I'm leaving for Mexico City this week - what should I read? I don't want anything too mindless - maybe something life-affirming? Related to Spanish and/or Mexican culture?

It's not exactly life affirming, but you can take a look at stuff by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Well, maybe it is life affirming, in a roundabout sort of way.

One Hundred Years of Solitude would be the one to read. Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.

Here is an excerpt from the New York Times book review:
"One Hundred Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race... Mr. Garcia Marquez has done nothing less than to create in the reader a sense of all that is profound, meaningful, and meaningless in life."

He also has a bunch of compilations of short stories, but it sounds to me like this book is for you.

I was just reading the bio in the back of the book and it seems Garcia Marquez is in Mexico City right now. Unless of course he's died in the last two years.

We're on the same wavelength, I think. I've already read 100 years, Love...Cholera, The General...Labyrinth, In Evil Hour, Collected Stories, etc.

Other ideas?

The only thing that comes to mind immediately is Umberto Eco. But only because I read Marquez and Eco around the same time and they are both translated authors. I reccomend the books (Foucault's Pendulum, The Name of the Rose) but they don't fit your requirements as well as Marquez did.

You should look up 100 years on Amazon, click on what other people bought, and look at the authors list. Carlos Fuentes?

For something relatively entertaining in a funny (but very good) way, you could read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I read that while traveling and enjoyed it.

One thing that also sticks in my mind as something else I read while traveling is Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. Of course, I travel in the Middle East, so it was more appropriate.

Ha, read those too. Thanks!

Ok! Then I'll have to suggest you read a non-fiction book about the Maya or Aztecs.

If you're looking for something with a mexican 'taste', I would recomend Bless Me Ultima by Rudolph Anaya.

From Amazon:

Editorial Reviews
Book Description
This fascinating and mystical novel follows the sociopsychological maturation of a Chicano boy in New Mexico in the 1940s. A story pitting good against evil, Catholic beliefs against the "old ways," and education against the gift of intuition, it ends with acceptance and new life challenges.

-Steve

You could try The Beach by Alex Garland. It's got a pretty good plot, easy to understand, and isn't too long, either. Don't let the fact that Leonardo DiCrappio starred in the movie adaption scare you off.

How about some Jack Kerouac? On The Road is always my favorite for travel.

I'm reading Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck right now, it's a good road book.