A few good books I've read recently

Cereus Blooms by Night, Shani Mootoo (Granta, 1996)
An old woman is brought bound to a stretcher to an Almshouse on a fictional Caribbean island. The only person who will go near her is a gay nurse, himself ostracised from the community. Through his care he pieces together her story and his life changes at the same time. A beautiful and inspirational book.

The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss (Penguin, 2006)
A beautiful and inspirational book again, though probably less relevant to advocacy. While the old woman in Mootoo's book needs to be coaxed back to life, the old men in Krauss's are vividly alive, as are the other characters. One of the best books I've read for a long time.

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho (HarperCollins, 1995 - orig. 1988)
A simple beautiful book about listening to and following your heart. Short enough that no one has an excuse not to read it.

Stick Out Your Tongue, by Ma Jian (Chatto & Windus, 2006 - orig. 1987)
I bought this after the January NAN meeting to read on my train journey home, and I was a little disappointed that I finished it before I even got to Kings X! On the other hand, this is a truly different voice, and the increasingly haunting dream imagery was more than enough justification for the purchase.

Memoir, by John McGahern (Faber, 2005)
Rooted in the landscape and people of northern Eire, this is a deeply affecting picture of a community which McGahern continued to give voice to all through his life in apparently one of the most important careers of contemporary Irish writing. Sadly he died of cancer last month, but I'll be reading more of his books.

The Possibility of an Island, by Michel Houellebecq (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005)
I was blown away when I read Atomised in 2001 and I've since read all of Houellebecq's books. The Possibility of an Island ended up being a bit heavy going for me, although maybe I just wasn't in the mood. It is still a very good book I think, and the reason he comes across as such a misanthropist seems to me to be the fact that he really loves the potential of people, only to be constantly disappointed... He seems to want to shock people out of their apathy: if you understand him you'll laugh your head off, otherwise prepare to be properly shocked and probably disgusted.