Rating: 
Summary: An Addictive Pageturner
Review: This book kept me interested from the beginning, as it outlined not only the story of Nisa, an unusual !Kung woman, but the cultural differences between the author and her surroundings. Additionally, each chapter of Nisa's life is prefaced with objective anthropological findings of typical !Kung behavior. The enthralling story of one woman is juxtapositioned with its historical and sociological context. I recommend this book for people who like trying to get a full picture of other cultures.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Reading
Review: This is an interesting read. Quite different from traditional works of this sort, this book brings one person's perspective of life as a member of the !Kung people (Nisa's), and presents it in an interesting way.
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous
Review: This was one of my favorite books of all time. It totally put a new perspective on my life as a woman and mother. A must read.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been great...
Review: What started as a great idea degenerated into a listing of who slept with whom, and then the arguments which ensued because of the sleeping around. I just about threw out the book, but trudged through and actually came across one interesting chapter, Chapter 13, an 11-page section titled "A Healing Ritual". At last - something informative and interesting! But not worth the price of the book. Maybe Margorie Shostak's subsequent books on Nisa are better written, but I'm not going to take the time to find out.
Rating:
Summary: The only assigned book I ever finished before a class.
Review: You don't have to be an anthropology student to find this book approachable. With Nisa's straight-forward monologues about her life, you could probably finish this book in a day, curled up on a blanket under a tree. That's how I plan to read the sequel.This book is full of gossip and stories, basically bridging gaps between that of Nisa's world and my own. She's an outsider's insider: just weird enough to be out on the fringes of the !Kung and thus accessible to Shostak. But that becomes a problem later on the book -- Nisa's peers have warned the author that Nisa lies, but it's not until Nisa tells a rather impressive story about herself that Shostak begins to dismiss her as unreliable. Which makes me think that the only reason Shostak published the book is that she'd spent too much time on Nisa not to. And that's why I'm not giving Shostak's work a full five stars -- I liked Nisa a heck of a lot more than I liked Shostak based on this work. Is Nisa a liar? Or is the problem that she tells truths that others don't want to face? Whatever your opinion, I think you'll find this book a good read whether or not you have an anthropological background. I still have a copy. :)
Rating:
Summary: The only assigned book I ever finished before a class.
Review: You don't have to be an anthropology student to find this book approachable. With Nisa's straight-forward monologues about her life, you could probably finish this book in a day, curled up on a blanket under a tree. That's how I plan to read the sequel. This book is full of gossip and stories, basically bridging gaps between that of Nisa's world and my own. She's an outsider's insider: just weird enough to be out on the fringes of the !Kung and thus accessible to Shostak. But that becomes a problem later on the book -- Nisa's peers have warned the author that Nisa lies, but it's not until Nisa tells a rather impressive story about herself that Shostak begins to dismiss her as unreliable. Which makes me think that the only reason Shostak published the book is that she'd spent too much time on Nisa not to. And that's why I'm not giving Shostak's work a full five stars -- I liked Nisa a heck of a lot more than I liked Shostak based on this work. Is Nisa a liar? Or is the problem that she tells truths that others don't want to face? Whatever your opinion, I think you'll find this book a good read whether or not you have an anthropological background. I still have a copy. :)
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