You have visited new places, played, dined, swam and visited the spa and then decided it would be just the thing to curl up in the corner of the ship and have a good relaxing read.
There may be a small library on board but usually best to bring your own.
I helped start a book club some 12 years ago and during that time we have experimented, praised, and criticised and thought it might be helpful to distil just a handful of those discussions and make some recommendations for a good read.
Isabel Allende’s “House of the Spirits had something for all of us. It is a family saga encapsulating magic realism, entwined with the history and politics of South America. This unusual combination gained almost unanimous approval from our all-girl book group.
Aravind Adiga’s first novel “White Tiger” was not our all time favourite although it gave excellent insight into life in India today, especially its corruption and how society has changed. It certainly got us thinking, although we did find some holes in the way the story was told.
We went back to basics in two books that we loved, Doris Lessing’s 1950 masterpiece, The Grass is Singing offers so much that it is easy to see how her long and fruitful career progressed from this point. It tells the story of Mary Turner in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and of a marriage falling apart with the metaphor of the white society tumbling at the same time. It is one of the most powerful novels I have ever read.
It needs a long cruise to start a Dickens novel and as a book group we wisely approached Little Dorrit over the Summer holiday. It was a strange choice for us but one that was totally successful. The early struggle with style was soon rewarded as it blossomed into a fantastic tale with the unlikely backdrop of a debtor’s prison. Surprisingly the story is not at all dated and the wonderful writing and vivid characterisation draws the reader on and on.
J M Coetzee’s novel “Disgrace” won him his 2nd Booker Prize. Like Doris Lessing, race figures in this brutal but amazing tale of shifting power, sufferance and disintegration.
As I thought these reviews were biased through being a little too female oriented, I asked a husband of one of our group to review some of his own favourite titles. These are his choices.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde is sci-fi for the pseudo-literati, with humour. It is modern, great fun, easy to read, and an imaginative and original idea.
Romola by George Eliot is set in 1490s Florence. Beautifully written Victorian novel, but not hard to read, and full of all the sights, sounds and characters of the time. ..and a good story too.
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster is a recent American novel. It is a terribly clever plot where the events fold in on themselves until you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. A fascinating read.
The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier, is a thriller with an unusual take on time-travel. Classic du Maurier and a middlebrow read.
So what are your favourite books to read when you’re on holiday?
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5 Comments
May 08 2009
11:30
Old books about early explorers and exploration. Just being on the ship doing a little exploring myself really adds to and excites the story.
May 09 2009
19:36
Good point. I kept away from the many travel books but this sounds like a great idea”
May 18 2009
8:56
I’m a fan of Neil Gaiman, so often travel with one of his novels in my bag or A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson – I think I’m on my 4th reading of it! I do, however, usually end up buying something in the airport. If there is nothing I recognise then I enjoy a game of ‘Literature Lottery’
May 18 2009
9:24
Literature Lottery – Ah, a gamble I am too cowardly to take.
May 22 2009
13:11
I’d bring a stack of Simenon’s Penguin Maigret crime novels, for each of them is short, very easy to read, and gripping. What I love about Maiget is that he grows older from one book to the next, and enjoys a drink, a good meal and a smoke while he’s solving his cases. Ideally, I’d choose a cruise ship that has recreated a Parisian 1950s-style cafe so I could get the full experience. But I’d draw a line at wearing a beret.
I’m also a fan of Jim Butcher’s Dresden files (a cruise where passengers could dress up as vampires, warlocks and creatures of Butcher’s vivid imagination would be…interesting).
Reading a musical artist’s autobiography (or the best biography I could lay my hands on) would be acceptable, for then I could listen to their music while I learn what made them write it. Anything from Bob Dylan to Stephen Sondheim.
Years ago I worked for several second-hand (and new) bookshops in London. Maybe I could open a good second-hand bookshop on a cruise ship…