Category: Lust To Go

Lost City of Z

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Grann, David. The Lost City of Z: a tale of deadly obsession in the Amazon. New York: Vintage Departures, 2010.

Reason read: August is the driest month in the Amazon…or so they say.

I could have read this in January as part of national mystery month because there is one burning question to Lost City: what happened to the Percy Fawcett expedition? Fawcett, his son and his son’s friend all vanished without a trace. Were they murdered by jungle natives? Did they die of starvation or disease? All scenarios are possible and even likely. In 1925 all three went into the Amazon jungle in search of a legendary (imaginary?) lost civilization and were never see or heard from again. Lost City traces not only Fawcett’s repeat attempts to conquer the Amazon, but the author’s endeavors to follow his footsteps.

As an aside, I don’t know if I could visit the Amazon, tamed or not. The descriptions of ailments, insects and ever-devouring jungle was enough to keep my travel bug at bay. Grann’s description of the jungle swallowing up an entire village was awe inspiring. It’s easy to see how and why Fawcett was seemingly unsuccessful in conquering the jungle.

Author fact: at the time of Lost City’s publication David Grann write for “The New Yorker.”

Book trivia: The Lost City of Z includes some great photographs. I only wish there were more.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Amazonia” (p 9).

Anarchy and Old Dogs

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Cotterill, Colin. Anarchy and Old Dogs. New York: Soho, 2007.

Reason read: to continue the series started in May in honor of Laos Rocket Day. This is book four.

The opening scene sets the stage for the mystery: Dr. Buagaew, a retired blind dentist, has been run down by a logging truck after picking up a mysterious letter from the post office. Dr. Siri Paibaum, now 73 years old and still described as Laos’s reluctant coroner, must figure out who was Buagaew and why had he a letter written in invisible ink in his pocket when he died? Another death is far more disturbing. A ten year old boy is found dead in a river. He has two different rates of decomposition and his death doesn’t look accidental. Who would have wanted this boy dead and why?
For the most part, all of Siri’s friends are in Anarchy and Old Dogs except this time  Mr. Geung is recovering from his ordeal in Disco and is only brought up in mention at the beginning and end. Dtui’s mother has died and best friend Civilai has a new secret.

An element of Cotterill’s writing that makes the Dr. Siri series so interesting is his “cross -contamination” of characters. Siri was inspired by Inspector Maigret who is a character of mysteries written by Georges Simeon.

Cotterill also includes a running commentary on the political climate. Laos has reached a point where the Communism government has become increasingly oppressive. Oppressive to the point that “even the death of livestock, even from natural causes, had to be accounted for in writing” (p 3).

Other quotes I thought worth mentioning, “But he felt bad about pulling out the wrong teeth and that” (p 31), ” When you are drinking with a corpse there is no such thing as irreverence” (p 38) and “As many counterrevolutionaries would have you know, when in the midst of diverting a national crisis, there is always the case for taking a little time off for tourism” (p 139).

Author fact: Cotterill has taught in Australia.

Book trivia: Anarchy is the fourth book in the Dr. Siri series. I said that already, but that’s all I got on this one.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Laos” (p 128).

Dogs of Riga

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Mankell, Henning. The Dogs of Riga. Read by Dick Hill. Blackstone Audio, 2006.

Reason read: Sweden is beautiful this time of year.

Kurt Wallander is back! I first met the detective in a much later book (book 7). He still drinks too much, still has trouble with relationships and still loves coffee and the opera. This time Kurt is pulled into a Latvian murder mystery. At first, the mystery is centered on two well dressed individuals found dead in a life raft. After it was determined the crime originated out of his jurisdiction Wallander assumes he is off the hook. That is, until the Riga inspector assigned to the case is also found murdered. Complicating matters is the fact Latvia is fresh from breaking ties with Russia. Suspicion runs high and corruption is rampant in Riga. Add a love interest and you get the perfect thriller.

Book trivia: It was such a bummer to learn that this is part of a series and I have started to read them out of order. This is book #2. I already read #7. I said that already.

Author fact: It was such a bummer to learn that Mankell died last year.

Audio fact: read by Dick Hill.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “The Baltic States” (p 34).

8:55 to Baghdad

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Eames, Andrew. The 8:55 to Baghdad: from London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie. New York: the Overlook Press, 2005.

Reason read: in honor of the first electric train (July, 1835).

In 2002 Eames embarked on a (mostly) train journey from London, England to Iraq to follow in the footsteps of mystery author Agatha Christie. It is a beyond brilliant idea for Eames is able to weave together a travelogue of his own experiences, historical snapshots of the regions he traverses and an abbreviated biography of one of the world’s best known crime writers of the century. Eames’s journey takes him through Belgium, France, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Syria; ending in Damascus on the eve of the Gulf War.

Quote I really liked, “Personally, I feel that travel writers have too much of a responsibility towards the unfamiliar to waste their time endorsing that is already very well-trodden” (p 51). Amen to that.
Another quote, “There is no room on the land for anything as frivolous as parkland in this city while there are still drill bits to be rented out and hub caps to be sold, so if you want a quiet moment to puck your nose, read the paper or hold hands with your loved one then a ferry is the place to do it” (p 196). Okay then.
Last one, “And besides, what sort of chat-up lines do you use on a nation with whom you are about to go to war?” (p 290).

Author fact: According to the dust jacket, Eames is an authority on the Nile. Cool.

Book trivia: I wasn’t expecting photographs but there is a nice sprinkling of Eames’s travels as well as a few of his subject, Agatha Christie.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter of course called “Making Tracks By Train” (p 139).

Glass Palace

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Ghosh, Amitav. The Glass Palace. New York: Random House, 2001.

Reason read: Ghosh was born in July.

There is much love for Ghosh’s The Glass Palace. This was the right balance of historical fiction, love story, and political commentary within a sweeping saga. Dolly is a woman who has been in the service of the Queen for as long as she can remember. Rajkumar is an orphan boy taken in by a teak logger and taught the trade. Glass Palace follows them through childhood, their storybook romance, growing families and the inevitable, old age. Intertwined are the stories of their children, their children’s children, war, economics, society, politics, fashion, feminism, and life. The way it was written the story could have been without end.

Quote to quote, “This is how power is eclipsed” (p 36). Don’t hate me but I thought of a John Mayer line, “Power is made by power being taken.” Same thing.

Book trivia: This should have been a movie. It has all the right components: war, beautiful women, explosions, death, romance, cars…Speaking of the cars, Ghosh was especially detailed with the automobiles.

Author fact: Ghosh also wrote Sea of Poppies which is on my Challenge list.

BookLust Twist: Two twists – from Book Lust in the chapter called “Historical Fiction From Around the World” (p 47) and again in Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Burmese Days” (p 47).

Cranford

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Gaskell, Elizabeth. Cranford. Read by Davina Porter. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 2008.

Reason read: Cranford takes place in a fictional town in England. In July England celebrates a day called Swan Upping. Swan Upping is the practice of catching mute swans and marking them. As I understand the tradition, any unmarked muted swan belongs to the Monarchy.

This is a weird little book. Picture a society made up mostly of women. In the fictional town of Cranford women run the show. If a new couple arrives in Cranford to settle down sooner or later the man of the house vanishes. This society simply doesn’t need a man…until Captain Brown and his two daughters arrive on the scene. There is no central plot as this was originally published as a satirical serial. However, the entire story is told first person through the eyes of a visitor and most of the story centers on one particular character, Miss Matty (Matilda).

Quotes that caught me, “Things that many would despise, and actions which it seemed scarcely worthwhile to perform, were all attended to in Cranford” (p 32),

Author fact: Mrs. Gasket publish the first biography of Charlotte Bronte.

Book trivia: Cranford was first published as a serial in 1851 and was edited by Charles Dickens.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “The Maine Chance” (p 135), although Cranford doesn’t take place in Maine. Has nothing to do with Maine in any way, as a matter of fact. Pearl was just making a comparison, as usual.

Disco for the Departed

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Cotterill, Colin. Disco for the Departed New York: Soho Press, 2006.

Reason read: to continue the series started in honor of Rocket Day (May).

Dr. Siri is back! We are in the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos and the year is 1977. In this third installment of our reluctant yet humorous coroner we learn more about his life as a shaman, hosting the spirit of Hmong Yeh Ming and how, despite being 73 years of age, Siri grows younger everyday. This time Dr. Siri is called to a small mountain town to solve the mystery of a Cuban buried alive in concrete. While there he is inhabited by a spirit who loves to dance and keeps taking Siri to a disco (hence the title). Nurse Dtui accompanies Siri into the mountains and has her own little romance. We also learn more about Siri’s assistant, Geung Watajak. Interestingly enough, Disco backs up and explains Geung’s arrival into Dr. Siri’s life as morgue assistant which was a nice surprise. I appreciate the building of supporting characters.

Quotes I’d like to quote, “She became renown for wild solo rantings and spontaneous acts of flashing” (p 13), “Socialism was having a negative effect on the weather” (p 79) and one more, “Siri sat alone in the guesthouse restaurant and stared into a mug of coffee so thick you could lose an anchor in it” (p 150).

Book trivia: Like the other Cotterill books before it, Disco for the Departed was a quick read. I read it in one day.

BookLust Twist: obviously from Book Lust to Go in the chapter simply called “Laos” (p 128).

Thirty-Three Teeth

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Cotterill, Colin. Thirty-Three Teeth. New York: SoHo Press, 2005.

Reason read: to continue the series started in April in honor of Rocket Day in Laos.

Thirty-Three Teeth takes up exactly where The Coroner’s Lunch left off. It is now March 1977 and an Asian black bear has just escaped from somewhere. Is this the terrible beast that has been mauling unsuspecting victims to death?

Adding to Dr. Siri’s title of reluctant coroner is confused psychic – “for reasons he was still trying to fathom he’d been delegated Lao’s honorary consul to the spirit world” (p 13).

Siri still has his sidekicks, Nurse Dtui, Mr. Geung and even Saloop, the dog who hated him in the beginning of Coroner’s Lunch. Nurse Dtui and Saloop have bigger roles this time around.

As an aside, the title of the book comes from the belief that if someone has 33 teeth it is a sign they were born as a bridge to the spirit world. You guessed it, Dr. Siri has 33 teeth. One of the best scenes is when he is trying to run his tongue along his teeth to count them.

Spoiler alert: Revenge is a powerful thing. I was very sad by what happened to Saloop.

Lines that made me laugh, “Diarrhea, in it’s most vindictive state, can erase even thoughts of terror” (p 20), “Siri was impressed that the department of information could provide so little of it” (p 31), “Honesty can be a dirty gift” (p 65), and one more, “When you befriend a man whose mind lives on a distant star, you deserve whatever you get” (p 159).

Author fact: at the time of publication of Thirty-Three Teeth Cotterill was living in Thailand.

Book trivia: Thirty-Three Teeth is short; easily read in one day.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Laos” (p 128).

Brilliant Orange

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Winner, David. Brilliant Orange: the Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer. New York: Overlook Press,2002.

Reason read: Holland celebrates its tulips in May with a big festival.

I didn’t know anything about dutch football (soccer) before reading this book. I have to admit I was a little worried I would be bored because, to be honest, I didn’t know anything about soccer period. It’s a sport I never played as a kid or watched as an adult.*

*As an aside, I just watched a documentary on Serbia soccer. Call me crazy but I don’t think the Dutch have anything on the Serbs when it comes to fanaticism.

ESPN had it right when they said on the back cover of Brilliant Orange, “you like soccer, you don’t like soccer, it doesn’t matter.” It’s true. Hate, indifference, like or love. No matter which way, this is an enjoyable read. Winner definitely knows his material and isn’t dry in his delivery. He could write about the science of flies on fly paper and I would probably browse it. Be prepared to learn a lot about soccer/football. Be pleasantly surprised by everything else you learn. Among other things, Winner compares soccer to ballet in its artistry. He makes comparisons to politics. He sees similarities with architecture, society, humanity.
Interesting points to mention – a paranormal expert thought the Dutch football team always lost because there was a problem with the team color of orange. Another “expert” blamed it on a deep seeded mistrust of authority so they couldn’t obey the refs.

Quotes to quote, “To play in a beautiful attacking way has become the Eleventh Commandment for the Dutch” (p 145),

Author fact: Winner likes soccer. He also wrote about the history of English soccer.

Book trivia: It would have been really cool to have pictures of the football teams or at least one of the sport’s hero, Johan Cruyff.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust to Go in the cheesy chapter called “Hollandays” (p 96).

Two Towns in Provence

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Fisher, MFK. Two Towns in Provence: Map of Another Town. New York: Vintage Books, 1983.

Reason read: to finish the collection started in April in honor of Paris.

Two Towns in Provence contains two shorter geographical portraits, Map of Another Town and A Considerable Town. Confessional: I read them backwards: I thought Considerable Town was first until I received Two Towns in Provence.
There is no doubt a love-hate story within the pages of Two Towns. Fisher’s connection to Aix-en-Provence and Marseille couldn’t be clearer. In Map of Another Town Fisher focuses on Aix-en-Provence, France’s capital. Her stories weave around her time bringing up two small daughters, renting an apartment, and observing people and their culture. She spends a fair amount of time having imaginary exchanges with the locals. Most striking were the lessons on society and class: no matter the level of distress a person should not accept help from someone of a lower class and getting a child vaccinated was a process.

Quotes I’d like to quote, “It pressed upon my skin like the cold body of someone unloved” (p 17), “I wrapped myself in my innocence” (p 125), and “He was a man of the same indescribably malnourished twisted non-age of all such physical jetsam being helped by government benevolence…” (p 200).

Author fact: Once I am attuned to a language I seem to latch onto it. Words like evil, dangerous, hell, shabby, grotesque, dirty, desolate…Fisher complains for a lot of Map of another Town. I don’t know what it was about her tone, but she came across as bitchy to me. Fisher seems uncomfortable with the sick or elderly, always hurrying away from the dying. She seems easily annoyed by those around her.

Book trivia: Map of Another Town has wonderful illustrations by Barbara Westman. In the midst of this coloring craze, I could see someone filling in the black and white drawings with a little color.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Provence and the South of France” (p 187).

Jordan

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Borgia, E. <Jordan: Past & Present: Petra, Jerash, Amman. Italy: Tipolitografica CS, 2001.

Reason read:

“We reconstruct lost memories to guide you into the past.”

Jordan: Past & Present is made up of three chapters, “Petra”, “Jerash” and “Amman – Philadelphia”. Each chapter outlines the plan of the city, historical data and an architectural  structure of interest (for my favorite, Petra, it was the theater and famous tombs). What makes this book so unique are the transparencies that cover current day photographs. The transparencies show what each city must have looked like, overlaying the current day photograph. It’s a unique blend of old and new that works very well.

Book trivia: I already mentioned the uniqueness of the transparencies.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Jordan” (p 119).

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

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Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day if the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New York: Signet, 1963.

Reason read: May is supposedly one of the best times to visit Russia.

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov (#S 854) is a prisoner in a Stalinist work camp in Siberia with only two years left on his sentence. This is one day in his life, from reveille to lights-out. It has been called extraordinary and I couldn’t agree more. Ivan is the very picture of bravery, hope and above all, survival. Solzhenitsyn relentlessly reminds the reader of the Siberian bitter winters by using variations of words like frost, ice, snow, chill, freeze and cold over 120 times. Added to that is the constant lack of warmth (mentioned another 25 times). While Solzhenitsyn is reminding readers of the cold, Shukov is stressing the importance of flying under the radar; avoiding detection and unwanted attention. Whether he is squirreling away food or tools he is careful not to rock the boat. He knows his fate can be altered in the blink of an eye or the time it takes for a guard to focus on him.

Lines to like, “No clocks or watches ticked there – prisoners were not allowed to carry watches; the authorities knew the time for them” (p 32) “The thoughts of a prisoner – they’re not free either” (p 47) and “As elated as a rabbit when it finds it can still terrify a frog” (p 118).

Author fact: Solzhenitsyn served in the Russian army & was accused of making anti-Stalin remarks. He was sent to prison and after Stalin’s death, pardoned. Later still the Soviet Union revoked his citizenship so he moved to Vermont. Go figure.

Book trivia: One Day was published as s short story in 1962 in a Soviet literary magazine and was seen as a social protest. This is his first published novel.

BookLust Twist: from two places: Book Lust in the chapter called “Russian Heavies” (p 210) and from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Siberian Chills” (p 205).

Coroner’s Lunch

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Cotterill, Colin. The Coroner’s Lunch. New York: SoHo Press, 2004.

Reason read: Laos Rocket Day is in May. Coroner’s Lunch takes place in Laos.

This was one of those books where the plot steals you away. You sit down to read and before you know it your lunch break is over, your coffee is cold and a hundred pages have flown by before your eyes. It’s a fun read.
The year is October 1976 and Dr. Siri Paiboun is a reluctant chief police coroner for the Republic in Laos. He didn’t want the job. At 72 years old, he was ready to be a gardening, reading, coffee and brandy drinking retired physician. He lacked the qualifications to be a coroner, had next to no on-the-job training with dead people (in theory, as a physician he tried to avoid the dead at all cost) and truly lacked enthusiasm for the job entirely. Yet, when bodies suddenly start popping up with suspicious causes of death, with the help of few slightly charred textbooks from 1948, some ghosts, and his sidekicks, a Downs Syndrome technician and a dowdy nurse, Siri slowly embraces the role of detective/coroner. Complicating matters is the Communist Pathet Lao party. They want Siri to report on these deaths in only one way – natural causes. But thanks to Siri’s disregard for authority and his sly sense of humor he only wants one thing – the truth.
Yes, there is a paranormal element to The Coroner’s Lunch but it works. Everything about this book works. In fact. I read it in one day.

Author fact: Cotterill has one of the best websites I have seen in a long time here. I knew I would love it as soon as saw the “nose” joke. You’ll get it when you visit the site, so GO!

Book trivia: I got really excited when I read S.J. Rozen’s review of The Coroner’s Lunch because Cotterill was compared to Alexander McCall Smith, another favorite author.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called, “Laos” (p 128).

Guernica

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Van Hensbergen, Gijs. Guernica: the Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon. New York: Bloomsbury, 2004.

Reason read: April is the anniversary month of the Guernica bombing during the Spanish Civil War.

[If you are reading Guernica based on Nancy Pearl’s recommendation in Book Lust To Go: the very first thing you need to know about the book Guernica is that it follows the life of Pablo Picasso’s painting and is less about the Basque region or the bombing that inspired the art. Book Lust To Go is supposed to focus on geography so if you were looking to read about Guernica the place, this isn’t the book.]
But, back to Guernica (the book): Picasso was commissioned to make a political statement through art in reaction to the three hours of horrific, indiscriminate, nonstop slaughter of the Basque town of Gernika. Later, the painting was sent to America to raise funds for the Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign to help alleviate the horrible conditions in the internment camps. Later still, Paloma Picasso used the painting as blackmail whenever a particular region wanted to show the painting in their museums. The influence of Picasso’s painting was far=reaching. After the May 16th 1968 Mylai slaughter people remembered Guernica.

Quotes worth mentioning, “We must never underestimate the idealism of many of those who had gone to Spain to fight, or the pain of the dislocated exiles who were never again going to return” (p 167) and, “It had, it must be remembered, only been a few years since the Basque writer Xabier Gereno has been jailed for committing the crime of receiving a postcard commemorating Guernica” (p 264).

As an aside, I felt like Van Hensbergen had an issue with Peggy Guggenheim, constantly calling attention to her personality by describing her as “sexually voracious” and “hotheaded.”

Author fact: Van Hensbergen’s specialty is architecture. He lectures on the subject.

Book trivia: throughout Guernica there are black and white photographs, but the showstoppers are the three color prints of Picasso’s most famous pieces of work: Weeping Woman, Guernica, and Night Fishing at Antibes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Guernica” (p 89).

Grand Tour

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Moore, Tim. the Grand Tour: The European Adventure of a Continental Drifter. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001.

Reason read: April Fools Day

Tim Moore is a little obnoxious. The best way I found to deal with him is to think of him as another Bill Bryson. Turns out that’s what everyone is supposed to think, thanks to the dust jacket and other review. What makes Moore different from Bryson is that his obnoxiousness is on another level and his humor is much edgier. He’s a bit more condescending and sarcastic, using words like ridiculous, unspectacular and disgusting to describe his surroundings during his adventures. But, that’s not my main gripe with Moore. I want to know more about why he chose to follow Coryate’s journey and what he hoped to get out of it along the way. After all, he wasn’t following Coryate literally. True, Coryate was mostly on foot while Moore was insistent in having the perfect, attention-drawing touring car, a Rolls Royce. True, Coryate didn’t wear a plush purple suit to further draw attention to himself either. According to the dust jacket I was to expect “snorts of laughter” while reading The Grand Tour. Unfortunately, none came for me. A great deal of the time my mind wandered while trying to read Grand Tour.

Weird quotes, “The whole thing was clearly an extended fart analogy” (p 10),”the patron came out to watch me as, wild of hair and damp of arse, I bundled armfuls of wet polyester into the back of the Rolls while his dog peed on my hubcaps” (p 77), and “For every vineyard there was a dark satanic mill – no wonder Soave tastes like that” (p 213).

Author fact: Moore also wrote French Revolutions which I found hysterical.

Book trivia: Surprisingly, Grand Tour has delightful illustrations.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Explaining Europe: The Grand Tour” (p 82).