This trip is also a way for us to relax and take some time to read.
We mostly read what we can get our hands on at book exchanges, but if you have any recommendations, send them over!
Here is what we have read so far:
- La Peste by Camus, always a great read
- A Thousand Spendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: a spectacular book, best we have read in a long time. You NEED to read it (Mille Soleils Splendides pour l'edition francaise)
- Le Malentendu by Camus, also a classic
- Marie-Antoinette by Stefan Sweig: a great psychological biography with a side of major historical events
- The Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri: short stories depicting interesting, touching moments, affecting mostly Indians or Americans of Indian decent. Some stories are much better than others, but all in all a good read
- Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith: an appealing title, but a really shitty book
- Dispatches by Michael Herr: this book is praised as a must-read on the Vietnam war. It is a patchwork of the encounters and impressions of a war reporter travelling around Vietnam to cover the conflicts. Both from the structure, stories and style, emanates a feeling of complete chaos. We did not love it (Jeremy stopped halfway), but it is an interesting book
- The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov: a burlesque book relating the visit of the devil and his entourage to Moscow. It is a funny and very satirical book, criticizing Russian society in the 30s': fear of foreigners, real estate scams, foreign currency witch-hunt, so-called intellectuals and writers who are but an arm of propaganda... It is often hard to catch all the allusions and sous-entendu without a deeper knowledge of the political and historical background.
- The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rudenfeld: a thriller with a background of psychoanalysis, but the result is just not very good.
- Things Fall Apart by Chinue Achebe
- South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami. A short novel about a man's mid-life crisis. The writing is simple, but very poetic and beautiful.
- A Thousand Rooms of Dreams and Fear by Atiq Rahimi
- Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin: The biography of Greg Mortenson, a man who set himself the challenge of building a school in a remote region of Pakistan, and ended up building dozens more. A very inspiring book.
- And The Mountain Echoed by Khaled Hosseini: After reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, we had to get our hands on that one! This book almost reads like a set of short stories, but connected by some characters and themes. Not as good in our minds as the previous book, but a very worthy read nevertheless.
We mostly read what we can get our hands on at book exchanges, but if you have any recommendations, send them over!
Here is what we have read so far:
- La Peste by Camus, always a great read
- A Thousand Spendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: a spectacular book, best we have read in a long time. You NEED to read it (Mille Soleils Splendides pour l'edition francaise)
- Le Malentendu by Camus, also a classic
- Marie-Antoinette by Stefan Sweig: a great psychological biography with a side of major historical events
- The Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri: short stories depicting interesting, touching moments, affecting mostly Indians or Americans of Indian decent. Some stories are much better than others, but all in all a good read
- Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith: an appealing title, but a really shitty book
- Dispatches by Michael Herr: this book is praised as a must-read on the Vietnam war. It is a patchwork of the encounters and impressions of a war reporter travelling around Vietnam to cover the conflicts. Both from the structure, stories and style, emanates a feeling of complete chaos. We did not love it (Jeremy stopped halfway), but it is an interesting book
- The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov: a burlesque book relating the visit of the devil and his entourage to Moscow. It is a funny and very satirical book, criticizing Russian society in the 30s': fear of foreigners, real estate scams, foreign currency witch-hunt, so-called intellectuals and writers who are but an arm of propaganda... It is often hard to catch all the allusions and sous-entendu without a deeper knowledge of the political and historical background.
- The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rudenfeld: a thriller with a background of psychoanalysis, but the result is just not very good.
- Emergency Sex by Heidi Postlewait, Kenneth Cain and Andrew Thomson: This book is a must read. It is co-authored by 3 UN workers who spent time together and apart in different warzones under the UN umbrella. The result is a very personal and eye-opening tale of the lives of people under extreme conditions.
- My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk- Things Fall Apart by Chinue Achebe
- South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami. A short novel about a man's mid-life crisis. The writing is simple, but very poetic and beautiful.
- On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan: This short novel about the terrifying wedding night of a young couple almost reads like a tragedy. It is set at the begining of the 1960s', when talking about sex is still a taboo.
- Burmese Days, George Orwell: This book paints a satirical picture of the lives of British in a small village of colonized Burma. All the characters are full of flaws and ridicule, which is deliciously funny.
- The Informers, Juan Gabriel Vasquez: A wonderfully written story (we really couldn't believe that it was a work of fiction, given the incredible depth of the characters), about a not-so-usual topic: the lives of German immigrants in Colombia, before, during and after WW2. This is really worth the read, and we will be looking forward to getting our hands on other books by this young author.
- End of An Affair, Graham Greene
- The Naked Sun, Isaac Asimov: Probably not Asimov's best work, but it is a fast and entertaining read- Burmese Days, George Orwell: This book paints a satirical picture of the lives of British in a small village of colonized Burma. All the characters are full of flaws and ridicule, which is deliciously funny.
- The Informers, Juan Gabriel Vasquez: A wonderfully written story (we really couldn't believe that it was a work of fiction, given the incredible depth of the characters), about a not-so-usual topic: the lives of German immigrants in Colombia, before, during and after WW2. This is really worth the read, and we will be looking forward to getting our hands on other books by this young author.
- End of An Affair, Graham Greene
- A Thousand Rooms of Dreams and Fear by Atiq Rahimi
- Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin: The biography of Greg Mortenson, a man who set himself the challenge of building a school in a remote region of Pakistan, and ended up building dozens more. A very inspiring book.
- And The Mountain Echoed by Khaled Hosseini: After reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, we had to get our hands on that one! This book almost reads like a set of short stories, but connected by some characters and themes. Not as good in our minds as the previous book, but a very worthy read nevertheless.
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