Book Tag!

Here is my take on the book tag passed on to me by Kerstin. Completing this tag made me realize that I have not read for pleasure very much since moving to Mozambique last year. Part of the problem is a sheer lack of books to read (unfortunately Amazon.com doesn't deliver to Maputo!). The other part is to be blamed on a combination of too much work, laziness, not enough time alone, choosing other activities (like blogging) in the time I could have spent reading... I love to read almost as much as I love to write, and I am going to make a concerted effort from this point on to incorporate good books into my life again. My uncle and his family are coming to Africa for a visit next month and I have asked him to bring 2 books for me. Hopefully they will be inspiring, and a good start to my reading resolution.

So here are my answers to the book tag:

3 most influential books in my life:

• "The Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay. Once when I was 14 years old, my mom and I were stuck with a horrid 6-hour layover in the Denver airport. We went into a bookstore and I blindly picked something off the shelf. I had never heard of this book, nor the author, and the cover wasn't especially attractive. I don't know why I picked it out other than I was supposed to have this book in my life. At the time I related to Peekay's story of cultivating the "power of one," that fierce independent spirit in each of us that allows us to triumph even in the most oppressive and lonely situations. I never imagined that I would one day move to Africa, and I certainly never thought I'd ever take a bus right through the heart of Barberton and the kloofs where the story takes place (as I did on my way to the Nia training in February). This book is a blessing, and 10 years later I still return to it at least once a year for words of inspiration and strength.

• "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. A simple, beautiful story that reminds me to have faith in the workings of the universe.

• "Morgan and Yew" by Stephen Cosgrove and Robin James (Serendipity books). This book was given to me as a gift when I was about 6 or 7 - it made me cry and cry back then, and it still makes me cry now. Yew, a dumpy little sheep, is best friends with a beautiful unicorn named Morgan. Yew wishes on the Morning Star that he, too, can have a unicorn's horn so that he can feel special instead of ordinary. When the Morning Star grants Yew's wish, Yew wears the horn for one day, but at the cost of his friend Morgan: the unicorn is gone! After crying of guilt and loneliness all night long, Yew pleads with the Morning Star to restore things to normal. After Morgan comes back to him and the horn is returned to the unicorn, the two friends play together forever and Yew never again envies his best friend. This book delivers quite the lesson in just 32 pages.

3 books I've read more than once:

• "The Power of One" (see above).

• All the books in the Weetzie Bat series by Francesca Lia Block. I discovered these quirky books in high school and would spend hours with my friend Meghan reading them in the library when we were really supposed to be studying. I loved all the characters (especially Weetzie) and the way the author described the little-known, wonderful bits of L.A. that actually made me want to live there for a while. These books are really a delight, especially when you need a reminder that being "plain and normal" isn't all it's cracked up to be!

• "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4" by Sue Townsend. This was my staple bathroom reading while in middle school. The book made me laugh so much, and I loved Adrian's way of narrating embarrassing events in his adolescent life. It was such good toilet reading, in fact, that many times I'd sit for over 40 minutes on the pot just so I could read thos last few pages (I guess it never occurred to me that I could go sit somewhere else with the book...).

3 great books that I personally hated:

• "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace. Way too long, way too pretentious, way too fucked up a story line and way too many footnotes for me to even begin to appreciate the genius many other people see in this book.

• I agree with Kerstin in that The Bible never really did it for me... We had to read excerpts of Genesis and Exodus when I was a freshman in high school. Suffice to say I was not thrilled.

• "The Prince" by Machiavelli. Part of an honors literature and philosophy course I took freshman year in college. Not a fan.

3 pure pleasures:

• "O Doce Veneno do Escorpião" by Raquel Pacheco a.k.a. Bruna Surfistinha. The title means The Scorpion's Sweet Venom and is the autobiography of a call girl. This book has turned brasilian society upside-down because it breaks all sorts of taboos about prostitution and sexual/gender roles that until now nobody has really commented on from a first-person perspective. The most interesting part is that Bruna Surfistinha comes from an upper-middle class family and made the choice to become a call girl so that she could have financial independence and get out of her suffocating household. I read this book in under 3 hours on the plane from São Paulo to Johannesburg coming back from our last trip to Brasil. It's like a combination of someone's diary and a collection of letters to Penthouse - addictive, to say the least!

• Garrison Keillor's stories about Lake Wobegon. I'm not sure which particular collection of stories it was in, but my mom and I spent an entire summer at my grandmother's house in Italy nearly pissing ourselves reading a story about a crotchety cocker spaniel that reminded us in more ways than one of our sweet little Lady back home. I have Garrison Keillor on a series of burned CDs that my dad made for me, but haven't yet had a chance to listen to the narratives. Note to self: bring these to Mozambique...

• Any of Tony Hillerman's mystery novels. In addition to being well written, I appreciate his myseteries so much more because I am from New Mexico and my mom grew up part-time in Farmington, a small city in the middle of the Navajo reservation where most of Mr. Hillerman's stories take place. There is something about reading someone else's description of the things familiar to me and close to my heart that is such a delight.

3 great books I should have read but haven't yet:

• "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. I know, I even did a play on the title in a previous post, but I haven't read this yet despite tons of my friends having recommended it.

• "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving. Has been on my list for a while...

• "Paula" by Isabel Allende. My mom loves this book and I know I will too as I am a big fan of Ms. Allende's other works. However, I haven't mustered up the courage to order it, much less read it, because I know I will cry and cry for days.

Last 3 books I ordered:

• "Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town" by Paul Theroux. The review of this book by Cait, a peace corps volunteer serving in a village in South Africa, made me want to read it immediately.

• "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins. This should be a fun read, especially since Rico and I have become increasingly cynical about the work of development agencies and NGOs from the US and other Western countries.

• "A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique" by William Finnegan. Read this before moving to Mozambique to get a better understanding of the 16-year civil war that raged through the country up until 1992. It was a tough read, both content-wise and because of the sheer wealth of facts and figures (the author wrote for the NY Times) but a book I'm glad I put in the effort for nonetheless. Nothing worse than being ill-informed about one of the defining events in the history of the country you've adopted as your home.

I would like to tag Telfair and Alina, if they have the time or the interest.