Caribbean reading
 

I'm in the middle of reading "An Embarrassment of Mangoes" by Ann Vanderhoof and just loving it.

On this freezing cold day in Wisconsin, it is taking me to all those wonderful warm islands that we love to visit.

Any other similar booksto suggest?

Gosh, I love questions like this! A Trip to the Beach by Bob and Melinda Blanchard, founders of Blanchard's Restaurant on Anguilla. Also, Don't Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk. Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport has a great Hawaiian setting. Gringos in Paradise about a couple building their dream house in Mexico was really enjoyable. I've got more, have to go check my bookshelves. I also read an Embarrassment of Mangos in the winter, sitting by the fireplace and dreaming of the Caribbean. Loved it!

Ann's new book just came out "The Spice Necklace". I just got my copy today and I'm fighting the urge to tear open the box right now and start reading (I just got home and I really need to go to the grocery store first!) Not sure if it's available yet in the U.S., I know it is now available in Canada. I had pre-ordered mine from Canada. :-)

I agree with A Trip to the Beach. Love that book too.

Okay, I'm back, can you tell I love these type of books? In the category of memoir-type books of real people moving to paradise -- Desiring Paradise by Karen Schlesinger (they move to St. John), On Mexican Time by Tony Cohan, The Motion of the Ocean by Janna Esarey (husband and wife sail around the world with lots of tropical stops) The Carnival Never Got Started by Guy Lovelace (starting a hotel on a Caribbean island). Waking up in Eden (Hawaii) and West of Then and The Descendents(growing up in Hawaii). Great historical novels on Hawaii -- Molokai by Alan Brennert, Makai(I forget the author)and the classic Hawaii by James Michener. Is this enough to get you through the winter? I grew up in Minnesota so can relate. I would love to hear suggestions too!

Amazon says it is not available until June. How can I pre-order from Canada?

eileen - Yes, I ordered mine from Amazon Canada (amazon.ca). Thanks for your list of books, I also love reading these types so I will have to check out the others you mentioned.

I also loved some of the books mentioned. Not a tropical island book, but still excellent is "360 Degrees Longitude: One Family's Journey Around the World" about a family who takes a year off to, obviously, travel around the world.

"A Trip to the Beach" was one of my favorites as we loved our stay on Anguilla.

I'm going to look up "Desiring Paradise" and "The Motion of the Ocean"----sounds like just what I'm looking for. Also will look up "360 degrees Longitude".

I also loved "Maiden Voyage" by Tania Aebi.

I liked Joan Harrington's Live de Life, an account of she and her husband building a house in St. Kitts.

http://www.amazon.com/Live-Life-Cari.../dp/0805960953

Thanks for the other recommendations.

Jamaica Kincaid writes of her home island, Antigua. Caryl Phillips hails from St. Kitts, which features in much of his fiction. Edwidge Danticat is from Haiti, and her books are amazing. Margaret Atwood wrote a book called Bodily Harm that is set on Bequia. Paule Marshall wrote a book that is set largely on Carriacou, with cameo appearances from Grenada and Barbados. Margaret Cezair-Thompson wrote a good novel set in Jamaica during the time of Errol Flynn's residence there and it gives an interesting background of the political turmoil of the time. Windward Heights is a retelling of Wuthering Heights, set on an unspecified island in the Caribbean. The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys is a companion piece to Jane Eyre, featuring the girlhood and young adulthood of Bertha, the man woman in the attic whom Mr. ROchester marries.

(I read novels about and set in the Caribbean rather obsessively, actually. I could go on and on if you want more ideas.)

Although I didn't care for it myself, Anthony Bourdain wrote a light mystery called Gone Bamboo that is set, I think, on St. Maarten.

If you want island life in general, I second the suggestion of Allen Brennert's books on Moloka'i and Honolulu.

And for some wonderful,tropical, nonfiction fun, I can't recommend the books by J. Maarten Troost highly enough--he's a very funny travel writer (similar vein to Bill Bryson) who has written two memoirs about living in the South Pacific. Sex Lives of Cannibals is one, Getting Stoned with Savages is the other. Definitely worth checking out!

And if you don't mind a tiny little soapbox message: Check out your local independent bookseller or local library for more ideas. They do more for your community than Amazon does--they'll order and ship it to you if they don't have it in stock, and what's more, the library will get it all to you FOR FREE!

Happy reading!

I love these type of books also. Don't Stop the Carnival is one of my all time favorites. You have all given many new suggestions to seek out.

TPAYT - I think reading a new tropical book would lift my spirits in the cold dark winter. I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self to move to a warmer climate. Oh well, I'll have to settle for a book now.

Ejcrowe - Thanks for the library suggestion. I've done that in the past but seem to forget it if I've fallen out of reading for a while. Another thing to remember is that many libraries accept donations of lightly read paperbacks. It's a great way to recycle.

I think The Carnival Never Got Started by Guy Lovelace (starting a hotel on a Caribbean island)
is a fabulous book. I highly recommend it.

ejcrowe----please go on. We'll take all the suggestions you have. It's a long winter.

--True History of Paradise by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
--any of several mysteries by Bob Morris
--High Wind in Jamaica, but I can't recall the author's name. It was reissued in the last few years by the New York Review of Books
--Patrick Chamoiseau is a writer from Martinique. I've only read his book called Texaco, so I can't speak for the others.
--When I was Puerto Rican is a good memoir by Esmeralda Santiago.
--To Shoot Hard Labor is a book by an Antiguan whose name I can no longer recall, but I picked it up on my first visit to that island several years ago. Very moving portrait of island hardships
--Paradise News by David Lodge. This one is set in Hawaii but it's a funny read
--Bay of Souls by Robert Stone. Not his best effort, but I liked it because of the setting.
--No Other Life by Brian Moore was a really interesting read for me because it was a fictionalized account of Haiti's various leaders and coups
--Julia Alvarez is a really great writer whose family was ousted from the Dominican Republic. Very literary and very accessible novels.
--Junot Diaz is also Dominican, and his novel Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao won the Pulitzer and other major literary awards in 2007. His novel goes back and forth between the US and the DR. It's very edgy and hip and fresh and I loved it.

That's all I got for now. My bookcase of Caribbean lit is in somebody else's bedroom now so I can't go get the full list, but that's a goodly start!

happy reading, y'all!