A Christmas Video for my Loved Ones

Live from an internet café in Antigua.

International Book Club

Will read for fun.

I've read 20 books in the past 9 weeks here in Guatemala and have decided to start an International Book Club -- like Oprah's but better.  Your job: let me know if you've read any of the following books and let's discuss via email, gchat, facebook, whatever!  OR you could conversely just read one of the following books that strikes your fancy.  Your choice.  Here they are, in order from most favorite to...well, actually I enjoyed and/or loved all of them except for Silas Marner.  Sorry, George Eliot.  Here they are chronologically, from first to most recent, with a haiku about each.

1. The Hunger Games Trilogy, Suzanne Collins

remember Harry

Potter? this fills a very

small hole. still, good read

2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon

this: the perspective

of an autistic boy who

finds a dead dead dog

3. Survivor, Chuck Palahniuk

religious cult meets

the rise of celebrity

and a plane crashes

4. Atonement, Ian McEwan

who doesn't love a

prolix period piece with

war, estates and love?

5. Lord of the Flies, William Golding

revisit this high

school classic.  there is more there

there after years passed

6. The Talented Mr, Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

inspiration for

film, but with much less homo-

eroticism

7. Marya: A Life, Joyce Carol Oates

took me 200

pages to say, "Mariah,"

not "Mar-ee-ya."  right?

8. We Were The Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates

a family comes

apart and tries to heal, with

mixed results, obvi 

9. Silas Marner, George Eliot

didacticism

of the transparent and dry.

don't linger here long

10. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami

it's never too late

for pursuit of a new dream

or twenty-six miles

11. The Book of Salt, Monique Truong

cuisine, Gertrude Stein,

a gay Southeast Asian chef,

Paris, the thirties. 

12. Bluebeard's Egg, Margaret Atwood

we all know how I

feel about Ms. Atwood, yes?

Let's leave it at that. 

13. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

Egan contemplates

interconnectivity:

virtual / fleshy

14. Room, Emma Donahue

trapped in the closet,

but sans R. Kelly (or for

that matter, music)

15. Death of the Adversary, Hans Keilson (unfinished)

dense unappealing

prose, fascinating premise.

maybe in ten years?

16. Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan: my hero.

confronting the true evils

of the modern world

17. Under the Banner of Heaven, John Krakauer

just more religious

crazies; proof that god simply

should not be. ever

18. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis

the allegory, 

for some, will be lost to the

femicide. A+