As you can imagine, traveling light entails some creative book juggling. Many of the novels I read over the last nine months were picked up at free hostel exchanges or second-hand shops, meaning they wouldn't be my first choice under normal circumstances. Some were traded with friends, and some arrived in life-saving packages from home. Below is a tiny mini-reviews for each book I read while abroad -- from a traveler's perspective.And if you have any reading suggestions for the unemployed, please let me know.
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1. Middlesex / Jeffrey Eugenides
Amazing book, I loved it. It has a bit of history and science intertwined with a great human story. The author has a beautiful writing style. It's the perfect length for a long weekend. If you haven't read it yet, please do. A+
2. I Know This Much Is True / Wally Lamb
This is the first book I've ever read twice. I brought it along because I remember it so fondly, and it's a whopping 879 pages. I think I liked it a little less the second time -- still completely compelling, but also extraordinarily depressing. It's hard to believe that so many tragic things could really happen to one person. Good for the traveler because of size. A-
3. The Avengers / Rich Cohen
My dad gave us this book before we left: It tells the true story of a group of brave Jews during the Holocaust. I don't normally read this type of book, so I was glad to have learned something while traveling, especially knowing we'd be visiting a concentration camp later on. The book itself was well-done but slightly repetitive. B+
4. Lucky You / Carl Hiaasen
I picked this one up at a backpacker's book exchange. I have to disagree with the Chicago Tribune that the mystery is, "Hilariously subversive" and "wonderfully entertaining." While I needed something light after the above two reads, this was a pretty trashy throw-away paperback that only made me laugh twice. Admittedly, I did want to see what happened in the end -- but I didn't real enjoy getting there. C
5. The Lovely Bones / Alice Sebold
Not for me. Too cloying and emotional. I rushed through this one. Sorry Oprah. B-
6. Morocco / D.L. Flusfeder
This was another random book I picked up in an exchange in Fiji. It was also set during the Holocaust (but is fiction, unlike The Avengers.) It told a haunting, compelling story and was different than anything I'd read before. B+
7. Shopoholic and Sister / Sophie Kinsella
Pleasant, banal chick-lit from that same Fijian book exchange. Luckily I was reading this while at the rental house in Australia, because I'd be embarrassed to be seen with it in public. C
8. The Prince of Tides / Pat Conroy
I'd seen the movie but never read the book. This is obviously a good beach read -- nothing you don't already know. B
9. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay / Michael Chabon
I've had Adventures sitting on my bookshelves at home for at least two years. I brought it on the trip with the idea that it would be a slow but interesting read, which actually describes it well. I liked the story (the third I'd read with Holocaust themes) which is, essentially, a story about friendship. Very well-written but sometimes drags. B+
10. The Bride Stripped Bare / Anonymous
Trashy fiction disguised as a classy diary. Readable, but forgettable. C
11. My Sister's Keeper / Jodi Picoult
This was my first Jodi Picoult book, gifted by Jen. I found it well-written and engaging. The story revolves around an interesting medical ethical debate and is written from five different points of view. Picoult keeps you guessing until the end. B+
12. Dry / Augsten Burroughs
Oh. My. God. So literally laugh-out-loud funny, I think Bryan was worried about me a few times. Sue included it in a package from the USA, and I thank her. Augusten Burroughs writes with such a great wit -- I prefer this to Running With Scissors. And, yes, it's about alcoholism. The only knock I can give the memoir is as a traveler, because the book is finished in a few short hours. A
13. The Shadow of the Wind / Carlos Ruiz Zafon and Lucia Graves
It's funny because I had given this book to Drake without ever reading it, and then she brought it along on our trip to Africa. Picking it up in Germany, I couldn't put it down for a good three days. It's an enveloping gothic mystery with a perfect plot-driven story that you hate to see end. A
14. 100 Years of Solitude / Gabriel Marcella Marquez
I couldn't get into this at all. It was complicated (everyone has nearly the same name -- oy!), had odd timing and I just wasn't interested. I know it's a modern classic, but I only got about halfway before ditching it for The Power of One. D
15. The Power of One / Bryce Courteney
Bryan and Jen both read this book and loved it. (Though Jen didn't finish the whole thing but was kind enough to leave it behind for us in Cape Town.) It's set in south Africa, and shed some light on historical issues in a complicated country. The story was engaging, but also slightly simplistic and, especially by the end, repetitive. I wasn't sad for it to end. B ..........
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