Colton's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 28 Apr 2025 11:55:25 -0700 60 Colton's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence]]> 197055873
For too long, Africa's history has been neglected. Dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, its past has been fragmented, overlooked and denied its rightful place in our global story.

Now, Zeinab Badawi guides us through Africa's spectacular history, from the origins of humanity, through ancient civilisations and medieval empires with powerful queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence.

Seeking out occluded histories from across the continent, meeting with countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, and travelling through more than thirty countries, Badawi weaves together a fascinating new account of an epic, sweeping history of the oldest inhabited continent on the planet, told through the voices of Africans themselves.]]> 531 Zeinab Badawi 0753560151 Colton 0 currently-reading 4.01 2024 An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence
author: Zeinab Badawi
name: Colton
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/28
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Soldiers of Fortune: A History of Nigeria (1983-1993)]]> 23656317 312 Max Siollun 9789444494 Colton 0 to-read 4.36 2013 Soldiers of Fortune: A History of Nigeria (1983-1993)
author: Max Siollun
name: Colton
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture (1966-1976)]]> 7125805

Modern Nigeria cannot be understood without reference to its era of military rule. Military rule and oil wealth effected cataclysmic changes in Nigeria that nearly tore the country apart on several occasions. 40 years after the end of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war, Max Siollun answers the key questions that go to the root of the Nigerian

*Who were the key personalities and events that caused the Nigeria/Biafra civil war?
*What is the root of the Niger Delta oil conflict and the "curse of oil"?
*How has Nigeria managed to endure successive military coups, civil war, ethnic violence and still remain united?
*The role of Babangida, Ojukwu, Abacha, Obasanjo, Yar'Adua and Buhari in previous military coup plots and Nigerian governments.


The book's style is that of a fast paced dramatised narrative that will bring the characters and the story to life in a manner that will engage the casual, journalistic or academic reader. Those who have read the book have described it as the most detailed published analysis of the major events and controversies of Nigeria from independence until the 1976 assassination of its then Head of State General Murtala Muhammed. These include the traumatic January and July coups of 1966, the unprecedented magnanimity of the federal leader General Gowon after Nigeria's civil war, the post war stewardship of Gowon, and an hour by hour reconstruction of the events leading up to the 1976 Dimka coup in which Gowon's successor General Murtala Muhammed was killed.


The book is the definitive reference point for Nigeria's political life between 1960 and 1976. It examines the controversies of that era with the encyclopaedic detail and penetrating analysis that is Max Siollun's trademark. No previous text has exhaustively analysed these events or this period in Nigeria's history. What lessons can be learned from the events and mistakes of this period? How can Nigeria avoid repeating those mistakes? Max Siollun answers these questions and many more.]]> 284 Max Siollun 0875867081 Colton 0 to-read 4.28 2009 Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture (1966-1976)
author: Max Siollun
name: Colton
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra]]> 13588385 From the legendary author of Things Fall Apart comes a longawaited memoir about coming of age with a fragile new nation, then watching it torn asunder in a tragic civil war

The defining experience of Chinua Achebe’s life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967�1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe’s people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war’s full horror. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than forty years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa’s most fateful events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on world literature.

Achebe masterfully relates his experience, both as he lived it and how he has come to understand it. He begins his story with Nigeria’s birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand the country’s promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of hatred began to stir. To read There Was a Country is to be powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed writers—they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their people.

Marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and forty years of research and reflection. Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and reinforce Achebe’s place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices of our age.]]> 352 Chinua Achebe 1594204829 Colton 0 to-read 4.00 2012 There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra
author: Chinua Achebe
name: Colton
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Avoiding the Terrorist Trap:Why Respect for Human Rights is the Key to Defeating Terrorism (Insurgency and Terrorism Series Book 12)]]> 49699583 920 Tom Parker 1783266562 Colton 0 to-read 4.67 Avoiding the Terrorist Trap:Why Respect for Human Rights is the Key to Defeating Terrorism (Insurgency and Terrorism Series Book 12)
author: Tom Parker
name: Colton
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Hell Is a World Without You 202087804 Superbad-meets-Siddhartha playfulness of USA Today best-seller Hell Is a World Without You. During the time of Pizza Hut buffets, 9/11, and all-night Mario Kart parties, a grieving teenager faces a mortal crossroads: fire-and-brimstone certainty vs. forbidden love. And whether or not you’ve ever begged God to delay the Rapture (so you could have time to lose your virginity), that kid’s story is about you.]]> 314 Jason Kirk 1735492647 Colton 0 to-read 4.50 2024 Hell Is a World Without You
author: Jason Kirk
name: Colton
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[First Raise A Flag: How South Sudan Won the Longest War but Lost the Peace]]> 36345370
It was an extraordinary, unprecedented experiment. Many have fought, but South Sudan did the impossible, and won. This is the story of an epic fight for freedom. It is also the story of a nightmare. First Raise a Flag details one of the most dramatic failures in the history of international state-building. Three years after independence, South Sudan was lowest ranked in the list of failed states. War returned, worse than ever.

Peter Martell has spent over a decade reporting from palaces and battlefields, meeting those who made a country like no other: warlords and spies, missionaries and mercenaries, guerrillas and gunrunners, freedom fighters and war crime fugitives, Hollywood stars and ex-slaves. Under his seasoned foreign correspondent's gaze, he weaves with passion and colour the lively history of the world's newest country.

First Raise a Flag is a moving reflection on the meaning of nationalism, the power of hope and the endurance of the human spirit.]]> Peter Martell 1849049599 Colton 5 4.51 2018 First Raise A Flag: How South Sudan Won the Longest War but Lost the Peace
author: Peter Martell
name: Colton
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves:
review:
A comprehensive and sobering overview of the history and birth of South Sudan, and it's rapid descent into one of the worst civil wars in the modern era. Made all the more depressing in that 7 years after this book was published, little has changed: the same people are in power, and ordinary people (women and children especially) suffer from their greed.
]]> Us Against You (Beartown, #2) 36373463
Soon a new team starts to take shape around Amat, the fastest player you’ll ever see; Benji, the intense lone wolf; and Vidar, a born-to-be-bad troublemaker. But bringing this team together proves to be a challenge as old bonds are broken, new ones are formed, and the enmity with Hed grows more and more acute.

As the big match approaches, the not-so-innocent pranks and incidents between the communities pile up and their mutual contempt grows deeper. By the time the last game is finally played, a resident of Beartown will be dead, and the people of both towns will be forced to wonder if, after all they’ve been through, the game they love can ever return to something simple and innocent.
]]> 448 Fredrik Backman 1501160796 Colton 0 currently-reading 4.34 2017 Us Against You (Beartown, #2)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Colton
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> We, The Survivors 40872707
Ah Hock is an ordinary, uneducated man born in a Malaysian fishing village and now trying to make his way in a country that promises riches and security to everyone, but delivers them only to a chosen few. With Asian society changing around him, like many he remains trapped in a world of poorly paid jobs that just about allow him to keep his head above water but ultimately lead him to murder a migrant worker from Bangladesh.

In the tradition of Camus and Houellebecq, Ah Hock’s vivid and compelling description of the years building up to this appalling act of violence � told over several days to a local journalist whose life has taken a different course � is a portrait of an outsider like no other, an anti-nostalgic view of human life and the ravages of hope. It is the work of a writer at the peak of his powers.]]> 336 Tash Aw 0008318549 Colton 5 3.63 2019 We, The Survivors
author: Tash Aw
name: Colton
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2019
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/03/27
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review:
Absolutely loved it. This is one of those books where the setting drives the plot as much as the events themselves. Interesting that we don't actually get to see Ah Hock's time in prison, I wonder if that was an intentional choice and if so, why?
]]> <![CDATA[The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down]]> 442239 383 Colin Woodard 0151013020 Colton 4
I would've liked the author to be a bit more reflective and off some analysis of the events he described. The pseudo democracy that the pirates established in Nassau is fascinating, but we mostly get description and the reader is left to grapple with its significance.

The book also shows its age in terms of its treatment of race. It mentions that many pirates were Black, many freed slaves, but doesn't get into the question of race relations. Some of the descriptions of slaves are also a bit problematic.]]> 3.85 2007 The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down
author: Colin Woodard
name: Colton
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves:
review:
Very interesting! Reads more like a narrative than a history book, and provides a great insight into the golden age of piracy.

I would've liked the author to be a bit more reflective and off some analysis of the events he described. The pseudo democracy that the pirates established in Nassau is fascinating, but we mostly get description and the reader is left to grapple with its significance.

The book also shows its age in terms of its treatment of race. It mentions that many pirates were Black, many freed slaves, but doesn't get into the question of race relations. Some of the descriptions of slaves are also a bit problematic.
]]> <![CDATA[The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh (Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars, #1)]]> 392083 "The most critical period in Earth's history." —Gary Seven, Supervisor 194

Even centuries later, the final decades of the twentieth century are still regarded—by those who know the truth of what really happened—as one of the darkest and most perilous chapters in the history of humanity. Now, as an ancient and forbidden technology tempts mankind once more, Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise� must probe deep into the secrets of the past, to discover the true origins of the dreaded Eugenics Wars—and of perhaps the greatest foe he has ever faced.

1974 A.D. An international consortium of the world's top scientists have conspired to create the Chrysalis Project, a top-secret experiment in human genetic engineering. The project's goal is nothing less than the creation of a new, artificially improved breed of men and women: smarter, faster, stronger than ordinary human beings, a super-race to take command of the entire planet.

Gary Seven, an undercover operative for an advanced alien species, is alarmed by the project's objectives; he knows too well the apocalyptic consequences of genetic manipulation. With his trusted agents, Roberta Lincoln and the mysterious Isis, he will risk life and limb to uncover Chrysalis' insidious designs and neutralize the awesome threat that the Project poses to the future.

But he may already be too late. One generation of super-humans has already been conceived. As the years go by, Seven watches with growing concern as the children of Chrysalis—in particular, a brilliant youth named Khan Noonien Singh—grow to adulthood. Can Khan's dark destiny be averted—or is Earth doomed to fight a global battle for supremacy?

The Eugenics Wars: Volume One is an engrossing and fast-paced thriller that explores the secret history of the twentieth century—and the rise of the conqueror known as Khan.]]> 560 Greg Cox 0743406427 Colton 0 to-read 3.92 2001 The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh (Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars, #1)
author: Greg Cox
name: Colton
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> Star Trek Federation 8357694 Enterprise in an epic adventure that spans time and space.

Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 are faced with their most challenging mission yet—rescuing renowned scientist Zefram Cochrane from captors who want to use his skills to conquer the galaxy.

Meanwhile, ninety-nine years in the future on the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D, Picard must rescue an important and mysterious person whose safety is vital to the survival of the Federation.

As the two crews struggle to fulfill their missions, destiny draws them closer together until past and future merge—and the fate of each of the two legendary starships rests in the hands of the other vessel...]]> 480 Judith Reeves-Stevens 0743454138 Colton 0 to-read 4.09 1994 Star Trek Federation
author: Judith Reeves-Stevens
name: Colton
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Oblivion's Gate (Star Trek: Coda #3)]]> 57612360
THEIR MOST DAUNTING MISSION WILL BE THEIR FINEST HOUR.

The epic Star Trek: Coda trilogy comes to a shattering conclusion as the Temporal Apocalypse forces Starfleet’s greatest heroes to make the greatest sacrifices of their lives.]]> 447 David Mack Colton 0 to-read 4.17 2021 Oblivion's Gate (Star Trek: Coda #3)
author: David Mack
name: Colton
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ashes of Tomorrow (Star Trek: Coda #2)]]> 57612361
THE FUTURE IS AT WAR WITH THE PAST.

The epic Star Trek: Coda trilogy continues as friends become foes, the Temporal Apocalypse accelerates, and the catastrophe's true cause is revealed.]]> 366 James Swallow Colton 0 to-read 4.32 2021 The Ashes of Tomorrow (Star Trek: Coda #2)
author: James Swallow
name: Colton
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Moments Asunder (Star Trek: Coda #1)]]> 57132682
STARFLEET'S FINEST FACES A CHALLENGE UNLIKE ANY OTHER

TOMORROW IS DOOMED

Time is coming apart. Countless alternate and parallel realities are under attack, weakening and collapsing from relentless onslaught. If left unchecked, the universe faces an unstoppable descent toward entropy.

WANDERER, ORACLE, ALLY

Scarred and broken after decades spent tracking this escalating temporal disaster, while battling the nameless enemy responsible for it, an old friend seeks assistance from Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise. The apocalypse may originate from their future, but might the cause lie in their past?

EVERYTHING THAT WILL BE

Identifying their adversary is but the first step toward defeating them, but early triumphs come with dreadful costs. What will the price be to achieve final victory, and how will that success be measured in futures as yet undefined?]]> 355 Dayton Ward Colton 0 to-read 4.02 2021 Moments Asunder (Star Trek: Coda #1)
author: Dayton Ward
name: Colton
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> A Man of the People 37772 From the renowned author of The African Trilogy, a political satire about an unnamed African country navigating a path between violence and corruption

As Minister for Culture, former school teacher M. A. Nanga is a man of the people, as cynical as he is charming, and a roguish opportunist. When Odili, an idealistic young teacher, visits his former instructor at the ministry, the division between them is vast. But in the eat-and-let-eat atmosphere, Odili's idealism soon collides with his lusts--and the two men's personal and political tauntings threaten to send their country into chaos. When Odili launches a vicious campaign against his former mentor for the same seat in an election, their mutual animosity drives the country to revolution.

Published, prophetically, just days before Nigeria's first attempted coup in 1966, A Man of the People is an essential part of Achebe's body of work.]]> 160 Chinua Achebe Colton 4 3.90 1966 A Man of the People
author: Chinua Achebe
name: Colton
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1966
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
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I didn't find Odili to be a particularly interesting or likeable main character. But as is Achebe's way, A Man of the People is a very prescient exploration of post-colonial corruption in an unnamed country that feels oddly familiar.
]]> Beartown (Beartown, #1) 33413128
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.]]> 432 Fredrik Backman Colton 5 4.27 2016 Beartown (Beartown, #1)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Colton
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves:
review:

]]> The Winners (Beartown, #3) 60318890
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.

So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?]]> 671 Fredrik Backman Colton 0 to-read 4.45 2022 The Winners (Beartown, #3)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Colton
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape]]> 125313 The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots.

In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good. "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies."

The Geography of Nowhere has become a touchstone work in the two decades since its initial publication, its incisive commentary giving language to the feeling of millions of Americans that our nation's suburban environments were ceasing to be credible human habitats. Since that time, the work has inspired city planners, architects, legislators, designers and citizens everywhere. In this special 20th Anniversary edition, dozens of authors and experts in various fields share their perspective on James Howard Kunstler's brave and seminal work.]]> 304 James Howard Kunstler 0671888250 Colton 0 to-read 4.04 1993 The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape
author: James Howard Kunstler
name: Colton
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings]]> 43305488 Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology, their art and culture. From Björn Ironside, who led an expedition to sack Rome, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most travelled woman in the world, Price shows us the real Vikings, not the caricatures they have become in popular culture and history.]]> 656 Neil Price Colton 4
But an incredibly well researched and comprehensive exploration of the history, culture, and evolution of the Vikings.

This is an important book as it very intentionally takes aim at stereotypes of the Vikings (some of which are true, others less so) and in particular the appropriation of Viking identity by far right ideologues. Price shows the Vikings at their worst, as misogynistic and violent people who did terrible things to the people they raided. But he also shows their ambition, their adaptability and the incredible endeavor of their journeys. A really insightful book]]> 4.14 2020 Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings
author: Neil Price
name: Colton
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves:
review:
A bit dense and overwhelming at times due to the sheer volume of information here.

But an incredibly well researched and comprehensive exploration of the history, culture, and evolution of the Vikings.

This is an important book as it very intentionally takes aim at stereotypes of the Vikings (some of which are true, others less so) and in particular the appropriation of Viking identity by far right ideologues. Price shows the Vikings at their worst, as misogynistic and violent people who did terrible things to the people they raided. But he also shows their ambition, their adaptability and the incredible endeavor of their journeys. A really insightful book
]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Colton 0 to-read 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Colton
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> Our Lady of the Nile 20263229 244 Scholastique Mukasonga 0914671030 Colton 4
There is no central narrative as the book jumps between different vignettes of students at the school. Some are funny, some are sad, some are shocking. In the end it culminates with an episode that foreshadows the events of 1994.

Definitely worth a read]]> 3.79 2012 Our Lady of the Nile
author: Scholastique Mukasonga
name: Colton
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves:
review:
Really interesting book that explores Rwanda pre-genocide, and how the seeds of hatred were already being sowed in the decades post independence.

There is no central narrative as the book jumps between different vignettes of students at the school. Some are funny, some are sad, some are shocking. In the end it culminates with an episode that foreshadows the events of 1994.

Definitely worth a read
]]> Dawn (Xenogenesis, #1) 60929
The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations—whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly.]]> 248 Octavia E. Butler 0446603775 Colton 0 to-read 4.15 1987 Dawn (Xenogenesis, #1)
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Colton
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> A Stitch in Time 278040 396 Andrew Jordt Robinson 0671038850 Colton 5 4.35 2000 A Stitch in Time
author: Andrew Jordt Robinson
name: Colton
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:
Probably the best Star Trek novel you're going to read.
]]> Glory 58491879 From the award-winning author of the Booker-prize finalist We Need New Names, a blockbuster of a novel that chronicles the fall of an oppressive regime, and the chaotic, kinetic potential for real liberation that rises in its wake.

Glory centers around the unexpected fall of Old Horse, a long-serving leader of a fictional country, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the path to true liberation. Inspired by the unexpected fall by coup, in November 2017, of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president of nearly four decades, Bulawayo's bold, vividly imagined novel shows a country imploding, narrated by a chorus of animal voices who unveil the ruthlessness and cold strategy required to uphold the illusion of absolute power, and the imagination and bullet-proof optimism to overthrow it completely.

As with her debut novel We Need New Names, Bulawayo's fierce voice and lucid imagery immerses us in the daily life of a traumatized nation, revealing the dazzling life force and irrepressible wit that lies barely concealed beneath the surface of seemingly bleak circumstances. At the center of this tumult is Destiny, who has returned to Jidada from exile to bear witness to revolution--and focus on the unofficial history and the potential legacy of the women who have quietly pulled the strings in this country.

The animal kingdom--its connection to our primal responses and resonance in the mythology, folktales, and fairytales that define cultures the world over--unmasks the surreality of contemporary global politics to help us understand our world more clearly, even as Bulwayo plucks us right out of it. Glory is a blockbuster, an exhilarating ride, and crystalizes a turning point in history with the texture and nuance that only the greatest of fiction can.]]> 416 NoViolet Bulawayo 0525561137 Colton 0 to-read 3.69 2022 Glory
author: NoViolet Bulawayo
name: Colton
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[No Longer at Ease (The African Trilogy, #2)]]> 111085 here.

Obi Okonkwo is an idealistic young man who has now returned to Nigeria for a job in the civil service. However in his new role he finds that the way of government seems to be corruption. Obi manages to resist the bribes offered to him, but when he falls in love with an unsuitable girl, he sinks further into emotional and financial turmoil.]]> 196 Chinua Achebe Colton 3
But I didn't find Obi to be as compelling a protagonist as Okonkwo. He seems thin as a character; we are told he's an idealist but we rarely get inside his head (except when calculating his debts).]]> 3.87 1960 No Longer at Ease (The African Trilogy, #2)
author: Chinua Achebe
name: Colton
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1960
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves:
review:
3.5 for me. Gotta love Achebe's lyrical style, absolutely chocked full of proverbs. Carrying on with Things Fall Apart's themes of modernization and clashes between culture and values.

But I didn't find Obi to be as compelling a protagonist as Okonkwo. He seems thin as a character; we are told he's an idealist but we rarely get inside his head (except when calculating his debts).
]]> <![CDATA[Moon of the Crusted Snow (Moon, #1)]]> 39082248
The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision.

Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.]]> 213 Waubgeshig Rice 1770414002 Colton 4
I like this subversive take on the post-apocalyptic thriller. We never learn what causes the apocalypse and that's okay, it isn't the point. The setting is a novel one: what happens at the end of the world to the people who have been pushed to the edges of society by colonialism?

A few gripes: we don't really get a lot of character development; I found myself mixing up many of the characters because we don't know much of anything about them beyond their names. Even the main character, Evan, doesn't get a whole lot of personality beyond being a generally good guy invested in his cultural traditions.

This sets up well for a sequel and I look forward to checking it out..]]> 3.83 2018 Moon of the Crusted Snow (Moon, #1)
author: Waubgeshig Rice
name: Colton
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/26
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves:
review:
Closer to a 3.5 but I'll round it up.

I like this subversive take on the post-apocalyptic thriller. We never learn what causes the apocalypse and that's okay, it isn't the point. The setting is a novel one: what happens at the end of the world to the people who have been pushed to the edges of society by colonialism?

A few gripes: we don't really get a lot of character development; I found myself mixing up many of the characters because we don't know much of anything about them beyond their names. Even the main character, Evan, doesn't get a whole lot of personality beyond being a generally good guy invested in his cultural traditions.

This sets up well for a sequel and I look forward to checking it out..
]]> Blood Over Bright Haven 57915993 Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling.

An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.

What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power.

Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance?

A standalone dark academia brimming with mystery, tragedy, and the damning echoes of the past. For fans of Leigh Bardugo, V. E. Schwab, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

(Content warnings for gore, sexual assault, and suicidal ideation)]]> 527 M.L. Wang Colton 5 4.44 2023 Blood Over Bright Haven
author: M.L. Wang
name: Colton
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2024/10/08
shelves:
review:
Not a frequent fantasy reader, but this was great
]]> <![CDATA[HOW TO SPEAK PUNJABI IN BRAMPTON]]> 217554048 218 Onyeka Nwelue 1068638311 Colton 0 4.00 HOW TO SPEAK PUNJABI IN BRAMPTON
author: Onyeka Nwelue
name: Colton
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/19
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Peace: A Warrior's Journey]]> 195104460 International humanitarian icon and bestselling author General Roméo Dallaire guides readers on a crucial and inspiring journey from past wars through post-modern conflict toward a vision of lasting peace.

In The Peace, Roméo Dallaire shows us the past, present and futureof war through the prismof his own life. Trained in classic warfare during the Cold War era of mutual deterrence, Dallaire in good faith commandedthe UN’s peacekeeping mission forRwanda in 1994, only to see thecountry abandoned and descend into the hell of genocide. The battered, tortured warriorwho emerged from that catastrophe grew determined to help repair the new world disorder—to prevent genocide, abolish the use of child soldiers, and find ways to intervene in, even prevent, conflicts in defence of humanity. And so Dallaire helped advance the doctrines of Responsibility to Protect and the Will to Intervene only to witness those initiatives falter because of the same old power politics, national self-interest and general indifference that had allowed the genocide in Rwanda to unfold unchecked.

In his final act, Dallaire has become a warrior working towards a better future in which those old paradigms are rejected and replaced. In The Peace he calls out the elements thatundermine true security because they reinforce the dangerous, self-interested belief that “balance� of power andtruces arethe best we can do. Too often we say we are “at peace� because the bombs are falling elsewhere and we, ourselves, are not under attack. Dallaire shows us a path, instead, to what he calls “the peace,� a state where, above all else, humanity values the ties that bind us and the planet together—and acts accordingly. This book is the cri de coeur of a warrior who has been to hell and back and hopes to helpguide us to a better place.]]> 256 Roméo Dallaire 0345814428 Colton 4 3.97 2024 The Peace: A Warrior's Journey
author: Roméo Dallaire
name: Colton
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
shelves:
review:
Dallaire's optimism is surprising (given all he's been through) and inspiring. This is as much a story of personal growth as it is a treatise on peacekeeping, so don't expect a political science-type book.
]]> <![CDATA[Natural Flava: Quick & Easy Plant-Based Caribbean Recipes]]> 57693255 A vibrantly designed Caribbean vegan cookbook from the internationally celebrated duo behind Original Flava.

Caribbean food is often known for its tasty meat and fish dishes. However, there's more to Caribbean food than jerk chicken. It also features a wide variety of fresh fruit and vegetables like plantain, yams, jackfruit, guava, and plenty more, making it perfect for vegan recipes.

Jamaica has a long and authentic vegan tradition: the Ital diet of Jamaican Rastafarians. Ital means clean, natural, and unprocessed as much as possible. Rastafari is an expression of unity with all things, and the Ital diet reflects that through a sense of peace and togetherness with the natural world. Essentially Jamaican cooking without salt, meat, or additives, Ital is just as tasty but with the power to promote overall health and wellness.

Craig and Shaun charmed cooks everywhere with their essential introduction to home-cooked Caribbean food in Original Flava. Now, in Natural Flava, they're spreading the love, offering Ital inspiration and punchy Caribbean flavors to the feel-good, plant-based diet taking the world by storm.]]> 256 Craig McAnuff 1526631873 Colton 4 4.12 Natural Flava: Quick & Easy Plant-Based Caribbean Recipes
author: Craig McAnuff
name: Colton
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa]]> 34219844 In the tradition of Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Nothing to Envy, this is a masterful, humane work of literary journalism by New Yorker staff writer Alexis Okeowo--a vivid narrative of Africans, many of them women, who are courageously resisting their continent's wave of fundamentalism.

In A Moonless, Starless Sky Okeowo weaves together four narratives that form a powerful tapestry of modern Africa: a young couple, kidnap victims of Joseph Kony's LRA; a Mauritanian waging a lonely campaign against modern-day slavery; a women's basketball team flourishing amid war-torn Somalia; and a vigilante who takes up arms against the extremist group Boko Haram. This debut book by one of America's most acclaimed young journalists illuminates the inner lives of ordinary people doing the extraordinary--lives that are too often hidden, underreported, or ignored by the rest of the world.]]> 240 Alexis Okeowo 0316382930 Colton 4 4.04 2017 A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa
author: Alexis Okeowo
name: Colton
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/18
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Zaatari: Culinary Traditions of the World's Largest Syrian Refugee Camp]]> 143357399 272 Karen E. Fisher 1773102354 Colton 5 4.62 Zaatari: Culinary Traditions of the World's Largest Syrian Refugee Camp
author: Karen E. Fisher
name: Colton
average rating: 4.62
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/18
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Falastin: A Cookbook 51046553 Jerusalem and Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, and Ottolenghi SIMPLE.

Travelling through Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, Nablus, Haifa, Akka, Nazareth, Galilee and the West Bank, Sami and Tara invite you to experience and enjoy unparalleled access to Sami's homeland. As each region has its own distinct identity and tale to tell, there are endless new flavour combinations to discover.

The food is the perfect mix of traditional and contemporary, with recipes that have been handed down through the generations and reworked for a modern home kitchen, alongside dishes that have been inspired by Sami and Tara's collaborations with producers and farmers throughout Palestine.

With stunning food and travel photography plus stories from unheard Palestinian voices, this innovative cookbook will transport you to this rich and complex land.

So get ready to laden your table with the most delicious of foods � from abundant salads, soups and wholesome grains to fluffy breads, easy one-pot dishes and perfumed sweet treats � here are simple feasts to be shared and everyday meals to be enjoyed. These are stunning Palestinian-inspired dishes that you will want to cook, eat, fall in love with and make your own.]]> 352 Sami Tamimi Colton 4 4.47 2020 Falastin: A Cookbook
author: Sami Tamimi
name: Colton
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/18
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule]]> 57319829
Max Siollun offers a bold rethink: an unromanticised history, arguing compellingly that colonialism had few benevolent intentions, but many unjust outcomes. It may have ended slavery and human sacrifice, but it was accompanied by extreme violence; ethnic and religious identity were cynically exploited to maintain control, while the forceful remoulding of longstanding legal and social practices permanently altered the culture and internal politics of indigenous communities. The aftershocks of this colonial meddling are still being felt decades after independence. Popular narratives often suggest that the economic and political turmoil are homegrown, but the reality is that Britain created many of Nigeria’s crises, and has left them behind for Nigerians to resolve.

This is a definitive, head-on confrontation with Nigeria’s experience under British rule, showing how it forever changed the country—perhaps cataclysmically.]]> 390 Max Siollun 1787383849 Colton 4 4.16 2021 What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule
author: Max Siollun
name: Colton
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/18
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro]]> 13037427 444 Janice Perlman 0199798974 Colton 4 4.12 2009 Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro
author: Janice Perlman
name: Colton
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2018/05/25
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Nollywood: The Making of a Film Empire]]> 34497797 How did Nigeria create the second largest movie industry in the world?

Nollywood began in Nigeria in the 1990s and has grown into the second largest film industry in the world in the number of films produced annually, behind only Bollywood and ahead of Hollywood. Reporter Emily Witt travels to Nigeria to offer a vivid, rollicking tour of the industry today. She meets with young filmmakers and actors trying to break into the industry, covers start-ups trying to digitalize what has been largely an economy based on piracy, and documents the shooting of a historic epic in the northern city of Jos, which is emerging after years of civil conflict and a brutal attack by Boko Haram. The Nigerian movie industry, like Nigeria itself, is an organized chaos, but amid electricity cuts, fuel scarcity, and countless other obstacles its producers are pursuing the very real possibility that Nigerian movies could become a global brand as recognizable as the Bollywood musical, the Hong Kong kung fu flick, or the Hollywood blockbuster.]]> 128 Emily Witt 0997126485 Colton 4 3.46 2017 Nollywood: The Making of a Film Empire
author: Emily Witt
name: Colton
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/06
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves:
review:
Short and sweet, but a useful overview of the history of Nollywood and some of the more recent trends in the industry. Nollywood is a cultural and economic giant with humble origins, and this short text gives a crash course and contrasts the New Nollywod with the more traditional films. Also includes some short summaries of representative films.
]]> Rough Sleepers 62328661 In Rough Sleepers, Tracy Kidder shows how one person can make a difference, as he tells the story of Dr. Jim O’Connell, a man who invented ways to create a community of care for a city’s unhoused population, including those who sleep on the streets—the “rough sleepers.�

When Jim O’Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, the chief of medicine made a proposal: Would he defer a prestigious fellowship and spend a year helping to create an organization to bring health care to homeless citizens? Jim took the job because he felt he couldn’t refuse. But that year turned into his life’s calling. Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. O’Connell and his colleagues as they served their thousands of homeless patients. In this book, we travel with O’Connell as he navigates the city, offering medical care, socks, soup, empathy, humor, and friendship to some of the city’s most vulnerable citizens. He emphasizes a style of medicine in which patients come first, joined with their providers in what he calls “a system of friends.”]]> 320 Tracy Kidder 1984801430 Colton 5 4.34 2023 Rough Sleepers
author: Tracy Kidder
name: Colton
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/08/01
shelves:
review:
A beautiful, inspiring and devastating story of one man's lifelong mission to help homeless and street involved people in Boston. Along the way, we get to meet some of the people who Jim has interacted with other the years, and hear more about their difficult journeys.
]]> All the Living and the Dead 58724737
We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we’re so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look?

Fueled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers in the people who make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, she encounters mass fatality investigators, embalmers, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending sixty-two lives. She meets gravediggers who have already dug their own graves, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective, and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear.

Through Campbell’s incisive and candid interviews with these people who see death every day, she Why would someone choose this kind of life? Does it change you as a person? And are we missing something vital by letting death remain hidden? A dazzling work of cultural criticism, All the Living and the Dead weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death.]]> 288 Hayley Campbell 1250281849 Colton 5
First and foremost, such a fascinating concept for a book: speaking with people who work with death on a daily basis, who play such a crucial role in society but who are usually invisible (and sometimes reviled).

This book is interesting for the simple fact of revealing what goes on behind closed doors in the death industry, or explaining professions I never knew existed.

But more importantly the human stories are so powerful, and the author's honest and deep reflection on her experience writing the book.

The chapter about the bereavement midwife was beautiful, poignant and emotionally devastating. There were parts that made me sick to my stomach, and others that were inspiring.

This is not an easy book to read but it is so worth it.]]> 4.25 2022 All the Living and the Dead
author: Hayley Campbell
name: Colton
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/18
date added: 2024/07/18
shelves:
review:
This is a book that will change the way you look at life.

First and foremost, such a fascinating concept for a book: speaking with people who work with death on a daily basis, who play such a crucial role in society but who are usually invisible (and sometimes reviled).

This book is interesting for the simple fact of revealing what goes on behind closed doors in the death industry, or explaining professions I never knew existed.

But more importantly the human stories are so powerful, and the author's honest and deep reflection on her experience writing the book.

The chapter about the bereavement midwife was beautiful, poignant and emotionally devastating. There were parts that made me sick to my stomach, and others that were inspiring.

This is not an easy book to read but it is so worth it.
]]> <![CDATA[Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know]]> 40494432
In What Everyone Needs to Know�, John Campbell and Matthew Page provide a rich contemporary overview of this crucial African country. Delving into Nigeria's recent history, politics, and culture, this volume tackles essential questions related to widening inequality, the historic 2015 presidential election, the persistent security threat of Boko Haram, rampant government corruption, human rights concerns, and the continual conflicts that arise in a country that is roughly half Christian and half Muslim.

With its continent-wide influence in a host of areas, Nigeria's success as a democracy is in the fundamental interest of its African neighbors, the United States, and the international community. This book will provide interested readers with an accessible, one-of-a-kind overview of the country.
]]> 232 0190658002 Colton 4 3.86 Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know
author: John Campbell
name: Colton
average rating: 3.86
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria]]> 13354352
Recently, she decided to rediscover and come to terms with the country her father loved. She travelled from the exuberant chaos of Lagos to the calm beauty of the eastern mountains; from the eccentricity of a Nigerian dog show to the empty Transwonderland Amusement Park—Nigeria's decrepit and deserted answer to Disneyland. She explored Nigerian christianity, delved into its history of slavery, examined the corrupting effect of oil, investigated Nollywood. She found the country as exasperating as ever, and frequently despaired at the corruption and inefficiency she encountered.

But she also discovered that it was far more beautiful and varied than she had ever imagined, and she was seduced by its thick tropical rainforest and ancient palaces and monuments. Most engagingly of all, she introduces us to the people she meets and gives us hilarious insights into the Nigerian character: its passion, wit, and ingenuity.]]> 311 Noo Saro-Wiwa 1847080308 Colton 5
Noo's perspective is certainly coloured by her position as a member of the diaspora, and someone whose father was killed by the Abacha regime. She makes no effort to hide her disdain for corruption, disorganization and Nigeria's many excesses. It's a familiar narrative of how the country's great potential is being squandered.

Reading this in 2024, I was especially interested to read about her visit to Maiduguri before the city became synonymous with Boko Haram. I also thoroughly enjoyed the visit to the UNESCO-listed Sukur kingdom.

I don't know how accessible this book would be to someone who doesn't have a picture of Nigeria in their head, but overall it's a fascinating exploration of the Giant of Africa.]]> 3.76 2012 Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria
author: Noo Saro-Wiwa
name: Colton
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
review:
Really enjoyed this! Noo takes us on a far reaching journey around Nigeria, from the empty-ish streets of Abuja to the chaos of Lagos to the depths of the country's past in the form of historical artifacts.

Noo's perspective is certainly coloured by her position as a member of the diaspora, and someone whose father was killed by the Abacha regime. She makes no effort to hide her disdain for corruption, disorganization and Nigeria's many excesses. It's a familiar narrative of how the country's great potential is being squandered.

Reading this in 2024, I was especially interested to read about her visit to Maiduguri before the city became synonymous with Boko Haram. I also thoroughly enjoyed the visit to the UNESCO-listed Sukur kingdom.

I don't know how accessible this book would be to someone who doesn't have a picture of Nigeria in their head, but overall it's a fascinating exploration of the Giant of Africa.
]]> <![CDATA[Pressure: Lessons from the psychology of the penalty shootout]]> 208918934 FOREWORD BY ARSÈNE WENGER

Includes exclusive interviews with Erling Haaland, Martin Ødegaard, Robert Lewandowski and other Premier League players

'A gripping, surprising and deeply humane look at one of the most intense pieces of drama on earth.' James Graham, author of Dear England


'I can score penalties in my sleep, so why not that one?' Marcus Rashford, Euros 2021

The penalty shootout is the most intense drama in sport. The anxious wait, the building dread, the lonely, heavy-legged walk towards the penalty spot. One kick while the world holds its breath. Even football's most casual observers cannot escape the nerve-wracking suspense.

What happens to a footballer's brain and body in these heart-pounding moments of pressure? Why do some thrive while others choke?

In this ground-breaking book, sport psychology Professor Geir Jordet dissects each agonising element of the shootout's duel and the universal human stress mechanisms that it triggers and illuminates. Drawing on two decades of studying the atomic nuances of performance under pressure, Jordet's vivid case studies take you behind the scenes of football's most nail-biting moments. He interviews superstars and shares stories from his work with top teams and some of the world's best players.

In the penalty shootout, as in life, it is often the tiny, seemingly invisible decisions that impact success and failure. After reading this book, you will have fresh insights and a newly acquired understanding of those dreaded moments when the pressure builds - how to handle them.]]> 351 Geir Jordet 1915780225 Colton 0 to-read 4.04 2024 Pressure: Lessons from the psychology of the penalty shootout
author: Geir Jordet
name: Colton
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Boko Haram: Inside Nigeria's Unholy War]]> 24000578 Can Boko Haram be stopped?

Leading expert on Nigeria introduces us to the ordinary people on the frontline in the war against one of the most feared terrorist groups

An insurgency in Nigeria by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has left thousands dead, shaken Africa’s biggest country and worried the world. What began as small Islamist sect in the country’s remote northeast, led by a baby-faced but charismatic preacher, has transformed into a hydra-headed monster, deploying suicide bombers and abducting innocent schoolgirls.

Reporting from the ground, Mike Smith traces the roots of this mysterious violent organization and speaks to Nigerians who find themselves caught between frightening insurgents, brutal abusive security forces and an inept government.

Journeying through the sleaze and corruption, which is robbing Africa’s biggest oil producer of its potential and allowing it to become a fertile ground for extremism, the author questions how this unholy war (waged against the backdrop of an evolving extremist threat worldwide) begun and how it might eventually be stopped]]> 233 Mike Smith 1784530743 Colton 3
A bit dated now but this provides a deep dive into the group's beginnings, going as far back as Northern Nigeria's precolonial history and Mohammed Yusuf's early life.]]> 3.55 2015 Boko Haram: Inside Nigeria's Unholy War
author: Mike Smith
name: Colton
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/24
date added: 2024/06/24
shelves:
review:
A useful overview of Boko Haram, it's origins and its operations up until 2013 and the abduction of the Chibok girls.

A bit dated now but this provides a deep dive into the group's beginnings, going as far back as Northern Nigeria's precolonial history and Mohammed Yusuf's early life.
]]> <![CDATA[How to Feed a Dictator: Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Enver Hoxha, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot Through the Eyes of Their Cooks]]> 52508857 Dancing Bears.

What was Pol Pot eating while two million Cambodians were dying of hunger? Did Idi Amin really eat human flesh? And why was Fidel Castro obsessed with one particular cow?

Traveling across four continents, from the ruins of Iraq to the savannahs of Kenya, Witold Szabłowski tracked down the personal chefs of five dictators known for the oppression and massacre of their own citizens—Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Uganda’s Idi Amin, Albania’s Enver Hoxha, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and Cambodia’s Pol Pot—and listened to their stories over sweet-and-sour soup, goat-meat pilaf, bottles of rum, and games of gin rummy. Dishy, deliciously readable, and dead serious, How to Feed a Dictator provides a knife’s-edge view of life under tyranny.]]> 288 Witold Szabłowski 0143129759 Colton 4
I thought the chapter on Cuba was the weakest. One of the interviewees was experiencing cognitive decline and was incoherent, and the other still thought Fidel was great and didn't really air any dirty laundry. The others were much more insightful, especially the chapter on Idi Amin. Pol Pot's former cook remains enamored with him, and offers an interesting example of the cognitive dissonance needed to serve such a horrible person..]]> 4.17 2019 How to Feed a Dictator: Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Enver Hoxha, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot Through the Eyes of Their Cooks
author: Witold Szabłowski
name: Colton
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/06/23
shelves:
review:
Such a fascinating concept for a book, and really well executed. This book offers some real insights into the lives and idiosyncrasies of some of history's most notorious villains.

I thought the chapter on Cuba was the weakest. One of the interviewees was experiencing cognitive decline and was incoherent, and the other still thought Fidel was great and didn't really air any dirty laundry. The others were much more insightful, especially the chapter on Idi Amin. Pol Pot's former cook remains enamored with him, and offers an interesting example of the cognitive dissonance needed to serve such a horrible person..
]]> <![CDATA[Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World]]> 10235 Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life’s calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most.

Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is humanity"—a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners in Health. He enlists the help of the Gates Foundation, George Soros, the U.N.’s World Health Organization, and others in his quest to cure the world. At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb "Beyond mountains there are mountains": as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.]]> 333 Tracy Kidder 0812973011 Colton 0 to-read 4.19 2003 Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
author: Tracy Kidder
name: Colton
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love]]> 17601
In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that.

With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves—and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves.]]> 208 bell hooks 0743456084 Colton 0 to-read 4.38 2003 The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
author: bell hooks
name: Colton
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Beneath the Tamarind Tree: A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Schoolgirls of Boko Haram]]> 42078820 The first definitive account of the lost girls of Boko Haram and why their story still matters—by celebrated international journalist Isha Sesay.





In the early morning of April 14, 2014, the militant Islamic group Boko Haram violently burst into the small town of Chibok, Nigeria, and abducted 276 girls from their school dorm rooms. From poor families, these girls were determined to make better lives for themselves, but pursuing an education made them targets, resulting in one of the most high-profile abductions in modern history. While the Chibok kidnapping made international headlines, and prompted the #BringBackOurGirls movement, many unanswered questions surrounding that fateful night remain about the girls� experiences in captivity, and where many of them are today.



In Beneath the Tamarind Tree, Isha Sesay tells this story as no one else can. Originally from Sierra Leone, Sesay led CNN’s Africa reporting for more than a decade, and she was on the front lines when this story broke. With unprecedented access to a group of girls who made it home, she follows the journeys of Priscilla, Saa, and Dorcas in an uplifting tale of sisterhood and survival.



Sesay delves into the Nigerian government’s inadequate response to the kidnapping, exposes the hierarchy of how the news gets covered, and synthesizes crucial lessons about global national security. She also reminds us of the personal sacrifice required of journalists to bring us the truth at a time of growing mistrust of the media. Beneath the Tamarind Tree is a gripping read and a story of resilience with a soaring message of hope at its core, reminding us of the ever-present truth that progress for all of us hinges on unleashing the potential of women.]]> 13 Isha Sesay 0062917536 Colton 3
I echo other reviewers' disappointment with how Sesay approached this book. She made it far too much about herself, and the journey of her own family. It very clearly reads as something written by a journalist.

I can understand why; there's no happy ending here, and over 100 girls are still in captivity. She relies in interviews with a small number of girls to reconstruct the events of the abduction and captivity. The personal anecdotes end up feeling like filler to stretch out a story that deserves to stand alone.

Like others, I found all the author's talk of "her sisters" to be over indulgent. Yes the story meant something to her, and she should be commended for fighting to keep the stort in the spotlight when the media world had moved on. But she had only a few interactions where she basically forced herself on the girls; the relationship was largely an extractive one.]]> 3.82 2019 Beneath the Tamarind Tree: A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Schoolgirls of Boko Haram
author: Isha Sesay
name: Colton
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/03
date added: 2024/06/03
shelves:
review:
The story of the Chibok girls is an important one, and I'm glad this book exists to bring greater awareness to their plight.

I echo other reviewers' disappointment with how Sesay approached this book. She made it far too much about herself, and the journey of her own family. It very clearly reads as something written by a journalist.

I can understand why; there's no happy ending here, and over 100 girls are still in captivity. She relies in interviews with a small number of girls to reconstruct the events of the abduction and captivity. The personal anecdotes end up feeling like filler to stretch out a story that deserves to stand alone.

Like others, I found all the author's talk of "her sisters" to be over indulgent. Yes the story meant something to her, and she should be commended for fighting to keep the stort in the spotlight when the media world had moved on. But she had only a few interactions where she basically forced herself on the girls; the relationship was largely an extractive one.
]]> <![CDATA[Islas: A Celebration of Tropical Cooking�125 Recipes from the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Ocean Islands]]> 62195502
The islands spanning the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans are remarkable places, sharing dozens of ingredients and cooking techniques, including marinating, pickling and fermentation, braising and stewing, frying, grilling and smoking, and steaming and in-ground roasting. Bold flavors drip from the edges of each dish with tastes that represent stories of resistance, persistence, and wisdom passed down from generation to generation.

This narrative cookbook by writer, documentary producer, and author Von Diaz travels across oceans and nations to uplift the shared ancestral cooking techniques of these islands in more than 125 recipes, including intimate profiles of the historical context of each technique, stories from islanders, and step-by-step guides for recreating them at home.

Recipes

Bright citrus and vinegars, verdant herbs, slow-cooked and smoky grilled meats, fresh seafood, aromatic rice, and earthy root These flavors, found in the meals and recipes across these island nations pair remarkably well together, despite distance and cultural differences. The ingredients and deep-rooted cooking techniques in each of these recipes typify the harmonious, synchronous spirit found in each culture's unique cuisines. Even amid environmental chaos and food insecurity, islanders cook in ways that are soul nourishing and flavorful.

Islas is about preserving the wisdom, values, and resilience of the people who live in some of the most volatile, vulnerable places on this planet. Each recipe, an archive of strategies for persistence, creativity, and ingenuity, provides a path for cooking delicious food. But above all, these stories and recipes acknowledge that cooking delicious food for others is always a selfless act.

AN AUTHENTIC DEEP DIVE INTO UNDERREPRESENTED Amid environmental chaos and food insecurity, and with limited ingredients, islanders cook in ways that are soul nourishing and emphasize flavor. This book expertly and authentically presents the diverse recipes and techniques of the islands of the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans.

DETAILED RECIPES AND FULL-COLOR Each of the techniques and recipes are paired with lots of how-tos and step-by-step guides, including key historical and scientific background to help you master these delicious recipes—from quick pickles to soups,stews, and barbecues—athome.

EXPERT AUTHOR AND A LEADING Von Diaz is a celebrated author and seasoned food researcher who has dedicated her life to bringing forth unique food stories and the people behind them.

Perfect

]]> 304 Von Diaz 1797215248 Colton 5 4.36 Islas: A Celebration of Tropical Cooking―125 Recipes from the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Ocean Islands
author: Von Diaz
name: Colton
average rating: 4.36
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves:
review:
Awesome cookbook! Hugely ambitious concept that comes together very well. It provides insights into some lesser known parts of the world, and how their history and conditions shape their food culture.
]]> <![CDATA[Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon]]> 63896470 The debut fantasy novel from an award-winning Nigerian author presents a mythic tale of disgruntled gods, revenge, and a heist across two worlds

Shigidi is a disgruntled and demotivated nightmare god in the Orisha spirit company, reluctantly answering prayers of his few remaining believers to maintain his existence long enough to find his next drink. When he meets Nneoma, a sort-of succubus with a long and secretive past, everything changes for him.

Together, they attempt to break free of his obligations and the restrictions that have bound him to his godhood and navigate the parameters of their new relationship in the shadow of her past. But the elder gods that run the Orisha spirit company have other plans for Shigidi, and they are not all aligned--or good.

From the boisterous streets of Lagos to the swanky rooftop bars of Singapore and the secret spaces of London, Shigidi and Nneoma will encounter old acquaintances, rival gods, strange creatures, and manipulative magicians as they are drawn into a web of revenge, spirit business, and a spectacular heist across two worlds that will change Shigidi's understanding of himself forever and determine the fate of the Orisha spirit company.]]> 320 Wole Talabi 0756418267 Colton 0 to-read 3.60 2023 Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon
author: Wole Talabi
name: Colton
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Making It So 101160634
From his acclaimed stage triumphs to his legendary onscreen work in the Star Trek and X-Men franchises, Sir Patrick Stewart has captivated audiences around the world and across multiple generations with his indelible command of stage and screen. Now, he presents his long-awaited memoir, Making It So, a revealing portrait of an artist whose astonishing life—from his humble beginnings in Yorkshire, England, to the heights of Hollywood and worldwide acclaim—proves a story as exuberant, definitive, and enduring as the author himself.]]> 469 Patrick Stewart 1982167734 Colton 5
And that's okay. This is an honest, thoughtful and fascinating window into the life of one of the world's most recognizable actors. There is great detail on his experience as a stage actor, and into his difficult childhood marred by poverty and domestic violence.

Stewart is honest about his shortcomings, particularly the two marriages that ended due to his infidelity. He also notes his challenging relationship with his children, and dedicates time to unpacking his complicated feelings towards his father.

This book is full of interesting, and sometimes hilarious, anecdotes about his life in theatre and on screen. The story about meeting Sting for the first time is especially memorable.

I don't read many biographies but this one was fantastic. Fun to read and a great insight to the life and work of Pat Stew.]]> 4.28 2023 Making It So
author: Patrick Stewart
name: Colton
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/20
date added: 2024/05/20
shelves:
review:
Spoiler alert: he doesn't get to Star Trek until more than halfway through!

And that's okay. This is an honest, thoughtful and fascinating window into the life of one of the world's most recognizable actors. There is great detail on his experience as a stage actor, and into his difficult childhood marred by poverty and domestic violence.

Stewart is honest about his shortcomings, particularly the two marriages that ended due to his infidelity. He also notes his challenging relationship with his children, and dedicates time to unpacking his complicated feelings towards his father.

This book is full of interesting, and sometimes hilarious, anecdotes about his life in theatre and on screen. The story about meeting Sting for the first time is especially memorable.

I don't read many biographies but this one was fantastic. Fun to read and a great insight to the life and work of Pat Stew.
]]> We Meant Well 62320837
It’s the middle of the night in Los Angeles when Maya, a married mother of one, receives the phone call. Her colleague Marc has been accused of assaulting a local girl in Likanni, where they operate a charitable orphanage. Can she get on the next flight?

When Maya arrives, protesters surround the compound. The accuser is Lele, her former protégé and the chief’s daughter. There are no witnesses, no proof of any crime.

What happened that night? And what will happen to the orphanage if this becomes a scandal? Caught between Marc and Lele, the charity and the villagers, her marriage and new temptations, Maya lives the secret contradictions of the aid worker: there to serve the most deprived, but ultimately there to govern.

As Maya feels the pleasures, freedoms, and humanity of life in Likanni, she recognizes that her American life is inextricably woven into this violent reality � and that dishonesty in one place affects the realities in another.]]> 280 Erum Shazia Hasan 177041665X Colton 4
This is an uncomfortable read for anyone working in the development field, in that it feels very familiar and plausible. I found the chapters a bit heavy handed, but overall this is a strong contribution from a debut author.]]> 4.04 2023 We Meant Well
author: Erum Shazia Hasan
name: Colton
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/11
date added: 2024/05/11
shelves:
review:
This was a meaningful interrogation of some of the hypocrisy that underscores the international aid industry. Its setting is (intentionally) a fictional African country that consists of all the tropes of "the dark continent": conflict, child soldiers, mining. The NGO in question is also a broad strokes amalgam of your typical "feed the orphans" organization.

This is an uncomfortable read for anyone working in the development field, in that it feels very familiar and plausible. I found the chapters a bit heavy handed, but overall this is a strong contribution from a debut author.
]]> A House in the Sky 18039963 The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most beautiful and remote places, its most imperiled and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity—an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace.

As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress in Calgary, Alberta, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—“the most dangerous place on earth.� On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road.

Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda converts to Islam as a survival tactic, receives “wife lessons� from one of her captors, and risks a daring escape. Moved between a series of abandoned houses in the desert, she survives on memory—every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity—and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark, being tortured.

Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is the searingly intimate story of an intrepid young woman and her search for compassion in the face of unimaginable adversity.]]> 373 Amanda Lindhout 1451651694 Colton 5
This is a wonderfully written book. It's definitely a cautionary tale, but it is also an exploration of the strength of the human spirit and survival instinct.

The details of her captivity are disturbing and we get a very vivid picture of her thinking while undergoing horrible mental and physical torture.]]> 4.26 2013 A House in the Sky
author: Amanda Lindhout
name: Colton
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/04/30
shelves:
review:
Important to separate your opinions on the book from your opinions about Amanda and her choices.

This is a wonderfully written book. It's definitely a cautionary tale, but it is also an exploration of the strength of the human spirit and survival instinct.

The details of her captivity are disturbing and we get a very vivid picture of her thinking while undergoing horrible mental and physical torture.
]]> A History of Burning 62315839 An epic, sweeping historical debut novel spanning continents and a century, and how one act of survival can reverberate through generations.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor on the East African Railway for the British. One day Pirbhai commits an act to ensure his survival that will haunt him forever and reverberate across his family's future for years to come.

Pirbhai's children are born and raised under the jacaranda trees and searing sun of Kampala during the waning days of British colonial rule. As Uganda moves towards independence and military dictatorship, Pirbhai's granddaughters, Latika, Mayuri, and Kiya, are three sisters coming of age in a divided nation. As they each forge their own path for a future, they must carry the silence of the history they've inherited. In 1972, under Idi Amin's brutal regime and the South Asian expulsion, the family has no choice but to flee, and in the chaos, they leave something devastating behind.

As Pirbhai's grandchildren, scattered across the world, find their way back to each other in exile in Toronto, a letter arrives that stokes the flames of the fire that haunts the family. It makes each generation question how far they are willing to go, and who they are willing to defy to secure their own place in the world.

A History of Burning is an unforgettable tour de force, an intimate family saga of complicity and resistance, about the stories we share, the ones that remain unspoken, and the eternal search for home.]]> 400 Janika Oza 1538724243 Colton 5
Helps if you know some Swahili for the earlier chapters! ]]> 4.12 2023 A History of Burning
author: Janika Oza
name: Colton
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves:
review:
A fantastic book, ambitious in its scope across multiple generations and continents. There is not a lot out there on the Indian community and it's expulsion from Uganda, which makes this book all the more important.

Helps if you know some Swahili for the earlier chapters!
]]> <![CDATA[NHUM - Recipes from a Cambodian Home Kitchen]]> 57911065
This volume represents a new gold standard for Cambodian cookbooks, with recipes lovingly collected over years of interviews by Chef Nak, Cambodia’s first female celebrity chef. From succulent baked chicken with young jackfruit to steamed stone crab with glass noodles to a dessert of sticky rice with jackfruit wrapped in banana leaves, Chef Nak’s recipes will introduce you to a new culinary world.

Nhum is stunningly illustrated with hundreds of pictures by photographer Nataly Lee, whose aesthetic appreciation of the flavors of her homeland is the perfect complement to Chef Nak’s recipes.

Chef Nak’s mission is to celebrate, develop, and preserve the art of Cambodian cuisine and bring its unique flavors and rich culinary culture to the world stage. Distinct from the better-known food of its neighbors, Cambodian cuisine boasts its own impressive array of dishes and flavors.

Join Chef Nak to celebrate the exquisite cuisine of her ancient homeland.]]> 240 Chef Nak (Rotanak ROS) 9924933702 Colton 0 to-read 4.60 NHUM - Recipes from a Cambodian Home Kitchen
author: Chef Nak (Rotanak ROS)
name: Colton
average rating: 4.60
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Africana: More than 100 Recipes and Flavors Inspired by a Rich Continent]]> 61281787 A culinary adventure and celebration of African cooking and cultural diversity, from a pioneering West African food writer, television personality, and cooking teacher.

Food writer and cook Lerato Umah-Shaylor's magnificent cookbook is a delicious eating tour of the African continent, introducing vibrant and varied cuisines that are rich in flavor, diverse in culture, and steeped in tradition.

Lerato adds her own modern twist and inventive style to traditional African dishes that have been passed down and enjoyed for generations, and combines these recipes with personal stories of Africa infused with her delectable sense of adventure.

With Africana, home cooks can learn how to create some of the most iconic African dishes, from Nigeria to Madagascar and Morocco to South Africa. Here are more than 100 recipes to delight and inspire, such as Spice Island Coconut Fish Curry, Harissa Leg of Lamb with Hibiscus, Senegalese Yassa, Tunisian Tagine, South African Malva Pudding, and the secret to the perfect Jollof.

A feast for the senses, bursting with flavor, and offering a sense of wanderlust, Africana will bring the magic of the continent to any kitchen.]]> 288 Lerato Umah-Shaylor 0063277514 Colton 4 4.07 Africana: More than 100 Recipes and Flavors Inspired by a Rich Continent
author: Lerato Umah-Shaylor
name: Colton
average rating: 4.07
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/07
date added: 2024/04/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between]]> 61327449 The secrets to successfully planning and delivering projects on any scale—from home renovation to space exploration—by the world’s leading expert on megaprojects

“This book is important, timely, instructive, and entertaining. What more could you ask for?”—Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize–winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

“Over-budget and over-schedule is an inevitability. Incompetence and grift is outrageous. Bent Flyvbjerg, with this terrific data-driven book, has shown that there is another way.”—Frank Gehry

Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant, newreality. Think of how the Empire State Building went from a sketch to the jewel of New York’s skyline in twenty-one months, or how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to a product launch in eleven months.

These are wonderful stories. But most of the time big visions turn into nightmares. Remember Boston’s “Big Dig�? Almost every sizeable city in the world has such a fiasco in its backyard. In fact, no less than 92% of megaprojects come in over budget or over schedule, or both. The cost of California’s high-speed rail project soared from $33 billion to $100 billon—and won’t even go where promised. More modest endeavors, whether launching a small business, organizing a conference, or just finishing a work project on time, also commonly fail. Why?

Understanding what distinguishes the triumphs from the failures has been the life’s work of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg, dubbed “the world’s leading megaproject expert.� In How Big Things Get Done, he identifies the errors in judgment and decision-making that lead projects, both big and small, to fail, and the research-based principles that will make you succeed with yours. For example:

� Understand your odds. If you don’t know them, you won’t win.
� Plan slow, act fast. Getting to the action quick feels right. But it’s wrong.
� Think right to left. Start with your goal, then identify the steps to get there.
� Find your Lego. Big is best built from small.
� Be a team maker. You won’t succeed without an “us.�
� Master the unknown unknowns. Most think they can’t, so they fail. Flyvbjerg shows how you can.
� Know that your biggest risk is you.

Full of vivid examples ranging from the building of the Sydney Opera House, to the making of the latest Pixar blockbusters, to a home renovation in Brooklyn gone awry, How Big Things Get Done reveals how to get any ambitious project done—on time and on budget.]]> 304 Bent Flyvbjerg 0593239512 Colton 5 4.28 2023 How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between
author: Bent Flyvbjerg
name: Colton
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/07
date added: 2024/04/07
shelves:
review:
Short, sweet, accessible. This is a great book for any project manager, but really it is applicable to pretty much any line of work. Also great to have in the back of your mind when reading the news and seeing your local infrastructure project going off the rails...
]]> <![CDATA[The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger]]> 316767
Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. It recounts how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur, Malcom McLean, turned containerization from an impractical idea into a massive industry that slashed the cost of transporting goods around the world and made the boom in global trade possible.

But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a new technology. It required years of high-stakes bargaining with two of the titans of organized labor, Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason, as well as delicate negotiations on standards that made it possible for almost any container to travel on any truck or train or ship. Ultimately, it took McLean's success in supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam to persuade the world of the container's potential.

Drawing on previously neglected sources, economist Marc Levinson shows how the container transformed economic geography, devastating traditional ports such as New York and London and fueling the growth of previously obscure ones, such as Oakland. By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world's workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the globe.]]> 392 Marc Levinson 0691123241 Colton 0 to-read 3.79 2006 The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
author: Marc Levinson
name: Colton
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor]]> 20578533
Africa has been coveted for its rich natural resources ever since the era of the Pharaohs. In past centuries, it was the lure of gold, ivory, and slaves that drew merchant-adventurers and conquerors from afar. In modern times, the focus of attention is on oil, diamonds, and other rare earth minerals.

In this vast and vivid panorama of history, Martin Meredith follows the fortunes of Africa over a period of 5,000 years. With compelling narrative, he traces the rise and fall of ancient kingdoms and empires; the spread of Christianity and Islam; the enduring quest for gold and other riches; the exploits of explorers and missionaries; and the impact of European colonization. He examines, too, the fate of modern African states and concludes with a glimpse of their future.

His cast of characters includes religious leaders, mining magnates, warlords, dictators, and many other legendary figures-among them Mansa Musa, ruler of the medieval Mali empire, said to be the richest man the world has ever known.]]> 745 Martin Meredith 1610394593 Colton 0 to-read 4.13 2014 The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor
author: Martin Meredith
name: Colton
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mary Magdalene: A Biography 305762 Chilton’s descriptions of who Mary Magdalene was and what she did challenge the male-dominated history of Christianity familiar to most readers. Placing Mary within the traditions of Jewish female savants, Chilton presents a visionary figure who was fully immersed in the mystical practices that shaped Jesus� own teachings and a woman who was a religious master in her own right.]]> 240 Bruce Chilton 0385513186 Colton 0 to-read 3.35 2005 Mary Magdalene: A Biography
author: Bruce Chilton
name: Colton
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia]]> 40536236 Guns, Germs, and Steel and Simon Winchester’s Pacific, a thrilling intellectual detective story that looks deep into the past to uncover who first settled the islands of the remote Pacific, where they came from, how they got there, and how we know.

For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Until the arrival of European explorers they were the only people to have ever lived there. Both the most closely related and the most widely dispersed people in the world before the era of mass migration, Polynesians can trace their roots to a group of epic voyagers who ventured out into the unknown in one of the greatest adventures in human history.

How did the earliest Polynesians find and colonize these far-flung islands? How did a people without writing or metal tools conquer the largest ocean in the world? This conundrum, which came to be known as the Problem of Polynesian Origins, emerged in the eighteenth century as one of the great geographical mysteries of mankind.

For Christina Thompson, this mystery is personal: her Maori husband and their sons descend directly from these ancient navigators. In Sea People, Thompson explores the fascinating story of these ancestors, as well as those of the many sailors, linguists, archaeologists, folklorists, biologists, and geographers who have puzzled over this history for three hundred years. A masterful mix of history, geography, anthropology, and the science of navigation, Sea People combines the thrill of exploration with the drama of discovery in a vivid tour of one of the most captivating regions in the world.

Sea People includes an 8-page photo insert, illustrations throughout, and 2 endpaper maps.]]> 365 Christina Thompson 0062060872 Colton 5 4.21 2019 Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia
author: Christina Thompson
name: Colton
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/30
date added: 2024/03/30
shelves:
review:
This is one of the best non fiction books I've ever read. It's a history of anthropology/science more than it is a history of Polynesian settlement. This makes for a fascinating exploration of the convergence and conflict between traditional and scientific constructions of knowledge. It is also a story of some really interesting characters and their role in unraveling the puzzle of Polynesian origins.
]]> <![CDATA[Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World]]> 58532145
When Ghana won its independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for home-grown opportunists and rapacious Western interests determined to snatch any assets that colonialism hadn’t already stripped. A CIA-funded military junta ousted the new nation’s inspiring president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of hiding the country’s gold overseas.

Into this big lie stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty in Ghana and trained in the United States, John Ackah Blay-Miezah declared himself custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions. You, too, could claim a piece--if only you would “invest� in Blay-Miezah’s fictitious efforts to release the equally fictitious fund. Over the 1970s and �80s, he and his accomplices―including Ghanaian state officials and Nixon’s former attorney general--scammed hundreds of millions of dollars out of thousands of believers. Blay-Miezah lived in luxury, deceiving Philadelphia lawyers, London financiers, and Seoul businessmen alike, all while eluding his FBI pursuers. American prosecutors called his scam “one of the most fascinating--and lucrative--in modern history.�

In Anansi’s Gold , Yepoka Yeebo chases Blay-Miezah’s ever-wilder trail and discovers, at long last, what really happened to Ghana’s missing wealth. She unfolds a riveting account of Cold War entanglements, international finance, and postcolonial betrayal, revealing how what we call “history� writes itself into being, one lie at a time.]]> 400 Yepoka Yeebo 1635574730 Colton 5
Take "Catch Me If You Can" and set it in the tumultuous setting of post-colonial Ghana, with coups and corruption, and you've got this book. It's almost unbelievable that a scam this bad was able to thrive for so long.

A really interesting true crime story, but also a fascinating reflection on the failures of the independence dream in Ghana. And more profoundly, this book looks at the tenuous nature of truth, and how powerful figures constructed their own narratives to "launder their reputations" and rob people blind.]]> 3.74 2023 Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
author: Yepoka Yeebo
name: Colton
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/16
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves:
review:
Why is this not a movie yet???

Take "Catch Me If You Can" and set it in the tumultuous setting of post-colonial Ghana, with coups and corruption, and you've got this book. It's almost unbelievable that a scam this bad was able to thrive for so long.

A really interesting true crime story, but also a fascinating reflection on the failures of the independence dream in Ghana. And more profoundly, this book looks at the tenuous nature of truth, and how powerful figures constructed their own narratives to "launder their reputations" and rob people blind.
]]> <![CDATA[Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes]]> 173404032 Slow Noodles will resonate with readers who loved the food and emotional truth of Michelle Zauner'sCrying in H Mart, and it has the staying power of Loung Ung's First They Killed My Father.

Take a well-fed nine-year-old with a big family and a fancy education. Fold in 2 revolutions, 2 civil wars, and one wholesale extermination. Subtract a reliable source of food, life savings, and family members, until all are gone. Shave down childhood dreams for approximately two decades, until only subsistence remains.

In Slow Noodles, Chantha Nguon recounts her life as a Cambodia refugee who lost everything and everyone—her house, her country, her parents, her siblings, her friends—everything but the memories of her mother’s kitchen, the tastes and aromas of the foods her mother made before the dictator Pol Pot tore her country apart in the 1970s, killing millions of her compatriots. Nguon’s irrepressible spirit and determination come through in this emotional and poignantbut also lyrical and magical memoir that includes over 20 recipes for Khmer dishes like chicken lime soup, banh sung noodles, pâté de foie, curries, spring rolls, and stir-fries. For Nguon, recreating these dishes becomes an act of resistance, of reclaiming her place in the world, of upholding the values the Khmer Rouge sought to destroy, and of honoring the memory of her beloved mother.

From her idyllic early years in Battambang to hiding as a young girl in Phnom Penh as the country purges ethnic Vietnamese like Nguon and her family, from her escape to Saigon to the deaths of mother and sister there, from the poverty and devastation she experiences in a war-ravaged Vietnam to her decision to flee the country. We follow Chantha on a harrowing river crossing into Thailand—part of the exodus that gave rise to the name “boat people”—and her decades in a refugee camp there, until finally, denied passage to the West, she returns to a forever changed Cambodia. Nguon survives by cooking in a brothel, serving drinks in a nightclub, making and selling street food, becoming a suture-nurse treating refugees abused by Thai authorities, and weaving silk. Through it all, Nguonrelies on her mother’s “slow noodles� approach to healing and to cooking, one that prioritizes time and care over expediency.Haunting and evocative, Slow Noodles is a testament to the power of culinary heritage to spark the rebirth of a young woman’s hopes for a beautiful life.]]> 304 Chantha Nguon 1643753495 Colton 0 to-read 4.32 2024 Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes
author: Chantha Nguon
name: Colton
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Good That Men Do (Star Trek: Enterprise #11)]]> 227818 Pax Galactica. Enemies become allies. Old secrets are at last revealed. Long-held beliefs and widely accepted truths are challenged. Man turns to leisurely pursuits.

In this golden age, two old friends are drawn together. They seek to understand, and wonder how what they have long believed, what they have been taught, was never so.

Over two hundred years ago, the life of one of Starfleet's earliest pioneers came to a tragic end, and Captain Jonathan Archer, the legendary commander of Earth's first warp-five starship, lost a close friend. Or so it seemed for many years. But with the passage of time, and the declassification of certain crucial files, the truth about that fateful day -- the day that Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III didn't die -- could finally be revealed.

Why did Starfleet feel it was necessary to rewrite history? And why only now can the truth be told?

]]> 446 Andy Mangels 0743440013 Colton 3
But this book deserves a ton of credit for resurrecting a beloved character who never deserved his fate. I would love to see a plot line like this explored on screen to retcon the awful ending to ENT.]]> 3.94 2007 The Good That Men Do (Star Trek: Enterprise #11)
author: Andy Mangels
name: Colton
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/14
date added: 2024/02/14
shelves:
review:
The writing was clunky at times, particularly the constant exposition dumps about episodes of the show. The ending somewhat anticlimactic, and I felt Trip's big decision felt rather rushed.

But this book deserves a ton of credit for resurrecting a beloved character who never deserved his fate. I would love to see a plot line like this explored on screen to retcon the awful ending to ENT.
]]> A Spell of Good Things 61103018 Ayobami Adebayo, the celebrated author of Stay With Me unveils a dazzling story of modern Nigeria and two families caught in the riptides of wealth, power, romantic obsession, and political corruption.

Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. Because his father has lost his job, Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers, begging when he must, dreaming of a big future.

Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of an ascendant politician.

When a local politician takes an interest in Eniola and sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola and Eniola's lives become intertwined. In her breathtaking second novel, Ayobami Adebayo shines her light on Nigeria, on the gaping divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the shared humanity that lives in between.]]> 352 Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ 0525657649 Colton 5 3.76 2023 A Spell of Good Things
author: Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
name: Colton
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/04
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves:
review:
Surprised by so many negative reviews. I found the characters to be very genuine, there was a real sense of place amidst the many contradictions of modern Nigeria. Wuraola and Eniola at the centre of this book are both victims of their place in the class hierarchy of their society, though in dramatically different ways.
]]> Alphonso Davies: A New Hope 66459604 Built on years of interviews with friends, family, teachers, coaches, and teammates, the first biography of Alphonso Davies, the new face of Canadian men’s soccer

Arguably the most famous Canadian athlete on the planet, Alphonso Davies has been the subject of global attention after bursting onto the scene as a 15-year-old soccer sensation. Since then, he’s won every trophy imaginable with German giant FC Bayern Munich and helped Canada reach the men’s World Cup for the first time in 36 years.

Based on years of original reporting and extensive interviews with his friends, family members, teachers, coaches, teammates, and others from his inner circle, Alphonso Davies: A New Hope paints a complete portrait of the soccer star. The first biography about “Phonzie� covers every angle of his life and career � from the harsh realities of growing up in a refugee camp amidst the Liberian civil war, to the unique challenges of starting a new life in a foreign country, twice, to his trailblazing path as a Canadian megastar in the world’s most popular sport. Bringing together intimate details and never-before-told stories, author Farhan Devji pulls back the curtain on a person and player who has captured the hearts of a nation and become a shining light for refugees everywhere.]]> 260 Farhan Devji 1770416528 Colton 4 4.08 Alphonso Davies: A New Hope
author: Farhan Devji
name: Colton
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/25
date added: 2024/01/25
shelves:
review:
Finished reading this after a really lousy week in the world of Canadian soccer. 2022 feels a million years ago
]]> <![CDATA[The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society]]> 123505725
Indelible linked stories centred around Azurée, a young Arab woman living in the echoes of her ancestors' voices. Masterfully tracing the deep roots of the Arab immigrant experience, these interlockingstories follow an Arab family as they flee the Middle East in the nineteenth century, settle in Montreal in the twentieth, and face the collision between tradition and modernity in the twenty-first.This family includes trailblazing Lebanese freedom fighters, undercover operatives in World War II, and brave Syrian refugees trying to find their place in Canadian society. This line of daring women culminates in Azurée. As a young Arab woman living in the wake of her family’s histories, Azurée contends with all the meanings of her blood―ethnicity and lineage, sexuality and menstruation, pain and death. Over the years, through many romantic entanglements, Azurée journeys from teen mallrat to searching student to troubled traveller, until she finally stands in her ancestral home ready to confront her past―and her future.
With imaginative aplomb and abiding passion, the unforgettable connected stories in The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society explore love and suspicion, trust and betrayal, faith and despair, war and displacement in an explosive debut collection that pushes the expectations for Arab women beyond conventions, beliefs, and borders.]]> 208 Christine Estima 1487012330 Colton 4 3.68 The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society
author: Christine Estima
name: Colton
average rating: 3.68
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/14
date added: 2024/01/14
shelves:
review:
Would've been cool to spend a bit more time with the historical characters, but otherwise some really interesting short stories. The late 90s early 2000s adolescence chapter felt so vividly real
]]> Maame 60784605 Shortlisted for the TikTok Book Awards in the Book of the Year, 2023 and the ŷ Debut and Fiction Book of the Year, 2023.

It’s fair to say that Maddie’s life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson’s. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting.

When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she’s ready to experience some important “firsts�: She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But it's not long before tragedy strikes, forcing Maddie to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils—and rewards—of putting her life on the line.

Smart, funny, and deeply affecting, Jessica George's Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism, to female pleasure, the complexity of love, and the life-saving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures―and it celebrates finally being able to find where you belong.]]> 320 Jessica George Colton 2 4.03 2023 Maame
author: Jessica George
name: Colton
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/01/06
date added: 2024/01/06
shelves:
review:
Got about 100 pages in and gave up. I get it, she's sheltered and socially inept
]]> Redwall (Redwall, #1) 7996 A quest to recover a legendary lost weapon by bumbling young apprentice monk, mouse Matthias.

Redwall Abbey, tranquil home to a community of peace-loving mice, is threatened by Cluny the Scourge savage bilge rat warlord and his battle-hardened horde. But the Redwall mice and their loyal woodland friends combine their courage and strength.]]> 352 Brian Jacques 1862301387 Colton 4 4.14 1986 Redwall (Redwall, #1)
author: Brian Jacques
name: Colton
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/06
date added: 2024/01/06
shelves:
review:
Fun to come back and read a beloved childhood favourite after all these years. The formula for the subsequent books is there, even if the world building is a bit off. A bit worried that I've now fallen down the rabbit (mole?) hole and will have to read 20-something sequels
]]> Ring Shout 49247242 In America, demons wear white hoods.

In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.

Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan's demons straight to Hell. But something awful's brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up.

Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world?]]> 185 P. Djèlí Clark 1250767024 Colton 5 3.96 2020 Ring Shout
author: P. Djèlí Clark
name: Colton
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/04
date added: 2024/01/04
shelves:
review:
Short, sweet, absolutely bonkers fever dream/nightmare of a book. Such a brilliant concept oozing with body horror and history that manages to make the KKK even more evil and pathetic as monsters.
]]> Notes on an Execution 57773248
Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. He hoped it wouldn’t end like this, not for him.

Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the homicide detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake.

Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.]]> 306 Danya Kukafka 0063052733 Colton 5 4.04 2022 Notes on an Execution
author: Danya Kukafka
name: Colton
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/25
date added: 2023/12/25
shelves:
review:
This is a great book that centers women's experiences, an important rebuttal in the true crime era where victims are often reduced to the "the girls." Ansel is an unremarkable, mediocre man, not a brilliant serial killer. His life is tragic and pitiable but he in the end, he is mostly pathetic.
]]> <![CDATA[The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey]]> 29502036 352 Laila El-Haddad 1682570088 Colton 5 4.55 2013 The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey
author: Laila El-Haddad
name: Colton
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/16
date added: 2023/12/16
shelves:
review:
Important book as a cultural history of Palestinian cuisine, and putting a spotlight on women's stories. But also an examination of the oppressive conditions in Gaza, as manifested through food. This is worth a read in 2023
]]> <![CDATA[Olives, Lemons & Za'atar: The Best Middle Eastern Home Cooking]]> 18174720 224 Rawia Bishara 1906868840 Colton 4 4.11 2014 Olives, Lemons & Za'atar: The Best Middle Eastern Home Cooking
author: Rawia Bishara
name: Colton
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/16
date added: 2023/12/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Chain-Gang All-Stars 61190770
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.]]> 367 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 0593317335 Colton 5 4.13 2023 Chain-Gang All-Stars
author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
name: Colton
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/16
date added: 2023/12/16
shelves:
review:
Read this book. It's simply devastating but you need to read it
]]> <![CDATA[On the Curry Trail: Chasing the Flavor That Seduced the World]]> 60831853

On the Curry Trail is an enlightening journey across Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas to explore the origins of curry and the signature, essential curries of each region. This diaspora of curry brings alive not only the most iconic, category-defining recipes from these continents, but also the history, lore, anecdotes, and familial remembrances that fashion each dish. It delves into the story of curry—what it was and what it is, the places to which it has traveled and the ways it has evolved en route (whether because of local ingredients, cultural tastes, or other factors)—and embraces the many interpretations and definitions of this beloved dish. It makes the flavors of these scintillating curries accessible to the everyday home cook. On the Curry Trail is at once a mash note and an education—one rich in history and sense of place—that tells the definitive, delectable story of this beguiling dish in 50 irresistible recipes. Illustrations throughout.]]> 208 Raghavan Iyer 1523511214 Colton 4 4.13 2023 On the Curry Trail: Chasing the Flavor That Seduced the World
author: Raghavan Iyer
name: Colton
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/04
date added: 2023/12/04
shelves:
review:
Really interesting book! There is such a richness of history explored here, with curry and curry-esque dishes as a through-line for so many cultures and dishes in disparate parts of the world. Worth it for the history, and the recipes aren't too shabby either
]]> <![CDATA[National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home]]> 63889384 The acclaimed international food writer and award-winning author of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking explores the history and future of six of the world's most fascinating and iconic food cultures--France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey

We all have an idea in our heads about what French food is--or Italian, or Japanese, or Mexican, or.... But where did those ideas come from? Who decides what makes a national cuisine? Anya von Bremzen, award-winning international food writer, has written definitive cookbooks for Russian, Spanish and Latin American cuisine, and delved into the world's great food traditions as a three-time James-Beard-award-winning food journalist. Now, in National Dish, she embarks on a fascinating journey to the heart of six of the world's most storied food traditions, going high and low, from world-famous chefs to people on the street, in search of how cuisine became connected to place.

Paris is where the whole idea of a country's food as its national heritage was first invented, and so it is where Anya must begin. With an inquisitive eye and unmistakable wit, she ponders the invention of the restaurant, the codification of French food, and the tension between the cosmopolitan and locavore tendencies of the modern eater. From France, she moves quarters to Naples, where she comes face to face with the myth and reality of the pizza in the city where it all began, and takes on the Italian-ness of pasta in the bargain. Next is Tokyo, where Anya and her partner Barry explore the mystique of ramen, rice, and the distance between Japan's future and its past. From there they move to Seville, to search for the essence of Spain's tapas culture and sense of community, and then Oaxaca, where culture wars over the pretty dream and the complex reality of postcolonial cultural integration find expression in the form of maize, mole, and mezcal. In Istanbul, a traditional Ottoman potluck with friends becomes a lens on how a great multi-cultural empire defined its food heritage. Finally, they land back in their beloved home in the melting pot of Jackson Heights, Queens, for a Ukrainian dinner centered around borscht, a meal which has never felt more loaded, or more precious.

A book of astonishing range and connoisseurship, National Dish peels back the layers of myth, commercialization, and fetishization around these great world cuisines. In so doing, it brings us to a deep appreciation of how the country makes the food, and the food the country.]]> 352 Anya von Bremzen 0735223165 Colton 3
The concept is super cool, and I really love the way it deconstructs so many food myths. The dynamic of how "authenticity" is constructed and marketed is so interesting. The pizza chapter is really cool, showing the dynamic between diaspora and homeland. If nothing else, this is a great reminder of the socially constructed nature of nations and cultures, and how none of them are truly, completely devoid of outside influences.

That being said, as others have noted, the writing style is really pretentious and it can take away from enjoyment of the book. Yes, we get it, you're cultured and have fancy friends. The book is super dense with references, and ifnyoy don't have a baseline knowledge about the cities/countries she explores, it can be really hard to keep up.]]> 3.51 National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home
author: Anya von Bremzen
name: Colton
average rating: 3.51
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/04
date added: 2023/12/04
shelves:
review:
I can understand why this book is divisive.

The concept is super cool, and I really love the way it deconstructs so many food myths. The dynamic of how "authenticity" is constructed and marketed is so interesting. The pizza chapter is really cool, showing the dynamic between diaspora and homeland. If nothing else, this is a great reminder of the socially constructed nature of nations and cultures, and how none of them are truly, completely devoid of outside influences.

That being said, as others have noted, the writing style is really pretentious and it can take away from enjoyment of the book. Yes, we get it, you're cultured and have fancy friends. The book is super dense with references, and ifnyoy don't have a baseline knowledge about the cities/countries she explores, it can be really hard to keep up.
]]> <![CDATA[Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History]]> 17071437 482 Rachel Laudan 0520954912 Colton 0 to-read 3.85 2013 Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History
author: Rachel Laudan
name: Colton
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> #BlackInSchool 58285360 A firsthand account of systemic anti-Black racism in Canadian schools



The prevalence of anti-Black racism and its many faces, from racial profiling to police brutality, in North America is indisputable. How do we stop racist ideas and violence if the very foundation of our society is built upon white supremacy? How do we end systemic racism if the majority do not experience it or question its existence? Do our schools instill children with the ideals of equality and tolerance, or do they reinforce differences and teach children of colour that they don't belong?

#BlackInSchool is Habiba Cooper Diallo's high school journal, in which she documents, processes, and resists the systemic racism, microaggressions, stereotypes, and outright racism she experienced in Canada's education system.

Powerful and eye-opening, Cooper Diallo illustrates how our schools reinforce rather than erode racism: the handcuffing and frisking of students of colour by police at school, one-dimensional, tokenistic curricula of Black people, and the constant barrage of overt racism from students and staff alike. She shows how systemic racism works, how it alienates and seeks to destroys a child's sense of self. She shows how our institutions work to erase the lived experiences of Black youth and tries to erase Black youth themselves.

Cooper Diallo's words will resonate with some, but should shock, appall, and animate a great many more into action towards a society that is truly equitable for all.]]> 160 Habiba Cooper Diallo 0889778183 Colton 4
But seriously, short and powerful insights into the experiences of attending high school in Canada for a Black students. Important reading for anyone involved in the education system, but also for parents.]]> 4.27 #BlackInSchool
author: Habiba Cooper Diallo
name: Colton
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/11
date added: 2023/10/11
shelves:
review:
You can definitely tell this was a high schooler's writing given the number of hashtags!

But seriously, short and powerful insights into the experiences of attending high school in Canada for a Black students. Important reading for anyone involved in the education system, but also for parents.
]]> <![CDATA[Agent of Change: My Life Fighting Terrorists, Spies, and Institutional Racism]]> 63289061 Agent of Change Huda Mukbil takes us behind the curtain of a leading spy agency during a fraught time, recounting her experiences as an intelligence officer for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Mukbil was the first Black Arab-Canadian Muslim woman to join CSIS and was at the forefront of the fight against terrorism after 9/11.

Mukbil’s mastery of four languages quickly made her a counterterrorism expert and a uniquely valuable asset to the organization. But as she worked with colleagues to confront new international threats, she also struggled for acceptance and recognition at the agency. Following the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the rise of homegrown extremism, Mukbil was framed as an inside threat. Determined to prove her loyalty, while equally concerned about the surveillance and profiling of Muslims and revelations of Western agencies� torture and torture by proxy, Mukbil started to question CSIS’s fluctuating ethical stance in relation to its mandate. Her stellar work on a secondment to MI5, the British Security Service, earned commendation; this shielded her, but only temporarily, from the hostile workplace culture at CSIS. Ultimately, Mukbil and a group of colleagues went public about the pervasive institutional discrimination undermining CSIS and national security from within.

Mukbil’s expertise in international security and her commitment to workplace transparency drove important changes at CSIS. Dazzlingly written, her account is an eye-opener for anyone wanting to understand how racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia undermine not only individuals, but institutions and the national interest � and how addressing this openly can tackle populism and misinformation.]]> 266 Huda Mukbil 022801655X Colton 5 4.30 Agent of Change: My Life Fighting Terrorists, Spies, and Institutional Racism
author: Huda Mukbil
name: Colton
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/06
date added: 2023/10/06
shelves:
review:
Fantastic window into the world of national security in Canada, and a deeply personal account of Huds Mukbil's journey as a Black Muslim woman working at CSIS. Her courage in sharing this account is commendable, and shines a light on how our security institutions need to change to better reflect the diverse communities they are meant to protect
]]> <![CDATA[The Murderous History of Bible Translations: Power, Conflict and the Quest for Meaning]]> 28260393
In 1535, William Tyndale, the first man to produce an English version of the Bible in print, was captured and imprisoned in Belgium. A year later he was strangled and then burned at the stake. His co-translator was also burned. In that same year the translator of the first Dutch Bible was arrested and beheaded. These were not the first, nor were they the last instances of extreme violence against Bible translators. The Murderous History of Bible Translations tells the remarkable, and bloody, story of those who dared translate the word of God.

The Bible has been translated far more than any other book. To our minds it is self-evident that believers can read their sacred literature in a language they understand. But the history of Bible translations is far more contentious than reason would suggest. Bible translations underlie an astonishing number of religious conflicts that have plagued the world.

Harry Freedman describes brilliantly the passions and strong emotions that arise when deeply held religious convictions are threatened or undermined. He tells of the struggle for authority and orthodoxy in a world where temporal power was always subjugated to the divine, a world in which the idea of a Bible for all was so important that many were willing to give up their time, security, and even their lives.]]> 248 Harry Freedman 1632866013 Colton 4
"History of Bible translations" doesn't immediately strike one as a very exciting topic, but Freedman's writing is not overly academic and is used to convey countless anecdotes of translations gone wrong. I learned a lot, and this book really drove home the complex interplay between language, power, politics, organized religion and faith.

Definitely worth a read!]]> 3.68 2016 The Murderous History of Bible Translations: Power, Conflict and the Quest for Meaning
author: Harry Freedman
name: Colton
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/03
date added: 2023/09/03
shelves:
review:
Takes a little while to get bloody, but this book really delivers on its promise!

"History of Bible translations" doesn't immediately strike one as a very exciting topic, but Freedman's writing is not overly academic and is used to convey countless anecdotes of translations gone wrong. I learned a lot, and this book really drove home the complex interplay between language, power, politics, organized religion and faith.

Definitely worth a read!
]]> Where the Crawdads Sing 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Colton 3
The mash-up of coming of age, courtroom drama, romance and whodunit mystery is ambitious but not sure the balance is really there.]]> 4.35 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Colton
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/03
date added: 2023/09/03
shelves:
review:
The prose and evocative descriptions of the marsh are really quite beautiful and definitely create a sense of place.

The mash-up of coming of age, courtroom drama, romance and whodunit mystery is ambitious but not sure the balance is really there.
]]> Someday, Maybe 59952176 A stunning and witty debut novel about a young woman’s emotional journey through unimaginable loss, pulled along by her tight-knit Nigerian family, a posse of new friends, and the love and laughter she shared with her husband. Onyi Nwabineli is a fresh new voice for fans of Yaa Gyasi, Queenie and I May Destroy You.

Here are three things you should know about my husband:
1. He was the great love of my life despite his penchant for going incommunicado.
2. He was, as far as I and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy. Which is significant because�
3. On New Year’s Eve, he committed suicide.

And here is one thing you should know about me:
1. I found him.

Bonus fact: No. I am not okay.]]> 342 Onyi Nwabineli 1525899805 Colton 4
Eve is a frustrating character who ignores or outright rebukes the incredible efforts made by those around her to help her through her loss. But she's very believably broken and a great representation of how messy and non linear the grieving process is after something as awful as suicide.

The plot is pretty sparse (on purpose), and there are some points where things drag. I got tired of Luisa and Drew's endless bickering.

But overall this is a really worthwhile read.]]> 3.88 2022 Someday, Maybe
author: Onyi Nwabineli
name: Colton
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/01
date added: 2023/08/01
shelves:
review:
This is a hard book to read. It's 300+ pages of dissecting every possible angle of grief that someone feels after the person they love the most kills themselves.

Eve is a frustrating character who ignores or outright rebukes the incredible efforts made by those around her to help her through her loss. But she's very believably broken and a great representation of how messy and non linear the grieving process is after something as awful as suicide.

The plot is pretty sparse (on purpose), and there are some points where things drag. I got tired of Luisa and Drew's endless bickering.

But overall this is a really worthwhile read.
]]> The Postcard 63880836 Winner of the Choix Goncourt Prize, Anne Berest’s The Postcard is a vivid portrait of twentieth-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life, an enthralling investigation into family secrets, and poignant tale of a Jewish family devastated by the Holocaust and partly restored through the power of storytelling.

January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest’s maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques—all killed at Auschwitz.

Fifteen years after the postcard is delivered, Anne, the heroine of this novel, is moved to discover who sent it and why. Aided by her chain-smoking mother, family members, friends, associates, a private detective, a graphologist, and many others, she embarks on a journey to discover the fate of the Rabinovitch family: their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris. What emerges is a moving saga that shatters long-held certainties about Anne’s family, her country, and herself.]]> 464 Anne Berest Colton 0 to-read 4.31 2021 The Postcard
author: Anne Berest
name: Colton
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Great Scoops: Recipes from a Neighborhood Ice Cream Shop]]> 61077887
And for those who are new to ice cream making, have no fear: the book includes a chapter covering everything there is to know about making both dairy and vegan ice creams and frozen desserts at home.

Great Scoops is a captivating cookbook about artisanal ice cream, the people who craft it and the community that loves them for it. The delightful selection of classic and whimsical flavors reminds us that delicious homemade ice creams can be made year-round and, more importantly, that you're never too old (and it's never too cold) to enjoy a heartfelt scoop.]]> 224 Marlene Haley 1773271652 Colton 5 4.13 Great Scoops: Recipes from a Neighborhood Ice Cream Shop
author: Marlene Haley
name: Colton
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/20
date added: 2023/07/20
shelves:
review:
Awesome book from one of Ottawa's best ice cream shops! Recipes are organized by season and there is a short chapter at the end with recipes for other desserts to serve with/in ice cream
]]> Gambling on Development 61058685
Stefan Dercon argues that the answer lies not in a specific set of policies, but rather in a key ‘development bargain�, whereby a country’s elites shift from protecting their own positions to gambling on a growth-based future. Despite the imperfections of such bargains, China is among the most striking recent success stories, along with Indonesia and more unlikely places, such as Bangladesh, Ghana and Ethiopia. Gambling on Development is about these winning efforts, in contrast to countries stuck in elite bargains leading nowhere.

Building on three decades� experience across forty-odd countries, Dercon winds his narrative through Ebola in Sierra Leone, scandals in Malawi, beer factories in the DRC, mobile phone licences in Mozambique, and relief programmes behind enemy lines in South Sudan. Weaving together conversations with prime ministers, civil servants and ordinary people, this is a probing look at how development has been achieved across the world, and how to assist such successes.]]> 360 Stefan Dercon 1787385620 Colton 0 to-read 3.92 Gambling on Development
author: Stefan Dercon
name: Colton
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan, His Heirs and the Founding of Modern China]]> 18761873
Under his grandson, Kublai Khan, the vision evolved into a more complex religious ideology, justifying further expansion. Kublai doubled the empire's size until, in the late 13th century, he and the rest of Genghis's 'Golden Family' controlled one fifth of the inhabited world. Along the way, he conquered all China, gave the nation the borders it has today, and then, finally, discovered the limits to growth.

Genghis's dream of world rule turned out to be a fantasy. And yet, in terms of the sheer scale of the conquests, never has a vision and the character of one man had such an effect on the world.

Charting the evolution of this vision, John Man provides a unique account of the Mongol Empire, from young Genghis to old Kublai, from a rejected teenager to the world's most powerful emperor.]]> 400 John Man 0593071247 Colton 0 to-read 3.91 2014 The Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan, His Heirs and the Founding of Modern China
author: John Man
name: Colton
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bayrut: The Cookbook 59977277
Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, is an exhilarating, chaotic city with a tumultuous past yet a thriving, vibrant foodie reputation. Perfectly poised between the Middle East and the Mediterranean, Lebanese cuisine is hugely popular � famed for its varied and flavourful regional dishes that emphasise whole grains, fresh fruits, vegetables, and seafood.

Beirut’s ever-changing, often turbulent, heritage means that its food has evolved an exciting character of its own. In this book, Hisham Assaad shows you the best the city has to offer, with accessible, delicious recipes, ranging from the classics to more modern fare. He tells the story of a city with energy and diversity, of multiple cultures and traditions, with ever-popular street food, a thriving restaurant and café scene, and traditional family favourites handed down through generations. Learn to create lavish breakfast spreads, traditional Sunday feasts, fresh and vibrant salads, easy and nutritious suppers, or even a delectable afternoon tea with tempting perfumed sweets and delicacies.

With stunning food and travel photography, this book will transport you to the cultural melting pot that is Beirut � a city that excels at mouth-watering food.]]> 224 Hisham Assaad 1925811697 Colton 4 4.44 Bayrut: The Cookbook
author: Hisham Assaad
name: Colton
average rating: 4.44
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/07
date added: 2023/07/07
shelves:
review:
A beautiful book and a very honest exploration of one of the world's best cuisines. Assaad is very forthcoming about the city's struggles of recent years and how tragedy has shaped and continues to shape Beirut's food. Oh, and the recipes look pretty delicious as well!
]]> <![CDATA[The Weight of Sand: My 450 Days Held Hostage in the Sahara]]> 58462346
When Edith meets Luca in a small Northern town, the two connect instantly. Under the Northern Lights, they develop a deep friendship over their shared passions: travel, living off the land, a bohemian life. In search of wanderlust, they embark on an epic road trip from Italy to Togo, where they will join their friend's sustainable farming project. Upon arriving on the African continent, they change their itinerary and drive through Africa's Sahel region, a haven for militant groups, where they are surrounded and captured. Little was known about Edith's and Luca's fate until they reappeared in Mali more than one year later, having mysteriously escaped their captors.

Now, Edith shares her harrowing story with the world for the first time-complete with the poems that became a lifeline for her in captivity, which she wrote in secret with a pen borrowed from another hostage.

Against the stunning but cruel backdrop of the desert, Edith recounts her months as a hostage: the oppressive heat, violent sandstorms, constant relocations, hunger strikes, and her eventual heart-pounding escape. Separated from Luca early on, she finds solidarity and comfort with a group of other female hostages, who lend her a pen to write poetry, a creative outlet that helps save her life. Edith is steadfast in her will to remain sane: she reveals her dedication to her art, and her striking ability to unsettle her captors and identify their vulnerabilities.

A compelling descent into a strange, brutal universe, The Weight of Sand is ultimately a life-affirming book and a poetic celebration of one woman's resilience.]]> 296 Édith Blais 1771649097 Colton 3
I also felt like Edith never did the work to challenge her stereotypical understanding of Africa, and makes a lot of sweeping generalizations about the people there.]]> 4.00 The Weight of Sand: My 450 Days Held Hostage in the Sahara
author: Édith Blais
name: Colton
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/28
date added: 2023/06/28
shelves:
review:
Maybe it's just the English translation wasn't great, but I found the writing to be very minimalist and didn't really convey much sense of place or emotion.

I also felt like Edith never did the work to challenge her stereotypical understanding of Africa, and makes a lot of sweeping generalizations about the people there.
]]> <![CDATA[A Season in Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda]]> 13029861
A Season in Hell is Fowler’s compelling story of his captivity, told in his own words, but it is also a startlingly frank discussion about the state of a world redefined by clashing civilizations.]]> 320 Robert R. Fowler 1443402044 Colton 4
A very detailed and to the point account of Robert Fowler's captivity with AQIM in Niger/Mali. The narrative is captivating and not self-indulgent. The epilogue really pulls no punches in criticizing the efforts of the Canadian authorities and the way they engaged with the victims' families.]]> 4.00 2011 A Season in Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda
author: Robert R. Fowler
name: Colton
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/06
date added: 2023/06/06
shelves:
review:
Oof, the RCMP and DFAIT really don't come off well in this...

A very detailed and to the point account of Robert Fowler's captivity with AQIM in Niger/Mali. The narrative is captivating and not self-indulgent. The epilogue really pulls no punches in criticizing the efforts of the Canadian authorities and the way they engaged with the victims' families.
]]> Paradise 765618 256 Abdulrazak Gurnah Colton 3
Like Gurnah's other books, it provides a really interesting insight into the culture and society of colonial Tanzania.

Like his other books, it is slowwww.

Also, pretty much everyone wants to have sex with the adolescent male main character?????]]> 3.63 1994 Paradise
author: Abdulrazak Gurnah
name: Colton
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/13
date added: 2023/05/13
shelves:
review:
3.5

Like Gurnah's other books, it provides a really interesting insight into the culture and society of colonial Tanzania.

Like his other books, it is slowwww.

Also, pretty much everyone wants to have sex with the adolescent male main character?????
]]> Leave My Bones In Saskatoon 123503348 0 Michael Afenfia 1777688477 Colton 0 to-read 3.56 Leave My Bones In Saskatoon
author: Michael Afenfia
name: Colton
average rating: 3.56
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths]]> 60493756 Maaza Mengiste Colton 0 to-read 0.0 A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths
author: Maaza Mengiste
name: Colton
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Thali: A Simple Indian Kitchen]]> 62001344 The Coconut Lagoon chef brings the vibrant everyday flavours of South India to home kitchens.

Like a tagine or casserole, a thali describes not only a type of kitchenware, but a type of meal. A thali is constructed of many small dishes served on a platter that harmonize through contrasting textures, visual appeal, complimentary spices, and sheer deliciousness. Once reserved for special occasions, this traditional way of eating is now a popular way of dining at home.

In My Thali, award-winning chef and author Joe Thottungal shares his favorite home-cooked recipes and stories from his homeland of Kerala, connecting past and present in the world of Indian cooking today. This exploration of food heritage features a collection of 85 signature recipes - from simple raitas to nourishing dals and fragrant curries - that can be easily re-created at home, using accessible ingredients and everyday cooking equipment, and without any compromise to flavor or authenticity. Each recipe can be enjoyed on its own or joined together to compose a complete and balanced meal; suggested menus are included for constructing these "feasts on a plate."

My Thali celebrates the South Indian cooking and the joys of thalis, both simple and homey, and grand and glorious.]]> 192 Joe Thottungal 1773271954 Colton 5 4.31 My Thali: A Simple Indian Kitchen
author: Joe Thottungal
name: Colton
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/05/07
shelves:
review:
Joe Thottungal is an Ottawa treasure, and his second cookbook is a great resource. Simpler and more approachable than the dishes in his first book, this is a useful book for the home cook with a wide variety of different dishes to piece together into a meal.
]]> Long Walk to Freedom 318431
Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality.

The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. In classically elegant and engrossing prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in a Jewish firm in Johannesburg, of his slow political awakening, and of his pivotal role in the rebirth of a stagnant ANC and the formation of its Youth League in the 1950s.

He describes the struggle to reconcile his political activity with his devotion to his family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separations from his children. He brings vividly to life the escalating political warfare in the fifties between the ANC and the government, culminating in his dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Herecounts the surprisingly eventful twenty-seven years in prison and the complex, delicate negotiations that led both to his freedom and to the beginning of the end of apartheid. Finally he provides the ultimate inside account.]]> 656 Nelson Mandela 0316548189 Colton 0 to-read 4.34 1994 Long Walk to Freedom
author: Nelson Mandela
name: Colton
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Afterlives 52744975
Another young man returns at the same time. Hamza was not stolen for the war, but sold into it; he has grown up at the right hand of an officer whose protection has marked him life. With nothing but the clothes on his back, he seeks only work and security � and the love of the beautiful Afiya.

As fate knots these young people together, as they live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war on another continent lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away…]]> 288 Abdulrazak Gurnah Colton 4
This book bounces between a number of different main characters. I had to go back and double check because the most prominent character, Hamza, has a backstory very similar to the main character from Paradise.

The ending of this book comes up really quick and is pretty shocking.

The most interesting aspect of Afterlives is the exploration of colonial life in East Africa under German rule, highlighting the role that locally recruited askari played in the maintenance of colonial rule. For that alone it's worth a read]]> 3.72 2020 Afterlives
author: Abdulrazak Gurnah
name: Colton
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/07
date added: 2023/05/07
shelves:
review:
Probably more of a 3.5. This is the 2nd of Gurnah's books that I've read and the pacing of his writing really can be glacial. That said it does lend it a sort of historical vibe that works well for historical fiction.

This book bounces between a number of different main characters. I had to go back and double check because the most prominent character, Hamza, has a backstory very similar to the main character from Paradise.

The ending of this book comes up really quick and is pretty shocking.

The most interesting aspect of Afterlives is the exploration of colonial life in East Africa under German rule, highlighting the role that locally recruited askari played in the maintenance of colonial rule. For that alone it's worth a read
]]> Pachinko 34051011
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.]]> 496 Min Jin Lee Colton 0 to-read 4.35 2017 Pachinko
author: Min Jin Lee
name: Colton
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization]]> 58782897 2019 was the last great year for the world economy.

For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days - even hours - of when you decided you wanted it.

America made that happen, but now America has lost interest in keeping it going.

Globe-spanning supply chains are only possible with the protection of the U.S. Navy. The American dollar underpins internationalized energy and financial markets. Complex, innovative industries were created to satisfy American consumers. American security policy forced warring nations to lay down their arms. Billions of people have been fed and educated as the American-led trade system spread across the globe.

All of this was artificial. All this was temporary. All this is ending.

In The End of the World is Just the Beginning, author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles, and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging.

The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think. Which means everything about our interconnected world - from how we manufacture products, to how we grow food, to how we keep the lights on, to how we shuttle stuff about, to how we pay for it all - is about to change.

A world ending. A world beginning. Zeihan brings readers along for an illuminating (and a bit terrifying) ride packed with foresight, wit, and his trademark irreverence.]]> 512 Peter Zeihan 006323047X Colton 3
A few things detract from this book as a reading experience. The writing style is obviously meant to be more informal and fun than your usual stuffy academic book. But damn this book must set a record for... the most ellipsises per page... of any book I've read.

The logic of the book also feels really scattershot. He introduces predictions and then jumps around with all kinds of socio-economic history with no clear direction. It's all interesting but it can be hard to remember the point he's actually trying to make.

Next, this is a nearly 500 page book without a bibliography or any references. I guess what he's saying is true? You're left taking his word for it.

Finally, most of the graphs in this book are illegible in black and white, and ate too small/complicated to really serve much purpose.

These are some issues that detracted from my reading of this book, but I can say it was a really interesting and thought provoking read. Certainly not the most optimistic prediction for the future, but one worth considering.]]> 4.12 2022 The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
author: Peter Zeihan
name: Colton
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/30
date added: 2023/03/30
shelves:
review:
The overall thesis of this book (demographic decline is going to lead to economic stagnation and collapse of globalized trade = decline in living standards) is a compelling one. We're already seeing some of this playing out with the Russian invasion and the world fragmenting into bloques.

A few things detract from this book as a reading experience. The writing style is obviously meant to be more informal and fun than your usual stuffy academic book. But damn this book must set a record for... the most ellipsises per page... of any book I've read.

The logic of the book also feels really scattershot. He introduces predictions and then jumps around with all kinds of socio-economic history with no clear direction. It's all interesting but it can be hard to remember the point he's actually trying to make.

Next, this is a nearly 500 page book without a bibliography or any references. I guess what he's saying is true? You're left taking his word for it.

Finally, most of the graphs in this book are illegible in black and white, and ate too small/complicated to really serve much purpose.

These are some issues that detracted from my reading of this book, but I can say it was a really interesting and thought provoking read. Certainly not the most optimistic prediction for the future, but one worth considering.
]]> <![CDATA[Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic]]> 44643351 Fentanyl, Inc. is the first deep-dive investigation of a hazardous and illicit industry that has created a worldwide epidemic, ravaging communities and overwhelming and confounding government agencies that are challenged to combat it. "A whole new crop of chemicals is radically changing the recreational drug landscape," writes Ben Westhoff. "These are known as Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and they include replacements for known drugs like heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana. They are synthetic, made in a laboratory, and are much more potent than traditional drugs"--and all-too-often tragically lethal. Drugs like fentanyl, K2, and Spice--and those with arcane acronyms like 25i-NBOMe-- were all originally conceived in legitimate laboratories for proper scientific and medicinal purposes. Their formulas were then hijacked and manufactured by rogue chemists, largely in China, who change their molecular structures to stay ahead of the law, making the drugs' effects impossible to predict. Westhoff has infiltrated this shadowy world, becoming the first journalist to report from inside an illicit Chinese fentanyls lab and providing startling and original reporting on how China's vast chemical industry operates, and how the Chinese government subsidizes it. He tracks down the little-known scientists who invented these drugs and inadvertently killed thousands, as well as a mysterious drug baron who turned the law upside down in his home country of New Zealand. Poignantly, Westhoff chronicles the lives of addicted users and dealers, families of victims, law enforcement officers, and underground drug awareness organizers in the U.S. and Europe. Together they represent the shocking and riveting full anatomy of a calamity we are just beginning to understand. From its depths, as Westhoff relates, are emerging new strategies that may provide essential long-term solutions to the drug crisis that has affected so many.]]> 356 Ben Westhoff 0802127436 Colton 0 to-read 4.00 2019 Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic
author: Ben Westhoff
name: Colton
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times]]> 58068144 Most Anticipated Books of 2022: The Millions
Most Anticipated Books of 2022 by Women of Color: Electric Literature
Most Anticipated African Books of 2022: Brittle Paper

Winner of the 2020 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the 2021 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, Ethiopian American author Meron Hadero’s gorgeously wrought stories in A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times offer poignant, compelling narratives of those whose lives have been marked by border crossings and the risk of displacement.

Set across the U.S. and abroad, Meron Hadero’s stories feature immigrants, refugees, and those on the brink of dispossession, all struggling to begin again, all fighting to belong. Moving through diverse geographies and styles, this captivating collection follows characters on the journey toward home, which they dream of, create and redefine, lose and find and make their own. Beyond migration, these stories examine themes of race, gender, class, friendship and betrayal, the despair of loss and the enduring resilience of hope.

Winner of the 2021 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, “The Street Sweep� is about an enterprising young man on the verge of losing his home in Addis Ababa who pursues an improbable opportunity to turn his life around. Appearing in Best American Short Stories, “The Suitcase� follows a woman visiting her country of origin for the first time and finds that an ordinary object opens up an unexpected, complex bridge between worlds. Shortlisted for the 2019 Caine Prize, “The Wall� portrays the intergenerational friendship between two refugees living in Iowa who have connections to Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. A Best American Short Stories notable, “Mekonnen aka Mack aka Huey Freakin� Newton� is a coming-of-age tale about an Ethiopian immigrant in Brooklyn encountering nuances of race in his new country.

Kaleidoscopic, powerful, and illuminative, the stories in A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times expand our understanding of the essential and universal need for connection and the vital refuge of home—and announce a major new talent in Meron Hadero.]]> 224 Meron Hadero 163206118X Colton 4 3.94 2022 A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times
author: Meron Hadero
name: Colton
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/17
date added: 2023/03/17
shelves:
review:
Really charming little collection of short stories exploring different dimensions of the immigrant/diaspora experience. Many were refreshingly hopeful and optimistic, and the overall tone of this collection is quite positive (something we could all do with once in a while).
]]> <![CDATA[Canada's Food Island: A Collection of Stories and Recipes from Prince Edward Island]]> 62238885
A sampling of seasonal recipes from Prince Edward Island and stories about the people, places and local ingredients that inspire them. Canada's Food Island invites you to celebrate the Island’s farm-to-table cooking and meet the farmers, fishers and artisans who make those delicious dishes possible. From preparing the perfect lobster roll in spring and galettes filled with sweet fresh-picked strawberries in summer to making savory potato pizza in fall and roast turkey with an oyster, bacon and wild mushroom stuffing in mid-winter, you’re sure to find a favorite recipe to delight guests and satisfy your own cravings. Canada’s Food Island combines nearly 100 inspired seasonal recipes with homegrown stories and beautiful photographs to capture the essence of the island’s unique food culture—a blend of people, place and locally sourced fresh natural ingredients. You’ll learn how mussels and oysters are sustainably raised and harvested, why Island beef is so flavorful and what makes wild blueberries so special. Whether you’ve spent time on Prince Edward Island or not, you’ll want to visit these pages again and again to experience a taste of the Island in the comfort of your own kitchen.

Royalties from sales of the book will go to PEI Food Banks with the mission to increase food security for Islanders by supporting Food Banks and the individuals who are in need of their support.]]> 336 1773271962 Colton 4 3.92 Canada's Food Island: A Collection of Stories and Recipes from Prince Edward Island
author: Farmers and Fishers of Prince Edward Island
name: Colton
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/02
date added: 2023/03/02
shelves:
review:
This book is basically a big advertisement put out by the agricultural industry in PEI. And it works! Beautiful photos and some cool recipes spotlighting PEI ingredients and culture
]]> <![CDATA[Lost to the World: A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Five Years in Terrorist Captivity]]> 56269287
In late August 2011, Shahbaz Taseer was dragged from his car at gunpoint and kidnapped by members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a Taliban-affiliated Uzbek terrorist group. Taseer’s father, the governor of Punjab, Pakistan, had recently been assassinated for speaking in support of a Christian woman who had been accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death. Though Taseer himself wasn’t involved in politics, he was still a public figure who represented a more tolerant, internationally connected Pakistan that the IMU condemned. What followed his kidnapping was nearly five years of torture and constant peril as Taseer was held captive by the IMU in the ungoverned reaches of Pakistan and Afghanistan, his fate subject to the unpredictable whims and machinations of terrorists. Lost to the World is his memoir of that time―a story of extraordinary sorrow but also of empathy and faith.

While deeply harrowing, this tale is also about resilience. Taseer countered his captors� narrative of a holy war by immersing himself in the Quran in search of hope and a means to see his own humanity under even the most inhumane conditions, and ultimately to find a way back to his family.]]> 288 Shahbaz Taseer 0374192227 Colton 4 4.38 Lost to the World: A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Five Years in Terrorist Captivity
author: Shahbaz Taseer
name: Colton
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/02/26
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review:
Wow, what a story. Anyone going through difficult times can draw inspiration from the author's strength in the face of impossible odds. Relatively short and an easy read, you'll get through this quickly!
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