The list is a bit sparse. It’s almost the end of the school year. This means last minute paper works, deadlines and appointments. Arrgh!
1. Xiaolu Guo’s A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
The novel is as witty as the title. Zhuang, or Z as she calls herself, is a keen observer of human life, and her recollection is both funny and poignant. A must-read!
2. Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair - An oldie but definitely a goldie. Considered one of Greene’s finest work (I am captivated by his restrained but passionate style) this is a moving and beautiful description of the depths and complexity of humanity, and love and its “crazy mutation of pity, hate, comradeship, jealousy, and contempt...”
3. Irish Murdoch’s Under the Net – a comic novel about work and love, wealth and fame.
4. John Kaiser’s The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria –the recounting of the grisly event in 1996 when armed men broke into a Trappist monastery in war-torn Algeria and took seven monks hostage, pawns in a murky negotiation to free imprisoned terrorists. Two months later the monk’s severed heads were found in a tree; their bodies were never recovered.
5. Ian Morgan Cron’s Chasing Francis – written in the genre of wisdom literature, it weaves the story of a pastor who lost his faith and goes on a pilgrimage to get to know one of the most enigmatic and influential monks in history, St. Francis of Assisi.
6. Paul Theroux’s The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific –Theroux’s travelogue through the islands in the Pacific
7. The Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature: An Anthology of Winning Works The 1980’s Poetry
8. The Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature: An Anthology of Winning Works The 1980’s Short Story
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