Well, you've walked down to the dock to get on the dive boat, you idled away the five minute ride to the dive site, and plunged in for a closer view of the spectacular walls, pristine coral, maybe even spotted a turtle or played with an octopus. You've settled into island time, and are ready to enjoy The Vistas ocean views with a good book. So what'll it be? How about…
Thomas Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem. Suicide bombers, brawling bellicose leaders, terrorists or freedom fighters. Now more than ever the Middle East is on our minds, maybe even in our neighborhoods. Time to get a better understanding of the people and the problems. Friedman's very readable book offers insight and background.
Italo Svevo, Confessions of Zeno. This 1923 Italian novel was hailed, as that's year's best. It holds up well. A guilt-ridden man is advised by his psychoanalyst to write his memoirs. In so doing, Zeno deconstructs and reconstructs his life, a memoir based upon delusion, compromise and rationalization.
Karen Connelly, The Dream of a Thousand Lives: A Sojourn in Thailand. Why not switch gears and try a travel memoir, but an extraordinary one. A teenaged Karen Connelly leaves Canada to spend a year in Denchai, a small community in Northern Thailand. Her sense of adventure and insight, amazes, her prose is poetic and her memoir a joy.
Raymond Chandler. Anything you can find. Chandler's Philip Marlowe is one of the most enduring hardboiled detectives, and Chandler's prose soars well beyond the mystery genre. "There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband's necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge." Red Wind. Finished the book? Read it again just for the Chandlerisms.
John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces. Ignatius J. Reilly's hilarious romps and misadventures in the City of New Orleans. You'll be laughing for weeks.
Thomas
Pynchon, Mason & Dixon. Ready for the
heavy lifting. Try this hefty (773 pages) epic adventure novel that traces
the paths of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon and their infamous line. It's
vast, cerebral, poignant and full of amazing characters, like a robot duck
searching for an amorous companion, an erudite talking dog, an exiled Chinese
Feng Shui practitioner and Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. A grand
story.
From
Beirut to Jerusalem
The
Big Sleep
A
Confedederacy of Dunces
Confessions
of Zeno
Dream
of a Thousand Lives
The
Ulitmate Good Luck
Independence
Day
Mason
& Dixon
The
Sportswriter