Books

Travelling is good because I read, which makes me feel, you know, like a real human boy. Not just sports websites and support e-mails, but actual books. So far I´ve been lucky. I brought 2 books with me, one is full of mostly-finished crossword puzzles, the other was a giant soft cover edition of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (or some other configuration of those 5 words) by Jonathan Safran Foer. Funny and smart, plus a ton of Jew references for the entire (Cohen) family. Finished that one in a couple of days (there were pictures in it, but it´s a real book, I promise), and was not looking forward to lugging it around with me through the muddy roads of various telephone-less villages. Ironically enough Ben purchased the pocket edition in French before leaving, which fits in a pocket (technology astounds). Fantastically, one of the Americans in Montañita was willing to trade books, the only problem was that she hadn´t finished her book, a gigantic, sweeping ´literary non-fiction´ book called Shantaram and there were 900 pages in it. Basically, I stood over her and forced her to finish it, threatening her playfully from my hammock. Finish she did, and an exchange was made. For the next week, I ate Shantaram up, and it wasn´t even that good. I tried to explain the plot to Ben, and he suggested it was Indiana Jones meets Die Hard. He then asked if Bruce Willis was winning against the bad guys. He just doesn´t understand me. Anyhoo, it was a fun read. I managed to find a David Sedaris collection of short stories in a Canadian ´surf shack´ in Canoa. It´s magical. That gay man is hilarious, and his short stories are well-written and brutally acerbic. I am a fan. Very much enjoying it. I know how much you care about what I´m reading, so I´ll be sure to give you frequent updates. It´s not looking too good after this, the book exchanges in Canoa feature a lot of German books and a few novelizations of Spiderman. I´ll keep you posted.