Top 5 GoT Males

If I were stuck on a deserted island, and that island happened to be westeros, and there were only 5 males left on westeros, who would I wish them to be?

Here they are, in order:
#5:  OK YES!  I admit it.   Theon Greyjoy.  It isn't Theon the book character, it's Alfie Allen.  Whatever.  I'm embarrassed ok?  I mean Theon, he's so damn hateable.  But Theon without a shirt is so...so...melty.  Let's move on.

More my vision of Snow than HBO

#4:  Jon Snow. Duh.  And Robb Stark.  Double Duh.  /sigh.  Team Robb or Jon?  Who are you?  I'll take both, but only because #3 I lose on just by picking him, but I would not have known it because MARTIN SECRETLY WROTE GAY characters.  He tricked me for like, 5000 pages.

#3:  The Knight of Flowers.  Before I knew he was gay.  And even after.  It's fine.  He can hang around on the island for me to look at (oh, and btw, tv show Loras is not at all like Loras in my head.  Loras in my head is beautiful and much better eye candy than tv show Loras-the-wimpy-i-can-barely-hold-a-sword-guy).

#2:  Jaquen H'ghar:  I mean, who doesn't like your everyday awesome assassin dude?

#1:  Rhaegar.  He really doesn't seem as bad as they make him out to be.  I mean, the poor guy was just trying to protect his dad.  Sure his dad was a crazy burning son of a bitch king, and Rheagar was a proud asshole but he wasn't inherently evil.  At least I don't think he was.  That's my belief and I'm sticking to it.

Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar at Ruby Ford

Yet another reason to love goodreads....

Cut and Paste reviews!  It's been forever since I've done a book update, here are my top 5 in the past...long time:

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I am very sad to think that I won't be returning the the world of westeros for another few years.  Opening this book (or in my case turning on the kindle) felt like coming home after a long time away. I really dragged out finishing this because I was happy reading it.



This is no FfC.  Every chapter was engrossing, every story moved the plot forward.  Things started to come together - but not in the way you would expect -- In a way that smacks purely of Martin.  Several surprises even though you know the parallel timeline in FfC.  Several shockers as only Martin can do.



Fantastic read! 











View all my reviews

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


First book I've read from this author and there is some pretty cool stuff in it. 



The good:

amazing depth of characters

well developed world

stand-alone fantasy

well written

nice pacing

emotional

a lot of "grey" or in between actions and morals, very interesting perspective on all manners of good and evil



The not so good:

I want more of this world!!  Give me more than one book, please!!!

A little formulaic/predictable in places but did not detract from enjoyment

Some "too tidy" threads



This one got added to my all time favs.  Very easy to read quickly, it's a page turner.  Interesting and new fantasy themes with easy to relate to characters, and ones you really care about.  Fans of Martin's series would enjoy this book a lot.



View all my reviews
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The only bad thing I can think to say of this book was that it was too short.  Quite possibly the most enjoyable read I've had in years - an allegory tale yet one that is completely entertaining, lovable, and fun as it stands.  Reminds me a little of Oz and Where the Wild things are with adult wit and insight.



I read one review that stated this is for hardcore Rushdie fans and I couldn't disagree more.  I've cracked a few of his books and haven't been intrigued so when a friend handed me this one I felt obliged to try it out.  I am now looking for more Rushdie to read.  Fast paced, fantastical, extremely well written (the kind of book that reminds you that there are REALLY amazing authors out there) and with a lot of heart, I recommend it to anyone who needs a reprieve from serious but still needs a book with a lot of brain.







View all my reviews
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I will echo Naz's sentiment on this one which is, "why haven't I read this book until now????"



View all my reviews

Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography by Marion Meade

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Reality TV has nothing on Royal England.  I'm convinced that any King named Henry is destined for an amazingly scandalous tenure on the throne.



When I started reading it I felt the material was a little dry and academic.  As it got into the meat of the drama I forgot that I could not hear Eleanor's voice at all (she left no letters, poetry, etc. so the author does not try to recreate her tone as she has no proof of what it was).  By the end I appreciated the succinct and very meticulously researched and detailed account of her life.  Without overtures or guesses into how Eleanor really talked, spoke, or interacted I have in my mind a clear picture of her - the author succeeded in making this a well documented and accurate account of her life.



View all my reviews

Traveling in the SubContinent

Ok, not really.  That's reserved  for india.  But I'll be traveling for a few weeks south of india.  So maybe south of the sub?  Sub south?  Sub sub?   Provided that the world does not end tonight I have a large stack of fun books to get through.  I intend to read them all.  I assume I'll only get through 1 or 2.  Here they are in no particular order.  Votes and recs welcome:

Kushiels's Dart.  I heard this book was very...interesting.  I say: perfect!  I will report my findings.





  The Beautiful and the Damned.  In the interest of full disclosure, I do love Fitzgerald but never would have thought of reading this until I watched the season finale of gossip girl.  That's right.  I just said that.

The Swan Thieves.  This one isn't getting great reviews but I love Kostova's writing.  I wish her words could be brought out to me on a plate so I could scarf it all down.  Without calories of course.

  The Paris Wife.  This could be great or god awful.  I'm willing to take a chance.  Crappy books are so much less annoying while staring at an ocean and sitting in the sun.  I'm not trying to rub it in, I'm just stating fact.

  Wise Man's Fear.  I've been waiting 3 years for this to come out and have completely forgotten all of book 1.  I remember soemthing about a boy who lives on the street.  Then goes to school and becomes a really good musician.  Really, that's all I remember.  This isn't a comment on Rothfuss but rather my memory.  Hopefully I can pick this up without rereading book 1 because that was a really big book.

Annals of Sunday Afternoons: Reading and Cooking

I love Sunday afternoons, particularly lazy ones that are sunny.  It's also a little sad as as the sun sets because I immediately begin to realize  that my next few hours will lead me to a sleep which requires me to get out of bed the next morning and get back to work. 

Sunny afternoon, with my Kindle...

On the occasions where I can afford some down time on sundays without leaving the house I am usually wrapped up in cooking a meal I've never made before and playing video games or reading.  There is nothing quite like the pleasure of relaxing with a book while the sun pours over me.  It just makes me happy.





Sundays also afford time to think about what to eat and buy for the week.  This morning I had a hankering for comfort food and that usually means I'm in the mood for some type of pasta or potato dish.  Inspired by a recipe that Rachel Ray once made on her show I went to the store, bought some ingredients, and started to cook it without once looking at any type of recipe.  I have to say, after eating it, I did a damn fine job.  In fact, without sounding too egotistical, it was some of the best lasagna I've ever eaten.  I kind of made it up as I went along but I thought I would share.  Please note that the measurements are not at all exact.

AJ's Lazy Eggplant Lasagna

1 onion
2 large cloves of garlic
1 medium eggplant
1 tsp Fresh Oregeno
1/2 tsp Thyme
2-3 tomatos
1.5 TBS tomato paste
Lasagna pasta thingys
Ricotta cheese
Bechemel Sauce
Parm Cheese
Veggie Broth and/or water
S&P

1. Use a big pot.  Oil it.  Cut up Onion, toss in, let it get soft, few minutes.  Toss in minced garlic.  Let get fragrant.  Slice and cube up Eggplant.  And in. Let the eggplant cook a few minutes till the outsides start to get a little brown and soft.  Add about 1/2 tsp thyme and 1 tsp fresh oregeno.  Add a pinch of salt to pull out moisture in onions 
• At this point boil some water in another pot
2. As the onions and garlic and eggplant start to cook and get slightly browned to the pan add a touch (1/4 cup or less) of veggie stock or water (I make my own veggie stock but any store bought should work fine). Adding water will deglaze your pot, but you don't want too much because you don't want your sauce runny. Turn heat down from high medium to medium.
3. Add the tomatoes...the water from the tomatoes will cook out so make sure this is done before adding next step liquid
4. Add about 1/2 cup water and some tomato paste.   Cover your pot and let the flavors combine.  Add 1/2 tsp kosher salt.  Continue covered  until your eggplant is nice and tender -- basically test until you get the consistency of the eggplant you want to be eating in your lasagna.
5. Meanwhile, get your lasagna pasta thingys and break them up with your hands so they are about 1/2 inch - size is irrelevant, they can be all different sizes.  Dump into boiling water, cook until almost done.
6. By now your eggplant sauce should be done.  Just check to make sure the sauce isn't too thin - it should resemble a red sauce that isn't as thick as a marinara but should be a lot more composed than water.  Maybe a little thinner than a curry sauce if that makes sense.  
7. Drain pasta and add to the eggplant pot.  you can add a little starch water too if your sauce is too thick.
8. Now plop the entire pot into a casserole dish!
9. Top with Ricotta dollops (i literally just scooped them out and put pats all over the top of the dish.  I also added some thyme and oregeno to the ricotta and mixed it up but that is completely optional.)
10. Pour Bechemel sauce over the dish
11. Sprinkle with parmesean and put in 425 degree oven until top gets a little brown.  Then enjoy!

See how 3 pieces are gone?  That was all me.

AJ's Bechemel Sauce

I love behcemel so I make it all the time.  here is my failproof/easy method:

 Make a rue.  ALWAYS use equal parts flour and butter.  For this particular recipe use:

• 3 Tablespoons Butter melt in pan
• Add 3 Tablespoons Flour.  Whisk and let cook until you smell a nutty smell (not flour smell)
• Add 1.5 cups milk, whisking in slowly.  Let thicken.  Add 1/4-1/2 cup milk.  Let thicken
• Add 1/2 tsp salt, black pepper, pinch of nutmeg
• DONE!  Pour over your dish.

Thank you Amazon!

There are 2 annoying things about the kindle:

1. When you are on a plane it counts as an electronic device.  Therefore you have to have it turned off through some of the most boring parts of your travel time
2. It's an electronic device.  Usually when electronics break I go to a book.  When my kindle breaks, I'm royally screwed.  Like now, 10% from the end of this book that I'm dying to know how it ends.

So I write to amazon, prepared to deal wtih a large argument.  To my surprise, they quickly take my info and tell me I'll be getting a new one in 2 days.  Now that's what I call customer service.  I guess my kindle is over warranty so I asked them why they were so willing to send me a free one.  The guys said, "we are looking at your account activity and we feel that this is the right thing to do."  And I said, "so what you mean is I spend a lot of money on my kindle and you don't want to lose my business."  and he said, "yes, basically."

That made me smile.  But new kindle on the way, exciting!!

Summer Reading

I hate typing the title of this post as it means the end of summer is imminent.

Here are my favs from the past few months:


Strangely loveable book with the main characters voice one of the more interesting I've read in awhile.  Very easy beach read but it still makes you think.  A very pleasant summer surprise.

Dark, violent, graphic but oh so relevant.  This won the Hugo this year and it's very easy to see why.  Pablo writes like a journalist (or rather writes like journalists SHOULD write) which gives you the reader a lot of room to think. 

I love this book.  I really do like everything about it.  Perfect mix of young adult angst, sci fi, and human emotion.   As my friend Jane pointed out, it's a shame that Orson Scott Card is such a jackass. 

Any fav books this summer that you read?  Tell me about them!

Spring Reading

Been awhile since I updated my books.  I liked just reporting my favs so here they are, from Feb on:

Brandon Sanderson's Hero of Ages (Mistborn Series #3):  Great finish!!  Very sad Felicia Day was not a fan.  But then again she likes that harlequin stuff.  I guess she can't be perfect.

  White Tiger by Avravind Adiga.  Writer completely immerses himself (and by extension you) into character.  Pretty amazing.

  Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts.  One shot sci-fi with more historical fiction elements that science fiction elements.  Still good.  Laugh out loud writing.

The Immortal LIfe of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  HeLa Cells...and their story.  Well written - especially in translating the information to nonscientific audience.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest  by Stieg Larson.  Goodbye Lisbeth Salander!  I will miss you.  I blame Stieg, for dying.  And yes, I blame robert jordan too.

January Reading

Instead of going over every book from the month since it’s very redundant with my goodreads page, I thought I’d just report on my favs.


This month I had 3!


The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
 
This is really a tome. A TOME I tell ya.  But worth it.  I also rewatched 'V for Vendetta' this week and was joyfully surprised at all the references I got.
 


Nothing to Envy:  Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

This is nonfiction but written more like a historical fiction novel with not only political insight but how it touches individual lives.  I highly recommend this book.



The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

This one hit my all time favorite book shelf.  Very graphic but the writing was extrodinary.  Looking forward to Davidson's new book.

Come join me on goodreads!  I love this site.  My Goodreads link:  http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2810793-aj

December Reading (a little late)

The Well of Ascension (Mistborn #2) by Brandon Sanderson

I returned to Sanderson’s world after reading his first book in October. I really enjoyed the second installment – kept up the action and emotional impact very well from the first. I was so into it that I decided to download the 3rd book in the series to my kindle and then had the unpleasant realization that it’s unavailable as an e-read. Damnable.



Kleopatra by Karen Essex

A little strange. Mixes historical moments with a very modern style of writing which makes it seem a bit more like a romance novel and less the serious book I think it was meant to be. I wouldn’t tell anyone not to read it but it didn’t stay with me very long after I finished it. I did still clench my fist as I read of Pompey’s landing even though I knew what would happen. The book did help me understand the Egyptian politics behind that whole incident a bit better.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

A free book from Kindle, whohoo! Geez who knew how incredibly messed up my mind was about Frankenstein thanks to Hollywood! I now hate Frankenstein and will always have a soft spot in my heart for the creature. And where the heck is Igor? The history of this story’s creation rivals the story itself (from my goodreads review): I remember learning that Mary Shelly wrote this as part of a rainy summer spent telling ghost stories with fellow writers in Europe. This is also the same bonfire that spawned the idea of Byron's vampire, later imortalized by Polidori in The Vampyre; a Tale, the father of all modern vampire including Dracula.



The Serpents Tale (Adelia #2) by Ariana Franklin

I read the first book last year and I think it is enough commentary to say I had no memory of the details to know what was really going on in the second with character relationships. Historically accurate background (Henry II time period) with a murder mystery plot seems like a great formula for a book. This one starts it’s formula with the lead characters getting lost in a maze and I feel the story never got itself out of it. Too much going on at certain points, not enough at others. I didn’t care what happened to anyone at the end.



The Book Thief by Mark Zusak

Great book. I love female heroines and I love books. I hate reading about the holocaust but this one has enough humanity and new perspective to warrant a high recommendation. It’s also classified as a young adult novel so the details are never horrifying but that should not be mistaken for lack of emotional connection.

The Stupidest Angel […] by Christopher Moore

I’m not one for bizarre books and narratives built for a laugh (I like my books strictly serious) but this one was rather enjoyable. I’ll probably pick up “Dirty Jobs” by Moore which a few people recommended.

book vs. kindle

My issue with the kindle is not related to the device at all. The light design, the travel friendly size and practicality, instant access to books, and the built in dictionary are all features that after a few uses I find it hard to live without.

My issue with the kindle is kinesthetic. And also the fact that I can’t read maps in the beginning of the book due to small print which as an avid fantasy reader – is a very huge problem. I do love the library itself. In the town I grew up in it was a beautiful building that I still have memorized in my mind. The children’s section was through the back door and down the stairs, the Nancy Drew series was on the second shelf from the bottom in the 4th row (I not only read them all, I was a bit o/c about reading them in order. If the next book was out, I waited til it was back) and the choose your own adventure series books were in turnstyle bookcases. The Adult section (which sounds inappropriate now, I wonder if they renamed?) required a 2 flight walk upstairs. In those days there were “due date” cards pasted into the front of books. You could tell how popular the book was by the amount of stamps it had. In some cases the book required a second stamp slip which covered the original. I’d look at those stamps with the dates and start to think of the time out of the library the book had spent, imagine the book and where it was a few months ago and who had been reading it, or it sitting all by itself on the shelf for 2 years with no one picking it up.

I do this imagination process with coins too, as I wrap them. I love to wrap coins and I think of silly things while I do it – the fact that I might be splitting up two pennies that had travelled all the way from texas together (b/c you always seem to get at least 2 pennies back), if the coin from 1969 had one owner or 10,000. If the dirty coin I was adding to the roll would get washed or trashed, melted down, and remade into a new coin.

Ok, I’ve shown enough crazy for today. I miss you pages, but I love you my lovely white e-reader. You give me no cramps in my wrists and when I slide you off my lap accidently you still hold my page. And even though every book costs me money (except the books no one wants to read, those are free) at least I have instantaneous access to the book (in the USA). And I guess the point is that I know exactly where my e-reader has been. Library books…not so much.  OMG is that what they meant by "Adult Section?"

November Reading (a little early)

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The best written descriptions of traveling the European countryside – ever -- her writing is exquisite. This book made me want to hop on a train and backpack. Unfortunately the mystery regarding Dracula and his heirs, while compelling in the beginning, dragged on and on and on and on and on. I’d like to tell you that it has a worthy ending….nope, can’t do it. I’ll be picking up Kostova’s next book cause she is such an awesome wordsmith albeit with major plot issues. Maybe she got a new editor for her new book.

Julia’s Chocolates by Cathy Lamb
Hands down the biggest piece of shit I’ve read in awhile. I’d like to give this a redeeming sort of footnote but I can’t find a way to do it.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
My first Jane Austen book! And it was free on Kindle! Free Kindle gets me to read all sorts of stuff. Now I'll know what people are talking about when they talk of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley and Mr. Collins and that tramp Lydia. This is a rather fun book. I don’t really know if Jane Austen deserves quite the rep she has but I found reading the novel enjoyable, if a little hard to piece together the exact sentence structure Austen utilized. Whatever it was I’m pretty sure I was not taught that form in 3rd grade.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Such a cool book. This thing grabs you on page one and doesn’t let you go. I loved the characters, found the writing magical (in part 1) and precise (in part 2), was entranced by the storyline, and found the entire package a satisfying way to spend a rainy weekend. Good read for any booklover.

Boneshaker by Charlie Priest
Go GRRLLL sci-fi writers! Seattle! Steampunk! Zombies! Need I say more? Okay, I’ll say a little more. I wasn’t very involved with the characters until the second half. In fact, I probably would have put the thing down if I got it from the library. Fortunately for me, I paid for it and I’m a sucker for committing to my mistakes once I pay for them. But I’m glad I stuck it through, this was one hell of a ride. Priest is a good writer but she could work on her pacing a little; otherwise I enjoyed this after getting through the beginning. There is also, at my age, something endearing about a 35 year old female protagonist in steampunk gear.

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
Here is my favorite quote from the book: "So it was that the former Secretary of War decided to kill the former Secretary of the Treasury." If that doesn’t get you to read it, then nothing will.

October Reading

Another month already.  You can check out my longer reviews or more books on goodreads!  I'm loving it so far!  http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2810793-aj

Black Echo
Black Ice
Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly
This would be 3 books, the first three of the Harry Bosch Series. It’s not that I found a series that I loved but rather an awesome deal on Kindle: three books for the price of one. Harry was a little annoying in the first book and I didn’t start to understand him until book 3. I hate not being able to say a main character’s name (Bosk, Botch, Bousch, what is it?) and for the first book I had erroneously inserted a phantom “r” into his name calling him “Borsk” in my head the whole time. Anyway, the 3rd book is the best of the bunch, the series keeps on going, I won’t.

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
So I was so into finding a good detective series that I forgot my first love: fantasy/sci-fi series. This book was a nice reminder in the power of a good fantasy novel. It also hit the spot perfectly – I was in no mood to enter a whole new world the size and scope of a Martin or Jordan enterprise but I still wanted to be whisked away and entertained thoroughly. Enter the Mistborn prescription: I certainly felt completely compelled by these characters and enthralled with the world without feeling like I needed to reserve an entire section of my brain for trivia tidbits. Great read, worth the pickup. Sanderson will be completing the Wheel of Time Series which after reading Mistborn, I’m eager to pick up again.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Supposedly the grandfather of all mystery/detective novels, Wlikie Collins spins a great Halloween read in the 1850’s. Beautifully written (warning – will take you a few pages to get into the style) and amazingly interesting. I found it to be surprising. Then again I find most mysteries surprising. But this one really had you on a story you never expected when you opened the book and I don’t want to say where it goes for fear of spoilage. This was also the first book I read for my new online women’s bookclub via “goodreads.” Pretty good first pick!

Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman
Oh another day another mystery detective series. This one is Tess Monaghan. I can say her name at least. I couldn’t get an image of her in my head though (described as amazon-ish, lanky, stocky, and muscled – as you can see I just wrote two pairs of antonyms) . It’s storyline wasn’t compelling and the main character kind of sucked. However her friends kind of rocked. I’ll probably pick up the next to give it a whirl – when I’m home and can grab it from the library.

NixonLand by Ron Perlstein
I learned a lot in this book which isn’t to say it was great. At times I felt he was rushing through to the end of a level in super mario brothers with the theme music chasing you down the last few seconds you had left to jump that final pipe…AH! Pages of facts and headline news articles were strewn together with very subjective commentary, which is fine if you are writing a thesis. The problem is that Perlstein throws out the idea and never really appropriately argues for it. I’m glad I read it because I had a lot of insight into the then, and the commonalities with now. I just wish I had more answers and lesser feelings of hate.

September Reading

Oh, wow have I really read all these books since my last post?

Outlander (by Diana Gabaldon)
As stated somewhere else (here? Twitter? Fb? I dunno…) while being away from home I have found that I feel comforted by series and have therefore been striving to find a good one. This isn’t it. Too romantic and at times it felt like I was watching torture porn -- except I was reading it. I got through the whole thing but will not be picking up the remaining 6 books in the series. I seem to remember my mom liking this book which, I won’t lie, skeeves me out.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (by Oscar Wilde)
Okay, so I ordered the kindle edition for 2 reasons: 1) it was free and 2) I admit, the character in League of Extraordinary Gentleman enticed me enough to give it a whirl. God that movie sucked. But the book was pretty fabulous. First of all, the writing was just pure joy to read. I felt like I was actually learning to be a better writer while reading and I also just enjoyed the way Wilde put sentences together. Second, it treated it’s readers as intelligent beings and it left a lot to the imagination. And third, beyond my own intentions, the characters grabbed me and I found myself equally sympathetic and detesting them at the same time. Short, well written, and a nice reminder on the perils of vanity.

Already Dead (by Charlie Heston)
Another vampire novel? I originally ordered it b/c it was part of a series. This one was written as a PI Noir case. The language was too forced, the dialogue was not quoted and it became confusing. And the world just wasn’t that interesting. So big fail on this one. Will not be picking up another of the series.

1st to Die (by James Patterson)
Why the hell is this man so rich? It really pisses me off to see these craptastic writers become huge millionaires. Anyway this is his woman’s club murder series and I thought I’d give it a chance, partly because I like murder mysteries from the POV of a woman investigator and partly because it was a series. (See the theme?). Please refer to sentence #1 for my feelings on this book. Another series I will not be reading.

Are you there Chelsea? It’s me, Vodka (by Chelsea Handler)
Ok, this girl would be a great riot if you fed her a few cocktails, got her into a party dress, and took her out with you. Reading her book though was not nearly as fun. Her attutide came across as false and forced, her voice was a little too smug. I didn’t make it all the way through but I’m sure I could probably sketch her life out by watching her show for a few nights. Which is what I’ll do if I ever get curious on how it ended.

I’ve been reading a few political novels very slowly, I hope to finish them in the next few week in an attempt to make my next book post more bourgeois.

Books

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