|
Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2009 11:02:11 GMT
Sometimes I read books not for their literary value but just because they take me somewhere completely different to see life in a way that is unlike my own.
I like to read Australian novels, for example, just because of the slightly strange vocabulary and the unusual daily activities of the characters. Naturally, when I have to read a book in translation, I know that it loses a lot of its 'flavor' but things like Vietnamese or North African novels still take me to another world.
Of course, when it is also a great work of literature like El Señor Presidente by Miguel Ángel Asturias, the Guatemalan author, that makes it even better.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2009 11:44:08 GMT
Keri Hume's novel,The Bone People,an excellent read (some violence in it has startled some) takes place in New Zealand and the descriptions of the language,topography,and Maori culture and imagery made for a quite remarkable read in it's ability to transport one right there.
|
|
|
Post by hwinpp on Nov 10, 2009 7:41:01 GMT
One book that really did take me elsewhere was 'A Suitable Boy' by Vikram Seth. I'd read his journal of a trip he made from Xinkiang to Delhi some time before and decided to try this one mainly because I was bored. Boy, was I in for a surprise. The book has over 1000 pages and when you've finished it you'll wish it had another 1000.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2009 12:25:04 GMT
Thanks for the recommendation hw. Will check out.
|
|
|
Post by lola on Nov 10, 2009 16:03:51 GMT
I am addicted to the Aubrey/Maturin Master and Commander series, currently 2/3 through them. Beautifully written, interesting characters, vicarious thrills of sea battle victories, put together they make one of the great novels of the world IMO. The voyages range around the world, and it helps to have a globe handy for when they rendezvous with someone at, say, 150W, 20S.
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Dec 23, 2009 20:59:11 GMT
They're rather light reading, but I enjoyed being transported to Botswana with the Number One Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2009 21:04:38 GMT
I prefer light reading. (I have read them.)
|
|
|
Post by lola on Dec 23, 2009 22:03:30 GMT
The Lucia books by E.F. Benson do that for me, especially after she moves to Rye and starts crossing swords with Miss Mapp.
|
|
|
Post by lola on Dec 23, 2009 22:06:53 GMT
Oh, wait. Sorry. Wrong category.
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Dec 24, 2009 20:05:55 GMT
The mystery/action/suspense novels of Randy Wayne White, set mostly in Sanibel, Florida, with undercover trips to darker places, take me to a familiar setting which is always fun, but also to a much darker reality of twisted killers and covert military forces, bouncing the Doc Ford character back and forth between his biological research supplier persona and his secret assassin alter-ego.
|
|