Bookshelf 2

Currently reading: The Untouchable by John Banville
-- Picked this up randomly at Emerson Books, Antique Maps and Prints in Portland, Maine. Great little bookstore where my boyfriend bought a 10-volume miniature set of Edgar Allen Poe's complete works.
-- Realized that my knowledge of Irish literature is essentially limited to Joyce, Yeats, Heaney and Synge. And Wilde, if you want to be very technical. Clearly unacceptable.
-- Have become fascinated by the stories of the Cambridge spies after reading Graham Greene's collected letters.

Bookshelf 1

Currently reading: Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan
-- Recommended by my International Human Rights professor. Apparently Ms. MacMillan is the granddaughter of David Lloyd George.

Just finished: The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie
-- Entertaining, quick read. Too clever by half for its own good, but I found it more entertaining if I imagined Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie reading it aloud.
-- The one aspect that really comes through and sticks is Laurie's love of motorcycles.

Just finished: Guerrillas by V.S. Naipaul
-- Cannot decide if this novel is better or worse than The Sheltering Sky, by Bowles.
-- Point in favor: the "exotic charmer" is given a voice, and something of a presence.
-- Point against: impossible to tell when, if ever, the seducer is speaking truth as opposed to fantasy.

Just finished: Inner Workings by J.M. Coetzee
-- Wonderful essay on Sebald, and another good one on Roth. Every time I read a book of collected literary essays, I come away with a fresh list of books to read (or re-read).