IslandMix

During the summer I slacked off on my one book a week routine so I am back on and here is a description of the three I just bought on amazon.com:

Miguel Street by V.S. Naipual
Miguel Street is a semi-autobiographical book by V. S. Naipaul set in wartime Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. It presents a series of separate episodes of childhood, all happening in the same place of Miguel Street. The book presents a number of remarkable, idiosyncratic characters, including Mr. Popo, the carpenter who never finishes making anything and is always working on the thing without a name; the poet B. Wordsworth who is working on the greatest poem ever written but has never written past the first line; and Man-Man, the mad man who becomes a prophet. The book is the story of great ambitions that never went anywhere. Only the narrator manages to escape from Miguel Street and leave Trinidad, with the hope of making something of himself.

A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
A House for Mr Biswas is a 1961 novel by V. S. Naipaul, significant as Naipaul's first work to achieve acclaim worldwide. It is the story of Mr Mohun Biswas, an Indo-Trinidadian who continually strives for success and mostly fails, who marries into the Tulsi family only to find himself dominated by it, and who finally sets the goal of owning his own house. Drawing some elements from the life of Naipaul's father, the work is primarily a sharply-drawn look at life in a fledgling postcolonial world.

The novel was later adapted as a stage musical, with compositions by Monty Norman. One of the songs written for the play, "Good Sign, Bad Sign", was later rewritten as "The James Bond Theme", according to the documentary Inside Dr. No. A two-part radio dramatisation, featuring Rudolph Walker, Nitin Ganatra, Nina Wadia, and Angela Wynter ran on BBC Radio Four on March 26 and April 2, 2006.

The story begins in Haiti, on Mother's Day, when young Sophie discovers that she is about to leave the only home she has ever known with her Tante Atie in Croix-des-Rosets, Haiti, to go live with her mother in New York City. These early chapters in Haiti are lovely, subtly evoking the tender, painful relationship between the motherless child and the childless woman who feels honor bound to guard the natural mother's rights to the girl's affections above her own. Presented with a Mother's Day card, Tante Atie responds: "'It is for a mother, your mother.' She motioned me away with a wave of her hand. 'When it is Aunt's Day, you can make me one.'" Danticat also uses these pages to limn a vibrant portrait of life in Haiti from the cups of ginger tea and baskets of cassava bread served at community potlucks to the folk tales of a "people in Guinea who carry the sky on their heads."

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
With Sophie's transition from a fairly happy existence with her aunt and grandmother in rural Haiti to life in New York with a mother she has never seen, Danticat's roots as a short-story writer become more evident; "Breath, Eyes, Memory" begins to read more like a collection of connected stories than a seamlessly evolved novel. In a couple of short chapters, Sophie arrives in New York, meets her mother, makes the acquaintance of her mother's new boyfriend, Marc, and discovers that she was the product of a rape when her mother was a teenager in Haiti. The novel then jumps several years ahead to Sophie's graduation from high school and her infatuation with an older man who lives next door. Unfortunately, this is also the point in the novel where Danticat begins to lay her themes on with a trowel instead of a brush: Sophie's mother becomes obsessed with protecting her daughter's virginity, going so far as to administer physical "tests" on a regular basis--testing which leads eventually to a rift in their relationship and to Sophie's struggle with her own sexuality. Soon the litany of victimization is flying thick and fast: female genital mutilation, incest, rape, frigidity, breast cancer, and abortion are the issues that arise in the final third of the novel, eventually drowning both fine writing and perceptive characterization under a deluge of angst

I love 'Breath, Eyes, Memory' Actually, I love all of her books.

house for mr. biswas was KICKS

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I read House for Mr Biswas and Miguel Street years ago. Enjoyed both. Should probably check out your third pick when i get some time. I love good Caribbean novels.

I read the book yesterday and I really was expecting more from it. I don't really like books where the "secrets" are shared so easily.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the book alot. Alot of the themes touched way to close to home. I am going to check out more of Ms. Danticat's literature.