Quote Originally Posted by Miriel View Post
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany[/I] by Bill Buford
Re-read this one. Read it years ago but lost the book. Bought it again cause it's SO FREAKIN' FUNNY! It's one of those books that literally makes me laugh out loud. Cannot eat snacks while reading this book cause I'll spit it out. And it's awful because the book also makes you crazy hungry. It's funny, inspiring, educational. Really one of my all time favorites.
You should read Anthony Bourdain. Kitchen Confidential is very good.

Haven't read Love in the Time of Cholera, but have read One Hundred Years of Solitude. Marquez doesn't necessarily give you the nicest characters in the world. But Solitude is more depressing than Cholera, so wouldn't recommend it. But Marquez certainly can write.

And if you liked Atonement, read Amsterdam. Better novel. More succinct. Atonement drifts a little bit here & there. But both are excellent.

The last novel I read was Crime & Punishment by Dostoevsky. Yeah, it's very good. Hard to get through, but still can't figure out why he did it. There's a book where they tweet famous novels and I laughed when I saw Crime & Punishment's entry.

Currently reading War & Peace and Midnight's Children. Midnight's Children starts off well, but midway through you kind of wonder if you're just living in Rushdie's wet dream. Will try finish it off at some point.

War & Peace on the other hand is utterly bloated. Read about 3/4 chapters and think there are already 10 characters. Unfortunately, I don't have the space to appreciate it properly, so going to finish Midnight's Children first. Hopefully the irritation I have for it has passed.

Also trying to read Pale Fire by Nabokov. Possibly the hardest novel in the entire world.

So when I get some free time, I think I shall finish Midnight's Children, re-read Lolita and then continue with Pale Fire.

EDIT: Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger is a must read.