Book List Part Deux

Part Deux of
Books we have already finished on our Italy trip, and their corresponding reviews:

Lisa’s continued list:
Mark Salzman’s, “Lying Awake”
(Can religious faith persist in a modern age where illness can create spiritual visions? Salzman’s storytelling is lovely, meditative, and quiet.)

Edwidge Danticat’s “Breath, Eyes, Memory”
(A disturbing yet engaging look into the cultural rituals of Haitian life and the aftereffects they have on one woman. Recommended with reserve.)

Alessandro Barricco’s “Ocean Sea”
(A brilliant, kooky, and inventive novel that deals with magic realism, superrealism, silence, gaps, poetic format, metaphor, and spaces. Witty, surprising, and unconventional! Read this book!)

Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake”
(I think she’s best a short stories, but this is an admirable attempt at a first novel. Spends a bit too much time wandering in unimportant thoughts. Overall, a good, if superficial, read.)

Garcia Lorca’s “In Search of Duende”
(A short collection of his essays on Andalusian “deep song”, its roots, meanings, and implications. Beautiful translated lyrics and interesting insight. Would have been a thousand times better with an accompanying CD of the songs.)

Bharathi Mukherjee’s “Desirable Daughters”
({Just to continue my obsession with all things Indian.} I love the whole Bengali/Calcutta mythology, but this book is choppy and left me with more questions than answers after I read it. It’s not a good sign when you wake up thinking: wait, what REALLY happened in that chapter???)

Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”
(Wow. I’ve never been so impressed and humbled by a book. It’s a bit dark, but really lovely and startling human beneath the surface. I love the author’s intrusion, and the ending.)

Reading: Alessandro Barrico’s “Silk” A tiny volume that, so far, is the epitome of restraint, both metaphoric and literal.