a lot to me and is among those rare few "favorites of a lifetime". The movie is very good too, although dramatized with some material that is purely fictional, it provides a visual sense to fill in the details of the book. The writing though, that is what makes it more than just another memoir. The first four short chapters: Prologue, Wheelchair, Prayer and Bathtime - are classics which stand alone as models of writing. Some favorite sentences

"..these uncooperative deadweight limbs, which serve me only as a source of pain."
"..if the nervous system makes up its mind to start working again, it does so at the speed of hair growing from the base of the brain."
"But for now, I would be the happiest of men if I could just swallow the overflow of saliva that endlessly floods my mouth."
"If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere."