And a Bottle of Rum (2006) - Wayne Curtis

This book caught my eye while looking for something to take on a long plane ride.  As a non-fiction lover, I'm always interested in books that can tie together disparate elements for a greater understanding.  And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails by Wayne Curtis is quite successful in tying together the history of rum with the development of the New World.

Cover image: rumdrinks.wordpress.com

By exploring the development, rise, fall, and steady rise again of the rum spirit, Curtis is able to deftly tell the history of the U.S. and Caribbean (though he says New World, these are really the regions he concentrates on).  The book opens your eyes to the ways in which sugar production (and hence rum production) is so entwined with the early history of the colonies - from international strife in the colonies, to slavery, to the Independence movement - and continues afterwards.  Curtis also includes several recipes at the end of the book.

Through short, at times rambling, chapters, Curtis moves through successive periods of (mostly) American history through the lens of a particular rum drink.  He touches on many different areas, like sailors in the Navy or Hemingway in Cuba, to elucidate the popularity and influence of rum.  There are times when he strains the connection and goes off on tangents (like the later chapter on tiki bars), but overall he does an excellent job in the book.

How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend (2002) - Monks of New Skete

This book is well-known in the world of dog owners, receiving both praise and scorn for its simple message of honest communication between human and canine.  It is, as a quote on the back cover notes, very "readable" and is often so much more than a dog training book.

Cover image: yimcatholic.blogspot.com

What comes across from the very start of the book is the love the Monks have for their dogs.  One of their recommendations is to integrate your dog with every possible aspect of your life, which they do in such a natural and beautiful way.  The dogs, mostly German Shepherds, are paired with a monk and spend nearly every waking moment together - from sleeping, eating, working, and playing.  To do this, the Monks require dogs that are highly trained and obedient, to ensure there is tranquility and efficiency in daily life.  Their training techniques seem to be easy to carry over into any dog owner's situation.

There are elements of the book that may be off-putting to some.  There is a high emphasis on the spiritual connection between humans and dogs, as well as the religious elements of the whole training process.  The book also discusses a telepathic connection between owner and dog, which, though earnestly described and backed by a scientific study, still struck me as a stretch to believe.

As I noted before, the book is a great read, not only for the dog training tips, but for a deeper insight into a world most of us seldom see.

Working with Aboriginal People in Remote Areas by Forrest & Sherwood (1995)

Working with Aboriginal People in Remote Areas (1995) by Simon Forrest and John Sherwood is a slim, straight-forward guide on how to interact with the Aboriginal people of Australia.  As the authors note, the book "illustrates some of the unexpected results of living with people from another culture, and reveals the ease with which we assume that our way of doing things is the normal and the best way."  The text follows that principle - that assumptions of "normal" are causes of problems in working with Aborigines - and illustrates the numerous ways that Aboriginal life diverges from our own.

Cover image: Scan of the book cover

Forrest and Sherwood discuss the many different outlooks and behaviors that are likely to cause confusion or agitation in a person unfamiliar with Aboriginal customs.  For example, they discuss the "great emphasis on sharing, which is governed by the rules of kinship" and how "sharing is a part of life and people are expected to share what they have" in Aboriginal society.  A nice feature of the book are interspersed line drawings, mostly comical, with short anecdotes.  For the "sharing" section, the line drawing is of a police officer asking an Aborigine questions about the car he is driving:

So it's not your car, but you were driving.  The bloke who owns it is your cousin, and he loaned it to your wife's brother - but he's not here, right?  No?!! Your cousin's wife borrowed it from her brother ..?

Some of the information the authors provide is more like common sense or similar principles in any tight-knit community.  There are certain areas where Aboriginal people have a very different worldview, however.  The authors relate how there is a taboo on using the first name of a person who dies, giving them instead a "replacement name."  For anyone outside of the culture, it is quite clear how a replacement name would cause confusion and trigger ill-feelings.

Though the book is intended for people working in remote Australian areas, the information would be valid for any outsider visiting a group of "foreign" people.  By not judging their ways, by not talking down to them, by respecting their traditions, you will go a long way to earning trust and respect.  This is as true in working with rural farmers in the mid-West, to inner-city dwellers of the East, to Aboriginal people in the remote parts of Australia.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn (2001)

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters (2001) by Mark Dunn is a quick, deceptively cute tale told in a series of letters by different characters of Nollop, a small country devoted to the sentence "A quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" (which includes all of the letters in the alphabet).  The sentence is immortalized in tile work, but as the letters begin falling off, the leaders of Nollop begin banning their use.  As you can imagine, the loss of letters causes many problems, clearly seen in the letters of the novel as they become more and more difficult to read.  The only solution is to come up with a new sentence containing all of the letters, but one that is shorter than the original.

Cover image: BetterWorldBooks.com

I say the book is deceptively cute, though, because the premise seems like an idea from a grade school student, but Dunn is able to weave in heavier themes.  The novel is a denunciation of governments that seek to control every aspect of their population, it is a rebuke of blind belief or faith, and it is a rumination on the way words and language and communication bind our society together.  Ella Minnow Pea remains cute, though, and very readable.

The One-Page Project Manager by Clark A. Campbell (2006)

These types of self-help books are always difficult to evaluate.  I would bet that a seasoned project manager, one who can fully appreciate some of the stories the author relates, would find this an enjoyable read.  I, as a novice, found it mostly tedious and repetitive.  That is a shame, since much of the information is useful and relevant.

The One-Page Project Manager: Communicate and Manage Any Project with a Single Piece of Paper by Clark A. Campbell discusses the tool he and his team created for keeping track of projects.  The tool itself is very nice and quite useful - it isn't revolutionary and variations of it have been made before, but the excel sheet Campbell uses is compact and succinct.

Cover image: coverbrowser.com

Where the book gets tedious however, is Campbell's constant referencing of three different projects he worked on using the one-page excel sheet (referred in the book by the title name far too much as well).  Though I'm sure creating a warehouse is a difficult and complex task, I didn't necessarily want to know every detail while trying to understand the excel sheet.  The book also uses annoying "Key Concept" icons to point out what, to me, sounded just like common sense or rehashed tips.

I would recommend the excel spreadsheet and Campbell's useful guidance on using the tool, but skip the text on his projects.

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin (2008)

Science books for the public can often be tricky - they need to carefully balance the writing style and content to appeal to non-scientists while also conveying a complex topic.  Neil Shubin does a good job balancing these opposing needs in Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body.

Your Inner Fish is all about evolution, specifically human evolution, by tracing our physical and genetic structure back in time to an ancient ancestor - an intermediary between fish and land-living animals, Tiktaalik (Inuktitut for "large freshwater fish" and it is represented on the cover).

Cover image: University of Pennsylvania

The book is well laid out and systematically goes through the various reasons why Tiktaalik is the "missing link" that fills in the evolutionary chart.  Shubin describes how the way our bones and nerves are laid out, how our body plans are designed, even how our DNA works are all linked back to these ancestors.  It is a thought-provoking work by a leading scientist in the field.

Shubin, who heads The Field Museum and lectures on anatomy at the University of Chicago, blends scientific data and explanations with personal stories and a friendly voice in his book.  The text can sound a bit condescending at times, but overall Shubin is able to simplify the topic enough for a novice to understand.  He also is able to tie together tangents to his overall theme and not allow them to steer the story off course.

A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman (1990)

I am normally a voracious reader of any title that begins with A Natural History of ..., but this particular volume was simply not to my liking and I found myself skipping along, leaving parts unread.  Why?  I think because Ackerman's method of narrating A Natural History of the Senses, though logical and understandable (it is broken into chapters for each sense, plus a final chapter on synesthesia), leaves you underwhelmed on the topic.  This is less a "natural history" of the senses, than a book-poem about human sensation in the many wild and colorful ways it is experienced.

Cover image: alibris.com

In the book there are many, many little anecdotes for each sense, to the point that Ackerman's larger meaning is often lost.  I often felt like I was at a party, sitting next to an overly talkative guest who insisted on sharing every bit of trivia she knew about the senses.  Ackerman also has an odd habit of throwing in irrelevant items while discussing a sense - for example, under smell she mentions that "Birds sing to announce their presence in the world, mark their territories, impress a mate, boast of their status - ultimately,  much of it has to do with sex and mating."  Fair enough, but that sentence has nothing to do with the sense of smell and could easily have been moved to the chapter on sound.  The book has many of these poetry-like inconsistencies that, for me, made this a very difficult read.

There are many moments of insight and true beauty in the book, however.  These are especially vivid when Ackerman describes one of her own experiences, like tagging Monarch butterflies and the smell of the eucalyptus forest.  I would recommend the book to a reader who enjoys a book overflowing with intricate language about human sensations, but not to someone interested in learning more about the senses.