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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A good classic (Not Great though, as the name implied). Liked the strong poetic strain in Fitzgerald's age old tale of spurned lover turning criminal to get rich overnight.
 
I Prefer the Sunrise by Anna Rae Aberle.

First novel, a romance, worth the read. All's well that ends well, and it does.
On Kindle.
 
- Hermann Buhl ou l'invention de l'alpinisme moderne - A biography about one of the greatest mountain climbers from Innsbruck narrated through excerpts from his climbing diaries 'Carnets de Courses ' . It starts with his earliest climbs in Karwendel ( sometimes he climbs in solo ) toward his adventures in the Western Alps ( also some climbs in solo) and including besides, the conquest of Nanga Parbat and Broad Peak . Actually, in this book one gets to read Buhl's story in his own words and his emotions ... :star4:
 
Yan Lianke, Serve The People!. Supposedly banned by Chinese authorities, which in a way isn't that surprising considering that this story of the love affair between a loyal Maoist soldier and a loyal Maoist commander's wife is both relatively sexually frank and politically free-spoken. Unlikely to make anyone throw off their shackles, though, it's too much satire to be a successful romance and too much cookie-cutter romance to be a successful satire (at least to someone who wasn't raised to treat Maoist dogma as scripture). Some truly horrid sections of purple prose, where Yan squeezes at least three similes into every sentence, some really quite neat passages... Eh. Nothing special. :star3:, and not a very strong one.
 
Eden Found by Mars Cronin and Juno Priest. (Kindle)
Thrills, murder, mayhem -- and some new-age theology -- in the search for mid-east scrolls that purportedly go back to the Beginning. The ending not exactly what one would expect.
 
Rasselas by Samuel Johnson. His only novel, a morality tale describing Prince Rasselas's travels in search of the happy life, interspersed liberally with the renowned author's own observations on the topic.
 
A few I recently finished:
1. Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov (he wanted to name the book 'Speak, Mnemosyne', which I thought was cooler than 'Memory', but what can you do?). 3 stars, mainly on the strength that he doesn't seem to be able to write a simple sentence.
2. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh. Not so recently finished, but I wanted to join in...! 2 stars - I thought it stunk.
3. The Magician Kings, Lev Grossman. more up my alley, but this stunk too, with a stink to bad it corrupted my vision for days. 1 star.
 
Emile Zola, Thérèse Raquin. Honestly, not that impressed; I can definitely see its merits, both in the psychological ideas it examines and in the form the narrative takes, but it hasn't aged well - Poe did the "murderer consumed by guilt" plot twice as well in a few dozen pages as Zola does in 180 (and Dostoevsky far, far better in much more), there's far too much tedious detail that just repeats and rehashes what's already been established... Part of that can probably be blamed on the fact that I read an old 19th century translation which made it sound a lot hokier than it probably does to native readers. :star3:
 
Thanks for the Raquin review. It has been kicking around here for decades unread, now probably headed toward scores.
 
Just Finished: The Imperial Cruise by James Bradley. Horace Greeley's" Go west, young man "takes on a new meaning in this eye-opening non-fiction book.
 
Horacio Castellanos Moya, Decay

Odd little novel in three parts - one dialogue, one collection of letters, one testimony - outlining the history of a powerful family in Honduras and El Salvador around the time of the 1969 "Football War" and afterwards, with focus less on the politics (at least that anyone admits) and more on the cracking bonds of family. A very quick read, but not nearly as engrossing as Senselessness - it feels like there's a fascinating story here, but we're only getting glimpses of it. :star3:

Naguib Mahfouz, Akhenaten: Dweller In Truth

My first Mahfouz is a tricky, Rashomon-type little novel. Liked it, though it feels like he could have done more with it. :star3: +
 
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