Middlemarch: I am still plugging along, and still completely entranced by this novel. The story of "three love problems" is more than halfway done, I am currently enmeshed in the painful destruction of Rosamund and Lydgate. I still think this is the best English novel I have ever read.
Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith: I suppose there should be a qualifier that I have some hero worship going on with Ms. Smith, and I loved this book of rather ecletic essays even more than her novels. It doesn't hurt that the first essay is about Middlemarch, and in a later essay she states "Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the only t.v. show I have ever truly loved." My absolute favorite essay is a discussion of E.M. Forester and a celebration of a non-intellectual love of literature.
Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon. This is another collection of essays, many of which have been printed elsewhere. While Smith's essays jump through pop culture and academia, Chabon focuses on family and parenthood. I especially liked his defense of being an amateur; whether in parenthood or life.
Where Men Win Glory: The Pat Tilman Story by Jon Krakauer. I am listening to this book to and from work rather than reading it, but it still counts. Krakauer again uses his journalism skills to recreate a riveting, needless tragedy; the parallel stories of Pat Tilman and America's war on terror.
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt. I am a complete sucker for tales of large, bohemian families, and was immediately drawn into the magical world of the Wellwoods that provides the framework for this novel. Unfortunately, the second half of the book is the horrible consequences of the Wellwoods and their liberal friends inability, or incapacity to protect their children. I still have a ways to go before I am done, but this is a very engrossing novel.
When Everything Changed by Gail Collins. As a feminist, I am always a little mystified by a reluctance to admit how much better the lives of almost all American women have gotten during the last forty years. This is a journalist's detailed history of exactly what has changed from 1960 to 2010 for women in America; it is very straightforward and fascinating read.
