Reading

Such a great number of books on my reading list this summer, and I really want to get through them all, as it's hit me recently during a reorganization of books how many of my books I've never had a chance to read. Right now I'm reading Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers, which I was honestly surprised to find as entertaining as it is. Somehow I didn't imagine that a two-hundred-year-old swashbuckler romance (in the genre term, not the Danielle Steele) could really captivate me as much as a modern novel, but it totally does. I find myself reading for a couple of hours without realizing it, when usually with older classics it's enjoyable more on an intellectual level....luckily, The Three Musketeers was written for the masses, and this mass is loving it. Thank heaven my "at-work" reading book is a history book about the 17th century, because otherwise I wouldn't have remembered the historical background of the novel, beyond the infamous Richelieu--specifically, the siege of the Huguenot fortified city of La Rochelle, which plays a huge role in the book. The history book, also surprisingly, is really good. It covered the Enlightenment, the Counter Reformation, the rise of absolutism in France and constitutionalism in England, etc etc. Stuff that I should have a more concrete knowledge of, anyway.

Anyway, here's my reading list as it stands...suggest good books, if you know any. Always room for one more.

Bullfinch's Mythology
Age of Power
The Fencing Master
Artemisia
Merchant of Venice
Julius Caesar
3 Musketeers
Dinosaur in a Haystack
Paradise Lost
Man the MythMaker
Eichmann in Jerusalem
No Exit
Harry Potter 6 :-)