Reading

Caesar and Christ by Will Durant

/ ★★★★★, History, Reading

★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

Volume III of the eleven-volume Story of Civilization by Will Durant. I knew so little about the rise and fall of Rome and the formation of Christianity before reading this. I feel so much more informed. My favorite so far!

There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.

A Perfect Spy by John le Carré

/ Reading, Spy-Detective

★★★★☆ | Spy-Detective | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

A long, meandering, indulgent spy novel by an author whose prose is typically tight as a drum.  This novel felt intimate and autobiographical, as if Le Carre were explaining the abuses he endured as a child through a novel.  It wasn’t what I expected, which is OK.  I’m not sure I would consider this one of his best novels.  3.5 stars?

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

/ Horror, Reading

★★★☆☆ | Horror | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

Continuing my quest to read all of the books by Stephen King. I listened to this one to start and then finished it on Kindle. We follow the story of a lost nine-year-old through the forests of Maine and New Hampshire over the course of a week, using the innings of a baseball game as chapter markers.  Trisha McFarland is a diehard Red Sox fan and closer Tom Gordon is her favorite player.  You can tell King is going through a baseball phase as he uses this story to share is love for the game though this precocious little girl.

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I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore

/ Literary Fiction, Reading

★★☆☆☆ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

What to make of this confusing, author-indulgent, stream-of-continual-banter-and-bullshit book? Not much.

There are two stories that intersect in the most obscure ways: grief, longing for loved ones, perhaps a connection to the conspiracy beliefs of our modern day unreliable narrator? And what in the hell were we supposed to make of Lily, our bizarre and self-absorbed ghost?

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The Life of Greece by Will Durant

/ ★★★★★, History, Reading

★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I paused reading this history to read The Odyssey by Homer to give me a better insight to that classic’s role in Greek history.

My mind seems most interested in philosophy these days, so my notes and highlights below tend to center on that area of the book vs. historical events, of which there were many.

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The Deep Blue Good-by by John D MacDonald

/ Reading, Spy-Detective

★★★★☆ | Spy-Detective | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

My first John D. MacDonald novel–this one with his famous protagonist Travis McGee. I liked the Florida boat setting and MacDonald’s frequent use of sharing his opinions on excess consumerism, “normal” 9 – 5 living, and the vagaries of human nature. The writing about women is so dated, but this was written in 1964. 

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