0183 | Mambu – Kenelm Burridge
Context: Discovered the music of Eric Bibb while reading this one. Love it. REVIEW This is a bit mistitled I feel. Perhaps Kenelm felt that a name like Mambu would…
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0182 | Road Belong Cargo – Peter Lawrence
Context: The first book I read in a new pile of hard to find anthropology and linguistics books from Cambridge University Library which my resourceful helper found for me. REVIEW…
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0173 | Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction – Don Kulick
REVIEW This is an excellent book. It is at once thought-provoking, revealing, informative and very well written. Kulick spends months and months in the village of Gapun where no one…
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0171 | Multilingualism – John Edwards
REVIEW This is an excellent overview of the immensely detailed and frustrating world of multilingualism. Edwards’ style is very very readable, often ironic and he uses a lot of very…
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0168 | The Bishops’ Progress – Mary Taylor Huber
REVIEW This one might be hard to get hold of and I’m not entirely sure that if you have to work hard to get it, it’s going to be all…
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0167 | Attitudes and Language – Colin Baker
REVIEW If you’re into Welsh, this is the book for you. I’m not and I’m reading this in preparation for language survey work in PNG. So, was it relevant? Juuuuuust…
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0166 | Learning How to Ask – Charles Briggs
REVIEW Briggs focusses on lessons he learned while working over a period of years with a community of Mexicanos in New Mexico. He’s learned some valuable lessons, mostly through his…
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0165 | An Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
Context: while I was reading this, our clothes dryer died in the garden and we had to string up an emergency washing line REVIEW A friend bought me this for…
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0164 | Survey Research Methods – Floyd Fowler
REVIEW There’s now a fourth edition of this. I read the second edition, published just after Gutenberg got his printing press together, so these comments have to be considered in…
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0162 | A Short History of Papua New Guinea – John Waiko
Context: Courtesy of the mother in law, I read this while working in the Wycliffe kitchens. REVIEW Reading up on PNG history is one of the areas I’m focussing on…
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0150 | An Evil Cradling – Brian Keenan
Context: My bedtime book in our wonderful bed at Piddington. REVIEW I was at a friend’s house and spied this on the shelf. “One of the best books that I’ve…
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0149 | Becoming Sinners – Joel Robbins
Context: Read this as part of my preparation for language survey in PNG this summer. REVIEW Robbins has written a fascinating insight into the cultural mindset of the Urapmin people…
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0145 | Dreams from My Father – Barack Obama
Context: Read this when we moved into a lovely house in Piddington. REVIEW My aunt-in-law packaged this one up for me for Christmas thinking I’d like to read it. She…
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0142 | Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes – Daniel Everett
Context: Given to me by my mum for Christmas, the same lady who, about 35 years ago, made me a Winnie the Pooh I’ve recently been reunited with after giving…
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0098 | Deceived on Purpose – Warren
Context: Got this for my birthday and read it to the sound of demolition work over the road from our house in the UK. REVIEW In 2002, Rick Warren published…
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0086 | Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar – Simon Sebag Montefiore
Context: Finished on the Trans-Mongolian Express as we headed from Irkutsk to Moscow. REVIEW This is stellar piece of research and the book, once you get used to Montefiore’s style,…
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0067 | Walden ~ Thoreau
REVIEW This started out really well with some very erudite remarks about the way the material world, if you, Atlas-like, manage to find a position to observe it correctly from,…
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0062 | Junky ~ William Burroughs
REVIEW After battling my way through Naked Lunch, I wasn’t sure what to expect from my second Burroughs novel. It wasn’t half as bad though thankfully.