Undirected Reading

Before I go further: this is an academic book. Each chapter is a standalone article on some aspect of the relationship between dogs and humans in the circumpolar north, arranged in a roughly geographical loop from Siberia to North America and Greenland and then back to the Sami and their dogs. The idea of this arrangement is that modern Arctic dogs may be the result of a relationship that started somewhere in Siberia. The strange result is that this causes the book to open and close on reindeer dogs, with a segue through sled dogs and hunting dogs in between. I don't expect that this book will be of uniform interest to everyone, even to everyone who likes dogs and enjoys learning about them. I do think that some of the articles discuss aspects of the use and history of Arctic dogs that are absolutely vital to understanding them, their place in the cultures in which they arose, and how dogs and humans work together in those contexts. I suspect most readers who will get much out of ...

I received a digital copy of this book for free via NetGalley for an honest review. This is a generally quite interesting account of one of the more famous Russian art collections and the family that founded it. The author is a Russian art historian, and while the translation is good, the text in many ways remains clearly intended for a Russian audience. I don't mind this, but some readers may find it occasionally odd in style or content. Although the book is at some level presented as a biography specifically of Ivan Abramovich Morozov, it's in many ways an overview of art collecting in late 19th/early 20th century Russia (mainly Moscow) with an emphasis on the Morozov family as a whole. As an accompaniment to an exhibition, it would undoubtedly be fascinating. Unfortunately, without most of the paintings being featured in the book's illustrations, I don't recognize many of them by title alone. A significant portion of the book is a fairly detailed accoun...

I received an electronic copy of this book for free via NetGalley for an honest review. This is a well-written and informative book, and while it is an autobiographical account of Meave Leakey's life, it's also very much a discussion of what the field of paleoanthropology has learned from many of the projects she's been involved in over her long career. It does make for interesting reading, though as someone whose knowledge of the field is pretty limited to a single undergraduate course I took as a gen ed about eight years ago, I had to Google things pretty frequently while reading. Meave Leakey has led an interesting life, and it's certainly enjoyable to read a little bit about it. The first chapters address some of the challenges she faced as a woman in science in the 1960s--she was trained as a marine biologist, but ended up working in Africa because she was repeatedly denied a place on research vessels on the justification that they did not have facili...

  I received an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley for an honest review. This is a really nice cookbook that offers a good variety of recipes, with clear instructions and primarily ingredients readily accessible to an American kitchen (which is the target audience). The author even provides a recipe for making your own Vegeta, because she describes it as difficult to find in grocery stores (which is not my experience, but then, I regularly shop at Polish ethnic markets). The photography is beautiful (both of food and of Romanian scenery), and I found many recipes that I hope to return and try out. Not being specifically familiar with Romanian cooking, I can't speak to the authenticity of the recipes. Some of them are very typical of an East-Central European context, others less generalized to the whole region--but as I said, they are well-adapted to the availability of ingredients in North America. I did not find the folklore segment of the book nearly as stro...

  I received an electronic ARC of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. I'm never quite sure what to make of the "The [Cultural] [Art, Magic, Theory, etc.] of [Thing]" trend in book titles. I've admittedly not read that many, but they often seem to deal with something that is not so much a unique aspect of the titular culture as merely a method of doing things that is being labeled either by the author's country of origin or, in the case of those written by authors from the same country as the target audience, where the author first "discovered" the method. I get the impression that for this book, it's mostly a "Japanese art" because Naohiro Matsumura is from Japan and uses a Japanese term to describe the book's subject--not because design meant to gently modify behavior and encourage people to engage with aspects of their environment is specifically Japanese (though maybe it is more prevalent in Japan--I don...

I received an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is an interesting book of German pop history in English translation, looking at a fairly brief revolutionary interlude in Munich's history in 1918/1919. It's easy to forget, especially from an American perspective, how many changes in power and short-lived revolutions occurred in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, and this one is perhaps especially eclipsed by subsequent history. The book provides an easy-to-read account, and in addition to discussing the roles of the writers and other intellectuals who were directly involved, touches on the responses of various prominent figures of the German literary world. The book's very conversational style makes it a rather quick read, though the blending of past and present tense makes for a somewhat odd reading experience (in my opinion, anyway). I don't know whether this is the result of the translation, th...

  I received a digital copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is a really nice translation of an important book, and one that makes Radishchev accessible and even enjoyable to an English-speaking audience. While I'm able to read in Russian, Radishchev is not an author I feel very confident tackling in the original--and this translation worked really well for me. I enjoyed it and found myself digitally highlighting passages in nearly every chapter--it's not exactly light reading, but certainly worthwhile for those with an interest in Russian intellectual and political history. Many of Radishchev's observations and ideas are striking and relevant even today, even beyond their true significance to Russian history and literature. This is a book that is meant to make the reader think, and it does. The introduction to this translation is interesting and informative, and provides a good amount of historical context on Radishchev and his work. It...