Traveling so much, I am never without a few books, and I figured since summer is right around the corner and people may be looking for some summer reading suggestions, I would post a few.
1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
This is a Pulitzer Prize Winner, the story is good, the writing is so eloquent you could drink it, but not over your head with vocabulary. I am a writer only by default, because it's cheaper to for a magazine to send only one person instead of a writer and photographer. If one of the hundred something articles I have had published was remotely as well written as Michael Chabon's stories, I would be stoked, but I know that is not the case.
2. The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
A look at a nerdy Oscar in the Dom Rep in the 60s. It's fiction, but not completely, much of the author's ancestral experience in the Dominican Republic. Moral of the story: don't fall in love with a hooker, and be cool if you live in a killer dictator's country. Pulitzer Prize winner as well.
3. 1984 by George Orwell
A Classic and easy read, it was actually scary how well this guy predicted the future, keep in mind this was written in 1949!
4. The Road By Cormac McCarthy
This guy is a genius physicist or something and has a bleak outlook for human future on earth. The story is not a happy one, but it makes you realize how good we have it. I think they are making a movie out of this one, that will be interesting. I am sure they will cut all the good parts and make it more friendly just like the piece of shit movie they made out of the Da Vinci Code. Pulitzer Prize winner also, what can I say, I think if it wins the PP, it's probably a good read, so I usually read them.
5. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Perfect cruise ship reading about a boy who is marooned at sea with wild animals in his life boat for 227 days. Great ending.
6. The Power of Now By Eckart Tolle
Everyone should have this book, it's not something you read through once, you just kinda take it all in for the rest of your life. Imagine if you could truly master it all...
7. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Great Vietnam reading and an interesting take on war stories, basing the story around the things that the soldiers carried with them. It was a finalist for Pulitzer Prize and easy read.
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey
If you haven't read this, it's an epic story of a guy who ditches jail by playing insane and ends up in an asylum, which probably wasn't the best choice. Read it, then watch the movie. It's the best adaptation of a book to movie I have ever seen, usually so many parts are skipped or changed but this was pretty spot on. The acting is amazing, and it was the first movie to win all five major Academy Awards. One of Jack Nicholson's finest roles.
9. Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
If you haven't read these books and are looking for murder mystery page turners that you absolutely cannot put down, then get them both. Angels is better, but they are both Epic.
10. Junky by William S Burroughs
Short easy read that should keep you off heroin, at least for the summer. This guy lived the part for sure, it's based on his actual experiences!
Labels: burroughs, chabon, Cormac McCarthy, Da vinci code, Junky, junot diaz, Kesey, summertime reading, Tolle, Yann Martel
I could post about a thousand photos from China, it was such an epic trip from a photojournalism stand point . Here's one from our second day taken in a small town really far north, only a few miles from the border of North Korea. It was a really rural area, so far from the major metropolis areas, it was real China. We stopped our van to stretch our legs and this guy was just chillin, so of course, I snapped the shot. As always, just click to enlarge.
