Tropics' 2013 Challenge.

Whereas I had planned to read 25 books from my shelves, I managed just 15, out of a total of 44 books read, which was six below my goal of 50. During the year I tried to post a review of each book read, which I will continue to do. I tend to be distracted by magazines, such as The New Yorker, Smithsonian, The Economist, National Geographic - and of course I spend an inordinate amount of time peering over the shoulders of LibraryThing's readership. So inspiring!

1. The Writing Life - Annie Dillard

The author's acclaimed book Pilgrim At Tinker Creek has for decades remained unread on one of my shelves, although from time to time I find myself stumbling upon reviews of her body of work. Will I ever read it? Don't know. Many years ago my husband and I lived in the woods beside a creek. A lot happened there. Erosion from clearcutting of the watershed above us proved disastrous.

Reviewers have commented on Dillard's lengthy struggle with the "red in tooth and claw" aspect of nature. "Theodicy" has been defined as a defense of God's goodness despite the existence of suffering and evil. As an atheist, I feel no need to blame or absolve.

The Writing Life is short, just 111 pages, which for me is a relief, due to its bleakness and intensity.

"I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend."

"A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days."

"Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients."

"Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading, that is a good life."

"Examine all things relentlessly."

"Why are we reading if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mysteries probed?"

Interesting. I must admit I've never heard of the author. Sounds as if The Writing Life should best be read on a glorious summer day with birds singing in the sky, however.:)

2. What The Dog Saw - Malcolm Gladwell

Judging by his continuing popularity (recently seen being interviewed on The Colbert Report) Malcolm Gladwell has an amazing ability to capture our interest. And to rethink what are often erroneous assumptions about, well, just about everything. Such as the anticipated behavior of different breeds of dogs, the overrated capabilities of highly educated financiers, the limited success rates of FBI criminal profilers, our popular (and erroneous) attitudes about risk taking, etc. Here one can read fascinating profiles of some of America's surprising (and not so surprising) success stories - Nassim Taleb (author of The Black Swan), Cesar Millan's Dog Psychology Center and star of National Geographic Channel's "The Dog Whisperer", and "late bloomer" author Ben Fountain.

3. The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out - Richard Feynman

A collection of speeches, articles, interviews, and lectures by this famous physicist who died in 1988. He is best known for the role he played in the development of the atomic bomb during World War Two. In 1965 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his research in quantum electrodynamics.

"Science is all about testing and doubting."

"The world looks different after learning science."

"To not know mathematics is a severe limitation to understanding the world."

"I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose."

"Look to see what is true and what may or may not be true."

"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything."

"Social problems are very much harder than scientific ones."

"There have been enormous monstrosities created by false belief."

"Learn to doubt the experts."

"If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar."

"People ignore what is invalid about their beliefs.".............."It is important to learn how not to fool ourselves."

"Is this era of humanity its impetuous youth?"

4. See Ouarzazate And Die: Travels Through Morocco - Sylvia Kennedy

Retrieved from one of my bounteous shelves, as this is the year that I want to focus upon reading books that I already own.

The author is a seasoned Moroccan traveler in the "rough" mode. Somewhere in the book mention is made that she has visited that country eleven times. As the book was published in 1992, I would suspect that the number has risen. The contents are divided into three sections, "Travels En Famille", "Travels With A Blond", and "The Gulf Crisis".

In "Travels En Famille" (August-September 1990) she arrives in Marrakesh from London in the intense heat of August accompanied by her two- and three-year-old sons, a nanny, and a Japanese friend. Some readers would wonder, including me, is this a good idea? Especially since The Moroccan Tourist Board in London had firmly warned the author against taking young children inland for extended periods in 37-degree C. heat, at a time when cholera outbreaks are common. However, she has brought along a supply of pediatric-strength antibiotics and other medications as a precaution and we are told that the children thrived and adapted themselves well to the situation.

In "Travels With A Blond" (November 1990) she returns to Morocco with Sheila, a young blond friend (no mention of the children). Much of their time is spent in Tangier, although they also make several side trips.

In "The Gulf Crisis" (January-February 1991) the author flies to Tunis with her nine-year-old son, ignoring The Foreign Office's efforts to dissuade Brits from travel to the Middle East because of the U.S. and its NATO allies' attack on Iraq (related to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait).

It's been decades since I visited Morocco (1967) and recollections of my experiences there are still vivid. It remains by far the most "foreign" country experienced during my far-flung travels in the ensuing years.

Sylvia Kennedy succeeds in weaving past and present into a colorful, thought-provoking travel memoir. Of note, the Berber city Ouarzazate and its environs proved to be a disappointment to the author, but in checking the Web, I see that it has become a noted film-making location (most recently "Salmon Fishing In The Yemen").

5. The Daily Coyote: A Story Of Love, Survival, And Trust In The Wilds Of Wyoming - Shreve Stockton

"The jewels in this life are events we do not plan......................"

Quite unexpectedly, this adventurous young author is faced with the challenge of raising an orphaned 10-day-old coyote in a tiny cabin in Wyoming.

Not surprisingly, complications arise, but years later, the commitment continues:

http://www.dailycoyote.net/

6. The Working Poor: Invisible In America - David K. Shipler

Published in 2004, (and the situation is far more dire now, in 2013), this disturbing book reminds us that the much-hyped "American Dream" is just that, a dream, for millions of low wage employees trapped in dead end jobs. A combination of bad luck and poor choices made in adolescence in the absence of appropriate mentoring often result in a life ruined by chronic poverty, not only for oneself, but for one's offspring.

"Because the United States funds its schools largely through local property taxes, disparities between one school and the next are huge, and the poorest districts, which need the greatest services, cannot afford them".

"Poverty is like a bleeding wound. It weakens the defenses. It lowers resistance. It attracts predators. The loan sharks operate not only from bars and street corners, but also legally from behind bulletproof glass. Their beckoning signs are posted at some 10,000 locations across the country: "Payday Loans", "Quick Cash", "Easy Money". You see them in check-cashing joints and storefront offices in poor and working-class neighborhoods. They have organized themselves into at least a dozen national chains, and they charge fees equivalent to more than 500 percent annual interest."

7. An Empire Wilderness: Travels Into America's Future - Robert D. Kaplan

Written by a well-known journalist, this book is an excellent way to delve deeply into American history, past and present. Learn here about the contributions of post-Civil War Buffalo Soldiers, our agricultural reliance upon the Ogallala Reservoir, demographic shifts in the American heartland, and the recent "corporatization" of massive pig farms there.

Readers are offered insightful perspectives gleaned from several road, train and bus trips throughout the American (and Mexican) West that Robert Kaplan undertook in the mid-to-late 1990s, beginning in St. Louis, Missouri. Here he encountered one of the worst inner city slums in the country, sadly representative of the emptying out of many cities as American life became increasingly more suburban. As now (2013), unskilled manufacturing jobs no longer existed and much of physical labor no longer provided a living wage. Many members of the former middle class had already been left behind in the global economy. American manufacturers had conveniently relocated their factories to "maquiladoras" along the U.S./Mexican border, where they were able to exploit cheap labor.

Since this book's publication in 1998, the World Trade Center bombing in 2001 has led to a significant surge in militarization, the U.S. economy has been ravaged by the 2008 economic meltdown, and unemployment has become widespread, devastating many members of the middle class. Rapid changes in technology contribute to the unpredictable nature of opportunities for work.

Then, as now, "....it is far more cost-efficient to import the rest of the world's talent than to train citizens at home."

And is it true (and I fear that it is) that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve affects the lives of many more citizens than the President does?

8. Tribes With Flags: A Dangerous Passage Through The Chaos Of The Middle East - Charles Glass

With an unrelenting civil war currently raging in Syria, resulting in numerous deaths, fleeing refugees, and growing destabilization of surrounding countries, there could be no better time to read this instructive book, a lengthy, complicated historical account by a seasoned journalist who began his career in ABC News' Beirut bureau in 1973. His maternal Christian grandparents (Maronite Catholic and Greek Catholic) were born in Lebanon in the late 19th century, in the reign of the Ottoman Turks, and immigrated to California as young children. The author was born in California.

The Levant is a term used when referring to a region bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Borders of the various countries have changed over time, but today they encompass Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.

In the Spring of 1987, he set out on an investigative ramble from Alexandretta, Turkey, with the expectation that he would spend several months in this part of the world, retracing the steps of numerous travelers who had preceded him. His journey came to a violent and premature halt when he was kidnapped in Lebanon by what would prove to be Iranian-backed Shi'a militants. He managed to escape through a window after being held captive for 62 days.

9. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat - Oliver Sacks

A collection of brief case histories by this renowned physician and writer of unusual, debilitating neurological afflictions affecting judgment, the most important faculty that we possess. Hypochondriacs should probably avoid this book, especially if their concerns are neurologically related. Massive strokes, brain tumors, head injuries, birth defects - various potentially horrifying sequelae are described here. Imagine, if you will, the tragedy suffered by Christine, the 27-year-old young mother who developed severe sensory polyneuropathy during what would ordinarily have been a routine regimen of antibiotics prior to undergoing gallbladder surgery. Empathize with the family of Mr. P, the accomplished musician and painter, whose grip on reality was severely distorted when he developed visual agnosia, an inability to recognize faces. Be grateful that some sufferers of Tourette's Syndrome and Parkinson's Disease are obtaining some respite of their symptoms with recent pharmacological advances. Recognize that Korsakov's Syndrome, although a rare development in severe alcoholism, can destroy one's recent memory, forever imprisoning its victims in the past.

Appreciate that your brain cells are oscillating in a relatively normal manner.

10. Oaxaca Journal - Oliver Sacks

Published in 2002, this is an account of the author's botanical tour of Oaxaca, Mexico organized by The American Fern Society: http://amerfernsoc.org/index.html, of which he is a member. Oaxaca is home to more than 700 species of ferns, plants that existed 250 million years ago, long before the coming of flowers.

Although the topic of ferns is presented in an engaging manner, the reader is also taken with the author's wide-ranging perspectives on the co-evolution of flowering plants and insects, our reliance on nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and the supposed universal constants of hallucinatory images.

During breaks from fern study, the group visits several archeological sites, including the ancient ruins of Mitla and Monte Alban.

Surprisingly, given the author's well-documented extensive experimentation with hallucinogens, he states that he finds flowers "a little too much". He has a predilection for "the primitive". He describes himself as always having been a loner. "I have been single, a singleton, all my life".

Pine cones and fern fronds become more wondrous once one has been introduced to Fibonacci numbers.

11. An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales - Oliver Sacks

In his characteristic empathetic manner, famous neurologist Oliver Sacks studies seven individuals whose brains are "wired" in unusual ways, either through birth defects or trauma. He goes flying with Doctor Carl Bennett, a Canadian surgeon, who has achieved success in spite of what for others would be debilitating manifestations of tics associated with Tourette's Syndrome. He accompanies autistic Temple Grandin, a world famous animal behaviorist and animal rights advocate, to a slaughter house, the configuration of which she has designed with the animals' welfare in mind. He arranges to accompany Greg, amnesic and blinded by an enormous brain tumor, to a Grateful Dead Concert at Madison Square Gardens. He studies the case of Mr. I, an artist who abruptly became color blind following a car accident. He is consulted about Virgil , blind since birth, whose sight was surgically restored at age 50, with surprisingly complicating, unexpected, even tragic results. He accompanies the "Memory Artist" Franco Magnani to his childhood home in Pontito, Italy, which, while living in San Francisco, he has spent decades obsessively painting in minute detail from memory. He travels extensively with Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic savant who has acquired international fame as an artist.

12. The Paris Wife - Paula McLain

I rarely read fiction and would not have noticed this book had I not found it on the "donation"shelf of a small library visited during a recent tent camping/road trip in Colorado. "Chick-Lit", it would seem to some, but nevertheless the recipient of many glowing reviews. The author was apparently inspired by a rereading of Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, published posthumously in 1964, in which he wrote of Hadley "I wished I had died before I ever loved anyone but her".

Hadley Richardson was 29 years old when she married 21-year-old Ernest Hemingway, a marriage that would survive less than five years, complicated by the many distractions provided by the presence of other aspiring writers in 1920s bohemian Paris, by Hemingway's coterie of female admirers, by his prolonged periods of intense self-absorption while writing, and by the birth of their son, Jack, nicknamed Bumby, their only child.

Jack Hemingway, whose godparents were Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, died in 2000, so is unavailable for comment.

While reading the author's bio I learned that she has written a memoir entitled Like Family: Growing Up In Other People's Houses about how she and two of her sister grew up in a series of foster homes after being abandoned by both parents.

13. Thames: The Biography - Peter Ackroyd

Neolithic axes, Bronze Age weapons, Roman era artifacts, Viking swords, mysterious "drowned" forests, all have been discovered in the murky depths or on the shores of the Thames River. Ancient trees still shade its banks. Innumerable historians, novelists, and artists have aspired to reveal its secrets. Adults and children alike have been charmed by Mr. Toad, Ratty, Mole, Badger, and Otter portrayed in Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind In The Willows". We have grieved for the characters whose tortured lives are depicted in Charles Dickens' novels.

So much history.

The Thames is 215 miles long and navigable for 191 miles. It is crossed by 134 bridges. In 4000 B.C. the land through which it flows was 46 feet higher. South-east England is slowly sinking at the rate of approximately 12" per century. London is increasingly at risk of severe flooding. The Thames barrier, erected in 1982, protects the city from tidal surges, but is becoming ominously less effective.

The reader follows Peter Ackroyd, acclaimed author of London through centuries of change. Whereas as recently as 50 years ago the Thames was so grossly polluted as to be biologically dead, it is now regarded as the cleanest river in the world flowing through a major city.

14. A Hundred & One Days: A Baghdad Journal - Asne Seierstad

On December 18, 2011 the U.S. formally ended its military presence in Iraq. Initiated by the George W. Bush administration, a coalition invasion force led by the American military had entered the country on March 20th, 2003, ostensibly because of a regional threat posed by Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. During the occupation Hussein was captured by American forces, tried in an Iraqi court of law and executed by the new Iraqi government in 2006.

This seasoned young Norwegian journalist's coverage of the prelude to war and its immediate aftermath took place from January until April 2003, long before most of us could have imagined the horrifying extent of bloodshed and destruction that would ensue.

Today one is hard-pressed to find American news coverage of ongoing events in Iraq, despite continuing strife between various Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions. Car bombings directed at both Sunni and Shiite mosques are a common occurrence. There is no peace.

I read Seierstad's account years ago and was fascinated and appalled. Her account of life in Afghanistan under the Taliban (the Bookseller of Kabul) is equally intriguing - worth finding if you can. I've got a copy of her account of the Balkans on my TBR pile.

#17 Imyril: I did read The Bookseller Of Kabul and was intrigued by details of the law suit brought against her:

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2012/03/12/author-wins-over-afghan-subject/

#18 How interesting - another layer / perspective on cultural difference above and beyond the book itself!

15. Scoop - Evelyn Waugh

In the 1930s William Boot, a quiet-spoken nature columnist for a British newspaper, The Beast, is accidentally sent to the African country of Ishmaelia to cover what is erroneously believed to be a hostile takeover of the government there. Its capital, Jacksonburg, throbs with intrigue as competing international journalists search ineffectually for "scoops". Hilarious mayhem ensues.

16. A Rope And A Prayer: A Kidnapping From Two Sides - David Rohde and Kristen Mulvihill

In 2008 New York Times correspondent David Rohde, together with his driver, Asad Mangal, and Tahir Luddin, an Afghan journalist, were kidnapped by members of the Taliban after arranging to interview a Taliban commander at a prearranged location south of Kabul. During the ensuing seven months they were subjected to the dangerous whims of their jihad-waging captors and moved from place to place, mostly in North and South Waziristan within the borders of Pakistan, where the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network prevails.

No ransom was ever paid. David and Tahir managed to escape while being held in the town of Miran Shah and found refuge at a nearby Pakistani military base.

Alternating chapters in the book are written by the author's wife, at home in New York, making every effort to secure her husband's relief with the aid of such luminaries as Richard Holbrooke, Hilary Clinton, and Condi Rice.

The book provides an excellent historical review of the blowback which has occurred since the U.S. naively and counter-productively set out to sabotage the Soviet Union's incursions into Afghanistan.

17. Beyond The Last Village: A Journey Of Discovery In Asia's Forbidden Wilderness - Alan Rabinowitz

I first became aware of this now-famous author and scientist in 1986, when I read the recently published Jaguar: Struggle And Triumph In The Jungles Of Belize. Soon thereafter my husband and I were privileged to visit the newly established Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary & Jaguar Preserve in southern Belize.

In later years Doctor Rabinowitz was instrumental in helping to establish The Tawa Mountain Nature Reserve in Taiwan, and the Lampi Island Marine National Park in Myanmar.

The author has an M.S. in Zoology and a PhD in Wildlife Ecology. He is currently the CEO of Panthera, an organization dedicated to saving the world's cat species. For thirty years he served as Executive Director of The Science & Exploration Division for the Wildlife Conservation Society.

This book describes his ultimately successful efforts, undertaken in the early 1990s, to convince the government of Myanmar to establish Hkakabo Razi National Park in the northern part of the country, where tropical rain forests and the south-east edge of the Himalayas join.

During lengthy, difficult explorations of this region, the author and his team encountered small groups of indigenous people whose impoverished lives were inextricably bound with endangered wildlife. Visiting Chinese traders exploited the villagers by plying them with salt and other essentials in exchange for the skins and organs of rare wildlife (deer fetuses, etc.), which continue to be used in traditional Chinese medicine.

In addition to be deeply touched by the plight of both animals and native people (especially the Taron), I was also impressed by the author's ability to chronicle the history of Myanmar and by his willingness to describe his personal struggle with a severe stutter in childhood which precluded normal interactions with others, and which (fatefully) resulted in his forming close bonds with animals.

Additional habitat became protected in Myanmar in 2001, when the Ministry Of Forestry, acting on a proposal, declared an uninhabited 2,494-square-mile area as Hukaung Wildlife Sanctuary, a vitally important watershed.

18. Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight - Alexandra Fuller

Having recently read the author's Cocktail Hour Under The Tree Of Forgetfulness, I felt compelled to revisit her first memoir, which I discovered in 2003, the details of which have continued to haunt me. Her absorbing account of this white family's travails in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi force the reader to contemplate the basic unfairness of life in these countries - the native tribalism, the centuries of colonial thievery and presumed entitlement, the appalling heat and disease, the widespread corruption, poverty, displacement and loss.

19. Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice For All Creation: The Definitive Guide To The Evolutionary Biology Of Sex - Olivia Judson

Nothing could be more complicated than sexual reproduction, it would seem, but the author, an evolutionary biologist, attempts to simplify matters in a clever and engaging way - writing an advice column for troubled insects, birds, and animals. I consider her wildly successful.