Allende, Isabel. (2003). My Invented Country. A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003. Allende is an excellent writer, and here she shares with readers an incredible, in-depth, seemingly objective, and comprehensive examination of contemporary Chilean culture. The front flyleaf states that it "is an unforgettable portrait of a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and an indomitable spirit." The examples, personal insights, and wonderful contrasts she offers between Chile and the U.S. (where she currently lives), are riveting, personal, and quite often heart wrenching. This is an easy-to-read cultural investigation that reeks of identification, commitment, and contradictions.

Aseel, Maryam Qudrat. (2003). Torn Between Two Cultures: An Afghan-American Woman Speaks Out. Sterling, VA: Capital Books, Inc. Aseel explores her experiences of being a Muslim, an Afghan, an Afghan-American, and a woman all at the same time. Born in the U.S. to first generation Afghan immigrants, Aseel is torn between traditional Afghan heritage and her contemporary American upbringing. If you want to know details about the differences that divide Americans and Muslim Afghans than this is the book for you. For college students, Aseel's pilgrimage through an identity crisis that was resolved only as she rediscovered her religious and cultural roots is not unlike that experienced by many people who are in search of their authentic self. The courtship, marriage, and days after the wedding process she describes on pages 126-130 is especially enlightening because it is her own. This is a well-written, thoroughly engaging story of the clash between two competing cultures.

Chang, Iris. (2003). The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. New York: Viking (Published by the Penguin Group). Spanning 150 years, this is the history of one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the United States. In this beautifully written narrative, Chang, with a degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a graduate fellowship to the writing seminars program at The Johns Hopkins University, traces the Chinese people's search for a better life. She chronicles the many accomplishments in America of Chinese immigrants while interweaving political, social, economic, and cultural history in this engrossing and passionately told account. Hers is a fresh view of not just what it means to be Chinese American, but, too, of what it is to be American.

Diamant, Anita. (2003). Pitching my Tent: On Marriage, Motherhood, Friendship, and Other Leaps of Faith. New York: Scribner. Although Diamant ranges beyond what it means to embrace Judaism in today's culture, that is why this book has a place in this chapter. There are sections on marriage and the nature of family, on the ties that bind mother and child, on the demands and rewards of friendship, on the challenges of balancing Jewish and secular calendars, and on midlife, too. The book is personal without being confessional, devotional but also genuinely funny. In this witty, warm, and honest book, and in brief chapters that can be quickly grasped and appreciated, Diamant has collected her wonderful essays from her two decades as a columnist. The book reflects on the shape and evolution of her life as well as the trends of her generation. It is a very good read.

Ford, Deborah, with Edie Hand. (2003). The Grits (Girls Raised in the South) Guide to Life. New York: Dutton (Published by Penguin Group). Being a male, a northerner who was raised in the north, and not at all interested in southern sweet potato queens, steel magnolias, ya-ya-sisters, and southern belles, it is interesting that I even picked up this book. But it is truly a gem. Not only is it full of the unspoken rules, rich traditions, and distinctive styles of the Southern woman, it immerses you deeply into southern culture. Yes, it is sweet, sharp, and full of Southern charm, but the advice, tradition, recipes, humor, quotable wisdom, and vital lessons make this easy-to-read book a "must read." Chapter 4, "Saying Darlin' Like You Mean It: The Grits Guide to Speech," and the following chapter on manners make the book especially appropriate for annotation in this communication textbook.

Gonzalez, A., M. Houston, & V. Chen. (2004). Our Voices: Essays in Culture, Ethnicity, and Communication, 4th ed. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Publishing Company. In this 330-page, paperback anthology, the authors examine communication in a variety of cultural and personal settings. In over 40 essays, writers address the question, "What is a cultural explanation and interpretation for this communication phenomenon. . . ?" Parts include "Naming Ourselves," "Negotiating Sexuality and Gender," "Representing Cultural Knowledge in Interpersonal and Mass Media Contexts," "Celebrating Cultures," "Valuing and Contesting Languages," "Living in Bicultural Relationships," "Economic Class and Cultural Identity," "Traversing Cultural Paths," and "Reflecting on 9/11."

Hecht, M. L., R. L. Jackson II, & S. A. Ribeau. (2003). African-American Communication: Exploring Identity and Culture, 2nd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. The authors offer a thorough examination of African American communication. They highlight the need for sensitivity to issues of power when discussing race, ethnicity, and culture. Taking a communicative, linguistic, and relational focus, they offer numerous recommendations designed to encourage understanding of African American communication.

Lanham, Robert. (2003). The Hipster Handbook. New York: Anchor Books (A Division of Random House, Inc.). In this 169-page paperback, Lanham offers a detailed and very specific look—albeit fun, anti-establishment, irreverent, and personal—at the Hipster culture. She begins with 11 clues that you are or 11 clues that you are not a hipster. There is a glossary, phrases and terms avoided by Hipsters, core elements of hipsterdom, and identification of hipster personality types such as Unemployed Trust-Funder, The Clubber, The Loner, The Schmooze, Maxwells, Carpets, and CK-1s, The WASH (Waitstaff and Service Hipster), The Neo-Crunch, The Teeter, The Polit, and The Bipster. Lanham discusses styles, dining, diet and dinner parties. There is information on choosing bars, beers, cocktails, and cigarettes. Nonverbal choices such as grooming, makeup, hairdos, tattoos, piercings, and greetings are mentioned. Also, she covers magazines, work, job interviews, literature, cinema, and dating. It is a brief, hip look at one small portion of pop culture.

Nafisi, Azar. (2003). Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. New York: Random House. Often, the best way to get a feel for a culture is to become immersed in it. Nafisi, a professor of English literature at Johns Hopkins University, discusses Iranian society and her study and work at Iranian universities as an analogue to the ideas and stories provided by Lolita, Gatsby, James, and Austen—the chapter names in her book. This is a fascinating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran, and Nafisi gives a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women's lives in revolutionary Iran. This is truly "a work of great passion and poetic beauty, written with a startlingly original voice (from the front flyleaf of the book)."

Phillips, Christopher. (2004). Six Questions of Socrates: A Modern-Day Journey of Discovery Through World Philosophy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Phillips addresses the questions what is virtue, moderation, justice, good, courage, and piety? More important, however, are his delightful, insightful, and penetrating viewpoints into the various cultures he discusses—both historical and at the present time. His discussion of virtue, for example, takes readers into the remains of an ancient marketplace in Athens then moves to a Navajo reservation in the Southwest. In his discussion of moderation he uses explanations by a group of twenty Muslim women about the Koranic notion of mean and balance. In his discussion of justice, he faces the endemic corruption of the Mexican police force and political system. His discussions range from the ancient Greeks to Nietzsche, from the philosophical traditions of Native American tribes and Asian cultures, to those of the Islamic world. This book opens minds and forces you to think about how you live now.

Schaller, Mark, and Christian S. Crandall. (2004). The Psychological Foundations of Culture. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. The authors show how questions about the origins and evolution of culture can be fruitfully answered through rigorous and creative examination of fundamental characteristics of human cognition, motivation, and social interaction. In three parts, they examine how cultures emerge, how specific cultural norms arise, and how cultures persist and change over time. The purpose of this academic book is to provide answers that are explanatory, predictive, and relevant to the emergence and continuing evolution of cultures past, present, and future. This is an excellent book for the serious student of culture.

Shah, Saira. (2003). The Storyteller's Daughter. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. Shah is an English-born daughter of an Afghan aristocrat; thus, she embraces both her western roots and the ancestral life of her Afghani forebears. In this culturally aware and insightful memoir she travels back to Afghanistan and discovers her extended family, a world of intense family ritual, community, male primacy, arranged marriages, her war-ravaged family seat which places her in the unique position of deciding what she wants and what she rejects of her extraordinary heritage. This is a well-written, engaging cultural journey.

Thernstrom, Abigail, and Stephan Thernstrom. (2003). No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning. New York: Simon & Schuster. If you want to know the cause of racial inequality in America today, this is a source book. The authors claim that "the racial gap in school achievement is the nation's most critical civil rights issue and an educational crisis." This is an expertly written, thoroughly documents (36 pages of footnotes), exposé of why African American and Latino opportunities in life are limited by inadequate education. Section titles include "The Problem," "Great Teaching," "Culture Matters," "The Conventional Wisdom," and "Serious Effort, Limited Results." The striking contrasts the authors offer in the section "Culture Matters" between Asian-Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Blacks is interesting, educational, and alarming. The authors make the point that "Neither poverty nor culture is educational destiny (p. 121)." This is a "must read" book for anyone planning to go into any aspect of education.

Ting-Toomey, Stella, and Leeva C. Chung. (2005). Understanding Intercultural Communication. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Publishing Company. Written in a conversational style, the authors present up-to-date, identity-based frameworks and fresh approaches to three main aspects of intercultural communication: foundational frameworks, crossing boundaries, and relationship development competence. There are so many reader-friendly aspects such as Jeopardy boxes on domestic culture, global culture, and diversity, personal narratives and stories, mini-assessments, reaction polis, intercultural-interethnic poems, snapshots that illustrate cultural diversity and culture shock, and dialogue scenes, global news clips, practical toolkits, and checkpoints.

Zakaria, Fareed. (2003). The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. One theme Zakaria supports—and for which he offers strong evidence—is that if you get the politics and economics right, culture will follow. Economic, civil, and religious liberties are at the core of human autonomy and dignity. So, is the answer to the world's problems, more democracy? Given time, perhaps, but it can't be imposed; it must occur from within, once the politics and economics are in order. For those who have lived or traveled abroad, Zakaria's book is enlightening, because your living or traveling offers a world perspective and understanding of Zakaria's insights. What are the tensions between democracy and freedom? What about elected autocrats? How can liberal democracy be made effective and relevant for our times? What effect has the Internet had in educating, modernizing, and globalizing a disparate populace? This is a fascinating, well-written, instructional book that challenges, enlightens, and puzzles.