SFist Reads: Holiday Fun Edition

SFist is celebrating the holidays in many ways, as some of us will travel to far-off lands (or just the Midwest), while others of us will remain right here. All of us are psyched about the additional free time the holidays bring us to read books we've reserved online from the SF Public Library. Others of us have made book purchases from our local independent bookstore. Whatever your holiday plans, SFist wishes you the best, and encourages you to keep on reading.

SFist Emily has just finished The Devil Wears Prada. She recommends this book if you've ever worked in the fashion industry (she has), the publishing industry, or for an extraordinarily hateful person. The books heroine fulfill's everyone's fantasy of how to leave your job with a bang. Escapism at its finest. Plus it's the perfect legnth for a plane ride.

She'd also like to point out that sometimes the holidays and all the attendent stress(gift giving, family gatherings, long lines at stores,mean airport personel etc.) leave one feeling as though the world is absurd and that they are the only sane person left. A nice companion to this feeling is A Confederacy of Dunces By John Kennedy Toole (who tragically committed suicide before its publication). SFist Emily recommends this as a nice read over the holidays because it will make you laugh out loud in public (probably), and well, whatever you're up against, it can't possibly be this absurd.

Sfist Rain says: "Cold weather and the wish for snow always makes me want to pick up and re-read Ghost Story by Peter Straub. It's the perfect winter break book: entirely engrossing, completely scary, and it makes me want to curl up by a fire no matter how warm this dumb California winter weather may be."

SFist Jackson is reading the Harry Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser. Flashman is a cad and coward in the service of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and roams the world in search of strong drink and the comforts of women. The language is droll and the comedy dark -- Fraser parodies the racism and superiority of the ruling class abroad, as Flashman is not only knighted but given the Victoria Cross even though, by the character's own admission, his heroism is strictly limited to surviving, even at the expense of others. We started with Flashman and the Dragon, where Flashy starts in Singapore and makes his way to Beijing at the head of General Hope Grant's army, eventually becoming the barbarian man-toy of the emperor's first concubine. With a keen eye to history and detail, swashes are buckled, buckles swashed, and a capital time had by all. Quite.

SFist Jeremy takes his service journalism quite seriously! Take a look at his list:

Vacation Books:
The Coffee Trader by David Liss. A Jewish commodities trader in the 1500s becomes embroiled in a scheme involving the emergence of a relatively new (or at least unpopular) commodity(coffee!) when he experiences the power of a caffeine rush.

The Prestige, by Christopher Priest. Stage magicians duel over the decades with a twist.

Any book by Tony Bourdain, whether his non-fiction (Kitchen Confidential, A Cook's Tour) or his fiction (Bone in the Throat, Gone Bamboo). He says it simply and entertainingly with style.

9 Stories -- J.D. Salinger; Pat Hobby Stories -- F.Scott Fitzgerald. Two of the greatest American authors, but stories short enough to fit into the often chaotic schedule of a vacation. 9 Stories is a bit heavier; Pat Hobby sort of darkly comedic.

SFist Krissy recommends Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. "Yes, it's a "time-travel romance," and I was turned off by that description at first too. But when my best friend, a lover of great literature, recommended it to me I reluctantly picked it up, mainly to prove that she was crazy to be obsessed with the book. Of course I got totally sucked in. Gabaldon is a phenomenal writer, bringing 16th century Scotland to life in great detail, dragging you along on a series of adventures, causing you to fall for her characters. It's fast-paced, escapist, easy to pick up where you left off and hard to put down. The best part -- it's just the first book in a series."

SFist Mary-Lynn notes that "the choice of a holiday book or a travelling companion book is fraught with danger. On the one hand, you want to travel lightly so you feel obligated to restrict yourself to an economy of reading materials - those you feel you really will tackle. On the other hand - who knows what kind of mood you might be in? And, worse, what if you take along a book you've been anxious to read and it turns out well and the book is good and you want to keep it for re-reading later - well then you have to truck it home again! So more and more I find myself travelling with a stack of magazines and a crap paperback by Jeffrey Deaver or some such writer that I can be assured of enjoying because I've not had to engage more than a minimum of brain cells and feel no sadness over abandoning in the back pocket of seat 27A. However, back in the day, I used to haul around real reading material (mostly, sad to admit, because I worried what other people might think of my choices and couldn't bear to be seen with real trash. As you age, you start to have no shame it seems). So what I can recommend as both a fun read and something you won't be embarassed to haul out of your carry-on is something by Stephen Fry. Particularly, I remember sitting in at O'Hare laughing myself senseless at his autobiography Moab is my Washpot. I love Fry desperately and can also recommend his novels The Hippopotamus and The Liar (not so much a fan of Making History). His collection of essays and articles, Paperweight, is excellent for travel as you can just read a few pages, nap, watch the inflight movie, and then go on to the next article. If you do pick up Moab, I dare you not to jump immediately to his mini-rant on homophobes and buggery on page 210. In the afterword, he teases us with the possibility of a set of memoirs at some later time. God, I hope so. And, hey, bonus - I just found a dollar tucked inside!"

Photo credit to The Repertory Actors Theatre