books during stressful times in Kahawa Sukari (June, July, August, September)

- Outcast - Rosemary Sutcliffe

- The Giver - Lois Lowry
I didn’t read this as a child, and I can’t imagine how I would have taken it then. I first read it in Montreal, when I was staying with Rebecca for the summer during law school. Oh MAN it’s so well done. I love books that create scenarios with slightly alternate realities and then explore them in a way that delves into aspects of human nature.
That was a stupid sentence I just wrote. But it’s still true. Like Ursula K. LeGuin. Man, when I read her books I remember why “science fiction” has the power to change a reader’s reality.

- The Bridge - Ian Banks
Banks wrote the Wasp Factory, which I don’t recommend - it’s a masterful book that is a scarring experience to read and, really, you don’t need to go through it. I know I didn’t. (Actually, my housemate in Portland, Joanna, had introduced me to his book Crow Road, and it was just lovely. So I kept ordering Wasp Factory from the Portland library to my branch, picking it up and immediately putting it in the “return” chute because it looked too disturbing. But I kept being drawn to it. Anyways, as I said, it’s really well imagined and pieced together and told, but not something I would recommend).
So, this one is a masterful book too, and I really enjoyed it for the most part. I wouldn’t recommend it widely because it does have some disturbing scenes, but I really liked the weaving together of realities (main character has a car accident and wakes up on the Bridge as an amnesiac patient in a socially stratified society that isn’t aware of a reality beyond the Bridge).

- Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
I still prefer When We Were Orphans and Remains of the Day. If I was comparing this one to those books, I wouldn’t be bolding it. But comparing it to other books in the world, it’s way up there. I mean, it’s an Ishiguro book, and dang but he knows what he is doing. He creates a world just a bit different, just a slight difference, and explores its implications beautifully.

- Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow - Peter HØEG
so good. This is the British translation of Smilla’s Sense of Snow. Maybe it was the first translation? The whole book isn’t as different as the title (this title is closer to the Danish title...based on my excellent Danish reading skills), but there definitely are some different word choices and even changes of tense that creates a slightly different experience.
Still the most absorbing and engaging book for me. The first time I read Smilla I was in my first semester of law school. The day I finished reading it, I looked out the window and I knew that, not only was I different, but the world was different. It was a world with this book in it, with these characters, with this level of storytelling. It stretched my expectations for literature and for myself.

- Father Brown - G.K. Chesterton
No, seriously, do you know about these stories? I sure didn’t. They are So Good!! Father Brown is an English Anglican priest and he solves mysteries of a sort. What a great character! My new favorite religious crime-solving character.

- Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Still good. A slightly different experience for me each time I read it. Sometimes I’m annoyed with some of the characters, sometimes I’m just swept away. I think this time I was just numb in general.

- The Stand - Stephen King
Well, I’ll say this. I was really, really stressed out and low when I read this, and I read it Very Quickly. And it is Long. And I am quite grateful that I had it during that time, because if I hadn’t had a 1700 page book to read that week I might have just fallen apart all together.
That said, my standards for post-apocalyptic scenarios has been set far higher now that I live in east Africa. King’s depiction of an America whose population has been decimated by a government designed plague doesn’t cut it.