Why I Love Vacation

Mark and I spent a week in Cozumel earlier this month. It was a great vacation! I spent the whole week lying around on the beach reading fun vacation books and napping. (I am very grateful to the inventor of SPF 70 sunscreen) This is what I read:

Phantom Prey by John Sandford



This is the 18th(!) book in John Sandford's Prey series. I am not usually a fan of the cop/mystery genre, but I make an exception for John Sandford. He is a former Pulitzer prize winning journalist turned novelist. He's a good writer and his books are always a quick and enthralling read. Lucas Davenport is a former Minneapolis homicide cop who has risen up in the political ranks, but still helps solve crimes once in a while. When the daughter of a prominent family disappears, he is enlisted to help figure out what happened, learning a lot about the Goth community in the investigation. I have read these books for years, but they became even more fun for me after I moved to Minnesota and was able to recognize the places in the stories.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

This is Aravind Adiga's first novel, which won a Man Booker prize. The author is an internationally-educated Indian who moved back home to Mumbai to work as a journalist. This is the story of Balram, a Bangalore entrepreneur, who has risen from a very poor, rural family. He leaves home to become the driver for a wealthy family, and eventually becomes a business owner, but he has a secret. I liked this book. It was a quick read which shows how class and caste are still important in India.

Hit Parade by Lawrence Block

This is the third book in Lawrence Block's "Hit Man" series. Keller is a hit man with some idiosyncrasies (for a hit man), like dog ownership, an agent named Dot who loves iced tea, and philately. This book delves into the dark underbelly of the stamp collecting world... Very entertaining, but start with the first book, "Hit Man."

The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson

John Sandford (writer of Phantom Prey) personally recommended this book to Mark at a book signing in Minneapolis. Alex Berenson's won an Edgar award for best first novel for this book. He is a journalist for the New York Times. The book is about John Wells, the only CIA agent to infiltrate Al Quaeda. He comes back to the US for the first time in ten years "on assignment" from Osama bin Laden. I don't want to give away the end, but he either saves America or fails miserably. You'll have to read it to find out! It's a great vacation/airplane read, quick, easy, and current. I'm actually reading the second book now, called "The Ghost War."

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Do you feel like you have something in your life you were "called" to do or be? Something that really sparks a desire? For some people it's being a mother, for others a doctor or maybe politics. For me it was the Middle East. I have a strange pull to that region - their culture, art and language. And it's not to say that I didn't ever want to be a mother. I know I was called for that too but not in the same way. I think for some people they draw a line to the place they want to end up and make a straight line towards it, they don't waiver in their desires and end up exactly where they want to be without a lot of veerings off their course. That's not to say that the course was hard but they were determined.

This is the kind of rambling that The Alchemist has me doing in my mind. It is a thought provoking kind of book. I don't think it ends up drawing necessarily the exact same conclusion about life as I do, especially considering some things don't jive with the gospel, but it's really interesting nonetheless. It really got me thinking about maybe something else I should be striving towards, like maybe I'm a little off my path. If anything it got me considering how much I want to get back to school and finish my degree. I would love to know what you think about this book. This one would be a great one to discuss! Let me know if you read it.

Honorable Mentions ...

I have been reading A LOT lately. That's the one good thing about recuperating from surgery ... you don't have to feel guilty about spending too much time on the couch with a book in your hands.

If you haven't read Mrs. Pollifax you really should! I love to read one of these in between a more difficult book because they are so easy and entertaining. I call them Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote meets James Bond. They are about a woman who finds herself widowed, bored with garden clubs, and wanting to try something she always thought she would be good at ... being a spy. So she goes to the CIA and applies for a job. Start with "The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax".

I also really like the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich. They are about a mostly average kind of woman who finds herself out of a job and broke. She turns to her cousin to give her a job ... as a bounty hunter. She thinks it might be easy money but always ends up over her head. They are definitely not a book you would find at Deseret Book, I would say PG-13 kind of material, so if you don't like a good sexual inuendo now and again then they're not for you. But I really find then entertaining and has a woman as the protagonist to boot.

"Fancy Pants" by Cathie Marie Hake ... started off really cute. Turned into predictable but OK. Ended with disjointed and not interesting at all.

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

I've mentioned before that I love the Brother's Grimm Fairy Tales ... well this is a take on one of a lesser known of their stories. I loved it! There's something so true about the Brother's Grimm ... all the stories have a moral and justice prevails. They don't always have a happy ending but they always teach a lesson. AND they make is so easy to believe in magic and true love. Shannon Hale is a relatively new author and she takes this old story and creates and embelishes it into a new and entertaining one without forgetting the charm of the old one.

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

"A fantastic bus ride from hell to heaven - a round trip for some but not for others."

This is a must read for sure. I really enjoyed this book. It's 130 pages of thought provoking situations and analogies. You find yourself trying to decide where you fit in and what you would think and do if it were you that had been on this bus ride. Lewis is most recognized for his Christian theology and this book is no different. If you liked The Screwtape Letters than you will also enjoy this one as well. I would love to have other people read it ... I think it would prove to be a great dicussion!

The Giver

I read this one when I was younger--like in junior high or high school.  I couldn't remember a thing about it, except that it was good.  So I picked it up at the library this week and read the whole thing in less than a day.  It's short and easy to read, but very interesting and thought-provoking.  The thing that is most fascinating to me is that it's written for a young audience, yet is deep enough for adults to enjoy.  It makes you consider things like happiness, perfection, and choices.  Definitely a must-read, over and over again.

Step-Ball-Change

So the last time I was at the library I couldn't think of a single book that was on my to-read list.  And, not wanting to leave the library without a book, I decided to get another book by Jeanne Ray.  I liked Eat Cake a lot, so I figured I couldn't go wrong with another of her books.  Well, I think that Step-Ball-Change was even more funny than Eat Cake.  By page 54 I had already laughed out loud 4 times.  My husband, who was sitting next to me, was impressed that I novel could be that funny.  I was too!  Again, nothing to meditate on, but it was fun and happy and the dialogue between characters is what will get you going--so smart and witty!