I need books.

I want everyone to give me five book recs? Do 'em here or in your LJs but comment here so I can find your recs? And little blurbs about each so I can see what suits my fancy?

I'll even go first, if anyone else out there's looking to read. Here's some good worthwhile stuff:

My Secret History by Paul Theroux Being a coming-of-age-as-an-expat kind of story, wannabe writer seeks experience, goes to Africa, learns that all his writing is crap compared to the experiences the people he works with in the African hospital have. Gets to know the environment, has a lot of sex, and then goes to Europe maybe to figure out how to ever write again.

The Fireman's Fair by Josephine Humphreys Being a story told in first person male, by a female author who does a damn fine job. Rob is an ex-lawyer who was never a very good lawyer but somehow was very successful and got rich after being a brilliant student at Yale. Rob tires of the hyperintellectualism and instead dumps it all and buys a house on the South Carolina beach, near his retired (and crazy) parents, and near the summer home of his ex-law partner Hank and Hank's wife, the love of Rob's life. Big flood washes up the beach and we get an exhausted, laid-back, adult season on the coast as Rob tries to figure out what he wants to do with himself.

Music for Torching by A.M. Homes In which we watch a marriage dare itself to unravel, with the wife and husband either fighting, fucking, or conspiring in crime, trying to out-shock one another. He gets a tattoo. She burns the house down. Their quiet Yuppie suburb tries not to notice until the whole damn thing blows up in their faces.

When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant Wherein a young British Jewish girl decides to go be part of the forming of a new city of Israel, prior to and during WWII. The war in Europe is almost nonexistant in the modern white city of Tel Aviv, where the workers come in from the kibbutzes every day to try and generate a market economy and keep their state alive. Our girl Evelyn Sert starts in a kibbutz, meets people, finds kindred spirits and even falls in love, all the while finding her way into an underground army of freedom fighters running intelligence to protect the fledgling city.

Rules of the Wild by Francesca Marciano In which Esme, a disaffected Italian twentysomething, decides to run off to join the lush life of aristocratic expats living in Karen (the town in Kenya named after Isak Dinesen, or Karen Blixen). She settles into the European expatriate community, rubs elbows with artists, wildlife researchers, documentary filmmakers, and war photographers. Of course, she gets too close, becomes vulnerable to the influence of the land, and soon she's torn between two lovers that represent the extremes of Africa -- Adam a soulful hunter and safari leader with a holy worship for the land itself, and Hunter, a war correspondance outraged by the massacres going on in the nearby nations of Rwanda and Somalia.



More more more please? They don't have to be your favorite five. Just five you think I'll like. *g*

(no subject)

jenavira told me this is imdb's list of the 100 most-watched movies, lessee how I did.

( let's GO to the videoTAPE )

it's too dark and I can't read

musesfool, gamesiplay, dampha, thanks for the book recs. To update:

Today I bought In the Time of the Butterflies thanks to Victoria P (and because G was clever enough to remember what the LJ post said), and am looking forward to it. I also bought Philip Caputo's Exiles on its own recognizance, because I love Philip Caputo and because A Rumor of War is just so excellent.

I have read (and enjoyed!) I Capture The Castle, Homicide: AYOTKS, And the Band Played On, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (one of my all-time favorite books, ain't it great, Dampha?).

I can't deal with Saramago because he doesn't use quotation marks -- how gauche of me, I know, but still. The rest of your recs I'm looking forward to exploring -- which Rushdie should I start with?

Also, more books please, folks? Five books, five bucks, no whammies, big money? Help!

*

In other news, I saw the Band of Brothers extras DVD, which included "We Stand Alone Together," a documentary about Easy Company with interviews from the surviving E-company men and photos and newsreel clips from their actions in WWII. Good stuff. Though the best part of the DVD was Ron Livingston's video diary, which chronicled their Actor's Boot Camp under the iron boot of Captain Dale Dye, Drill Instructor to the Stars! He's the same guy who ran boot camp for my Starship Troopers and I've already had a behind-the-scenes drill with him on the ST DVD; so interesting to see him doing combat training here too, for such a different kind of ground war.

Spoiled ourselves on oysters and steaks. Now I'm drinking a lot of water. Years ago I met a girl who told me she was "really into water" and I laughed at her. Hippie freak. Reluctantly, I withdraw my mockery, because it turns out there's nothing better than a whole lot of water, all the time.

Which reminds me -- how excited am I about Finding Nemo?