Fun Fiction

[Catrin]

I'm nearly done with Lavinia by Ursula K Leguin. I was a classics major, and she's one of my all-time favorite authors, so I'm loving her take on a minor character in the Aeneid. With Chinue Achebe's death, I've put Things Fall Apart on my to-read list; had to read it in college and don't really remember it at all as it was spring when it was assigned!

I love Ursula, hadn't heard about Lavina, thanks! I am enjoying reading about the varied literary tastes of TE members. I do love classics, but for some reason have never really gotten into American classics. I LOVE Dostoyevsky and wish I could read Russian so I could read all of his works in the original. While I've my favorite translators of his works (Peavear and Volokhonsky - usually as a team), it would be wonderful if I didn't have to read it in translation. I also love Gogol, Bulgakov, Checkov, Dickens, Shakespeare (especially his history plays) and so many others. Of course some of those are more recent than others I've also been reading a fair amount of non-fiction in recent months related to health and nutrition.

For some reason I've not been able to really enjoy American classic writers such as Hemingway and others. Some of our poets I have loved though, such as Longfellow. Now when it comes to speculative fiction, science fiction and mysteries that is a different story - though it seems that many of my favorite mystery authors are not American. I've never read Moby D**k, though it doesn't sound like I've missed much. I have something by Hawthorne on my Nook whenever I am brave enough to delve into it.

I've long been curious about Hemingway however. I've never read any of his works, somehow, what would be a good first reading choice? Your posts about the New Yorker has me curious, and as I can access the Nook version free for 14 days I've subscribed to it.