Short book reviews

During my 4 weeks in Cote d’Ivoire I finished 6 books.  Combined with 3 New Yorkers, an Africa Business and an Economist, I think it’s safe to say I did too much reading this past month.  I read so much of the Economist that I can even tell you about automated tomato pickers and Greece’s credit rating, though forgive me if I fall asleep while talking.

Below are some brief reviews of the books I read, and some quick excerpts from one of my favorites—Telling True Stories.

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing City (Leslie T. Chang)

Chang follows two young women who move to Dongguan for factory work.  It’s a world where to make it you must fake it.  To get an office job, you buy a fake college degree.  You say that you’ve had an office job.  No one checks references.  A motivational speaker who encourages faking it till you make it has exaggerated his own past.  The girls are young.  They get homesick.  They get caught up in pyramid schemes.  (Though one of them makes a lot of money off it.)  They get caught up in diet fads.  They read self-help books.  They become self-confident.  They miss home, but when they go home they miss Dongguan.  They disrupt family hierarchies by earning far more money than their parents.  It’s a fascinating and quick read.

Eclipse (Richard North Patterson)

A gas station thriller loosely based on the life of Ken Saro-Wiwa.  Marginally more educational than watching Top Chef.  Patterson constantly felt the need to tell the reader the race of each character in the book, irking me to no end.

Culture Under Cross-Examination: International Justice and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (Tim Kelsall)

Review here.

The Wonga Coup (Adam Roberts)

On Simon Mann’s Equatorial Guinea coup attempt.  I had high expectations for this book, but didn’t love it.  Too much trees, not enough forest.  I didn’t need to know how every aspect of the failed coup plot was developed.  But now I do.  The book’s strength lied in the illustration of the main flaw of the coup attempt: virtually none of the plotters—including the opposition politician who was set to be installed president—could keep their mouths shut.  Frequently they got drunk and boasted to strangers about their plans.  Roberts’ depiction of Mark Thatcher is also quite fun.  Thatcher is portrayed as a blind financier, akin to a nerdy kid who agrees to pay for the popular boys’ lunch.  He probably knew the helicopter he paid for was not for a West African ambulance service, as he was told, but Mann never let him in on the secret.

In America (Susan Sontag)

My first Sontag book.  A bit of a disappointment.  The first 100 pages were a slog to get through, though it became more readable later on.  I’m not sure why this book won a National Book Award.  Anyone want to tell me what I’m missing?

Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Neiman Foundation at Harvard University (ed. Mark Kramer and Wendy Call)

A compilation of short-essays on the art of narrative nonfiction.  The authors seem self-conscious about writing about writing.  The result is that the chapters read very well.  Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

• “When you find a reporter whose work you admire, break his or her code.”  -David Halberstam (I wish I had seen this advice before reading Factory Girls!)
• “Listen to the questions people ask after you give them a two-sentence synopsis of your reporting day. In those questions and reactions you get closer to the most important ideas and arguments that you need to show in your scenes.” –Katherine Boo
• “Ask about the person’s experiences and thoughts—not about their feelings or opinions.” –Jon Franklin
• “If the material is incomprehensible, that’s good news.  A journalist who encounters something interesting—as usually happens in the process—gets to be the first person to tell the nonspecialist world about it.” – Nicholas Lemann
• “My notes also include whatever upsets, frightens, or maddens me.  These notes become benchmarks as I write.” –Anne Hull