Shadow of the Winds - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Amazing book, shame we had to read the best book first. Also read by Zoe’s book club in Melbourne while she was away. We strongly advise everyone to read this - don’t want to spoil the plot but if you love books, you’ll love this.

White Gardenia - Belinda Alexandra
A nice girly realtionship book set in China and Russia. A bit wet in parts, but that’s romance for you. Entertaining read and the setting in China was great and really added to the story. (Andrew didn't read this one).

Blacktown - Shane Weaver
Amazing rags to riches biography set in Australia story. What’s really sad though is that the author died last year of cancer.

One hundred years of solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Zoe picked this one, as it’s a real travellers book and the author of Shadow of the Winds is a big fan of this South American author. Interesting style of writing, and I could see that this style has been copied many times since this was written way back in the 60s. Not Zoe's favourite book but not a waste of time all the same. (Andrew didn't read this one either).

An area of darkness - V.S. Naipaul
Set in India, once again this is another travellers favourite. It had some very precise takes on India but the style of writing and vocabulary used was quite complex, so it wasn’t an easy holiday read. But on the other hand you felt like you learned to understand and forgive India for it’s complex ways from the book.

The Rape of Nanking - Iris Chang
Much easier to read and a very shocking read, we both felt sick and a little uneasy about what the Japanese got up to in Manchuria after reading this. It made you think a lot about the way the Japanese refuse to admit their war crimes and it also makes you wonder what kind of psyche created these Japanese young men and made them into monsters. And worst of all is this psyche still present and could this happen again?! A very worthwhile read and a sad loss that the author committed suicide last year.

The girl in the picture - Denise Chong
Another wartime story this time an autobiography from the Vietnam War. It is written by the lady who was a little girl when a picture was taken of her running naked along a road after a napalm attack and made the front cover of Time. It is about what happened to that little girl before the attack and in the years after the attack up to her home in Canada. A very interesting insight into communist Vietnam after the war.

Little Drummer Girl - John Le Carre
Andrew picked this up in a free swap. We're glad we didn’t pay for it. Maybe his books translate better to the screen. We’d never read any of his books, just seen the films. This book was terrible, right from the beginning there was no sense of character in a character driven plot. It was a painful read. Don’t think we’re spy/thriller genre book fans.

Pompeii - Robert Harris
We both love historical fiction and this was a really easy, fun read. Characters were strong and it would make a great movie, the pace is great. Of course you know what’s going to happen in the end but this doesn’t ruin the story. We wish it was a longer book as it seemed we finished it all too quick.

1421 - Gavin Morris
This was Andrew’s choice for his birthday present. A very heavy read but very informative. The gist of the book is that the author can prove that the Chinese circumnavigated the globe between 1421 and 1422, before anyone else, thus taking the credit away from Drake, Columbus and Cook. Groundbreaking stuff, but it’s too heavy for general non-fiction and too light in its arguments for academic level.

Sickened - Julie Gregory
This book is an autobiography about a girls who’s Mum has Munchausen’s by Proxy and insists that the girl (the author) is ill all the time and requires often invasive and unecessary treatment. This inevitably has deep psychological effects on the girl (the author). The story is so compelling that you often feel frustrated for the author knowing that what the mum is doing is so wrong and it also highlights the difficult patient issues that doctors face from day-to-day. An eye-opening read.

No Logo - Naomi Klein
We had both wanted to read this book for a number of years. Zoe thinks we left it too late as the arguments had already dated in the five years since it was published and she found herself not really agreeing with the author on a number of occassions. It was well-written but very one-sided and she found some of the arguments had a weak base. A disappointing read, Zoe had such high hopes for it.

The Time Travellers Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
We had no expectations with this read but we were totally blown away. For a first time author this is explosive, fun writing. We loved every bit of the book and never wanted to end, it took us to places so far away, we even both dreamed about the characters in the book, we took to them that well. Please write another book Audrey - we love you!

First they killed my father - Loung Ung
Back to some serious travel reading. This one is based in Cambodia and is one little girls story of how her family were torn apart by the Khmer Rouge. We were just entering Cambodia at the time and it helped bundles in filling in the gaps of our knowledge about this very recent war. A very sad and heart rending tale, just right for our time in Cambodia.

The Killing Fields - Christopher Hudson
We didn’t get round to seeing the film before we left so we thought we’d try the book. After reading the book above on the same subject, it was still good and gave an older male viewpoint, so it was less emotional and dealt more with the politics of the outbreak of war. We’d still like to see the film. Out of the two books, "First they killed my father" is much more informative and give a better sense of the war as a whole and its affect on society.

Gecko tales - Carol Livingston
Another book on Cambodia, given to us by our friends Ronan and Harriet. This is quite different, as it is a journalists story of Cambodia immediately after the war in the 1990s, so it was interesting to see hows things had progressed (or not) in the last 15 years. It went into the politics of Cambodia quite deeply and helped it explain why we found it so expensive, why it was still so poor and corrupt. Much like "An area of darkness" did for us in India. It filled in the gaps of our knowledge of the country. A good book while travelling in Cambodia, don’t think it would mean so much if you were not in the country.