Jac’s Journey

I’ve always loved reading, and travelling the world gives you plenty of time to read – on buses and trains, waiting for connections, and lying on a beach!

Already, I’ve read a ton of excellent books and want to share them with you. I won’t tell you about the crappy ones I’ve read (there have been a few) – just the decent ones you might want to pick up yourself.

Please, please recommend any great books you’ve read and I’ll pick them up on the road.

Catching up on June and July

Ok, so I’ve really fallen behind updating this particular page. Since I bought my new laptop in Bangkok, I’ve been spending more time writing and less time reading. I’ve also not read so many great books – I’ve struggled through some, abandoned some and had pretty slim pickings atbook swaps in most hostels. I’ve also forgotten many of the books I read over a month ago, so won’t waste my time trying to remember them all and write updates here. Just a couple of goodies I want to share…

Chasing Harry Winston
Lauren Weisberger

That’s three good books now. She’s taking centre stage in the world of chic lit. Devil Wears Prada is still the best, but this is really enjoyable.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
Kim Edwards

Fed up with such rotten choices in hostels, I splashed out (a fortune) on a new book. Damn that GBP to AUD exchange rate! Thankfully, a good choice. This books starts from a shocking event; a father giving away his daughter because she was born with Downs Syndrome and telling his wife that she’d died instead. The nurse he’d given the child to, asking her to go to an institution, can’t do it and raises the child on her own. The devastating fallout from this decision follows them all through their lives; a riveting story.

June 2008

Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro

Another author becoming a fast favourite. I didn’t ever see the film, but have no idea how a book like this could make a great film. This journey through Mr Stephens, the Butler’s, thoughts, as he takes a drive through the English countryside and a trip down memory road, is wonderfully written. Ishiguro portrays the essence of repressed ‘Englishness’ brilliantly, and the main character is a joy as he tries but fails to repress life’s emotions, but the reader sees what’s really going on through the other characters around him. Wonderful.

May 2008

Saturday
Ian McEwan

Yet more Ian McEwan. Another incredible achievement – a book exploring many issues; world politics, wars, ageing, death, birth, violence, love – all in the space of one day. The day when anti-war protests took place against the Iraq war. It’s not the book to start with (that’s the Child In Time) but a delight once you’re hooked on his style, like I am. I can’t tell you how much I admire this writer’s talents.

Anne of Green Gables
Lucy Maud Montgomery

I’ve not (re-)read it yet, but will do, beginning June 1st. This classic children’s novel, one of my childhood favourites, is 100 years old soon and a ‘group read’ is taking place here. Join in!

Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert

Another one of the classics I’ve been meaning to read for a long time; allegedly a ground-breaker, a novel that rocked French society when it was released, that created a seismic shift in literature. Emma Bovary, quite frankly, did my head in for much of the early part of the novel, with her naivety, desire for the unattainable and perpetual spoilt-brat-ness. But as the novel wore on, I began to see why it’s stood the test of time. Beautiful language, a novel that, in its time, was a brave and challenging work, and with much still to make us think about in modern times.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jean Dominique Bauby

Dictated by a man who lived with ‘locked-in syndrome’ after suffering a massive stroke. He dictated this book with his eyelid – the only part of his body he was able to move. An incredible story of someone with a completely intact mind stuck inside a completely paralysed body – an insight into a world we just can’t imagine.

Everyone Worth Knowing
Lauren Weisberger

Ah, great chic lit! I just love it. In between the Madame Bovary’s and Voltaire’s, there’s nothing quite as joyous as curling up with a great romance novel. From the creator of ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, this is another cracking story of Manhattan life. I see she’s just about to bring out a new one too.

Paula
Isabel Allende

It’s always really lovely when I find a favourite author in a second hand bookshop. Paula is Allende’s autobiographical novel, written at her seriously ill daughter’s bedside, as she lay in a coma. Heart-rending. An action-packed life story, of a gifted woman, written in tragic circumstances, against the backdrop of social and political changes in Chile during the military coup and Pinochet’s dictatorship. It’s particularly beautiful the way she tells her own life story and then brings it back to the present to describe her own feelings as her daughter’s illness progresses.

Turning Thirty
Mike Gayle

Chic lit written by a man! Loved it.

The Island
Victoria Hislop

Thanks for this recommend, Sarah. A truly delightful read, packing loads of punch, with intriuge, family dramas and buried history. Excellent.

When We Were Orphans
Kazuo Ishiguro

A delightful detective-style exploration of so much more than just a crime. Set against inter-war London and Shanghai. Mystery, intrigue, war, romance, family.

April 2008

Sex Slaves
Louise Brown

She travelled to deepest, darkest, seediest India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines and Japan to explore and expose the truths of the trafficking and exploitation of women and children in Asia. Filled with anger and helplessness at what she found, she wrote this book. I can’t imagine doing the same as her and feeling otherwise. The stories tear your heart: women sold to brothels by their fathers, brothers, husbands, mothers, friends. Women trafficked across international borders by the police. Women locked into brothels, prevented from escaping until they finally realise they have nowhere else to go. Denied family, denied friendship, denied education, sometimes denied healthcare, they are bound to pay back fictitious ‘debts’ incurred by the traffickers and brothels who bought and sold them. And the majority trafficked as children. Women bought, sold, abused, used and discarded by a system that is highly developed and sophisticated. It’s a tragedy beyond my understanding.

Skipping Christmas
John Grisham

I needed something a little lighter after ‘Sex Slaves’. This is an amusing tale of a couple who decide to skip Christmas and go on a cruise, only to find it’s not as easy as they thought…

Teacher Man
Frank McCourt

Mr “Angela’s Ashes” himself returns to tell us tales of his teaching career in New York, up until the point when he became a writer. All of us have at least one teacher that inspired us – I think Frank was that teacher for many New York kids. I would have loved to have been in his class!

Reading Lolita in Tehran
Azir Nafisi

One woman’s memoir of the revolution in Iran, told through the secret class she held in her living room for 6 women who would gather to read forbidden books. An insight into the tyranny of the regime in Iran, for women in particular, and the small ways people cope; as well as a homage to literature and how it can bring freedom of thinking and feeling, even in the most oppressed environments.

Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro

Incredible. I don’t know where to begin describing this book. I can’t tell you any of the plot, because it’s so beautifully unwrapped by the author – bit by bit – like a brilliant present in a game of pass the parcel. A game you win. The characters are still in my head now. As are the issues it raises. As is the beauty of the story and the moral and…oh, just read it!

Girl Meets Boy
Ali Smith

One of the current darlings of literature, Ali Smith knows how to write a great book with beautiful language. Enjoyed this one, which was a modern re-write of one of the tales of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. (I only know that cos it tells you in the book, heh.)

On Chesil Beach
Ian McEwan

His newest book, this is a jewel. In a brief tale of one couple’s wedding night, McEwan shows how two people can experience the same event in profoundly different terms, and the effect of not making efforts to understand the other person. McEwan is a genius writer, exposing the depths and complexities of human beings in every sentence. He’s now up there with Jane Austen as one of my favourite authors.

March 2008

Anybody Out There
Marian Keyes

Oh, I had thought I’d read them all, then found this in a second hand bookshop. Going back to the hilarious and wonderful Walsh family, this was sheer delight. Like eating a full tube of Pringles, a large box of maltesers, drinking a bottle of chablis and not putting on an ounce. Enjoy.

Away
Jane Urquhart

I found this as the best of rather slim pickings from a second-hand bookshop in Vientiane. And loved it. A tale of Irish folklore, the potato famine, faeries and changelings, emigrating to Canada, love, life, death and passion. it’s all there. And written in poetry disguised as prose. Enjoy.

White Oleander
Janet Fitch

A beautifully written novel of a deranged yet captivating woman who ends up in prison after poisoning her boyfriend, and her daughter’s susequent journey through four Los Angeles foster homes. Poignant, touching, emotional, deeply sad, redemptive. Enjoy.

The Return Journey
Maeve Binchy

I normally don’t go for books of short stories, but coming into Phnom Penh tired and with a short attention span, this was just the tonic. Good if you don’t have time or energy for a novel.

The Killing Fields
Christopher Hudson

I’ve got such a pile of books about Cambodia. Every one would break your heart. This one is the book, taken from the film (interesting way round) ‘The Killing Fields’, which is taken from Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran’s manuscript. Devastating.
(PS – Just heard on CNN yesterday that Dith Pran recently passed away in the US. Rest in Peace – an amazing man.)

Candide
Voltaire

In a book exchange with fairly slim pickings, I choose Voltaire. Something I’d always meant to read – never got round to. Serious, improving literature. And then I carried it from Manila to Cambodia. Eventually, it was top of the list. Candide, the optimist, travels across the world. From a condemned criminal to a man of riches, he finds treasure in El Dorado, has dinner with Bonnie Prince Charlie, and a serious of other outrageous adventures told in a matter-of-fact tone, with Voltaire’s tongue as deeply embedded in his cheek as Terry Wogan’s when he presents the Eurovision Song Contest. Loved it.

Enduring Love
Ian McEwan

Powerful. I believe I went into mild shock after reading the beginning. I went from being happy and smiling to anxious and nauseous in the space of half an hour. Moving on from the shock of the first few chapters, McEwan continues to play with your emotions as he takes you through a tale of obsession and its consequences, manipulating your thoughts and emotions with cruel expertise. Brilliant read.

February 2008

After reading the wonderful, wonderful ‘The Kite Runner’ (Mairi, Fiona, thank you for the recommendation – I can’t remember when I was last so moved by a novel), I needed something a little lighter and found a Maeve Binchy I hadn’t read yet!

Nights of Rain and Stars
Maeve Binchy

Great chic lit – a tale of a group of people who come together on a remote Greek Island, and end up helping each other solve their individual problems in life. Refreshing and uplifting, as Maeve always is.

Wheels within Wheels
Dervla Murphy

This lady is a real intrepid traveller. She’s spent much of her adult life travelling the world on her bicycle and her travel books are inspiring, a great comment on what she sees and experiences and filled with Irish wit. This book is the story of her first thirty years, growing up in County Waterford, Ireland. Read one of her travel books then if you want to know more about her, read this one.

Amsterdam
Ian McEwan

After reading The Child In Time and catching Atonement (wonderful!) at the flicks in Hong Kong, I’m having a bit of an Ian McEwan-fest. Amsterdam won the Booker Prize when it came out and was a really enjoyable read, if not as good as The Child in Time, for me.

Ines of my Soul
Isabel Allende

One of my favourite authors, I was delighted to find an Allende book on my travels that I hadn’t read yet. This is a fictional account, drawing on sparse historical information, of the woman behind the Conquistador who founded the Kingdom of Chile, for Spain, in the 1500s. An incredible, engrossing tale of love, endurance, conquest and war.

Backpack
Emily Barr

Another cracking chic-lit, written about a twenty-something London girl who packs in her job and heads off travelling in Asia. Interestingly, the main character goes to a lot of the same places as me and it’s one of the reasons I enjoyed this immensely. As in all good chic lit, she sorts out her head, finds love, ditches the waster boyfriend and the recreational drugs, and to top it all, loses weight and gets a tan. Perfect travelling chic-lit. Note to Mum – don’t read this. She gets chased around Asia by a crazy backpacker-killer!

The Abortionist’s Daughter
Elisabeth Hyde

This one’s ok. Not great, not awful, a good companion for a long bus journey or something. An easy read.

A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini

Truly wonderful. Dare I say it, even better than The Kite Runner. I gasped out loud (in public!) and was moved to tears. An incredible journey through 30-odd years of Afghanistan’s history, which plays out in the background of family relationships, friendships, incredible love and horrific cruelty. KH’s writing is incredible. His characters enter your head and your heart. His storytelling is riveting and holds you in thrall. I wish I could write like this!

The Road
Cormac McCarthy

The story of a man and his son walking across America after a huge disaster. It’s the end of the world and all they have is each other and the things they find on the road. Sad, thought-provoking – about what really matters, and beautifully written.

Full Tilt
Dervla Murphy

Dear God, this woman is amazing. 1963. She cycled from Dunkirk to Delhi. On her own. With a revolver in her pocket. Through Europe, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. If I could adopt her as my Granny, I would. If you like reading about intrepid travel, read this.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami

If you like them surreal, you’ll love this. For me, not as good as ‘Kafka on the Shore’ but a wonderful book nonetheless.

Lucia, Lucia
Adriana Trigiani

A lovely tale of an independent girl growing up in a 1950s New York Italian family. It’s all there. Love, lust, career, home and family, friends, betrayal, redemption. A great read.

Good Harbor
Anita Diamiant

Nowhere near as good as ‘The Red Tent’ (was it really the same author?), but a good read nonetheless. A good tale about the importance of female friendship, even if the characters don’t fully come to life, for me, in the book.

January 2008

A Spot of Bother
Mark Haddon

If you haven’t read ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’, then read that too. A Spot of Bother is MH’s second novel and it’s just as good. The story of an old man going insane and the trials and tribulations of his family. Funny and sad at the same time.

Post Office
Charles Bukowski

I hadn’t read any Bukowski before, so this was a good place to start; Bukowski’s first novel after giving up his job in the US Post Office to start writing. A tale of Henry Chinaski (Bukowski’s alter-ego) lurching from job to job, woman to woman, making money at the races and drinking himself into oblivion, it’s funny, matter-of-fact about the sadder moments in Henry’s life and had some joyous moments where he does what we would all love to do, and tells his boss where to go! Neither Bukowski nor Henry Chinaski really give a damn and this book made me laugh out loud and count my own blessings.

Sea Glass
Anita Shreve

A lovely surprise. I picked this up cos I had three books to swap at a book exchange, and it was the third I chose. Really great book. Brings together a range of very different characters at the time of the Wall Street Crash in America. I’ll pick up some more of this author when I see her.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain

I just hadn’t got around to this one yet. Appropriate that I read it while I’m having my own adventure! A must-read, I suppose. I did enjoy it, and can see what all the fuss is about, but was disappointed with the ending.

The Child in Time
Ian McEwan

Wow! I was almost in tears just reading the back of this book! Tale of how a father deals with the grief of his daugher being stolen in a supermarket. An incredible story, so well-written, taking you into the depths of his grief and recovery, with an amazing ending.

The Pilot’s Wife
Anita Shreve

After the pleasant surprise of ‘Sea Glass’, I picked up ‘Where or When’ in a book exchange and was disappointed. ‘The Pilot’s Wife’ was Anita’s chance to redeem herself with me. A terrific book – about how you can never really know those closest to you. A powerful twist to the story towards the end.

September – December 2007

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
Paul Torday

A great story, about making it possible to fish for Salmon in the Yemen! A story of love and determination against the odds, wrapped up in a hilarious and cutting satire of the political spin in the British Government.

War Trash
Ha Jin

Tells the story of the Korean War in the 1950s, following one Chinese ‘volunteer’ soldier taken prisoner by the Americans. Also a fascinating insight into the workings of the Chinese Communist Party in the early years, the Nationalist Party, who moved to Taiwan, and the American approach to POWs.

Half of Man is Woman
Hsien-Liang Chang

I took this book with me to China. Opening the cover to begin reading, I read in the prologue that it was banned in China! Quickly covered it with some paper and carried on reading. It tells the story of a man who was persecuted during the madness of the Mao years, and the impact this persecution had on him and his relationships with others.

The Changing Face of China: From Mao to Market
John Gittings

This is a modern history of China. If you’re interested in Chinese history between 1949 to 2004, this is a great, well balanced read.

The Rape of Nanking
Iris Chang

I actually read this book before I left the UK. It’s so good I decided to include it here. It tells the tragic story of 6 weeks of rape, pillage and destruction by Japanese soldiers in Nanjing in Dec/Jan 1936/7. Often referred to as the forgotten holocaust, the Japanese government have not acknowledged, let alone apologised or made reparations, to the people of Nanjing.

Empress Orchid
Anchee Min

The story of the last empress of China. A tale of her rise to prominence, the politics and pain of living in the Forbidden City in the last stages of the Ming Dynasty. And a gripping read.

Tibet, Tibet
Patrick French

This book simply makes sense of the mystique and romance surrounding Tibet, drawing on the realities for Tibetans. A must-read for anyone interested in Tibet.

Kafka on the Shore
Haruki Murakami

Delicious. Murakami is a genius writer. imho. The story is daring and bold, a tale of quest, unbelievable, yet you believe it. The characters come to life in the pages and you simply cannot put it down. I’ll be reading more Murakami.

The World is Flat
Thomas J Friedman

If you’re interested in this acclaimed New York Times journalist’s point of view on globalisation, read it. It’s made me think differently about the world and how it’s developing now and might develop in future.

The Gathering
Anne Enright

The recent Booker prize winner, I picked this one up in Hong Kong. Most definitely literature, keep your wits about you or you’ll miss the tiny, clever references throughout the book. An interesting, sad, yet hopeful twist on the Irish dysfunctional family.

Mr Darcy Presents His Bride
Helen Halstead

If, like me, you’re a huge Jane Austen fan, and have gotten to the end of Pride and Prejudice wondering wistfully what happens next for Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy, you’ll love this book. Helen Halstead has done a pretty good job of taking Elizabeth and Mr Darcy into the first few years of their married lives. I started this wondering why I’d wasted my cash on a book that could only disappoint, but it really didn’t. I got to the end, turned to the beginning and read it all over again!

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