Just finished “The Marriage Plot” by Jeffrey Eugenides.  It was much better than I expected.  I read it in Kindle version –

The second chapter is draggy but the rest of them just sing along dealing with love, life, religion and Barthes.  This one is for the Bookies reading group – discussion starts in one week. (this one is categorized)

See Review:

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  Currently listening to Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke starring Hackberry Holland as sheriff of a small county on the Texas-Mexico border.  I’m trying to save it for walking and cleaning times so it might be awhile.  (This is in spite of the fact I have a new game to play while listening!)   Will Patton is narrating and so this is super delicious.

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  Received “A Visit From the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan  from Amazon by mail today –  I’m reading it in paperback because I understand that there is one very graphic chapter. This is just a choice read – it’s not been selected by a group … yet –  but it was the recipient of so many awards and I have heard some buzz.  I’m not sure how impressed I’ll be because I’ve not been a fan of Egan’s prior works but …

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The Prague Cemetery  by Umberto will be coming tomorrow.   I got it in hard cover as a pre-order because I didn’t know it would be available for Kindle   Oh well,  I have several of his others books in hard cover.   I’ve got some background for this book – It’s about the hoax and conspiracy behind “The Protocols of the Elders of  Zion,”  a concept that Dan Brown made famous via The Da Vinci Code  and I got curious about.  Then I got very upset with Brown for treating it as though it were a real situation.  The only thing real about the Protocols is  the anti-Semitic lie promulgated by the viscous and ignorant at the turn-of-the century and used against the Jews since then.

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Also coming,  – Byzantium by Judith Herrin which sounds good – This one is for the History group over at GoodReads.

“Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism–gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire’s millennium–long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium–what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today.”    http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8470.html

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And finally,  a hard cover edition of “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens – this time for History group > historical fiction over at GoodReads.  I’ve read this a couple times and have not particularly enjoyed it but the last time was better because I was finally able to overcome the serious dark aspect of the book.   Also,  I think having studied the French Revolution a bit has helped –  got me more interested.  But it’s not really any kind of a history – it’s more of a English response to the horror.   War and Peace was written 50 years after the Napoleonic Wars,  so too,  A Tale of Two Cities was written 50 years after the events.

I think that’s all for now although I’ve added a couple books to the wish lists at Amazon and Audible.