Relatively skimpy list of books to read while wallowing in melancholy

So, it seems that people dear to my heart are feeling nostalgic and blue... I never have any good advice, but what _I_ always do is just wallow and let the emotion sweep over me. Books are my one (one? who am I kidding) selfish pleasure to extend the melancholy and lift it to quite another level, so I thought a list of books would be an appropriate offering. Then I remembered that my library is en route and my memory is horrific, so the list will be very short, and inaccurate, too. (my version of an annotated bibliography:)

"La tregua " (Benedetti) amazing and crushing and metaphorical for all that is wrong with this world and aging alone... also short and probably available in English translation for those who don't read Spanish.

"Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" (fuck me if I can remember the author's name...) but the ache for what has been lost and the miracle of what has been gained,needless to say, it's well worth it.

"Ten Thousand Lovers" (I promised myself that I would remember the name of the author - she is an Israeli living in Canada, damn, and it was a library book...) This book actually moved me to tears on several occasions, and it shed a very interesting light on the Israel/Palestine situation, while never failing to leave me wanting to be in bed with the main characters.

"The Wings of the Angel" (maybe this is the title - something to that effect - by Nancy Huston) I read the English translation from the original French, but it was the author's own translation (and she is a native English speaker) for whatever that is worth. Unbelievably beautiful and eloquent, and fraught with angst relating to the Algerian "situation" in Paris of the 60's.

"Birds of America" (ok, not a novel, perhaps better, book of short stories by Lorrie Moore) Too many different things to outline, just read it...or don't.

"The Good Terrorist" ( Dorris Lessing) Well it has been forever and a day since I read this, but if my memory serves me this is the right one (or was it "Memoirs of a Survivor"?) it reminds me of why I continue to get up every day, and actually hope to make some bit of unmeasureable difference in the world. (and why I am not truly an activist)

"The Sparrow" (shit. can't remember either HA! I remembered, Mary Doria Russell) Science fiction, mixed with religion and the discovery of sentient life on another planet. I connected with the chaste and longing-to-be-not-so priest, a linguist and a humanist who ultimately... well why tell y'all the ending?

"Singer from the Sea" (Sherri S. Teppen) Also science fiction and decidedly not my genre of choice, but meriting recognition for its posture on eco-feminism and the renewing earth force (ok - this one should be for whenever anyone is ready to wade back out of the melancholy, when ready to feel angry again)

"...(something) blue...(something)" (I am awful - it's by the woman who wrote "The girl with the Pearl Earring" (This one too! - Tracy Chevalier)but actually much better in my opinion) I liked the unravelling of the protagonist and the setting in the French countryside (maybe only because I have never been and the construction of it was the attraction - but the small-town gossip reminded me of my time in Miramar, always fearing the old ladies reports back on me and at the same time thumbing my nose at them)

"Good Harbor" -( Ann Diamant) After reading "The Red Tent" and wanting to be Dinah in her moment of incineration, I borrowed this - nothing alike at all - but somehow this is more suited to melancholy and the questioning of quotidienne existence, the search for pleasure or change or both. (It is also set in one of my very favorite beach towns on Cape Ann)


and for good measure...

"Under the Skin" (Michel Faber) This was rescued from the free pile in Isla Vista upon arrival in SB, and perhaps for no other reason than that it makes the short-list. But, the loneliness and isolation of Isserley matched my own...


- Here's to the escapists in all of us... (now drink)