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Vacation reading?
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Replies to: Vacation reading?
Much of this movie was filmed around the corner from me. Had the trucks and RVs on our block for months. Michael Douglas was charming and gracious, thanking us for our hospitality and incovenience during the shooting. Some nights the neighborhood was lit up like a Monday Night Football game.
Thread hijack over; now back to books...
I reread "Middlemarch" every few years--I'm a huge Eliot fan.
Keep saying I'm going to tackle Tolstoy again, but haven't yet.
when the book came out I picked it up several times but just didn't appeal to me-
But I liked the movie so much that I gave it another try and read it straight through twice !
For all consuming vacation reading- especially for those who are interested in history I would recommend the Outlander series by Diana Gabladon- yes it is supposedly a "romance" but also time travel and a great deal of character development and history.( it begins in the scottish highlands in the 18th century)
The author has done a great deal of research and even my husband who admittedly skipped through the "racy" parts read the series straight through.
I do really love Joan Didions writing, but the most recent book I haven't gotten to-
Red tent was our first book group book- I think we bugged out the yes of the other coffeeshop customers in discussing some of the details
oh if you like mysteries- especially British legal dramas I suggest Sarah Caudwell- who was a British Barrister and wrote just 3 or 4 mysteries before she died but they are great- full of that dry brit humor.
I love british humor- one more
To Say Nothing of the Dog
I read quite a bit. A few of my favorites:
The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
Bee Season, Myla Goldberg (it's a fast, entertaining read)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
The Metamorphoses, Ovid (good if you're into mythology)
I also really like the short stories of Graham Greene, especially because it's easy to read as many (or as few) as you'd like, then come back to them when you have more time. The volume I have is called Twenty-one Stories.
of course it is okay if you are not a parent...... in fact, your suggestion of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn might be a good one for our mother/son book group. We discuss our latest read, Bode Miller's autobiography, this coming Sunday....and now I have a suggestion to throw out... so thanks for adding to our considerations!!
For vacation reading my favorites are anything by Jodi Picoult. Favorites Salem Falls, The Pact, Plain Truth.
Ann Lamont
Gail Tsukiyama- Dreaming Water, The Samarai's Garden. Women of the Silk.
Year's ago I read a series that I think were written by a San Francisco author who wrote for one of the newspaper's and some of the character's were gay. Anyone know of them. I would love to reread them if I could remember the titles.
But what I really want to recommend is 'after the quake' by Haruki Murakami. It is a collection of six short stories. All of them are in some way connected to the 1995 Kobe earthquake. These are just awesomely, great short stories. The kind that stick in your mind, long after you've finishied reading them.
As for book/movie pairs. Hands down winner is 'The Tin Drum'. Great book and a great movie. (but you never want to eat eels again)
I, too, loved Jhumpa Lahiri.
Yesterday, we all read a book review in the NYT that made us think we'd like to read the book. It's the Last Witchfinder by James Morrow. It begins in 1688 and moves from England to Boston, MA. It involves witch-hunting, Newton's Principia Mathematica, Native Americans and more. The heroine marries a Boston postman after asking him: "Do you have access to Harvard College Library?" We all fell about laughing. How can you not love such a heroine? I'm going to buy the book, even though it's not yet in paperback.
one of my best friends has strongly urged the Gail Tsukiyama books,
saying that The Women of the Silk is just a haunting read. I hereby "pledge" to read her this year. Thanks for the reminder!
Agreed on Anne Tyler too, I think I've read all of her books as they come out over the years.
Since baseball season is beginning, if you enjoy the game and history, try "Wait Til Next Year" by Doris Kearns. A memoir of her growing up with baseball in New York--outstanding.
I agree with garland about The DaVinci Code. At the beginning, I couldn't put it down, I thought the beginning was just outstanding. But the denouement was completely unsatisfying. It has become quite a cult though.
I'll get The Secret Life of Bees and several others mentioned above. In my pile but unfinished: "Snow", "The Kite Runner", and "Reading Lolita in Tehran".....
I agree with you about Joan Didion. I loved how she shared, so generously, her reminiscences of the life they had together. One interesting thing I just found out recently, was the origin of her daughter's name. There's been a big story in the news here about a wealthy couple from Toronto who were in Mexico for their daughter's wedding, and were found murdered in their hotel room. The hotel was in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo.
Some other books with art themes that I really liked:
Headlong by Michael Frayn (Bruegel, Fiction) I loved this book, but then again I am a Bruegel fanatic!
The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier (Vermeer, fiction)
M, The Man Who Became Caravaggio by Peter Robb (50/50 fact/fiction)
Brunelleschis Dome, The Popes Ceiling (Michaelangelo) by Ross King (non-fiction) The author has a new book on the Impressionists too.
For novels with Asian settings (also some great movie tie-ins but the books are better
The Year of Living Dangerously by Christopher Koch
Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
And totally unrelated to anything but a very funny book that's great to travel with, Scoop by Evelyn Waugh.
Im going to print this thread and take it to Barnes and Noble when Im in the States later this month. Some wonderful ideas. Now all I need is a Spring Break.