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Paradox and Platitude in Wittgenstein's Philosophy by David Pears. Careful and nuanced to a fault, but does justice to the author's life work of describing Wittgenstein's philosophy of language without sacrificing the concepts. Can be very frustrating for those looking for straight answers though.
The Impoverished Spirit in Contemporary Japan: Selected Essays of Honda Katsuichi - Essay titles like Racist Country: Japan should give you an immediate idea of this famous journalist's straightforward, polemical manner and radical politics (he calls even Nagisa Oshima a reactionary). Topics range from land grabs against indiginous peoples and revisionism concerning war crimes to blasting complacency in the Japanese left. A quick and very readable introduction to political controversy in postwar Japan, without a whole lot of depth.
The Adventures Of A Photographer In La Plata - An enjoyable and fairly light-weight Argentine novel about a young and naive artist on his own in the big city. He gets tied up in the financial schemes of a shrewd and manipulative old man, hooks up with two beautiful sisters, befriends a pair of radical university students, and also suspects his overprotective childhood friend of being a member of the secret police. And yet somehow nothing much seems to happen...
A Moment in the Sun John Sayles' recent wartime epic about imperialism, love and armed revolt in turn of the century America, Cuba and the Philippines. The quality of writing has almost as wide a range as the characters but the vast majority of its 950 pages is very good.
Brodie's Report - Could almost be called "A Brief History of Knife-fighting in Argentina" save for a few other "typical" Borges topics.
Cuba Libre - I was looking for something I could take to the beach without worrying about damaging it the last time I visited my grandparents. This action-packed paperback caught my eye because it's set in the same period of Cuban/American history as A Moment in the Sun. Neither bad nor great, but a quick and easy read.
A History of Chinese Civilization - I actually have a bit more to go in this dense, scholarly history of China from the stone age to the late 20th century. When I asked an expert at work to recommend a good crash-course/survey type book to start learning about Chinese History, it's the first one he sent me to. This will more than suffice, though it's not exactly a fun read (nor was I expecting it to be). I've been reading a couple chapters a week for the last two months.
Persuasion - Now I've read all of Jane Austen's completed novels. Very, very awesome.
The Elizabethans by A.N. Wilson. I was about half-way through a very dry book on the 2-millenium-long history of London when I realized that (unlike with China) I already had a good idea of what I wanted to learn more about in England's history, and it wasn't how and when different walls were built, government offices put in place and so on. This is a very good intermediate-level book on a fascinating period for culture, literature and politics in England. It doesn't require any prior reading but does reward it. The author also has a good enough eye for provocative details and quotes to keep it from ever feeling dry.
Human Variation: Races, Types and Ethnic Groups - I've been going through my bookshelves to see what I can get rid of and accidentally fell into reading this. I'm sure there are more up-to-date introductory genetics textbooks out there but this one is also a good, scholarly critique on the concept of race. I'll keep it around.
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