Books

While I was fairly busy during training, one thing that I did realize is that I was going to have plenty of time to do some reading in the Peace Corps. I still remember from one of my interviews the interviewer talking about how a girl she served with read War and Peace in just a few days during the rainy season-as there was little else to do. That turned out to be fairly true. I got through a few books during training-and shamelessly plugged the Kindle to anyone who would listen. I still will: I’m a huge Kindle fan. If you travel much, live abroad, or have a fear of libraries: the Kindle is one of the best buys you can make (assuming you enjoy reading).

There are plenty of things to occupy my time here, and many things that I probably ought to be doing a lot more of, but with Costa Rican television offering nothing more than telenovelas during the evening, many a night can be spent with a book. Sometime early in my service I decided that I would try to read a book a week during my service. I got well ahead of pace early on-with no school in January and February, and my community diagnostic report coming along without taking too much of my time (I even turned it in early!) I spent plenty of time on the couch with my Kindle. I was eager for a conversation with my new host family-but understood that they didn’t want to spend every waking hour talking to me and, in the case of Estefany, my host sister, actually watch the telenovelas.

Getting Internet at my house made a million things easier for me, but didn’t help out my reading. Well, rather, just shifted it. I spend lots more time reading news and random Wikipedia articles online than before, but my book reading has slowed down. The other big block to my reading was the fact that I got hold of some TV series, and well Friday Night Lights and The Wire pretty much sucked up all my leisure time. (Both are highly recommended.) Bus rides help, so my trip to Panama (going on right now) will hopefully help that out. Unfortunately, I have to say, that as of November 25, I had slacked a bit, and had only read 55 books. One a week would have had me at 58 or 59. Guess I’ll have to pick it up over the remaining year plus of service. So, now, on to the good stuff: my reviews. I tried to read a balance between non-fiction and fiction, so I’ve broken up the recommendations that way. And, well, in doing these, I’ve realized that I’ve got pretty low standards, which is great, because it meant that I’ve enjoyed almost every book I’ve read so far.

Top three fiction books (this was hard to choose):
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
-The characters were incredibly human. It was difficult at times to understand why the main character did what he did, and at other times not at all. Just like real people. 

The Quiet American by Graham Greene
-Fantastic characters and great settings. Thought provoking and chocked full of quotes to write down, read again, and think about. Not directly emotional for me, as I was born 13 years after the US pulled out of Vietnam. 


The World According to Garp by John Irving
-It was fun, sad, interesting, thought provoking, and fun. I liked the main character a lot, I don't know if that's true for all readers, I tend to think it isn't and probably shouldn't be. Mostly though, it's a fun book, like a good novel can be. 


*Dubliners (Joyce), Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Safran Foer), and Pride and Prejudice (Austen) were also in the running.

Top three non-fiction books (even harder to choose):
Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell
-Much of the reason I like this book is that much of it fits within my beliefs and positions, I'll admit that much. Yet, I'd highly recommend it because it takes an economic and objective view about some of our most commonly held beliefs regarding society.



The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
-It was a page turner for me. Granted I studied finance and am super interested in finance and economics. Regardless, it's a great perspective on the financial crisis by a great author.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
-An incredibly interesting subject is treated with the seriousness, attention to detail, and frank honesty that he deserved.

*Plan B 4.0 (Brown), The Looming Tower (Wright) and The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Schroeder) were also in the running.
Worst fiction book:
The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
-The author used lots of fluffy words and mystical expressions to cover the fact that he was putting an undeveloped character in unrealistic situations-which made the book hard for me to be interested in. I think you can put fantastic crazy characters in realistic situations and vice versa, realistic characters in fantastical situations make amazing fiction-but this book does neither. Maybe it's better in Portuguese. 

Worst non-fiction book:
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
-There were some passages that I wrote down and will repeat and think about for years to come. There truly are some great passages.  Yet, that doesn't overcome the fact that I could barely get myself through pages of describing which lake froze first in the winter, or on what date the lake had frozen the last few years, or how long he cut the boards to make the wall, or a cost analysis of corn meal versus Indian meal...I think you're starting to get the point. It's a whole lot better to visit nature (or watch Planet Earth) than to read about it.

And, in looking over my reading list (there's no way I could've done this from memory) I found it fun that these three books were on the same list: Eat, Pray, Love; The Communist Manifesto; and The Fountainhead.