I read "The Sheltering Sky" by Paul Bowles recently. Now I have a better understanding of that Police song "Tea in the Sahara," but that alone didn't make it worth the read.
A much BETTER book was JM Coetzee's "Elizabeth Costello," which I read in about two hours and found to be incredibly, astonishingly brilliant. I wasn't on board with Coetzee before--I thought "Disgrace" was pretty awful, actually--but "Elizabeth Costello" is amazing. Highly recommended to all of you vegetarian types, too!
Now I'm reading Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," which is great if you have patience for satirizing and moralizing simultaneously.