Author enjoys time traveling with 'Strangers' -- and so will readers

This is a lot of adventure for even an intrepid traveler like Hansen, whose earlier books include accounts of being shipwrecked and rescued by smugglers. True, the author draws from 25 years' worth of exploring the globe for his newest book. Still, it is obvious that Hansen has a knack for meeting interesting people and getting himself into unusual -- to put it mildly -- situations.

A less confident writer might emphasize this talent, but Hansen displays no trace of "Hey, look at me, I must be an interesting person since these things are happening to me," the tendency that shows up in far too many memoirs and travel books. The title story follows a group of strippers and Oliver Sparrow, the middle-aged wildlife biologist who watches them dance by night, and takes them bird-watching by day. Sparrow confides to Hansen, "I sometimes help them go shopping for outfits for the club, but I think my real value is that I can sit quietly and listen to them when they need someone to talk to. Their lives are pretty complicated."

There must be something in Hansen that allows people to invite him along into their lives and reveal themselves to him, but it is left to the reader to draw this conclusion. Whether Hansen sees himself as remarkable -- and he well may -- the impression he gives on the page is not, "Look at me," but, "Look at this." It is the sense that he has found something he simply must share with the reader.