travelin' reading list, part V (aren't roman numerals fancy?)

Since 2011 began, we've been mostly in hammocks in the nature, reading.  Also, there is a flying cockroach the size of a pine cone circling the picnic table as I type this in virtual darkness.  Just FYI. 

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

The story of Chris McCandless, a young and adventurous soul is at once exhilarating and infuriating. Why such a bright and apparently charismatic 20 something year old would unnecessarily try to survive in the Alaskan wilderness with little preparation and few supplies is mind blowing.  Not a first hand account, this book is part bio/part history compiled from interviews, letters and diary entries written by McCandless, and articles published around the time of his disappearance.  The details about the Alaskan wilderness and Krakauer's seeming obsession with understanding what, exactly, happened to McCandless makes it worth reading. But more than anything I walked away thinking that a perfectly good life was foolishly wasted.

Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai

Chelsey gave me this book when we were in Bangkok; its about a young boy growing up amidst major civil conflict in 70s Sri Lanka.  Also, he was gay, and really into musical theater. The narrator is often hilarious (although the title refers to gay slang of the time) and captures the tone and feeling of young love and the unfairness of adolescence so pitch perfectly that I was wholly transported. Not since I watched the first “Twilight” movie have the memories of my school days come back with such force. Just a lovely coming of age tale and quite informative if, like me, you weren't aware of Sri Lanka's troubled past.

Grand Theft: Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief by Bill Mason

This was on a bookshelf at our hotel in Mui Ne, Vietnam and I picked it up based solely on the cover. Its a first hand account of an uber-jewel thief and his pursuits in the heady days of 60s celebrity Florida. The author detailed in describing his capers and occasionally remorseful, though perfectly honest about his pride in pulling off some of his jobs. I found myself flying through the pages, fingers crossed that he wouldn't be hurt or arrested. I just liked the guy. And the book.

Catfish & Mandala by Andrew Pham

Super extra must-read edition. I started this when we were in Phan Thiet, Vietnam, which is also where some of it is set. A unique view of the country from the perspective of a twenty-something who was born there and escaped to the US as a child after the fall of the South Vietnamese government. Like a dog who will only take a pill hidden in a hot dog, even I learned about the war and the fraught history of Vietnam through this superbly written memoir. Although there has been no shortage of mocking the title (seriously, what editor let that slide by) I absolutely loved this book and trot out my new-got knowledge of Vietnamese history like a proud school kid.

The Poor Little Rich Girl by Eleanor Gates

Funny story. Molly recommended Poor Little Rich Girl: the Barbara Hutton story to me while we were in Tokyo. In shopping for it through Kindle's online store, I mistook this book for that one and downloaded it. Only when I was approximately half way through and the eponymous little rich girl was still in the nursery and not yet blowing rails off of a Matisse painting did I start to think something was amiss. The book I was reading is not good. Hopefully when the intended title is available for Kindle, I will fare better.

When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge by Chanrithy Him

We were in Cambodia for all of 10 days, which is 9 more than you need to see the impact of the civil war and heartbreaking legacy of the Khmer Rouge. I read somewhere that if you're  speaking to a Cambodian over the age of 30, you're talking to a survivor. That is a true fact, friends, and it is scary as hell. The history has a lot of participants; the US, Vietnamese, and Chinese involvement had all colluded to confuse me, but this account pretty much cleared it up. Written by a girl who lived through the rice-producing reign of the Khmer Rouge, this memoir gives a detailed first hand account of how it all went down. Its horrible, its sad, and, incidentally, it makes no fucking sense. I'm just saying, Pol Pot, if you're going to round up a bunch of your countrymen and murder them with hoes, perhaps spare some doctors to take care of the troops and all the folks you're starving. The anti-intellectual credo is hard for Americans to grasp, but here you have it. The day to day of this book can drag a bit (as I'm certain it did for the author), but overall its eye opening and educational. 

In closing, here's Ed, enjoying "Catfish & Mandala" which I force-read him by coaxing him into a seat he can't get out of and tossing in the paperback.