Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Herman Melville, Moby Dick. One of my very favorites and every time I've forgotten.

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote. When I read this as a kid, I read it as a straightforward comedic adventure story - I was alternately frustrated with/ amused by/ sorry for the poor knight and horrified/ amused /sympathetic toward Sancho. That's all still there, but after 20 more years loving novels, wow, everything else is there. The line from Quixote to Tristram Shandy continues straight through to every self-aware, playful book I've ever loved.

Martha Grimes, some older Jury/Plant mysteries

Martha Grimes, The Man with a Load of Mischief, Jerusalem Inn, I am the Only Running Footman. Grimes back when her RJ series was good. Man with a Load more so, Footman less so. Love Melrose, love Wiggins, love her comic relief - so much better than forced sadness. Although to be fair, when she tries, Grimes hits the melancholic notes with the best (The End of the Pier, Hotel Paradise).

George Eliot, Middlemarch

George Eliot, Middlemarch. I enjoyed this so much more than the first time. I have more sympathy for the constrained choices and maddening behaviors of the young women, probably because I no longer identify with them. I think that it tied up too neatly with happy endings for all honesty, but it does make for a satisfied glow at the finish.

James Joyce, Ulysses

James Joyce, Ulysses. A really great reading by John Lee with an accent you can chew on - I found I missed some aspects of the text by listening, but also gained some hilarity by listening to a speaker read the lines. Did I mention that it's funny? Don't let Joyce's reputation scare you -  slide along with with the words and be entertained.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead. So lovely that I read it with my heart in my mouth, afraid to breathe. Exactly how I feel about the beauty of this world.

Jane Austen, Emma

Jane Austen, Emma. Thought I'd give it another try, although I took such an intense dislike to Elizabeth Bennet when I was young that it leaked over to the rest of Austen. It's too bad, because she does write lovely novels. But Emma makes Elizabeth look like Marie Curie or Joan of Arc. And it's very hard to be interested in any of the lazy, stuck-up, country gentlefolk in this book. What a lot of totally useless people convinced of their own innate superiority and good breeding who do nothing but visit each other and eat food that other people make for them.

Technology

So I've been reading on my smartphone, substituting reading free ebooks for my old favorite vices of sudoku and crossword puzzles. I really enjoyed Secret Adversary (by Agatha Christie - a Tommy and Tuppence!) and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which I hadn't read in ages and had totally forgotten. But one of my favorite books, Notes from the Underground, was a little frustrating to read on a three-inch screen so I gave up and dug it off my bookshelf to finish. I think that phone reading is better suited for less complex reading or at least shorter sentences, as it's tough to focus when flipping the pages so frequently, something a bigger screen would help. I can't imagine how horrible it would be to read Henry James on a phone - it would take three screens per phrase.

If I could read in the bathtub with one, I might buy an eReader device of some sort (especially for magazines and journal articles - I print out way too many pdfs). But I think I am too attached to paper books to ever really change over. I like to lend books, to give them away, to browse through piles of them, to acquire them on curbs from dejected little heaps. I still remember plunking down my Christmas money to buy my first book on my own. It was a paperback copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and I read it 28 times in a row, memorized it, and eventually made a replacement cover for it out of gold foil and candy-wrappers.

Bernhard Schlink, The Reader

Bernhard Schlink, The Reader (translated by Carol Brown Janeway). I had forgotten that I had read this, but couldn't stop. It's a surprisingly subtle story. Unbridgeable chasms between individuals. Language, literacy, awareness, guilt.

More kid's books

Carol Matas and Perry Nodelman, More Minds. Good idea, not so great execution, still a fun little fantasy. Unremarkable. Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted. This was actually really cute. Didn't realize it was a retelling of the Cinderella story until 2/3 of the way through it. Always wondered why she was so docile. Good candidate for read out loud. Robert C. O'brien, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Still just as good as the first time. I've never thought about rats the same way since I first read this. I always imagine them making intricate machines in their vast underground tunnels and only appearing at subway stops and alleys on their way to somewhere else. It is odd to read it now when I view lab animals as convenient models for things. Now I worry about such poor study design, and all that lost data is tragic (although I'm still on these rats' side, of course). I'll probably never be able to do animal work - too many children's books and an overactive imagination.

Comfort Food

I wish I could say I've given up reading for pleasure to focus on Human Organ Systems. Unfortunately, I've just reverted to binging on sweets. Full disclosure in the interests of honesty: three old Martha Grimes mysteries (The Man With a Load of Mischief, The Anodyne Necklace, and The Old Contemptibles). Michael Crichton's Sphere (very mediocre). J. K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, and Jane Yolen's Wizard's Hall (both darling). Just think of how much knowledge I could have been gaining. So it goes.

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace. (The Peavar and Volokhonsky translation.) I'm not sure what to say about this. I hadn't read it in about 12 years and I have to say it was a lot of fun - it's a big juicy novel. I enjoyed the characters and even the history(diatribes)- in fact I thought the background was the most fun. I had more appreciation for prince Andrei this time, and less sympathy for Pierre. But by the end I was enraged at so many things. The ending- the relationships of Natasha and Pierre, Marya and Nikolai, were so disappointing. Even more than in Anna Karenina, I felt that the women weren't actually people. And Tostoy's attitudes about marriage were infuriating, even in context of the time. Not that the center of a marriage is creating a family, but the relationship between husband and wife is so lopsided. I don't like the implication that the wife is almost solely a vessel for the reflection and refinement of her husband's personality. Natasha was especially obnoxious, and while Marya had potential to be an interesting person, it didn't happen. I want to be clear, I liked the happy domestic scenes (and the breastfeeding), it was Tolstoy's condescending and limiting views on the rest of the role of a wife that was infuriating. The scene with Marya's diary almost made me vomit. But I guess that I've changed a lot in a dozen years, maybe I'm less able to accept things uncritically, or maybe I just have another perspective on life.

After posting, I realized that I had better explain, because I know it's the family tradition to love Pierre. So here's why Pierre is basically worthless. Yes he has a good heart. I like him, especially when he's drinking, feels bad, and won't get off the couch. But his role as an intellectual is a monumental waste. He's a follower - a guru-hopper - he doesn't have any substance. His feelings are good, but he never develops any discipline. What he really needs is a regular job - all that money is bad for him. He's really only any good when he has something to do. At the very least, he needs a counterpoint, a challenge; but Andrei's dead, and Natasha is quite the opposite.

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth. Blah. Nothing worse than returning to something you loved as an eight-year-old and being disappointed. (Is it ironic that it seemed BORING and POINTLESS?) It reminded me of an eviscerated and very dull The Pilgrim's Progress.

Malory, The Morte Darthur

Malory, The Morte Darthur. Oh the battles! And the courtliness and cruelty! And the High Language.... If I only had occasion to say something like: "Madam, I pray you that ye be not displeased with me for I will take the adventure that God will send me" or "Arise, for shame, and perform this battle with me to the utterance!"

P.D. James, The Murder Room

P.D. James, The Murder Room. I don't know why it is, but I never can remember if I've read these before until I'm fifty or so pages in, and then it's too late to stop. P.D. James is a pleasure to read, but her stories don't grab me. Neither does Adam Dalgliesh, that cool cucumber. Odd, because he's so much a cousin of Peter Wimsey, who does (and Richard Jury, who sometimes does). There's something about all of her characters I don't connect with, except in the most minor ways. But rereading her is like rewatching one of those movies you always forget if you finished - fun and restful- and you can even let yourself be a little surprised at the end.

Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy.

Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy. Shut up! I've been stressed out, ok? This is my Star Wars. I love the first one (Foundation), but I always hated the Mule, so I don't like the last two as much. Darn psychohistorians, anyway - I always thought it was a way to sneak predestination arguments into science fiction.