2008 summer reading list

(please note that this is postdated, new entries will be below it)

april
1. late nights on air - elizabeth hay
2. the edible woman - margaret atwood
3. the kite runner - khaled hosseine

may
4. the satanic verses - salman rushdie
5. guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies - jared diamond

june
6. the house of god - samuel shem
7. brick lane - monica ali
8. tuesdays with morrie - mitch albom
9. the gathering - anne enright
10. anil's ghost - michael ondaatje
11. kafka on the shore - haruki murakami

july
12. the golden spruce: a true story of myth, madness, and greed - john vaillant
13. reading lolita in tehran: a memoir in books - azar nafisi
14. the inheritance of loss - kiran desai
15. the birth house - ami mckay
16. under the banner of heaven: a story of violent faith - jon krakauer

august
17. interpreter of maladies - jhumpa lahiri
18. twilight - stephenie meyer
19. new moon - stephenie meyer
20. eclipse - stephenie meyer
21. breaking dawn - stephenie meyer
22. the executioner's song - norman mailer

in progress:
three cups of tea - greg mortenson and david oliver relin

and some short story collections i'm picking at:

paul theroux
fresh air fiend: travel writings

constance rooke (ed.)
writing life: celebrated canadian and international authors on writing and life

jeffrey eugenides (ed.)
my mistress's sparrow is dead: great love stories from chekhov to munro

zadie smith (ed.)
the book of other people



as always, recommendations are appreciated. especially non-fiction.

peru, aqui yo vengo!

i leave on october 3rd. i'm going to to hunt down this view. it's stunning. to be honest, i know less than nothing about this place. two months of my life will be spent there and i saw this picture was like "huh, so that's what it looks like.. not bad at all." i'll let you know how accurate that really is. i set up my "days left" counter and it's at 49. i remember when it was 49 days until we left for mexico and that trip has come and gone.

i'm a lot more nervous than i'm letting on, but really, and i'm almost embarrassed to admit it, one of the main sources of my hesitation is the fact that i will be without pete for that long. it seems unbearable. you know that old saying absence makes the heart grow fonder? man, that shit is true.

(ps. does that title make any sense? combing through spanish phrase books is a tough way to learn the language.)