It’s been pouring rain since 7 30 this morning. I do mean POURING. Never in my life have I seen rain like this. Rain coming down so hard that I can’t see past the banana trees in the yard to the mountains at the other end of the valley.

This isn’t unusual weather for the rainy season, what is unusual is how long and hard it’s consistently rained all day. Normally, we’ll get a brief downpour lasting no more than 5 or 10 minutes. Once in a while, it might stretch to 20 minutes before tapering off to a measly drizzle, but today, it never really let up. There were points during the day when I was worried we might lose the roof.

When it rains like this, nothing gets done. Taxis can’t run on the terrible roads with inadequate or zero drainage, and schools are on recess until the pounding on the roofs stops. It can be so loud you have to shout to the person next to you, so loud that you can’t string a coherent thought together. The relentless roar just washes everything out of your head, and you find yourself searching for the simplest words, forgetting how to do the easiest tasks.

I’ve been marooned up at my house all day, doing research on branding agricultural products. And since the weather interrupts internet service, I’ve also made a serious dent in my latest library book.

“You DEVOUR books, ” my friend Patrick said incredulously. Its true. Depending on the book, and the amount of free time I have/seriousness of insomnia, I can go through a book a day. As I did Saturday. And yesterday. And probably today as well.

During pre- service training, our access to books was limited, as was free time, but since settling in here in Claremont, I’ve been steadily working my way through a massive pile of books from the Peace Corps office. Having finished with that, I marched down to town and joined the local library, where the selection is less than inspiring.

Jamaicans on the whole do not seem to be big readers. Most of the books I see in Jamaican homes (sadly not a common sight) are of the popular inspirational Christian variety. Murder mysteries, thrillers, books that have a fast-moving plot that don’t require alot of the reader are also very common.
The tiny library in town is full of these, not only because thats what Jamaicans read, but also what gets donated from charitable organizations abroad. These are the books that Americans buy in airports and hospital gift shops, read once, and then are relegated to a plastic bag to be donated later. Maeve Binchy, Tom Clancy, tons of romance novels. Also, several copies of “The Lord of The Rings”, probably bought around the time the movies came out.

My mom, after hearing me bemoan the lack of literary variety offered to round up donations of “good books”. Don’t bother, I told her, I’d probably be the only one who would read them. Most people seem to come to the library only to use the 30 minutes of free internet access anyway.

So I scrounge around for the few gems amidst the 70′s cold war espionage thrillers, and I was overjoyed to find the local section of West Indian novels and memoirs. Lots of good stuff there, especially since V S Naipal was from Trinidad. There’s also some great brain candy in the paperbacks. I have a serious weakness for Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt novels, and I’ve found three so far. Dick Francis is also well represented. I have yet to find any Robert B Parker, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

The librarians seem faintly amused that I’m in at least once a week, although they are not very friendly. I have a horrible suspicion that they have not become librarians out of a love of books, language and information, but simply because it is a good job- as happens with many professions here.

Fortunately, whenever I need a Jane Austin or Tolstoy fix (I LOVE Russian writers. Tolstoy in particular, though I am suspicious that a straight man could write so breathlessly of what his heroines wore to balls), I can go to Read-Print, a website that has hundreds of books written before the early 20th century online for your reading pleasure. And my wonderful, wonderful parents are getting me a Kindle for an early Christmas present.

In the meantime, I just kick back with a cup of tea, Dirk Pitt, and wait out the rain. Thanks to Roald Dahl for providing me with the title of this post. “The Reader of Books” is the first chapter of the book “Matilda”. And here is a list of all the books, to the best of my recollection, that I’ve read since coming to Jamaica.

Death of a Fool- Ngaio Marsh
Erik- Terry Pratchett
The Restaurant At the End of the Universe- Douglas Adams
Teatime for the Traditionally Built- Alexander M Smith
The Sunday Philosophy Club- A. M. Smith
Bone Crack- Dick Francis
The Outlaw Bible of American Literature- tons of people
The White Album- Joan Didion
Six different Babysitters Club books. Don’t judge me. I was desperate.
Men At Arms- Terry Pratchett
19 Minutes- Jodi Piccoult
The Amber Room- some British journalists
The Full Cuboard of Life- A.M. Smith
158 Lb Marraige- John Iriving
Thunderstruck- Erik Larson
Deep Six- Clive Cussler
Armed Madhouse- Greg Palast
A Dirty Job- Christopher Moore
French Lessons- Peter Mayle
The Pillars of the Earth- Ken Follet
Trojan Odessey- Clive Cussler
From Harvey River- Lorna Goodison
An Area of Darkness- VS Naipal
Odds Against- Dick Francis
Dragon- Clive Cussler
A Distant Mirror- Barbara Tuckman
The Mammoth Hunters- Jean M Aeul
A Perfect Storm- Sebastian Junger
Donnie Brasco- No Idea who wrote this and too lazy to look it up.
Atlantis Found- Clive Cussler
Across the Sabbath River- Hillel Halkin
To Sir, With Love- ER Braithewaite
The Crystal Cave- Mary Stewart
Raise the Titanic- Clive Cussler
The Broom of the System- David Foster Wallace
The Fellowship of the Ring- JRRT.
The Two Towers- JRRT
The Return of the King- JRRT
The Sonambulist- Jonathon Barnes
The Help- Kathryn Stockett
The Master- Colm Toibin
The Passage- Justin Cronin
The Art Theif- Noah Charney
Anna Karenina- Tolstoy
The Glass Castle- Jeannette Wells
Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen
Northangar Abbey- Jane Austen
Persuasion- Jane Austen
Fasting, Feasting- Anita Desai
The Lace Reader-Brunonia Barry
Wolf Hall- Hilary Mantel
Lords and Ladies- Terry Pratchett
The Murder Book- Jonathon Kellerman
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Played With Fire- S. Larsson
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest- S. Larsson
The Hobbit- JRR Tolkein
Waiting for the Barbarians- JM Coetzee
Survivor- Chuck Palaniuk
House of the Spirits- Isabelle Allende
Coal Black Horse- Robert Olmstead
Jewel- Brett Lott
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency- AM Smith
Gods Behaving Badly- Marie Phillips
The Notorios Dr August- Christopher Bram
The Truth- Terry Pratchett
The LAst Continent- Terry Pratchett
Thud!- Terry Pratchett
Say You’re One Of Them- Uwem Akpan
The Melancholy of Anatomy- Shelley Jackson
Dead Aid- Dambisa Moyo
The Death of Ivan Illych- Leo Tolstoy
Gravity’s Rainbow- Thomas Pynchon
Little Bee- Chris Cleeve
Kim- Rudyard Kipling
Room- Emma Donoghue
The White Tiger- Aravind Adiga
Tracks- Louise Erdrich
The Mists of Avalon- Marion Zimmer Bradley
Room- Emma Donague
Skippy Dies- Paul Murray
The Master and Margarita- Mikhail Bulgakov
Dr Zhivago- Boris Pasternak
Middlesex- Jeffery Eugenides
Monstrous Regiment- Terry Pratchet
Cutting For Stone- Abraham Verghese
True Tales of American Life-Paul Aster
East of Eden- John Steinbeck
Swimming Lessons-Rohinton Mistry
Banker- Dick Francis
Whip Hand-Dick Francis
Come to Grief- Dick Francis
White Teeth- Zadie Smith
As I Lay Dying- William Faulkner
Tinkers-Paul Harding
Michealangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling- Ross King
Sometimes a Great Notion- Ken Kesey
South of the Border, WEst of the Sun- Harukami Murakami
The Sotweed Factor- John Barth
Affinity- Sarah Waters
The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B
In the Garden of Beasts-Erik Larson
The Lost Symbol- Dan Brown
Middlemarch- George Elliot
Reading Lolita in Tehran
The Stranger- Camus
Fall on Your Knees- Anne Marie MacDonald
The Lacuna- Barbara Kingsolver
On Beauty- Zadie Smith
My Family and other Animals
The Hunger Games- Susanne Collins
The Dead Yard- Ian Thompson
Moo- Jane Smiley
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
The Tiger’s Wife- Tea Obreht
The People of the Book- Geraldine Brooks
Cleopatra: A Life- Stacy Schiff
Small Wonder- Barbara Kingsolver
The World to Come