though i'm very far from having read all of even Trollope's major novels I think the Eustace Diamonds are second best so far, and Lucinda is my favorite character in it.
Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth by A. O. Scott (2016), a better book than I thought it was going to be. While generally concerned with the sloppiness of most internet "criticism" and "reviewing," Scott is committed to the idea that criticism is NOT best left exclusively to the professionals. The chapter "How To Be Wrong" is especially interesting. It could be read as self-serving, but whatevs.
The Europeans: A Sketch - Henry James Far from James's best, but he certainly knows how to turn a phrase: "His collegiate peccadilloes had aroused a domestic murmur as disagreeable to the young man as the creaking of his boots would have been to a house-breaker."
A House of My Own: Stories from My Life by Sandra Cisneros.Non fiction pieces, mostly autobiographical, some bits of lit crit and appreciation of writers who've influenced her.
a history of chicago published in france in 2013 (though some chapters were originally written in english for academic periodicals). the advantage of such a work is that since it's aimed at a french public it doesn't require any particular background to digest despite being a very serious and scholarly work. it also benefits from that regard lointain, the "outside look" which can be very useful in the social sciences. the authors are not just anybody: Andrew Diamond is an american professor at the Sorbonne. Pap Ndiaye is a Franco-senegalese professor at Sciences-Po. both are researchers at CERI, CNRS, EHESS... it would probably be impossible to find two men in france better qualified to harness themselves to the subject. the two have crossed destinies - one a white american of whose personal biography i have no information but who has specialized in race relations since his undergraduate days, the other a mixed-race frenchman who grew up in an entirely white (his father left when he was three) and very privileged environment and only later in life took stock of his négritude (but one african and not afro-american). the book, as one might expect from such authors, puts large but probably not undue emphasis on the black experience in chicago. but their backgrounds also serve them well in examining the importance of german, irish, polish, lithuanian, italian and latino immigrations without which there is no possibility of understanding chicago.
Walking Home: A Poet's Journey by Simon Armitage, though I like the English subtitle better in the picture.. Armitage, an English poet and Huddersfield Town supporter walks the Pennine Way, giving poetry readings at various venues to pay for the trip. He's a damn funny writer. There's a sequel called Walking Away that, alas, doesn't seem to be published in the US yet.
Signing Their Lives Away -- Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese This book is written more as an almanac of the lives of the signers rather than with an over-arching narrative, but three things really jumped out at me. 1. The British must not have kept a copy of the Declaration because the Signers were not particularly hunted by them. A fair number of the Signers lost their farms and a couple lost their fortunes but this was mostly a by-product of the war, not of their signing. Those who lost farms, well, everyone in their town lost their farms when the British occupied, they weren't singled out for the most part. 2. Funny to read this in the time of anti-Washington, Donald Drumpf, tea party fervor, but these men were pretty much career politicians. They spent the colonial period in their respective legislatures or as governors, after the Revolution, they did the same, serving at the national level or as ambassadors, several became judges and/or had cabinet posts. Sarah Palin thought Paul Revere was a Founder, so she doesn't count, but I wonder if any other tea partiers have much of an understanding of the Founders. 3. The myth of Caesar Rodney is a relatively new creation. He was largely forgotten until the 1950s when the whole riding-to-Philadelphia story was exhumed. He did ride 80 miles through thunderstorms in one night (and that was one helluva feat) and he was sick, but he wasn't as close to dying as has been mythologized. He died in 1784... All in all, a fun read, and a good book for the nightstand.
Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea - Noah Andre Trudeau A well-done, day-by-day account. "The consequences of this march were felt all over this country. All acknowledged that when Savannah should be taken the road to Richmond was clear, and that the war was at an end." - W.T. Sherman
I think the only person I know who has actually read that one was the founding editor of The Henry James Review. Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities by James Turner. Interesting intellectual history (seriously, this could have been narcoleptically dull, but Turner is an exceptional writer) of language and textual studies from the Greeks to about 100 years ago.
18Q4 - Haruki Murakami Have to say I was a little disappointed with this. The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig - John Gimlette Part travel account, part history. Even though some of this is a little repetitive and unnecessary, overall it's pretty good.
The Strangers in the House by Georges Simenon (not in this edition, alas). Great sort-of thriller by the prolific Belgium-born French novelist. (I'm pretty sure 193 novels under his own name, and over 200 more under 18 pseudonyms, qualifies as "prolific.")
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. Pretty good writing, curious to see how he's going to pull it all together. Haven't seen the movie, not going to look into it until I finish to avoid spoilers.
Fun little book from the guys at Google Ventures on how to block out a single week and get some genuinely useful insight into your product or service. I'm already considering ways I might incorporate the elements over the course of a full semester. Fun continuation of Stieg Larsson's fantastic trilogy. Draws just enough on the originals without the author losing his unique voice. A moderately different spin on the characters and it worked for me. Looking forward to book 5.
Because I so enjoyed Ready Player One I wanted to give Ernest Cline's new book Armada a whirl. Not on par with his first book, but still enjoyable, Armada plays off of movies such as Last Star Fighter and the development of video games as part of a worldwide training program by the Earth Defense Alliance to get the average citizen ready to fight an alien invasion. This is book one of my "30 books in three months" reading goal. Too many 70 hour work weeks over the past several months to do much reading at all. And working 40 hours plus taking a couple of weeks off will be truly wonderful.
The Crossing - Michael Connelly I've read a bunch of Connelly's stuff. I'm 88 pages in. It moves along nicely.