Lawrence of ArabiaNick Flynn: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir
I'm reading this book right now. Apparently it will soon be a movie starring someone in 2006. I checked out from the library (it's about a month overdue) and I had to repeat the title to the librarian about six times until we were both thoroughly embarassed since I don't think he quite believed me the first five times. Memoirs are something of a fad now, but this book is arguably the best one out there.
Jeffrey Herbst: States and Power in Africa
I first realized I wanted to be a political scientist while reading this book for the second time. Stresses imposed borders, population density and distribution, and the problem of "broadcasting" authority across vast tracts of sparsely populated lands as key challenges of African political development.
Jeanette Winterson: The Passion
The Passion, a story of a French peasant boy who cooks chickens in Napolean's army and the cross-dressing, web-footed Venetian daughter of a boatman he falls in love with, I fell in love with for its language. I haven't read a book this beautiful The Great Gatsby.
Incidentally, I saw Jeanette Winterson at PEN World Voices 2006. She was humble and frank and really next to Chinua Achebe the most impressive person there.
My "Africans to Bono" piece, translated into Chinese by a friend of mine. My inbox is already starting to curse me for writing it. 我想知道中国人对这个话题的看法。请你请你说一下你的意见。
作者：Jennifer Brea 写于2007年7月3日，星期二
是让非洲想象它自己未来的时候了。
坦桑尼亚阿鲁沙——非洲是一个让人绝望的洲。在这里
这就是非洲，它迫切地需要我们的帮助。幸运的是，已经有一些来自美
奇怪的是，并不是所有的本地人都对此心存感激。
I've recently gotten the mad idea of trying to revive this blog by writing about China from the perspective of a foreigner for a Chinese audience rather than a Western one. (At the moment I'm not altogether comfortable with the idea of "interpreting" China for the outside world.)
There is so much about China that I don't understand and so much about the world I come from that I wish my Chinese friends understood better.
Why mad? Because that idea implies writing my posts in Chinese. I apologize in advance for my poor Mandarin. The English and the Chinese versions of posts will differ for as long as English remains my stronger language (i.e., always and forever).
Thanks for reading!
* * *
我最近在思考怎么复活这个博客而想到一个比较疯狂的办法。大部分老外的博客是为了给别的老外解释中国的状况写的。
我对中国的了解还不如当这样的角色。我对中国的了解在各个方面还不够。同时，我想帮我的中国朋友更好得了解美国，更好得了解西方人的思想和文化。因此我想跟中国人直接交往比跟美国人还重要。
这个注意为何疯狂？因为它的意思就是我必须用中文写贴子。 首先，强迫大家看我很糟糕的中文，非常抱歉。 到我的中文水平超过我的英语为止（i.e., 永远），英语译文和中文译文会有点不一样。
谢谢你来看我的博客．
(This will be an interesting experiment :-)
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