I’ve owned three copies of this book. It’s great for browsing. And for when you think the world is going to hell. It’s always been going to hell!
I’m almost finished with Reaper’s Gale and Dracula and am reading one story at a time from Just After Sunset. Not sure what’s next. I’m ready for something “normal”.
Finished Sinclair Lewis’ Arrowsmith while in the hospital. An excellent book. That makes three in a row of his I’ve read, after Main Street (1920) and Babitt (1922). Only the pleasure of reading them for the first time prevents me from kicking myself for not reading Lewis before.
Arrowsmith (1925) won Lewis a Pulitzer prize. He went on to become the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1930. The 1920s was his decade. This book is about the highly idealistic Dr. Martin Arrowsmith, who wants to pursue science for the sake of science as a researcher, but he’s constantly battling a world full of Babbitts (if you’ve read that book, you’ll understand the type) who want him to work for more “practical” ends, be it to make money as a country doctor or find a marketable use for his findings. There is a heroic character in the form of a black man, a doctor on the West Indies isle of St. Hubert named Oliver Marchand, where Arrowsmith has gone to test his new drug on a bubonic-plague epidemic. At that time, it was highly unusual for a black man to be a professional in a book written by a white man. Dr. Marchand is not only a professional, but also a highly competent one, so much so that Arrowsmith is forced to reassess his ideas abut race. He grumbles to himself: “I never thought a Negro doctor – I wish people wouldn’t keep showing me how much I don’t know.”
Much of the early part of the book is set in or near the city of Zenith, the capital of the fictional Midwestern state of Winnemac. Zenith was the locale for Babbitt, and two characters from that book make cameo appearances, including businessman George F. Babbitt himself, albeit a younger Babbitt, since in Arrowsmith he appears in 1908, while the book Babbitt opens in 1920.
Still on my Sinclair Lewis kick, next up will be his Elmer Gantry (1927).
I am sitting at work, getting paid double time and a half to read The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, as recommended to me in the “Books That Should Be Movies” thread.
I’m in love. I cannot put it down; I’m pressing on and on for more information, all the while terrified that at some point I will reach the end of the book and then I will be off to hunt for that next book that captures me.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. You guys have proven that you know your literature 
I’m re-reading A Game of Thrones but will put it aside when Serena by Ron Rash (where’s a pen name when you need one?) arrives. It was on a short list of recommended reading in today’s NY Times. The plot sounds a bit operatic but I think I’ll like it.
A Thread of Grace by the same author. I liked it better than The Sparrow, actually.
I will definitely be picking up her other novels.
May I ask what you thought of Children of God, if you read it? And please oh please no spoilers. I am only halfway through The Sparrow.
Just finished Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon - And the Journey of a Generation. Full of gossip and great trivia (I had no idea Joni Mitchell wrote “Woodstock” for Crosby, Stills and Nash).
Now I’m reading Lewis Black’s Nothing’s Sacred.
Haven’t read it – probably won’t. I guess I’m leaving the story unfinished, but I was satisfied with The Sparrow – I don’t need any more.
Just finished Twilight (my students are reading it, so I figured I’d better read it, too - it’s almost embarrassing how much I got sucked into it). I also read Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, which I loved. I’ve been on a big “science books for laymen” kick lately - I’ve read Mary Roach’s Stiff, Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things, Spineless Wonders, etc. Now I’m in one of those moods where I’ve got a ton of books sitting around, and nothing that’s really piquing my interest. I’ve started *Dear American Airlines *by Johnathon Miles, but it’s a bit too depressing for the mood I’m in. I’ve also started The Map that Changed the World, by Simon Winchester, whose work I normally love, but it hasn’t quite grabbed me yet.
The Sparrow isn’t very good science fiction, but Russell is a mesmerizing writer. My only objection to her is that she’s relentlessly grim. I didn’t like Children of God as well as The Sparrow, but it’s worth reading.
I liked my David Sedaris book pretty well (Me Talk Pretty One Day). I’ll look for more by him.
Someone loaned me a copy of Twilight, and I amused myself by reading it last night. It wasn’t very good, but then I’m not its target audience. The story is weak but the writing was actually not as bad as I was expecting.
I’m now reading Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin, which I like so far.
Here is a link to the December thread.