Jeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop ****

Can't Stop Won't Stop is an excellent "History of the Hip-Hop Generation," even if it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for.

I knew this book by its reputation as the definitive book about the birth and global takeover of hip-hop. I knew, too, that it addresses the social and cultural context from which hip-hop sprang. What I didn't know was that it covers the sociology of hip-hop without much focus on its artistic development. Chang talks about changes in the music — such as the shift from the early focus on the DJ to the ascendance of the MC — only when the development supports his point about cultural changes.

So I learned less about the artistic evolution of hip-hop than I wanted. On the other hand, I got a very strong portrait of the social milieu of young people of color in the 1980s and 1990s. Chang is clearly not unbiased; he writes from the young people's point of view in a style that borders on self-congratulatory. For example, he describes the attitudes of young gang members about the police without exploring the other side. This approach makes the book practically a manifesto for the hip-hop generation, not just a history of it.

Kenneth J. Harvey, The Town that Forgot How to Breathe *** 1/2

This horror novel has literary pretensions, as evidenced by the blurbs from J.M. Coetzee and Joseph O'Conner instead of Stephen King and Peter Straub. Strange things are afoot in the Newfoundland fishing village of Bareneed. Residents are dying from an illness that makes them just stop breathing, and the bodies of former residents lost at sea are washing ashore. A man who has rented a house in Bareneed for the summer is inexplicably drawn to the widow across the street. People are mermaids, albino sharks, and other legendary sea creatures.

I was drawn to this book by the promise of Newfoundlander atmosphere and creeping dread. It mostly delivered on these counts, and Harvey creates intriguing metaphysics for the supernatural events. Two problems undermined the drama, though.

First, the town featured too many people with supernatural powers before the illness struck: three or four people who could see auras, two who made drawings that predicted the future, and one who communed with her dead family. The prevalence of such powers made the strange events seem like less of a break from normality, and provided overly convenient ways to figure out the mystery.

Second, the haunting of summer-visitor Joseph and his daughter was only tangentially related to the events striking the rest of the town, both in theme and mechanics. Rather than reinforcing each other, I felt like the two stories distracted from each other.

Eric Hansen, Motoring with Mohammed ***

The first few chapters of this travel book are awesome. They describe the author's unintentional visit to Yemen in 1978, as a crew member on a shipwrecked yacht. The story of the accident, their time on a desert island, and eventual rescue is told with a perfect voice, both insouciantly adventurous and funny. (Hansen's style seems somehow like the British adventurers of old, even though he is an American.)

Hansen returns to Yemen over a decade later on a quixotic quest to retrieve the travel journals that he buried in the island sand before his rescue. These chapters are more typical of the travel genre. Like the author himself, I found my attention adrift during the middle section of the book as he wanders the capital of San'a. The final few chapters show some of the strength of the first few as he visits the mountains of the north and resumes his attempts to retrieve the journals.

So: By all means, read and enjoy the first four chapters. The rest is optional.

Etgar Keret, The Nimrod Flipout ***

According to Gary Shteyngart, The Nimrod Flipout is "the best work of literature to come out of Israel in the last five thousand years -- better than Leviticus and nearly as funny."

Keret reminds me of an Israeli George Saunders. He writes stories that are short, satirical, and off-kilter, with a funny narrative voice. They have a casual, tossed-off quality that works against them when they don't land. I thought that about half of the 30 stories worked. Many of the others seemed like preparatory sketches, especially when similar themes and characters recurred in adjacent stories.

Robert M. Martin, There are two errors in the the title of this book ***

The subtitle correctly characterizes this book as "A Sourcebook of Philosophical Puzzles, Problems, and Paradoxes." It includes a wide range of stories that illustrate philosophical issues, such as the Liar's Paradox, the Monty Hall problem, and runaway trollies. It would be a great resource in discussion forums, but alas was less interesting to read cover to cover. Frankly, I just didn't stop long enough between stories to really think about the issues. 

Herman Koch, The Dinner ****

The narrator of The Dinner starts out as a pleasantly cranky complainer with little patience for social conventions and jealousy of his politician brother. There's something going on with his 15-year-old son, that's clear from the beginning, but Paul is more concerned about making it through dinner without snapping at his brother's annoying habits.

As the story progresses, we learn more about the son's issue and about Paul's unusual personality. We're treated to interesting discussions about racism in film and the number of assholes killed during the Second World War. In other words, things escalate in a deliciously misanthropic fashion. I would have handled things a bit differently in the closing pages (I disagree with Paul's assessment at the end of Chapter 43), but the overall effect is solid.

The recommendation on the back cover from Gillian Flynn is fitting, because like Gone Girl, The Dinner surprises the reader with the full extent of the narrator's nastiness.

Simon Garfield, On the Map ***

The description on the inside flap of this Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks promises "a stimulating journey grounded in the idea that maps hold the key to what makes us human." However, it's really more of a miscellany on the theme of maps: the chapters are largely independent of each other, and are written in a human interest style that shies away from technical detail.

The book looks and feels great. A hardcover in trade paperback size, with a nicely designed cover and plenty of illustrations. It tells entertaining stories about treasure maps, illusory islands and mountain ranges, forgery, board games, and our developing sense of the globe. I just didn't find it all that informative. The clearest example is the chapter "What's the Good of Mercator?"It describes who Mercator was and mentions the existence of other projections, but doesn't really explain their relative merits.