I suppose I should be grateful that
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and
Hiroshima are on
this list of "Around the World in 100 Books" at all, but that they're being beaten out by
Shogun and
Memoirs of a Geisha is rather disheartening.
ETA: Michael Crichton's
Congo is on the list. Oh, God. "But it has a country in the title!"
Actually, let's try to rectify this a bit.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is the allegedly true story of a teenage farmer's son in Malawi who brought electricity to his village using grit, scavenged refuse, and a grade-school science book forty years out of date. The author's experience is remarkable, particularly when contrasted against the tale of a famine sparked by drought and exacerbated by a corrupt government. Memorable not only for its portrait of a young genius determined not to let poverty cripple his education, but for its portrait of a nation of poor farmers uninsulated by technology or infrastructure from an unforgiving environment who are forced to use every bit of their ingenuity to survive - some who succeed, some who fail.
The populist in me rails at
Under the Tuscan Sun, the memoir of an extraordinarily rich American who buys an overpriced manor in Tuscany for renovation, but the suffusion of gorgeous prose and the tale's essential good-naturedness wins me over. Frances Mayes is privileged, but she here wants little more than to share the good times family and nature blessed her with in Tuscany - the sun-drenched walks amidst reams of wildflowers; the beautiful struggle to coexist with a home overgrown with an Eden of verdant life; the family Christmas shopping trip to a cozy Florence and the holiday dinners prepared with her children. Mayes has money, but she knows that nature, not man, is king in her part of Tuscany, and the pure sensualism in her words makes
Sun a unique love letter to the earth, the Mediterranean, and life. (The book is nothing like the paint-by-numbers rom-com movie.)
I've never been to Michigan, but enough folks have informed me that Lilian Jackson Braun's
The Cat Who... series and its little town of Pickax ("400 miles north of everywhere") are a reasonable enough simulacrum of upper peninsula life. Ostensibly a series of mysteries, the series thrives instead on its rich supporting cast and examination of the network of family ties, traditions, and old wounds that knit the residents of an isolated and somewhat backward northern town into one large, albeit not always happy, family. Points for the lack of treacliness, something so many authors in the cozy genre overlook; the big-city reporter protag is as frustrated as he is pacified by the place, charmed by the quality of life and close personal connections yet frustrated by the inertia and insularity. Yet you wanna live there anyway.
Considering the love he gets, I'm surprised there isn't any Bill Bryson on the list.
I'm a Stranger Here Myself, besides being one of the funniest books I've read, is a lovingly wry and vibrant celebration of the U.S. in general through a hilarious series of essays that try to explain various curious aspects of the country to British newspaper readers. His defense of Thanksgiving, his junk-food binge after years of being stranded with disgustingly healthy English supermarkets, his rundown of U.S. holidays... "It's Presidents' Day. I know. I can barely stand the excitement either."
A Trip to the Beach is the most problematic title on this list, a tale of U.S. expats who decide to live their dream and try to make it as upscale restaurateurs in the Caribbean nation of Anguilla. The authors are extraordinarily unrealistic at times (they're disappointed the monthly rent for a seashore restaurant pad reaches in the OMG
high three digits) and have a frustrating lack of self-awareness regarding their ugly-American behavior. Yet Anguilla has a uniquely weird history, the troubles the authors face in restaurateuring are entertainingly oddball (ridiculous importing difficulties!) and dramatic (hurricanes!), and the tale's a weirdly satisfying combination of sweeping romantic fantasy in an island hideaway and kids-camping-in-the-backyard hey-we're-out-on-an-adventure with the cushioned protags trying to make it in their little outpost. The restaurant staff, though underappreciated by the authors, somewhat redeem their employers' rich-white-person POV; they insist on being well-rounded, true-to-life human beings whose stories help develop Anguilla into a real nation instead of a theme park.
.