Torrents of rain came pouring down. A far cry from the searing heat and the bone dry air of the desert where I have just come from. Was the trip just a dream? At the end, memories are all that we have.
In memory of my recent trip to the Middle East, and with the word "arabesque" still echoing in my head, here are my rainy season reading list:
1. Naguib Mahfouz' Children of the Alley
2. Naguib Mahfouz' Karnak Cafe (highly recommended by the sales staff at the Virgin Store in Kuwait)
3. Amin Maalouf's Leo the African
4. Amin Maalouf's Ports of Call
5. Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls
6. Lauie Lisle's Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgian O'Keefe
7. Thomas Merton's Seeds of Destruction
8. Allison Fell's translation of The Pillow Boy of the Lady Onogoro
9. Frances Mayes' A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller
Frances Mayes wrote this: "What man can travel this long road and not fill his soul with crazy arabesques?"
Indeed.
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