Ivan Dias Dias itibaren İbrikli Köyü, 08490 İbrikli Köyü/Borçka/Artvin, Türkiye
I like the-novel-in-stories as a form (I wrote one of those suckers myself), and it's a great way to paint a portrait of a community. The small town of Crosby, Maine comes across as brutal--there's no shortage of disease, adultery and suicide--but somehow not bleak, thanks to the kindness of the narrative voice. Although some of the characters run together, Olive herself is unforgettable: a cranky, smart-but-not-always-wise old lady whom the author refrains from cute-ifying. If you're looking for stories that go beyond coming-of-age, first love and other teen territory, this book is a good place to start.
It's pretty interesting so far. When you think of Albert Einstein you usually thing Math or Science. I didn't know he thought and wrote so much about other stuff.
There were so many typos and grammatical errors, I wanted to copyedit it, not read it.
Melody, a lively Irish girl, shakes up the staid Scottish school Greenacrea. She tries to fit in, but doesn't understand how traditional boarding schools operate, with disastrous results.
I listened to this book on tape (unabridged, read by the author) while jogging in the SM mountains, which I pretended were the mighty Himalayas. Palin is only a fair writer but - of course - an excellent presenter. I think my review might have been less positive if I had read rather than heard this book. I particularly enjoyed the bits about the supposedly Greek hillbillies of Pakistan, claiming descent from Alexander's conquest, as well as Palin's visit to some of the weirder ethnic minorities in SW China. As an uncultured slack-jawed American, I had wrongly lumped each of these countries into single, uniform ethnic and cultural groups - glad to see I was wrong. This book will really make you want to visit Tiger Leaping Gorge in China before it is destroyed forever by "progress" a la Glen Canyon and Hetch Hetchy. Good stuff all in all, for wage-slaves like me who love reading about travel.