return to home
 
 
          Bookmark and Share        Email
 
  This Week's Recommendations    |     Hardcovers Coming Soon    |     Paperbacks Coming Soon    |     Recent Hardcovers    |     Recent Paperbacks
   Genres   |    Settings   |    Time Periods   |    Themes   |    Favorites   |    Award Winners   |    Book Finder   |    Surprise Me!   |    Tag cloud
   Recent Interviews    |     All Interviews    |     Author Bios    |     Author Websites    |     Pronunciation Guide
   Free Newsletters   |    Wordplay   |    Book Giveaway   |    BookBrowse Polls   |    Literary Quotes   |    Personality Quiz   |    Gift Membership
   Recent Membership Magazines    |     Magazine Archives     |     Invite the Author    |     My Reading List    |     First Impressions    |     My Account
   Editor's Blog    |     Best Reader Reviews    |     Book News    |     Meet the Reviewers    |     Stay In Touch
   About Us   |    Tour   |    Member Benefits   |    Join   |    Gift Memberships   |    Library Subscriptions   |    FAQ   |    People Say   |    Contact Us
Search BookBrowse
Suggested Links
This Book's Themes:
Free Twice-Monthly Newsletters
Olive Kitteridge

Win This Book!


Cherries in Winter jacket

Cherries in Winter
by Suzan Colón


'A charming, satisfying memoir of food, family and overcoming hard times.'

Enter To Win Now!


wordplay
Solve this clue:
"M H While T S S"

and be entered to win....
New Author
Interviews
Peter Ackroyd
A short essay by Peter Ackroyd about his 2009 novel The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall, discusses her Booker shortlisted novel at the the London bookstore, Daunt Books (3 part video)
William Kamkwamba
A short video about William Kamkwamba, author of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Louis Bayard
An essay by Louis Bayard about The Black Tower, an historical mystery set in the early 19th century
   Summary and Book Reviews

Fieldwork: Summary and book reviews of Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski, plus links to an excerpt from Fieldwork and a biography of Mischa Berlinski.

Fieldwork Fieldwork
A Novel
by Mischa Berlinski
Hardcover: Feb 2007,
336 pages.
Paperback: Jan 2008,
336 pages.

Publication information
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Reader Reviews

Author Biography
Author Interview
Critics' Opinion:  
Readers' Rating: 
About BookBrowse Rankings
Buy This Book
Themes Members Only Read-Alikes Members Only Add to Reading List  Members Only BookBrowse Review Members Only
Book Summary

When his girlfriend takes a job as a schoolteacher in northern Thailand, Mischa Berlinski goes along for the ride, working as little as possible for one of Thailand’s English-language newspapers. One evening a fellow expatriate tips him off to a story. A charismatic American anthropologist, Martiya van der Leun, has been found dead—a suicide—in the Thai prison where she was serving a fifty-year sentence for murder.

Motivated first by simple curiosity, then by deeper and more mysterious feelings, Mischa searches relentlessly to discover the details of Martiya’s crime. His search leads him to the origins of modern anthropology—and into the family history of Martiya’s victim, a brilliant young missionary whose grandparents left Oklahoma to preach the Word in the 1920s and never went back. Finally, Mischa’s obsession takes him into the world of the Thai hill tribes, whose way of life becomes a battleground for two competing, and utterly American, ways of looking at the world.

Vivid, passionate, funny, deeply researched, and page-turningly plotted, Fieldwork is a novel about fascination and taboo—scientific, religious, and sexual. It announces an assured and captivating new voice in American fiction.

Book Reviews

BookBrowse
Berlinsky's excellent first novel is notable on a number of counts, not only does it provide a wealth of highly readable information about the hilltribes that are spread across the area known as the "Golden Triangle", that overlaps the mountains of four countries (Burma/Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand) but it also provides a study of two other cultural groups that are a mystery to most of us - missionaries and anthropologists!
Full Review Members Only (members only, 948 words).


 Publisher's Weekly
Buried within the excess verbiage is a lean, interesting tale about, among many other things, the differences between modern and tribal cultures.

 Booklist - Brad Hooper
The reader learns a great deal about fieldwork but significantly less about the effortless integration of fact into fiction. In this, Berlinski is somewhat clumsy.

 Library Journal
Berlinski the novelist manages to inject just enough arcane information about tribal Thai culture to be informative but not tedious, all the while employing an admirably lighthearted sense of humor.

 Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. Berlinski's methodical account of the factors that led a rational intellectual to commit such a heinous crime is air-tight and intensely gripping. But equally notable is his ability to conjure such an elaborate portrait of the fictional Dyalo, and his treatment of both religious missionary and anthropological fieldwork is subtle and insightful. Impeccable research and a juicy, intricate plot pay off in this perfectly executed debut.

 The Washington Post - Terry Hong
With its offbeat style, Berlinski's consummate fieldwork -- fictional though it may be -- produces an intricate whodunit, both disturbing and entertaining. Even as he confesses to feeling "like the baton in a relay race of faulty memories and distant recollections," Berlinski meticulously unearths Martiya's "good story," taking readers on an intoxicating journey filled with missing souls and vengeful spirits.

 Entertainment Weekly - Stephen King
Under the drab title and drab cover, there's a story that cooks like a mother. It's called Fieldwork.

 Nigel Barley, author of The Innocent Anthropologist
The West has long equated exotic peoples with the dark and the wild. It is the strength of Mischa Berlinski's novel to chart those elements in the heart of the anthropology that seeks to explore them. He turns received ideas on their heads, for he makes us unsure about the things we thought we knew while showing us truths that we like to hide from ourselves.

 John Wray, author of CANAAN'S TONGUE
Mischa Berlinski brings a wealth of vivid detail to his narrative, and writes with real authority. FIELDWORK is as fascinating as an ethnographer's private journal, as entertaining as a finely plotted thriller.-


This Book's Themes:
Read-Alikes:
Buy This Book:

Become a Member
One Month Free
Editor's Choice
  •  Nov 19 
  •  Nov 17 
  •  Nov 15 
Nocturnes
Kazuo Ishiguro
One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character.
Invisible
Paul Auster
“One of America’s greatest novelists” dazzlingly reinvents the coming-of-age story in his most passionate and surprising book to date.
The Lacuna
Barbara Kingsolver
In her most accomplished novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their...
Chronic City
Jonathan Lethem
The acclaimed author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude returns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires, and lies.
Manhood for Amateurs
Michael Chabon
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author— "an immensely gifted writer and a magical prose stylist" (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)—offers his first major work of nonfiction, an autobiographical narrative as inventive, beautiful, and powerful as his acclaimed, award-winning fiction.
Recent Reader Reviews
Zorro by Isabel Allende
Like Robin Hood, Zorro is a story that almost everyone knows, but few have read. The original book by Johnston McCulley is out of print and ... read more
Three Cups of Tea by David O. Relin
I'm 13 years old and my teacher handed me this book and told me to read and do a report on it. I looked at the cover, saw the title (which made no ... read more
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
I'm 13 years old and my teacher handed me this book and told me to read and do a report on it. I looked at the cover, saw the title (which made no ... read more
RSS feed More...  
Most Viewed This Week
1. Brooklyn Bridge
Karen Hesse
2. The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
3. Three Cups of Tea
David O. Relin, Greg Mortenson
4. A Child Called It
Dave Pelzer
5. The Notebook
Nicholas Sparks
More...
Book Club Recommendations
The Wasted Vigil
by Nadeem Aslam
Paperback (Sep/09)
Graceling
by Kristin Cashore
Paperback (Sep/09)
The Given Day
by Dennis Lehane
Paperback (Sep/09)
The White Mary
by Kira Salak
Paperback (Sep/09)
More...
First Impressions
Members read and review books often months before they're published. See what they think in First Impressions!
State by State
by Matt Weiland & Sean Wilsey (editors)
           (Oct/09)
The Book of Illumination
by Mary Ann Winkowski
           (Oct/09)
The New Global Student
by Maya Frost
           (May/09)
More...
   Most Recent Blog Entries
So Many eReaders, Which to Choose?
Autumn Reading by Elizabeth Strout
It Takes All Kinds of Readers
Steampunk for Beginners by Cherie Priest
rss  RSS   rss  subscribe
  Latest BookBrowse News
The 2009 National Book Award Winners (Nov 19 2009)
The winners of the 2009 National Book Awards have been announced at the National Book Foundation's 60th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit... Full Story
Google Settlement Filed (Nov 13 2009)
After two delays, attorneys for the AAP, Authors Guild and Google filed an amended settlement agreement today in an effort to end litigation brought by the... Full Story
rss RSS feed More...
BookBrowse Poll
Q: When do you listen to audio books?
I don't listen to audio books
While walking
While doing household chores
While exercising
While working
In the car
At other times
Select Any That Apply
HOME Submissions | Advertising | Showcase | Library Subscriptions | Media Inquiries | Reviewers | Contact Us |   Email this page to a friend
addall.com - external link
Visit AddAll.com to compare and save at 41 bookstores!
Searching for used books? Search 20,000+ dealers!
 
Compare music prices  |  Compare movie prices
One Percent