22-31: Catching Up Again

I don't remember what order I read these in, but:

22. De onbekende Tolstoj: Herinneringen van een oud-leerling, Vasili Morozov
    The first full translation of this work (there was a near-complete one in German, and some excerpts in English) is in Dutch, and partly by a friend of Anthon's. It's quite interesting: Tolstoj as a school master for poor, local village children, by one of his pupils. I enjoyed this a lot.
    
23. 84 Charing Cross Road & The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, Helene Hanff
    Lovely.
    
24. Q's Legacy, Helene Hanff
    Also quite good. Mean to read some of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's work.
    
25. Apple of My Eye, Helene Hanff
    Meh. Annoying. I don't think I would have liked Helene.
    
26. The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, Simon Singh
    Excellent pop-sci cryptology book. This has thrown me into a whirlwind of cryptography and cryptanalysis books.
    
27. The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M. Auel
    Yes, really. I was reading a book on Neanderthal man (not finished yet), and this was mentioned in the introduction. So I had to read it, no? It's fluff. It's up there with Anne Rice.
    
28. Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, Jake Adelstein
    There are a few "I'm so awesome" moments, but mostly he seems like an O.K. guy. The book is very interesting and somewhat disturbing at times, in the same ways that John Barron's books on the KGB are. Here's a fun little cultural tidbit I enjoyed:
    

    
    The number one-selling book [on www.amazon.co.jp] was a manual for how to argue with Koreans (whether in Japan or South Korea—I can't speak for North Korea) who don't have nice things to say about Japan. Koreans keep moaning about the fact that Japan invaded Korea, inslaved their people, raped their women, forbade their language and culture, performed biological experiments on POWs, and kidnapped thousands of Koreans, shipping them off to Japan to work in sweatshops of industry. The thrust of the book is this: Tell those miserable Koreans to stop exaggerating and shut up.
    

    
    The contents is fairly awful, but what an awesome subject! "Manual on How to Argue with Koreans"! (As I type this, the number-one-seller at amazon.co.jp is Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. There are, in fact, four books about Steve Jobs in the top 20. I, sadly, do not see anything about arguing with Koreans.)
    
29. Broadsides from the Other Orders: A Book of Bugs, Sue Hubbell
    Very disappointing. More of a "Hey, look, and then I went and talked to someone here" book than a "here's something interesting about bug X" book. Waste of time, really. The only interesting thing I learned is that lady birds (lady bugs, for you yanks) are harvested out in the wild, and not bred in greenhouses or what have you. The people that harvest them are really protective of their secret harvesting spots. Curious.
    
30. The Last Ringbearer, Kirill Eskov
    A retelling of The Lord of the Rings from the perspective of some Mordorians. I liked it a lot. It's not available in English, but some crazed Livejournal user translated it and provided the pdf. There's a link to the pdf in the wikipedia article on the work.
    
31. The Golden Age of Jazz, William Gottlieb
    Photographs and short texts on figures from the Big Band era.