Customs, Manners & Morals

by Dianne Hales

CULTURAL PORTRAIT
2010
PAPER
336 PAGES
NEW

Inebriated with the sounds of Italian, lovesick for its phrases and enamored of its earthy idioms, Hales, "a sensible woman of sturdy Polish stock," dives into the Italian of the piazza, literature, movies and streets in this charming memoir. (ITA26, $15.00)

Madre, Perilous Journeys With a Spanish Noun

by Liza Bakewell

HISTORY
2010
HARD COVER
192 PAGES

Armando, Pablo, Odette and other Mexican friends and colleagues are Brown University professor Liza Bakewell's informants in this lively cultural -- and linguistic -- history of the manifold meanings of madre (mother). An anthropologist with an interest in language and gender, Bakewell is also a marvelous writer, organizing her provocative musings into chapters with titles such as Wedding, Love, Lost in Los, Back to Church -- and Madre. (MEX285, $23.95)

Dreaming in Chinese, Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language

by Deborah Fallows

BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
2011
PAPER
208 PAGES

A linguist, living in Shanghai and Beijing with her journalist-husband James (Postcards from Tomorrow Square) the exuberant Deborah Fallows illuminates the Chinese worldview through language in playful, anecdotal essays, documenting her own missteps and growing understanding with self-deprecating humor. (CHN648, $13.00)

Don't Get Me Wrong, The Global Gestures Guide

by Judith Reker | Julia Grosse

GUIDEBOOK
2010
PAPER

Watch what you do with your hands! These 80 photographs decode what means what around the world. (WLD214, $14.95)

Dreaming in Hindi, Coming Awake in Another Language

by Katherine Russell Rich

BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
2010
PAPER
384 PAGES
NEW

Rich skewers the hilarity and challenges of taking on not just a new language but also a new culture in this spirited tale of life in Udaipur. (IDA565, $14.95)

Grammar Lessons

by Michele Morano

TRAVEL NARRATIVE
2007
HARD COVER
184 PAGES

Morano, who lived in Oviedo in the early 1990s, reflects on the humor and trials of living in a new language in these 13 essays on travel in Spain and search for self. (SPN345, $22.50)

Untangling My Chopsticks, A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto

by Victoria Abbott Riccardi

TRAVEL NARRATIVE
2004
PAPER
304 PAGES

In this beguiling memoir, Riccardi writes with verve of cultural encounters, bewilderment and discovery in Kyoto. If you've ever parted the drapes of a Japanese restaurant to face a room full of people and blank stares, you'll really appreciate the book. With 25 recipes for traditional and less traditional Japanese dishes. (JPN135, $19.00)