And yet more books

Two more titles for you:

Three Cups of Tea by David Oliver Relin. This is about Greg Mortensen's crusade to build schools for girls in rural Pakistan. I wasn't sure I was going to like this one but was immediately drawn in by Relin's writing style. Relin himself wasn't that familiar with Mortensen--hell, nobody was until well after 9/11--so the book reads as if he's discovering what the guy's been doing over there with little money and virtually no help at the same time that we're learning about him. I also really didn't know much about daily life in Pakistan. (News reports and CNN video clips aside.)

The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer. This novel follows the trajectory of Julie Sommers, a publicist in South Africa, as she falls in love with a young Arab immigrant and then marries him and follows him to his home country when he gets deported. The prose is written in this strange staccato cadence that mimics the way transliterated language sounds. Some people in my book group found it jarring and hated the book, but I actually enjoyed it.

That brings me to the end of June and the end of the list. (I only recently started keeping track of the books I've been reading.)

I just started Francine Prose's book Sicilian Odyssey so I'll keep you posted on that as I progress.