An incomplete record of the books I have read, looked at, discussed or even just thought about a lot on route. This bibliography is ordered by geographical location and with reference to the people with who I discussed the book:
ANCHORAGE
- South of the Limpopo – Devla Murphy
Devla Murphy’s account of travelling in South Africa by bike during the fall of the apartheid regime and the lead-up to the post-apartheid elections. I hadn’t read any Devla Murphy and I thought I should. This was the only thing available by her at Barnes & Noble in Anchorage.
Recommended by Angela:
- Wheels on Ice: Bicycling in Alaska 1898 – 1908 – edited by Terrence Cole
First-hand narratives of travelling by bicycle over mountain passes in winter during the Alaskan gold rush at the turn of 19th century. Fascinating and funny.
- Beneath the Crust of Culture: Psychoanalytic Anthropology and the Cultural Unconscious in American Life – Howard F. Stein
Essays on the cultural meaning of violence in contemporary American life. Dry, and somewhat depressing, but thought-provoking.
WHITEHORSE
Recommended by Danusia:
- Lullabies for Little Criminals – Heather O’Neill
Novel about a young girl growing up rough in Montreal. Sad and beautiful.
PRINCE RUPERT
In Penny and Ian’s book collection:
- The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers and the Shaping of the World – Hugh Brody
A discussion of hunter gatherer culture in the high Arctic. I only flicked through it but would like to get back to it.
LASQUETI
Recommended by Sheila:
- A Naturalist’s Guide to the Arctic – E.C. Pielou
I wish I had had this book with me when I was on the Arctic tundra.
- Monkey Beach – Eden Robinson
A novel about a First Nation girl growing up in a coastal community in British Columbia. Dark and disturbing.
- Between Pacific Tides – Edward Ricketts
A classic of marine biology. Sheila read aloud to me from this book after I went digging for clams and oysters. Fantastic. I want a copy.
- Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
A novel by Steinbeck, set in Monterey, in which the main character is based on Edward Ricketts, the author of Between Pacific Tides. A classic novel that is worth reading and as a bonus it’s a small book very suitable for carrying about on a bicycle.
SALT SPRINGS
Recommended by Jane:
- I, Rigoerta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala – edited by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray
I haven’t read this yet but thought that maybe I should before I get to Guatemala.
BEVERLY BEACH CAMPGROUND
Recommended by Dave:
- All That the Rain Promises and More: a Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms – David Arora
Handy bike pannier sized mushroom guide to west coast mushrooms. Pretty amusing, too.
SAN FRANCISCO
- Catfish and Mandala: A Two Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam – Andrew X. Pham
An account of a bike tour of Vietnam by a Vietnamese American, returning to Vietnam to make sense of his past and, therefore, his present. This book was recommended by Tom, in Seattle, and so when I came across it in a second-hand bookshop I snapped it up.
Catfish and Mandala is an honest and brave book that examines what people do to survive and the price they pay for it. It is a book that wrestles with unanswerable questions about cultural and personal identity and unflinchingly recounts the failures of love within a family.
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
A book for anyone over the age of twelve which describes the travails of a young Native American boy trying to navigate his way through various cultural mine-fields. This author was recommended by
Babs and Dennis and having read this book I’m keen to read more of him.
OWENS VALLEY
- Cadillac Desert: The American West and It’s Disappearing Water – Marc Reisner
A discussion of water policy and development in the US south-west. The Mono Basin and the Owens Valley are central in this story.
Doris and John from June Lake talked about this book when we visited Mono Lake and Kathleen and Brian in Bishop also mentioned it.
IN THE DESERT
- Shallow Water Dictionary: A Grounding in Estuary English – John R. Stilgoe
I keep thinking about this book, which I read a long time ago. Shallow Water Dictionary is an extended essay – a leisurely reflection on the richness of vernacular language used to describe the varied subtle landscape of estuaries and marshlands and a lament of their passing.
I keep thinking of this book as I travel through the desert and realise that I don’t have the language to describe the infinitely varied beautiful and vulnerable landscape. As with marshland, people don’t see an immediate use value for desert and so it is often threatened by destructive thoughtless development.
NORTH MEXICO
- Under the Volcano – Malcom Lowry
A classic novel written in the 40s by English author, Malcom Lowry, set in a fictional town in Mexico against the global backdrop of the Spanish civil war. The action takes place on the Day of the Dead and traces the demise of the hopelessly alcoholic protagonist. A bleak but compelling read.
- Como Agua para Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
Mexican magic realism around the theme of food, family, love and passion. My first attempt at a novel in Spanish and I think I did pretty well. Como Agua para Chocolate is definitely an entertaining romance and if it is a little trite in place the Spanish provided me with enough challenge to keep me interested. Each chapter is based around a recipe and I’m curious to know if they actually work – the vocabulary of the food items proved the most difficult to decipher.
- Sunstone/Piedra de Sol – Octavio Paz
A poem by Octavio Paz
DF
- Bandit Roads – Richard Grant
My friend
David arrived in DF to visit me with a book package from my sister in Australia and this book was in it.
Richard Grant travels through the Sierra Madre looking for trouble and finds it. Bandit Roads takes a cursory look at the impact of the drug trade and endemic violence on life in the north of Mexico but the book is much more of a personal travelogue than an in depth examination of the complex issues it touches on.
I rode through the same area and many of the towns described in this book and experienced them quite differently.
- Happy Families – Carlos Fuentes
Another present from my sister. Finding this one pretty heavy going… I’ll get back to you…
PUEBLA
- All The Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy
All the Pretty Horses appeared on the
JUCONI volunteer house bookshelves. It is a sparse tale of the innocence and ignorance of youth and all the mess they can lead to. Set in Texas and Mexico, Cormac McCarthy writes of various borders and what happens when they are crossed.
ISLA MUJERES
- King Leopold’s Ghost – Adam Hochschild
I was given a copy of this while I was staying on the
marina on Isla Mujeres. A grim investigation of the brutal exploitation of the Congo under King Leopold of Belgium’s control. Disheartening reading. The history outlined in this book is where Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz in
Heart of Darkness comes from.
- Ahab’s Wife: or The Star Gazer –Sena Naslund
More
marina reading: I came across this on the marina bookshelves which tended mostly towards mystery, romance and thrillers. Naslund develops the character of Ahab’s wife, who merits barely a paragraph in Henry Melville’s classic epic,
Moby Dick, and sets her as an active agent among the complex political and social movements of the day. An interesting book that strives to be poetic but I found it a trifle earnest and forced for my taste.
CANCUN
- The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz’s meditations of Mexican life and thought. Been on the lookout for this for a while so when I came across a copy in a second-hand English language bookshop in Cancun I snapped it up. This one isn’t light reading so I think it will be with me for a while.
The memoir of a woman who was brutally raped as a young college student. This book is surprising engaging given its grim subject matter. I stumbled across it in a second-hand English language bookshop in Cancun and was instantly sucked in after flicking through the first few pages. Sebold is a great writer who approaches her difficult subject with unflinching honesty, grace and wit and, amazingly, the complete absence of self-pity.
CHICAGO INTERLUDE
- The Road – Cormac McCarthy
I found this on the bookshelves of the apartment my sister was house-sitting in
Chicago. It is hard to know exactly what to say about this book. It is definitely compelling reading but McCarthy is coming from a dark, dark place which doesn’t make for very comfortable reading. A post-apocalyptic vision, sparsely and beautifully portrayed in all its desolation – a charred, but freezing, colourless world sinking hopelessly under a constant downpour of ash, peopled by starving bands of desperate survivors. Notwithstanding the beauty of the language it is such a harrowing picture that it is almost unbearable to read.
Oddly enough it was the second book in a row I read that heavily featured human cannibalism. (The first being Ahab’s Wife.)
- Lolita – Vladimir Nobokov
Another find on the Chicago household bookshelves. What a book! I have lost count of how many times I have read Lolita. This time I was struck more by the novel’s black humour and wit than its pathos and tragedy.
CUBA
- The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
Casting around for books with a Cuban theme Hemingway’s classic fable came first to mind. I read this previously about twenty-five years ago and polished it off again on the plane trip back from the US to Mexico which leaves me, in fact, without a book for Cuba.
- The Voyage of the Beagle – Charles Darwin
Another find in the Cancun English language bookshop. Preparatory reading for South America.