Reading a variety of genres is fun. In this group of seven books, we have four history books, three memoirs, two novels, five that take place in foreign settings, two about war, and one natural history. Impossible? Not really. Interesting books often span genres such as The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating that is a memoir centered around raising a land snail. Pachinko is a historical novel set in Korea and Japan, spanning three wars.
Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive by Eliot Stein (St. Martin’s Publishing 2024)
Angelic pasta in Sardinia, mirrors in India, night watch men in Sweden – the list goes on of singular treasures in danger of extinction. Stein visits each location and subsumes himself into the lore. Ok, I never wanted to know that much about the history of soy sauce, but overall, it is informative and fun.
If ever a book cried out for illustrations and maps, this is it. Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, but I had my atlas at hand. I Googled the ancient things, so I knew how they looked. There are endnotes, an extensive bibliography, and an index – but no pictures of the treasures. Go figure.
The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa (Berkley, 2015)
I learned after reading this book that the Japanese are famous for their “talking cat” books. Who knew?
This is an easy read told from the point of view of the cat, Nana, a stray that Kosuke, a young man, saves after a car accident. The book is full of wisdom about life, mostly acceptance of what life deals you. I would love to read this book to a 7–10-year-old, as it provides opportunities to discuss important life lessons.
Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa by Peter Godwin (Grove Press, 2011)
A memoir written as creative non-fiction, Godwin takes us to his childhood, adolescence, and adult life in Zimbabwe, Africa. Godwin’s parents are white settlers, his mother a doctor in the government medical service, his father a corporate works manager. He has an older sister, but is practically an only child, reared with the assistance of Black house staff.
Godwin’s parents are liberals who chose to remain in the country during and after the revolution of the Blacks against the whites, 1964 – 1978. There is really no hope for the whites, even as Godwin serves in the white government army.
I found this a totally engaging, unsentimental slice into modern African history. Godwin is an expert reporter and wordsmith. And I found out this is the first of three memoirs. I put the other two on my library reserve list. Worth reading, and so informative.
The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World’s Oldest Writing by Joshua Hammer (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
Not an easy read, but a rewarding one. Hammer takes us to two worlds: Victorian England and Mesopotamia, beginning 3500 BCE. The Victorians were excavating the Middle East, uncovering the vast treasures of kingdoms that thrived and died. And with these vast ruins came tablets and temples etched with cuneiform writing that no one could sound-out, much less translate. Notably, writing remained largely consistent across dynasties and kingdoms.
In Victorian England, three men (a swashbuckling archaeologist, a suave British military officer turned diplomat, and a cloistered Irish rector) vie for glory in a race to decipher this script. It would enable them to peek farther back into human history than ever before. And they do it! This extended to the pronunciation of certain words as well.
For Bible scholars, this discovery is important because it verifies portions of the history contained in the Old Testament. If you just enjoy a good history book, albeit crammed with minutiae, this is for you.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (Grand Central Publishing, 2017)
Picking up some more of my Korean reading, author Min Jin Lee is a Korean immigrant whose family settled in New York City when she was seven. Her academic career is laudable, but two years after practicing law, she left it to write full time. Her immigrant experience enlightens what she writes.
Pachinko examines the popularity of a Japanese gambling game that is primarily managed by Korean immigrants living in Japan. The Japanese enjoy the game but consider providing the gaming parlors beneath them. So, they allow Koreans to run the gaming parlors, a criminal enterprise in Japanese eyes.
This class structure of Japanese over Koreans dominates Pachinko. When the Japanese conquered Korea in 1910, they took many Korean prisoners to Japan as virtual slaves. When Japan surrendered in 1945, Korea regained independence, only to be split in 1948. Many Japanese in Korea were left stateless. Pachinko’s 70-year story of a Korean family, their emigration to Japan, and their ultimate success in Japan and the U.S. is fascinating. I loved every page.
M Train: A Memoir by Patti Smith (Vintage, 2016)
I picked up this book on a whim from a library display. I had heard Smith was a great writer but never enjoyed her music. What a find! Smith’s writing is elegant, lyrical, and engaging. It is poetry in a paragraph. She writes about nothing: her morning cup of coffee, a gravestone, shack on the beach in Red Hook. I would stop and reread paragraphs to grasp the beauty of the words.
She illustrates the book with her amateurish black and white Polaroids that somehow enhance the writing. This method reminded me of the use of photographs in Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald. Highly recommended.
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2010)
A beautiful, poignant little book. Ms. Bailey suffers from a mysterious virus/auto-immune/debilitating illness that keeps her bedridden and weak. A friend brings her a woodland violet dug from Ms. Bailey’s woods. Secreted in it is a small land snail. This companion is perfectly suited to Bailey’s energy level and mental slowness. As the snail explores her new home atop a crate, Ms. Bailey finds a manageable project to occupy her mind. That includes moving the snail into a terrarium and researching her new friend.
As Herman Melville expanded our minds and imaginations about whales in Moby Dick, so Ms. Bailey does with the land snail. Who knew they could be so interesting? Recommended.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What unusual book have you happened upon? Do you prefer book recommendations, or do you pick your next titles on a whim?
