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What are your favorites? I am looking for a new book to read about Caribbean Life or Caribbean Travel - or island travel in general, not necessarily Caribbean - can be South Pacific, Seychelles, Greek Isles....
Those that I have read and really enjoyed:
Desiring Paradise - True Story of a couple who moved to STJ - any STJ lovers may really love this because it is soooo about STJ life. An easy beach read.
An Embarrassment of Mangoes - about a couple who bought a sailboat and sailed the Caribbean for two years - I REALLY loved this book, touched on lots of islands. Highly recommend!
A Trip to the Beach - the true story behind "Blanchard's" restaurant on Anguilla and how the couple opened it and moved to Anguilla. Another one I really enjoyed.
Of course, the old favorite - Don't Stop the Carnival.
I've read "Life in the Left Lane", which is more of a guide than a story...but has some story behind it- but good and light reading.
"Feet, Fins and 4WD", is useful on STJ.
Unrelated to the VI, "Blown Away" is a true account of a family sailing the South Pacific for 6 years. I really enjoyed it.
Okay...what else is out there?
How about "Adrift on a Sea of Blue" by Peter Muilenberg or "Glassbottom Days" by Willie Wilson?
Hey Blu,
I've already bought "A Salty Piece of Land" by Jimmy Buffett to read while on STJ in March. I'm looking forward to it... the read, not the vacation... no wait... I mean... oh you know! LOL
Anyway... From Publishers Weekly
Buffett's first new novel in a decade, a groovily laid-back, ramblingly anecdotal, sun-soaked bit of Caribbean escapism that his Parrothead fans will relish like another chorus of "Margaritaville." Tully Mars, a 40-ish ex-cowboy turned guide at the Lost Boys Fishing Lodge island resort, undertakes various sojourns around the Caribbean, to Mayan ruins, a jungle safari camp, a spring break bacchanal in Belize. Nothing much happens—"That day, we spent the rest of the daylight hours on the shallow waters of Ascension Bay and the lagoon amid incredible natural beauty unlike anything I had ever seen before" is about as busy as it gets—except that Tully meets a parade of colorful natives and expatriates, including a Mayan medicine man, a British commando and a 103-year-old woman who skippers a sailing schooner and wants to restore a historic lighthouse on Cayo Loco, the titular island. The characters are all hospitality entrepreneurs, and Buffett (A Pirate Looks at Fifty) also gives them shaggy-dog anecdotes, tidbits of Caribbean history and desultory life lessons to relate. There are glimmers of plot—bounty hunters, loves lost and found—but mostly Tully has little to do but savor the accommodations and atmospherics of tourist locales while the sea washes him with waves of love, happiness and maturity as infallibly as the tides. This book is as cheery and tropical as Buffet's music.
crickett : )
After reading this I just picked up Desiring Paradise. Now do I wait until I'm there in October to read it or when it comes, to get myself ready? 🙂
mary beth
For light beach reading there are the murder mystery novels of Kate Grilley, a St. Croix native. The books,which are very similar to "Murder She Wrote" (minus the guest stars) are:
Death Dances to a Reggae Beat
Death Rides an Ill Wind
Death Lurks in the Bush
All three are available as paperback and are fast reads - I swear I know some of the people in them!
