Required Reading/Reflected Intellection

In advance of my trip to the Middle East (tick tock), my spiritual and literary sensei suggests:

Just stick with Naipaul and Kapucinski. Not their attitudes, which you can take or leave, but the way they deal with historical space, arranging it and locating individuals within it.

Ed.'s Note: I've read and suggest Kapucinski's The Soccer War to anyone willing. I asked him more about which Naipaul to read and here's what he added:

I think The Middle Passage, Area of Darkness, The Return of Eva Peron, and Among the Believers are all major travel books, though terribly dark and insulting to their subjects. Among the Believers might be the most relevant, but you don't necessarily need his ideologies or antipathies. There's a smaller piece in Finding the Center, if you can hold of it, called The Crocodiles of Yammosukro, which is really excellent, and kind of mild for him.

For those TFR readers, keeping track at home, I unearthed my copy of The Middle Passage and am picking up Among the Believers today; if you'd like to be participate (or identify TFR themes of the summer), I suggest you trust the sensei who never steers me wrong.