This book’s strength was, I think, not necessarily its treatment of the idea of “nature” (although that was very good), but the “potted history” it provided of the nature of geography as a discipline. Castree’s summary of the evolution of geography, with its many turns and themes, was better than every other that I’ve read. As a PhD student in geography, but with my roots in other fields, I finally feel, after reading this book, that I actually have an idea of what the heck geography is actually about.

I generally enjoy Kingsolver’s books, but this one… I’m not sure. The drama dragged out a bit too long, and the ending was just… It was sappy, and cheesy and way too pat. Not on of her better efforts, I don’t think.

Life and Debt is an award-winning documentary about the effect in Jamaica of IMF, World Bank and WTO economic and trade policies and programmes of the late 70s, early 80s. It does not offer a very favourable assessment.

While do think that the film was very good, to my mind one of its weaknesses is that it didn’t give a good idea of the various timelines involved. Jamaica embarked on its first agreement with the IMF in 1977. By the time Life and Debt, with its scenes of social unrest, was filmed, in the late 1990s or thereabouts, the Jamaica government had put an end to formal loan agreements with the IMF and was pursuing other strategies to respond to financial crisis. Not saying that the overall message of the film is affected by that, but I think that the film should have given indications of when Jamaica entered into its first and subsequent agreements with the IMF, when it decided to break ties with the IMF (and why) and when the interviews and incidents shown in the documentary took place.

I can’t say that I learned anything from Life and Debt that I wasn’t already aware of, and since 2001 when it was released, the anti-globalisation anti-IMF anti-World Bank movement has brought many of the arguments made in the movie to the attention of the mainstream media. But the movie may still be revelatory for some people, I guess.

Thanks to Google video, you can watch Life and Debt in its entirety online.

Just a random remark: I watched this with the Spanish dubbing as a way to practice that language. I’m glad I did, because when I attempted to re-watch parts of it in English, i found Dustin Hoffman’s lisping performance as Mr. Magorium unbearable. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the movie in English as much as I did in Spanish (and I really did enjoy it).

I don’t often say this, but I enjoyed the movie more than I did the book. The story and characters in the book are actually very different from the movie, and I thought the movie story was… just better. More thought provoking, more interesting, better paced. The book isn’t bad, far from it, but it’s very different from the movie.

This book was funny, moving, tragic, real, mystical, marvellous. It made me cry; it’s been a while since a book did that.

I think that if you like Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, you’ll like this.

What is the What is the fictionalized autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the “Lost Boys” of Sudan, who fled from his country during the second Sudanese Civil War and eventually (re)settled in the USA.

I finished reading this book last night, and started again at the first page this morning.

My review of What is the What is as follows: you should read it. Seriously.

(Related: the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation.)

Okay, so the supposed science behind the technology that was at the heart of this movie was utterly unconvincing (at one point the girl next to me in the theatre sucked her teeth and exclaimed “That’s a lie!”), and I’m not a big Denzel Washington fan, but this was pretty decent, for what it was. I enjoy movies where things are hinted at in the beginning and then start to make sense and come together at the end, so I enjoyed this. The ending was super-cheesy though.

A story about three sisters coping with their issues and the death of their supremely selfish mother. A rather pointless book and not very well written (some of the sentences made me cringe, they were so poor); I felt like I’d wasted my time reading it.

Used to be that Adam Sandler’s presence in a movie would pretty much guarantee that I wouldn’t want to see it. These days it pretty much guarantees that I will. Go figure…