Books we hauled around

Felice´s Summer Reading List:

1. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers--This is the summer reading for Mars Hill College, where I teach, so I had to read it. It´s an account of a Katrina survivor. It´s eye-opening and terribly sad.
2. Outcasts United by Warren St. John--This is a great non-fiction book about a woman who started a youth soccer program of children of political refugees relocated to a poor community in Georgia.
   
3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery--This book is a novel that devotes itself to a plot concerning a brilliant 12-year-old who plans to kill herself, Parisian characters from two completely opposite social classes, and, kind of bizarrely, philosophy.
   
4. Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant--This book I found in a hotel´s library. It was the least horrible-looking of three books in English. (The other two were sci-fi/fantasy.) It´s pretty much the same book as The Girl with the Pearl Earring.
5. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño--I was given this book at a refuge, and it was giant, around 700 pages, but I was so excited to have a new book that the weight of it didn´t faze me. It is a novel written by a poet about the poetic movement of Mexico in the 70´s. It´s a story told from dozens of different perspectives in a kind of journal/interview style and turned out to be a really exciting and interesting book.
   
6. Mariana´s Letter--For a while, I had no book and made due by reading a letter from my sister over and over again. As you know from her co-hosting episode, she´s pretty hilarious, and the letter was accompanied by some likewise very funny illustrations (as per request) but they left me with many questions like, "Why is Lindsay Lohan going to jail?" and "What Russian spies?" I have been promised answers upon our return to the US, possibly during our long ride home from the airport.
   
7. The Dead Place by Stephen Booth--This was a pretty typical murder/mystery/crime drama. This one also came from the library of a refuge. It was the only book in English available and takes place in Derbyshire-- pretty creepy tent-reading.
8. Love and War in the Pyrenese by Rosemary Bailey--This book was a great find. I was in a refuge at the base of Mount Canigou, and the guy who worked there saw me looking at the magazines. He said, "English?" and I nodded. (Nobody working at this refuge spoke English or even Spanish.) He motioned for me to wait, and then came back with this awesome book. He said "The great Pyrenese" and handed it to me and made a shooing motion, like I should take it. It is an awesome book about the Pyrenese towns (mostly in France, but also Spain) during the Spanish Civil War and through the end of World War II. A lot of detail is given to the processes of helping refugeese cross out of Franco´s Spain and, later, out of occupied France by traversing the mountains. It´s possible that the main reason that I enjoyed this book is that all of the places mentioned were spots that we´d hiked right through. The refuge where I was given the book is even mentioned within it, twice

Ryan´s Summer Reading List
1. American Sphinx, The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph Ellis
2. Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietszche
3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
4. Love and War in the Pyrenees by Rosemary Bailey
5. A &#@!!-load of maps by assorted Geographic Institutes and regional tourist offices.