(The great Gonzo journalist's take on the 80s. Lots of stuff about Iran-Contra as I recall.)
Hunter S Thompson
(Supposedly a metaphor for the French resistance to the Nazi occupation, but for me it's more effective as a straight up story about the human condition. It's quite a straightforward narrative about a town that is hit by the plague. First the disease emerges, and then the town is quarantined, and we are treated to an account of life under quarantine and the constant threat of infection. I had high hopes for this book, as The Outsider is one of my favourite books of all time. I'm glad to say that Mr. Camus did not disappoint.)
(This was an amazing book - one of the best I've come across. I've read a couple of Morrison's other books since then and they had nothing on this. But I wonder if that was because it was an audio book? Lynne Thigpen read the text and did a great job of it. But the content of the book was really great. It's centred around the interactions between six characters living in close proximity, along with flashes back and forward from this core setting. There's an elderly white rich guy; his seemingly shallow former beauty queen wife; two of his black servants, themselves a married couple; their niece, a fashion model; and an additional stowaway. The action is primarily set on an island where the elderly rich guy lives in colonial-style luxury. Each of these six characters is drawn in exquisite and believable detail, with all their motivations and inclinations immediately accessible to the reader (or listener). The story basically illustrates how the different filters through which our identity is formed - such as race, gender, age, and social class - shape our interactions with each other. The dynamic between all the characters and the little conflicts between them portray these tensions beautifully.)
Toni Morrison
(Excellent, but hard not to notice that it's very one-sided politically.)
(This was a great account of a society's colonial transition.)
(I went to see this in The Gate. Irish playwright Tom Murphy had adapted this classic to bring in some Irish lingo, most memorably when one of the characters exclaims "Merciful Hour!!")
(Didn't like this at all.)
The Namesake
(This is an absolutely beautiful book about an Indian couple who emigrate to the USA, and about their son's travails as a man who is neither Indian nor North American. Really captures the immigrant experience (not that I've first hand experience of this, of course).)
(Another very worthwhile read.)
(A promising book throughout absolutely ruined by a crappy, saccharine, cop-out of an ending. Total rubbish.)
(A novelisation of the life of Rudolf Nureyev. McCann is one of the best writers around, and one of the few novelists all of whose books I've read. This was very interesting but I prefer his other books. However, my Russio-Lithuanian friend Sasha assures me that he really captures what Russia is like.)
Nureyev
(An engaging account of the Vietnam conflict.)
(Bleak and brilliant - touches what it means to be human.)
(A great book made into an even better film by the maestro, Spike Lee.)
(This is about Jack the Ripper and was made into a film I really like, directed by the Hughes Brothers, who made a pretty impressive transition from portraying the African American urban ghetto of the US in 'Menace II Society', to the Whitechapel district of 19th century London.)
