2010 Reading List: Backpacker's Literature

     Travelling through Latin America, I wasn't sure what sort of books I would get my hands on. As it turns out, there is a whole book-swapping culture out there in the world of travellers, from hostels to café book exchanges in tourist hot spots. In general, I was quite pleased with the plethora of great literature I managed to get my hands on. And of course, there were those books that every backpacker reads, like Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Then there are the regional books. For instance, nearly every traveller in Bolivia reads Marching Powder by Rusty Young & Thomas McFadden. On the other hand, I sometimes found myself reading absolute trash that made me contemplate killing myself, before, of course, I thought that it would be more productive to kill the author, and rid the world of an idiot who shouldn't be published.

     At any rate, here is a list of the books that I have read this year. I had wanted to write a mini review of all of them, but it's just not going to happen. Instead, I will rate them with brief, completely arbitrary and unhelpful comments.

1	Odyssey	Homer	Classic
2	Eat, Pray, Love	Elizabeth Gilbert	Pretentious and annoying
3	Night	Elie Wiesel	Thought Provoking
4	Tuesdays with Morrie	Mitch Albom	Depressing
5	Stardust	Neil Gaiman	Fanciful
6	Skinny Legs and All	Tom Robbins	Helleresque
7	Fifth Business	Robertson Davies	Shit
8	All He Ever Wanted	Anita Shreve	It wasn't as bad as I expected
9	Rage of the Demon King	Raymond Fiest	Thoughtless diversion
10	The Prefect	Alastair Reynolds	It's not Asimov, but it's Sci-Fi
11	Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas	Tom Robbins	Still can't wait to read everything he's ever written
12	The Story of Edgar Sawtelle	David Wroblewski	Moving
13	The Iceman: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer	Philip Carlo	I empathised with a serial killer...
14	The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde	Robert Louis Stevenson	No comment necessary
15	Belonging	Isabel Huggan	Disappointing
16	Holes	Louis Sachar	Quick and easy, yet surprisingly fulfilling
17	The Resurrectionist	James Bradley	Intriguing
18	A Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel Garcia Márquez	INCREDIBLE! Easily the greatest anything I've ever read
19	The Dark Star Safari	Paul Theroux	I want to go to Africa
20	A Clockwork Orange	Anthony Burgess	Infinitely better than the film
21	House of Sand and Fog	Andre Dubus III	Thought provoking and inspired
22	The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinback	Wish I had read it sooner
23	Love in the Time of Cholera	Gabriel Garcia Márquez	Not 100 yrs, but still incredible
24	Purgatorio	Dante	Classic
25	Marching Powder	Rusty Young & Thomas McFadden	Enlightening
26	The Girl Who Played With Fire	Stieg Larsson	As good as they say
27	The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo	Stieg Larsson	Still waiting to read the third book
28	The Namesake	Jhumpa Lahiri	I don't regret reading it
29	When She Was Good	Philip Roth	I still don't remember that much, even after reading reviews
30	Not Really The Prisoner of Zenda	Joel Rosenberg	A decent distraction
31	Casino: Love & Honor in Las Vegas	Nicholas Pileggi	Fun
32	A Day Late and a Dollar Short	Terry McMillan	A must read- especially for anyone who has lived in the US
33	The Tailor of Panama	John Le Carre	Awesome
34	Angels and Demons	Dan Brown	Entertaining
35	Wicked	Gregory Maguire	Fun and thought provoking
36	The Sirens of Titan	Kurt Vonnegut	Vonnegut- enough said
37	Mother Night	Kurt Vonnegut	Vonnegut- enough said
38	The Audacity of Hope	Barack Obama	The whole world ought to read this
39	The Master and Margarita	Mikhail Bulgakov	Devilish, delightful, masterful, inspired
40	The Da Vinci Code	Dan Brown	I still don't get what all the fuss was about- it's a novel, damnit...
41	The Forever War	Joe Haldeman	Like all good sci-fi, it makes you think
42	Rendezvous with Rama	Arthur C. Clarke	More good sci-fi
43	Dark Prince	David Gemmel	Fun fantasy
44	Shot Girl	Karen E. Olson	Could have been worse
45	The Inheritance of Loss	Kiran Desai	Good, if a bit slow at times
46	The Post-American World	Fareed Zakaria	Inspiring and thought provoking look at the challenges facing the USA and it's new role in the new world order
47	Running Alone: Presidential Leadership JFK to Bush II, Why It Has Failed and How We Can Fix It	James MacGregor Burns	All profs who make this assigned reading should have their degrees revoked
48	Fools Die	Mario Puzo	One of his more inspired novels
49	Spellwright	Blake Charlton	Dr. Charlton should stick to medicine...
50	City of Bones	Michael Connelly	Page turner
51	The Second Chair	John Lescroart	Would make a better movie than book
52	Semi-detached	Griff Rhys Jones	Less enjoyable than I presumed