suggest books!

[qatar]

I'm in the library, surrounded by books, which is a bit overwhelming after six years in a country where the best places to acquire books are a record store and an office supply store.

So... what should I be reading?

Comments

[canyonwren]

Have you read the four book Sharing Knife series by Lois McMaster Bujold?

[qatar]

Nope! The first one was checked out, but I added it to my wishlist. :-)

[aleffert]

I haven't read those, they don't quite sound like my thing, but the Miles Vorkosigan series by her is a great time.

[canyonwren]

Heh, I was assuming she'd read the Vorkosigan books. So, seconded. If you haven't read those (Marjorie), you should.

And yes, the Sharing Knife books are very different. I fell madly in love with the characters after I quit approaching them with my Vorkosigan expectations.

For that matter, her other series about Chalion is awesome, too.

[dubaiwalla]

What are your favorite genres?

[qatar]

I dunno, I seem to read a lot of sci fi and alternative history. The last few books I've read (not counting baby-related things) were Anathem, which was amazing; the Scott Pilgrim books; the first book in the Dresden Files series, which was kinda trashy but fun; and the Neverending Story, for nostalgia value. :-)

I ended up checking out the latest Terry Pratchett and a book fo short stories by Haruki Murakami.

[dubaiwalla]

I can't imagine you haven't read Cat's Cradle, Dune, or Nineteen Eighty-Four, some of my favorite sci fi. But if you'd like to expand your horizons a little bit, consider Naguib Mahfouz (I loved my translation of Children of Gebelawi) or Sudeku Mehta (Maximum City is my favorite piece of non-fiction). In terms of books I learned from, Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities is probably unmatched, but I don't know if you share my interest in cities.

[gustavolacerda]

<< where the best places to acquire books are a record store and an office supply store. >>

do you mean: "books that I can read"?

[qatar]

No.

[qatar]

Factoids on reading in the Arab world, from the 2003 UN Arab Human Development Report:

• The Arab world contains 5% of the world's population, but publishes only 1.1% of the world's books.
  
• More books are published in Turkish than in Arabic each year, despite the fact that there are four times as many Arabs as Turks.
  
• Of books that ARE published in Arabic, 17% are religious in nature. The worldwide average is 5%.
  
• Annually, 4.4 books are translated into Arabic per million Arabic speakers. In comparison, 519 books are translated into Hungary per million Hungarian speakers, and 920 into Spanish per million Spanish speakers.
  
• More books are translated into Spanish every YEAR than have been translated into Arabic IN TOTAL since the freaking Abbasid Caliphate.
  
• Arab readership is so low that a book can become a bestseller by selling 5,000 copies.

So, in other news, as difficult as it is to find good English-language books in Qatar, the situation is equally grim for Arabic-language books.

[gustavolacerda]

on a sort-of related note: did you see that egypt arrested a publisher that dared to re-release A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, because although its one of the most renowned works of Arabic literature in history, published initially like, 300 years ago, its too controversial for egypt today.

that caused me to go on a mini-rant in my Arabic class. "Mini" because my arabic skills are too limited to fully express my frustration. In English it would have been a full-sized rant.

~caryl

[anonymous]

Got Fight by Forrest Griffin
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

[qatar]

lol, those suggestions don't leave you very anonymous.

I seem to have Edward Abbey's Brave Cowboy on my wishlist, which I assume you recommended at some point.

[anonymous]

Perhaps, but Desert Solitaire is better. After reading Desert Solitaire, then read the Monkeywrench Gang or Brave Cowboy.

[gryphonwing]

Do you like Barbara Kingsolver? Her most recent (I think) is Lacuna, which is brilliantly crafted. Slow to unfold, but really lovely.