A lot of people ask what I do every night when I go home which I find a weird question. For some reason, since I’m an expat, my nightlife is of extreme interest to my co-workers. Since most of them have husbands and wives and kids they must perceive me to have significant opportunity to fill my evenings with exotic pastimes. I generally disappoint them with riveting tales of trying to watch hindi news to learn some of the language, wandering around the mall next door, or reading books on my kindle.
I guess if I was being 100% honest I would also add that I usually make it out to 1 or 2 bars a week, upscale lounges with tons of interesting people that I usually share a drink and conversation with and find out interesting facts about the world. For instance, did you know that Fiji went through a coup in 2000 and ousted its Indian prime minister? I learned this from my new Fiji friend who lives in Sydney, works mostly in Singapore, and is now in Mumbai for a few weeks. That kind of detail is hard to squeeze into the conversation though so I usually just say: ” I read books.”
I’ll be keeping a list of books I’ve read since I’ve been here because I want to. Subsquent books will probably get more attention but as this is my first post it will be a simple list. I HIGHLY encourage book recommendations so please leave your comments if you have any.
Valley of the Dolls (Jacqueline Susann): OK
Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie): OK
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Steig Larrson): Great!
The Girl who Played with Fire (Steig Larrson): Good
Orcs (Stan Nicholls): Good
The Family (Jeff Sharlet): Good
A is for Alibi (Sue Grafton): Sucked
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Can you say more about what kinds of books/genres you like?
ReplyDeleteSure! I tend to gravitate to historical fiction and scifi/fantasy but I'm open to any other book provided that it's good =)
ReplyDeleteI should also add that since being so far away from friends/familiarities that I find great comfort in book series. That's why I tried out Christie and Grafton but they just didn't do it for me.
ReplyDeleteHmm...I strongly recommend you check out the reviews on amazon.com before buying any of these since my recs have been poorly received by people lately.
ReplyDeleteGraceling by Kristin Cashore (first book by her, a fantasy YA book)
The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz (book 1 of 3 so far, kind of mystery)
Dreamhunter (bk 1) and Dreamquake (bk 2 of 2 total) by Elizabeth Knox (fantasy YA)
Moon Called (bk 1 of maybe 5? so far of the Mercy Thompson books)by Patricia Briggs (adult fantasy, a skinwalker + werewolves + some vamps)
The Miles Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold (adult sci-fi, I'd start with The Warrior's Apprentice if it sounds interesting to you)
Some of these are dirt cheap for kindle DL -- I'll check them out and let you know. Thanks!
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