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Reading Recommendations
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:04 pm
by Mary Hatch Bailey
I leave on a vacation to India tomorrow but will find time to run to Borders to get a book in the morning. Tell me, what is the best book you read this year? Genre doesn't matter, but I like something
weighty .
Thanks,
MHB
P.S. Vaucluse, I think I'll mis you most of all...
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:17 pm
by Carpe Diem
Village in the Vaucluse (Paperback)
by Laurence Wylie
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:17 pm
by sapphire
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Its quite impressive, all about Afghanistan and its political turmoils but with an emotional angle to it through the eyes of a little boy growing up in and outside Afghanistan.
Since the writer now resides in the US, you glimpse a bit of Americanism in the style of writing. But, throughout, the book has those moments which makes it unputdownable. I finished it in one and half days!
Highly recommended!
And, bon voyage, as said to you elsewhere, take lots of pics and share them with us!
P.S. Awww, my pretty boy Vaucluse, so scruffy lah!
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:27 pm
by banana
Heck, if you're going to India, you might as well do the Spiritual Tourist thing and carry a copy of Herman Hesse's Siddartha
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:33 pm
by sapphire
Lol, I've read that one as well banana, still didn't understand what was the big deal about that book!
Oh yeah, Ma'am Viceroy, don't fall for any spiritual guru in India, plenty of conmen running around loose.
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:34 pm
by banana
but do stop in Goa and rekindle your hippy childhood
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:38 pm
by sapphire
Hehehe, Goa my fave place for obvious reasons.
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:42 pm
by Carpe Diem
Have been to Goa last month, my hair doesn't grow faster.
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:43 pm
by sapphire
But, but did something else grow?
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:43 pm
by Em Eye
May not be weighty enough for you but you can check out:
Paulina Simons - The Bronze Horseman. It has everything. It's a wonderful heart wrenching love story as well as a wonderful history lessons about russia during the war. The sequel 'The Bridge to Holy Cross' also sold here in Singapore as "Tatiana and Alexander" is just as amazing.
I also love 'A Special Relationship' by Douglas Kennedy.
The Charm School by Nelson DeMille. I'm not big on spy novals but this one is set in the cold war and had me hocked from the beginning.
Hope you have a wonderful time in India. It will be quiet here on the forum without you...
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 9:53 pm
by dot dot dot
Peter Robb, Midnight on Sicily.
A travel of Sicilian history, culture, culinary and the origin and horror of 'la Cosa Nostra'. Highly recommended for those as erudite as yourself, dear la Reinne.
On a serious note, absolutely fascinating.
Enjoy your holidays there, will miss you around...
Eric
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 10:16 pm
by sputnik
'Midnight's Children' by Salman Rushdie is a great read, and with the right setting for your holiday (it is set in Bombay).
It begins with two children, born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947 - the moment that India became an independent nation - who are switched in the hospital.
A fantastic novel, and certainly not 'light' reading.
Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 10:18 pm
by Carpe Diem
sapphire wrote:But, but did something else grow?
what's your problem now?
Posted: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 6:30 am
by Mary Hatch Bailey
sapphire wrote:The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
Read it a few months ago and loved it
Posted: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 7:03 am
by EADG
A River Sutra by Gita Mehta, I've read it twice
weightier? may sound trite and you've probably read it but the great interpretation of the Arthurian Tragedy, The Mists Of Avalon - have read that three times