Where in the World are you Now? April 2008

And thus begins another month of fabulous reading...

Thanks for getting us started, Avaland. I'm about to leave for 19th century China with Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. I'm reading this one for my F2F book club.

I'm all over the place...I think that I suffer from a reading for of multiple personality disorder. Anywho, I am moving around in Russia, Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic with War and Peace. Teaching English in a remote Mongolian villiage in Hearing Birds Fly. Inciting revolutionary ideas in Brazil with The War of the End of the World. Getting into all kinds of mischief on Prince Edward Island with Anne of Green Gables. And because I wasn't do enough traveling I am in 18th century Scotland preparing to emigrate to Ontario Canada in The View from Castle Rock.

I think that I need to have my reading passport revoked until I can bring all the many pieces of myself together in one place!

Finished The Pillar of Salt a few days ago (thanks for the chickpeas, depressaholic!) and thought it was very good, although I got a bit frustrated in places in the last third. I've spent some time in the Belgian Congo with Pandora in the Congo,a very good ER book, although now I'm back in London trying to finish picking up all the threads in the strange events that have occurred...

I'm all over the place too! By a pool (only not exactly relaxing) in Rwanda with Un dimanche à la piscine à Kigali...in Iran with Persopolis...a bit bogged down in Spain with Almudena es un nombre de tango...returning to Palestine with I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti...and I've already popped into Mexico with a few pages of Arrancame la vida (Tear this Heart Out?), which I bought this afternoon, but I'm trying to stop myself from going any further before I finish at least one of the others.

Edited to try to fix Touchstones.

I am simultaneously in Mexico with The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz and in Bahia, Brazil bearing witness to The War of the End of the World a classic battle between good and evil, monarchy v. republic, and of course, landowners and peons.

I was supposed to go to China with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but I must have gotten mixed up at the airport because I ended up in London. Anna Quindlen is showing me around in Imagined London. I should be back at the airport for that flight to China in the next day or so.

I am en route to Santiago de Compostela starting from Le Puy in France in The Field of The Star A Pilgrim's Journey to Santiago de Compostela by Nicholas Luard

I am about ready to start reading Spanglish: the making of a New American language by Ilan Stavans. So, I'm in the United States, and I uderstand that proper people in Spain do not want to hear this language.

Here is Stavan's first sentence of Don Quixote in Spanglish:

In un placete de La Mancha of which nombre no qiero remembreare, vivia, not so long ago, uno de esos gentlemen who always tienen una lanza in the rack, una buckler antigua, a skinny caballo y un greyhound para el chase.

>7 Nickelini:: Nickelini, I hope you won't be flying out of Heathrow Terminal 5 ?!

#10: Yikes. Maybe I should take the train.

What's the big deal about heathrow terminal 5??

@hemlockgang - I see that we are visiting the same time and place in Brazil. I thought that I saw you lurking in the shadows of Canudos!

It seems they've had a luggage fiasco and thousands upon thousands of bags are piled up.

Heathrow terminal 5 was a spanking brand new terminal, cost billions, was opened with a great fanfare by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. It was going to be fantastic with a state of the art computer controlled baggage transporting system. Well,during the first week it has been open bags have been lost, piled up, not got on the planes they should have and it has been a huge British embarrassment. In addition, because of the baggage pile up planes have been cancelled etc etc. You would not want to be caught up in the present fiasco. Should be good when it all gets sorted out.

Irisheyz77- I am anxiously building up to the big skirmish.........totally enjoying the characters, like the Lion, the Dwarf, and all the Joaos! I think it is really the journalist who is doing all the lurking!

I am actually leaving for vacation in a week or so and will actually, in real life, be staying just south of the state of Bahia, in the state of E Spirito Santo, in the city of Guarypari, vacation home of my son-in-law's family. Ten days of reading, walking, and family fun. It doesn't get any better than that!

How does one create a tagmash?

Tagmashes are created by going to the Search tag, and then in the space for searching tags, you type in two words spearated by a comma. So, if you wanted to find books that are tagged both "reading" and "walking", you type in:
walking, reading
It takes about a minute for LT to do its search.

Thank you.

I'm in Washington, D.C. in the 1860s at a hospital in March and in Somalia in the 1960s with Infidel. Frankly, politically the world doesn't seem to have improved much, if any, in 100 years.

I'm in Albania in the 30's with two Scotsmen trying to research the link between ballads and Homer's epic poetry. Unfortunately the Albanian government has the two pegged as spies instead......The File on H. by Ismail Kadare.

Having finished and loved Pandora in the Congo I'm now in Iran in the early eighties in Persepolis. I'm finding Iran and its history increasingly fascinating - Samarkand had an interesting fictionalised account of the constitutional revolution in 1906 and I'm enjoying Satrapi's account of life around the Islamic revolution (even given how horrifying it is in places).

I'm also in and out of Iran and other countries of the Middle East as I read the first book I've chosen for the Muslim women group read Nine Parts of Desire. Can't wait for that discussion to begin!

I am in occupied Paris as I'm reading Suite Francaise and in London with Mr. Skeffington.

i just arrived from Newfoundland, Iceland and the waters around trying to trace the biography of Cod (by Mark Kurlansky). at the same time, i'm somewhere in Burma having a glimpse of Aung San Suu Kyi's life (Perfect Hostage by Justin Wintle).

I'm in London right now with Miss Lucy Snowe in Villette, but I think we're headed to the Continent very shortly.

I don't know what my problem is, but I just can't seem to get to China to read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan for my book club read. I left London on schedule, but I've ended up in Bombay, India with Rohinton Mistry and his Family Matters.

Nickelini, I've tried to read that one twice on the recommendations of others, and I couldn't get into it either. I'm usually a fan of fiction set in Asia countries.

Family Matters was a bit sad, but it has its humorous moments. The relationship between the old professor and his grandson is wonderfully portrayed.

I am in 1950s/1960s Egypt with The Private Sector by Joseph Hone

I wrapped up my short visit to Ireland reading The Gathering. At the moment I'm en route via ship from London to Burma with The Piano Tuner. We're going to go tune some corporal's piano in the jungle. I'm not sure why, seems there may be more to this story than meets the eye.

It appears I'm going to be traveling the English countryside in The Remains of the Day, while still battling the French in Russia with War and Peace.

I am somehow simultaneously in Zimbabwe with The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith on audiobook and continue to keep one foot firmly planted in Bahia, Brazil as I continue with The War of The End of The World by Mario Vargas Llosa.

I am also in 2 places at once. One is Aburiria (a fictional African nation that looks suspiciously like Kenya in the 1980s) in The Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The other is Sierra Leone, in Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone.

I left Brazil and I am now fighting to cross to the other side in Mississippi with As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and I am waiting to see if J.L.B Matacone will actually marry Mma Ramotswe in Zimbabwe with The Full Cupboard of Life

I was just in the Pacific in a lighthouse with Edgar Allan Poe, going a bit nuts; but I think I'm now headed for the states again, in the future, with an Emily Dickinson replica in Wild Nights!: Stories about the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway by Joyce Carol Oates. I think she's having a bit of fun with these stories (as am I)

I've decided to actually *try* to read War and Peace instead of faffing and getting distracted by other books, so I'm spending some time away from the war, in Moscow. But for the times when I really can't hold W&P up, I'm joining Emma et al, "just outside London" (hee!) in Highbury. (For those who don't know London: Highbury is well and truly inside London nowadays...)

I've left contemporary Texas and the imaginary world of Isidora in The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block and am now in the trenches of World War I with Fifth Business by Robertson Davies.

I am wandering around Croatia in Yolk.

I've left 19th Century Petersburg, Russia behind (Crime and Punishment - Pevear-Volokhonsky translation) and feel like I need to take a shower. As I posted elsewhere, this book drew me in and made me feel as if I were an accomplice to the crime and all of the guilt, suffering and offers of grace and redemption which followed. I truly felt that I was a part of the story and that without me, the story could not proceed on its arc.

I'm now taking a break by traveling to present-day Yucatan with Scott Smith's The Ruins.

Well, I'm here thinking about what to read next...

I just left Albania, 1981, and Kadare's The Successor a place where the dictator turns his enemies over to the "black beast" of night. I am also just leaving Iran, circa 1979-1980, and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. So it's time to get away from 80s dictators. On Audio, I'm in the middle of Kafka's The Metamorphosis.

I just picked up the Tain, but it may be that I need something light and entertaining.

I'm with Michael Ondaatje in Running in the Family in the older Sri Lanka - Ceylon of his youth.

I'm still stuck in WWII-era America with Franklin and Lucy. I'm anxious to get out of America again, but 2 of my next 3 books on my TBR list in the States as well.

I am on a New England road trip having just started Red Lights by Georges Simenon, and simultaneously in Chile reading Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda.

After a mind-boggling road trip along the New England coast with Red Lights, I jetted to present day Tokyo for another edgy experience reading After Dark by Haruki Murakami.

Left San Francisco with The Maltese Falcon so traveled to Prague and then London with The Golem's Eye. Also residing in Kenya with Infidel.

I'm in the middle of a Civil War battlefield with Mr. March in Geraldine Brooks' March.

After an intense journey to Tokyo with After Dark by Haruki Murakami, I am back in the Big Apple, the Bronx in the 1950s specifically, with Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi.

I'm in Yellowknife in 1975 with Elizabeth Hay's
Late Night on Air. So far this is a very dull place
to visit and I shall be alternating this visit with
my stay in 19thcentury England with Sheridan Le Fanu's Wyvern Mystery.

I've never been to Yellowknife, but I know several people who have, and most of them would agree with you that it's a very dull place :-)

On a more serious note, I'm sorry to hear that Late Nights on Air is boring--I've been looking forward to that one.

edited for touchstone.

I'm still in Aburiria, Africa with The Wizard of the Crow. Its a chunky book, but I'm loving in.

I am also in Malawi with the short story collection 'Waiting for a Turn' by Ken Lipenga. I have read 3 and am slightly bewildered. May have to start again. The book, incidentally, is part 6 of the Malawian Writers Series, which was only ever published in Malawi. I would love to know how it ended up in a second hand bookshop in a tiny Derbyshire village.

depressaholic, I loved Wizard of the Crow. It was one of my favorite books of last year.

I'm also in Yellowknife in 1975 with Elizabeth Hay's Late nights on air. I Must like dull places, because I am quite enjoying this book. About 2/3 of the way through and now we are in two canoes travelling by land and water through the Barrens.

I just finished my visit to Rangoon and parts of Burma in attempting a glimpse of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's life as A Perfect Hostage of the regime's bloodthirsty generals (written by Justin Wintle). Now I'm hopping over to neighboring China, Shanghai specifically at the start of the Cultural Revolution, Life and Death in Shanghai.

I liked Late Nights on Air!
I just left the Mediterranean area ( Cairo, Tunisia) in the 1040's in A Delightful Compendium of Consolation-A Fabulous Tale of Romance, Adventure and Faith in the Medieval Mediterranean by Burton L. Visotzky and am now in Instanbul and I think California (not there yet) in The Bastard of Instanbul by Elif Shafak.
Took a slight detour to Wales last week with the first Brother Cadfael mystery..

Have left the Barrens and have now stepped back in time to the early 1900s in Ohio, but will end up in Egypt at the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference in Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell.

Am also just back from France, present day, but people from the past kept reappearing, in Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay.

My first post to this thread so I hope I've got the idea right.
I'm currently in 19thC Venice in Wilkie Collins's The Haunted Hotel - and loving it!

I have been in Venice today with The Venetian Mask and also floating through England with World Without End.

I think I saw you in Venice! Were you wearing a red duffel coat?

I've made out of Nazi occupied France in Suite Francaise I had a brief stop over yesterday in Prague in Utz now I'm in Buenos Aires with the El cantor de tango

Well after a substantial side trip to Bombay, India in Family Matters, I have finally got back on track with my journey. I am now having my feet bound somewhere in China in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. By the way, does anyone know what part of China I'm in? North, South, East or West? Was foot binding practiced everywhere? So far I'm not crazy about the author's writing style, but the foot binding part sure was interesting.

I can't find Puwei in my atlas but the author does state at the beginning of the book that the secret language of 'nu shu' was used "by women in a remote area of southern Hunan Province" which is about the middle bit of South East China. I'm not an expert on the subject (though the book did practically force me to go and look up photos of bound feet on the interweb which were so revolting I actually lost sleep) but I have always believed that foot-binding was practised all over China - though no doubt there must have been some areas where it was more popular than others. I was surprised how much I liked the book to be honest (though not so much that I will read it again - hence it's on its way to ebay right now). Hope that helps.

I am following the idealistic Prince Myshkin around Russia in Dostoevsky's The Idiot.

Been around:Gerona, Barcelona, Urbana and back to Barcelona (via Gerona again and Madrid)... al this in just one book and moving at The speed of Light.

I'm in Jerusalem circa. 32 ad, reading Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist and seeing the crucifiction through the eyes of the pardoned criminal.

I'm also in medieval Ireland with The Tain and am trying to avoid temptation with Christian in The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (my audiobook listening right now).

# 61 - Yes, Booksloth, that does help. My knowledge of Chinese geography is clearly lacking :-)

I thought it would have been nice for the book to include a map, but then I'm just kinda a map-freak, and probably most readers wouldn't care. I also thought that there should be some illustrations of the foot binding, but I guess the publisher doesn't want to revolt readers into losing sleep! Like you, I also looked up pictures on the Internet. Personally, I find it more fascinating than revolting. I'll be happy to finish Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.

I'm running to catch up with booksloth and rarcar1 in Venice in the 18th century (well, that's when rarcar is, is that when you are booksloth?).

No, not any more. At the moment I'm absolutely engrossed in 21stC Ashford (Kent, England) with Nicola Barker's Darkmans - what a great book!

I'm in Mauritius and there is something nasty leaking out of my plastic bags. I'm reading Getting Rid of It by Lindsey Collen.

I'm wandering in the afterworld looking over China in Peony in Love by Lisa See

I've been spending a bit of time in Virginia, USA. First I was growing my own produce with Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). I've now travelled back to the mid-1800s and reading the story of a free black man who also had slaves: Edward P. Jones' The Known World.

I'm in Norhtwestern Australia in Sorry by Gail Jones.

Am in an unnamed town in Germany (possibly Calw) with Hermann Hesse's Demian.

I whizzed through Slovenia yesterday (with brief forays into other bits of what used to be Yugoslavia) with Joyce's Pupil by Drago Jancar. Am now in Carl Muller's Colombo.

I've just left a calligrapher's studio in Istanbul (The Calligrapher's Night) and am now a young teenager in Antigua, with Annie John.

I was in Istanbul, Arizona and San Francisco with The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak . I think that I am now going to Florence during the High Renaissance and a few other places with The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie.

Hi all,

I entered a few books on Library Thing in 2006 but was too busy fleeing a tenure-track job for the joys of The Street University (unofficial, unaccredited, but totally free) and founding The Church of Alienated Labor to do more than note the site's presence. Finding a group dedicated to reading globally is exciting. Let's shake up the world literature canon. Where am I? Right now, I'm in the Czech Republic with Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal. I've also been reading The Reindeer People: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia by Piers Vitebsky - the best book I've read thus far this year. I have relatives in Sweden, so I spend a lot of time tracking down Scandinavian literature in translation. Last year, I read The Book of Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist. I thought the book was brilliant; however, several of my friends questioned my credentials as an unlicensed but practicing book therapist, when I sent them off to read it. But a couple of friends showed a measurable improvement in mood and intellect after reading this book. So I'm hopeful. For a discreet fee (or indiscreetly for free) I offer book therapy for the suffering. Meet the patient where she or he is, I say. At The Street University, we're currently reading Truth and Method. We've also been delving into Heidegger - I begged the class not to do there. But at The Street University, the students set the agenda and the syllabus.

Ciao

urania1, welcome!

As it happens, I just ordered The Book about Blanche and Marie from an online discount retailer last week and should be receiving it soon. While I knew nothing much about it, I thought it sounded interesting and now, after reading your enthusiastic endorsement, I'm certain I'll find it so.

urania1 and marietherese, upon the strength of your comments I just ordered a copy of The Book about Blanche and Marie myself. Since I have never read anything by Per Olov Enquist, this will undoubtedly be an interesting experience. Thanks for the suggestion.

I'm on the vast Saskatchewan prairie, exploring themes of pacifism during WWII in Rudy Wiebe's Peace Shall Destroy Many.

I'm still in dark and gothic England in the early 19 century with The Wyvern Mystery. Things are getting gloomier and creepier by the page. I can't wait to find out what happens.

I seem to have both feet firmly planted in Australia. One, in northwest Australia post WWII still with Gail Jones's Sorry, and the other in New South Wales with The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville. The Grenville is a reread, the book was one of my favorites a few years ago.

Physically I have been in France with armchair flight to Afghanistan with The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini along with a time trip to various locations in wartime England in Our Longest Days written by The Writers of Mass Observation. I have now flown back in time to Canada with The Tenderness of Wolves by Steff penney.

Edited as Touchstones not working.

Left Holland and am now in Jordan with Honor Lost and in New York with Foreskin's Lament.

Hmm, Touchstones are a little touchy today.

Spent the weekend in Manhattan with Peter Cameron's Some Day This Pain Will Make Sense
to You. It was a wonderful journey, hip, urbane,
anxiety provoking, thoughtful and tremendous fun.
Tonight I have to catch a train with Miss Marple
to find out What Miss McGillicuddy Saw.

I'm in a cancer ward in the USSR in, well, Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsn. I'm expecting this to get harrowing.

I'm leaving my homeland of Aquitaine with my sister and entourage to become queen of France ( around 1140).
Eleanor of Aquitaine

While on actual vacation, I traveled in the literary world from Victorian England Silas Marner and Middlemarch by George Eliot, to Austria with The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek, to the wilds of Alaska with Call of the Wild by Jack London to Botswana with The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith and I am currently on my second journey to the planet of Rakhat in Children of God, the sequel to The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.

I've left Australia and seem to be ...nowhere! ack! to the TBR pile I dash! (well, actually, no dashing is required because my TBR pile is all around me).

I am in early colonial Quebec with Shadows on the Rock of Willa Cather.

It's an absolutely gorgeous spring day outside (in the real world), and I've just spent my lunch hour in Germany visiting a young woman's beautiful garden in Elizabeth and her German Garden.

>89 Samantha_kathy: Samantha_kathy -- what's the book?

I'm with The Emperor's Children in New York, and in the East End of London with Face by Benjamin Zephaniah.
(Touchstones not working).

I just left England with Kafka in Bronteland and Other Stories by Tamar Yellin and am now journeying to Sarajevo, Vienna, Venice, Boston, Tarragona, London, Seville and Jerusalem with People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

I'm traveling through the dry Australian desert with my four camels and I'm totally depressed.
Tracks by Robyn Davidson.

I got stuck in between books for a few day, not able to decide what to do next. Then I started three at once just to see if any of those would catch me and get me moving again.

So far I've been in Africa and Spain with Hemingway's 49 first stories, seeing Finland through immigrant eyes in Sinut (no touchstone) by Umayya Abu-Hanna and traveling the Silk Road with The gentlemen of the road.

I'm in an alternate-reality Britain with Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. By page 10, I was in love with this book - I don't know if its "deep" but it certainly is creative!

I find myself on Earth and on Raklhat while reading Children of God, and then moving between Gascony, France and Las Vegas while listening to Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje.

I'm in chick lit world this week. I needed something non demanding and relaxing this week, and so I am in London England eating lots of chocolate in The chocolate lovers club by Carole Matthews.

I'm in chick lit world this week. I needed something non demanding and relaxing this week, and so I am in London England eating lots of chocolate in The chocolate lovers club by Carole Matthews.

I'm now in normal, 19th century England with Middlemarch by George Eliot.

I am in 12th century England reading The Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin.

I'm in the future not far from here (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) with a reread of The Handmaid's Tale. I'm once again visiting within the wall of the Republic of Gilead (this time I thought to get the shots first:-).

Just left 12th Century England for southern Africa in the 1940s with The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing.

Columbia, The General in His Labyrinth.

Seventh century Arabian penninsula with Karen Armstrong's Muhammad Biography of the Prophet. About a third of the way through--very readable, and very interesting.

I'm spending my last day of April in Russia. I'm starting Anna Karenina later on today.

I'm in Barcelona, having just started The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I am in Colorado, with The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather.

Post 10, The Song of the Lark is my favorite book by Cather. I reread it at least once a year. In fact, I need to replace my old battered copy. It's in multiple pieces and is held together with a rubber band. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I continue to do. As for me, alas, I'm hopelessly mired in 18th-century Naples in The Virtuoso by Margriet de Moor a Dutch writer. The book, described as "resplendent" by one reviewer," thus far comes no where close. Perhaps, it's the translation, but the characters are one-dimensional, and their interaction leaden. The hero's conversation consists entirely of technical musical descriptions such as the following: "That a shake can be pleasing in two different ways is obvious. . . to every fool. But in one and the same passage . . . it's got to be either the goat trill or the gruppo. Personally, I have nothing against the gruppo. You can alternate smoothly and rapidly with the second above and keep the other sixteenths distinct like the drops of a fountain. But the really hard work is the goat trill." This said, while the heroine, she of the "immaculate buttocks," swoons. Really, I expected more from an author who has won the Van der Hoogt Prize , the Ako Prize, and been shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. "Ten thumbs down," I say.

#111> urania1, so far (I am only about 50 pages into the book) I am enjoying it very much. I will let you know as I proceed.
:-))

Post 113-aluvalibri, let me know when you're finished. I'll be curious to know why you like the book. Of course, right now I'm judging the book without having yet finished it although I did skip ahead to see what happens. Yes, I'm one of "those" people who peek. For my money, if you want to read a novel about the erotics of music, I'd recommend Rose Tremain's novel Music and Silence. It's simply grand. And of course there's always Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark. Incidentally, are you trying to do a musical read around the world? I detect a pattern here.

I am just starting The Size of the World, by Joan Silber (my early reviewer's book), and it promises to whisk me from wartime Vietnam, to Thailand, Mexico, Sicily, and contemporary America. I hope my passport and visas are all in order.

I just keep going back to England, this time with Kings and Queens of England: A Tourist Guide. I'll probably be straddling the pond as I go with Politics Noir:Dark Tales from the Corridors of Power, the short stories in which I believe are all about US politics.

I haven't read Song of the Lark, though am generally a Willa Cather fan. I'm going to have to pick that up.

I'm now following Christian's family on an allegorical journey in Part II of the Pilgrim's Progress, facing universal destruction in Ancient India in the Sauptikaparvan, and listening to songs and witnessing infidelity in early 20th Century Cairo in Palace Walk.

So are these worlds of tragedy and temptation in ancient India and modern Cairo just part of a pilgrim's temptations to turn from the way to the wicket?

#113> urania1, I have a copy of Music and Silence in one of my high-to-the-sky TBR piles, and will get to it soon as, beside you, it has already been warmly recommended by other LThingers. Thanks for the suggestion to you too!
:-))

>113 urania1: I thought The Song of the Lark terrific also, and interestingly had the same reaction to The Virtuoso; however, I chocked it up to my light education in classic music. Loved Music and silence also!

I'm still in the Republic of Gilead (although I'm wondering about how it is affecting my dreams at night...) but am sometimes in England with Love of Fat Men a collection of stories by Helen Dunmore. This book will be the one that stays in the car in case of a biblioemergency.

#118>avaland I haven't heard of Love of Fat Men, but I'm intrigued by your comment that you always keep this one in your car in case of biblioemergency. I'm intrigued. Can you tell me why without spoiling it? Is it safe to assume that this book would also accompany you to a desert island?

I have been aboard a stinking ship somewhere off the coast of South America in Herman Melville'snovella Benito Cerena. This book is so obtuse that it takes me almost an hour to try and decipher one page and I'm not even sure what I've read then. I'm about to bail and head over to the set of a soap opera where a murder takes place (can't remember the title) because I need to read something sweet and comforting after this most turbulent ride.

As a big Moby Dick fan, I have great admiration for you for just trying that one - it's supposed to be a post-modernist masterpiece that makes Gravity's Rainbow look like child's play. Still, I know few who have made it through...

I'm off to Prague next week (in reality) so i thought I'd accompany my travels with Prague Tales, an anthology of short stories by the 18th Century Czech writer Jan Neruda. After that I will be joining the 'Yugoslavia' read, which will hoipefully be underway by then.

-->120 alans:
I'm slightly disturbed you turn to murder when you want something sweet and comforting. If anyone is in the area, could they pop in and check on alans' neighbours?

#122> The novel Prague by Arthur Phillips is excellent as well.

#120> Ditto on depressaholic's comment........

#122> depressaholic, I greatly enjoyed Prague Tales, and hope you will too.
:-))

I"m currently in Venice with Donna Leon's Death at Le Fenice. Just rode a motor boat through the canal on the way to the funeral of a murdered orchestral conductor.

Hey everyone, come on over to the May Where in the World are you Now? thread!