Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov

Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov (Paperback) Amazon
Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

I am told by Russian friends that Chekhov's stories are realistic descriptions of prerevolutionary Russia. If that is so, then it was truly a horrible place in every respect -- living conditions and customs and thinking of its people. I found this book devoid of value to me. Chekhov was not the great writer that Gogol was, with wonderful descriptions of places and motivations and actions of his characters. And his stories had no value to me but to describe one horrible situation after another. I had incredible difficulty forcing myself to complete this book, and I was very happy when I had finished it. I truly do not understand why Chekhov is considered a great writer.

Windmills

Windmills offshore in Copenhagen. Wind power now accounts for one-half of all public power in Denmark. The Danes have reduced their reliance on oil.
The windmills are huge, about 250 feet high.

Windmills in Amsterdam.

And now we see that windmills have been constructed in the Philippines. As oil becomes more scarce, and the price increases, greater reliance on wind to generate electric power seems inevitable.(Link)

Madame Matisse

Madame Matisse
Helen Frankenthaler, 1983
Acrylic on canvas, 60x122 1/2 inches
University Art Museum
State University of New York at Albany

Born in 1928 in New York City.

"Frankenthaler is best known for changing the direction of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s when she began pouring cans of paint directly onto unsized, unstretched canvas. Madame Matisse is an example of how acrylic paint improved Frankenthaler's technique. The water-based paint helped intensify color stains and control the halo effect that oil paint produced." (From website of SUNY Albany, Art Museum Link)

Although I do not really care for much of Frankenthaler's work, I do like this piece very much. (I judge all art work in the same way -- by the feeling it evokes in me.)

Nude Descending a Staircase, Marcel Duchamp

Nude Descending a Staircase
(No. 2)
Marcel Duchamp
American, born in France
1887-1968
1912 Oil on canvas


This painting created a sensation when it was exhibited in New York in February 1913 at the historic Armory Show of contemporary art, where perplexed Americans saw it as representing all the tricks they felt European artists were playing at their expense. The picture's outrageousness surely lay in its seemingly mechanical portrayal of a subject at once so sensual and time-honored. The Nude's destiny as a symbol also stemmed from its remarkable aggregation of avant-garde concerns: the birth of cinema; the Cubists' fracturing of form; the Futurists' depiction of movement; the chromophotography of Etienne-Jules Marey, Eadweard Muybridge, and Thomas Eakins; and the redefinitions of time and space by scientists and philosophers. The painting was bought directly from the Armory Show for three hundred dollars by a San Francisco dealer. Marcel Duchamp's great collector-friend Walter Arensberg was able to buy the work in 1927, eleven years after Duchamp had obligingly made him a hand-colored, actual-size photographic copy. Today both the copy and the original, together with a preparatory study, are owned by the Museum. (Description taken from the website of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Nude)

This painting was not intended to depict the Madonna, but that is the image that comes to my mind when I look at it. It is my favorite painting of all time. I have a copy hanging in my home, and I feel a sense of reverence when I look at it, as I do every day.

Othello, The National Shakespeare Theater

Hundreds of books have been written by learned scholars about Shakespeare's Othello. I will not try to write anything learned about the play, but will simply give my own impressions. As we know, the play is a tragedy about a man who is led to feel the deep pangs of jealousy and fear that his wife is having an affair with another man. Jealousy stems from insecurity, from fear of loss of someone held dear, and that particular type of insecurity can be inflamed by one so inclined. A rational person would question information given to him regarding the infidelity of his love, would check it out to ensure that it is accurate, would not jump to conclusions. But people who are jealous are not entirely rational people; they are insecure, often extremely insecure. As we know, murders of wives, former wives, and girlfriends are among the most common of all murders, and even more women suffer ongoing physical and mental abuse by jealous men. Women who make the mistake, often unknowing, of becoming involved with jealous men suffer dearly for their mistake.

As was the case with Othello, some men may not be aware of their tendency toward jealousy until they fall deeply in love. Like Othello, some men may live their lives with no feelings of insecurity and jealousy until they find a woman they simply cannot live without. They develop feelings of dependency on a particular woman; they come to believe that their happiness depends on her, and they make her their slave, a slave to serve their own happiness. They demand total allegiance, total subjugation to their desires, their whims. Constantly, they are plagued by their fear of loss. Nor can they help themselves. Their fear is a disease, completely outside their own control, and it plagues not only them, but also the object of their fear.

In Othello, Shakespeare added complexity to the basic exploration of jealousy. He added the complexity of a man of a different race, different religion, and different age from his wife. In addition, he added the complexity of Iago, a Machiavellian mind bent on the destruction of Othello. Shakespeare also created characters who were naive, simple people who could easily be manipulated by the evil Iago; indeed, the only character in the play who is not simple and naive is Iago. He manipulated everyone else in the play. Thus, to some extent, it seemed to me that the play would more appropriately have been named Iago rather than Othello.

I was pleased that I had reread the play before seeing it. It helped me to follow the dialogue and more importantly, it helped me not to be affected by the emotions of the play. I like happiness and joy; I don't like sadness. And I like plays that are happy plays, rather than plays that are sad. Rereading the play in advance helped me to react more technically to the play rather than emotionally.

As stated on the website for The Shakespeare Theater, "Shakespeare's principal source for the plot was a short story by the Italian writer Cinthio Giambattista Giraldi (1504-1574), who included it in a collection of 100 domestic stories titled Hecatommithi, published in Venice in 1566. No English translation is believed to have existed before 1753, so Shakespeare may have read it in either the original Italian or in a French translation published in 1584. A handful of lines from Shakespeare's text recall phrases from the Italian and French versions, suggesting that he may have read it in both languages."

Othello was first performed on November 1, 1604, and has been in constant production for most of the past 400 hundred years. Insecurity and the pain that it causes continues to be a human condition that people can relate to and find sympathy for. I continue to admire Shakespeare for his professionalism, his ability to write and produce plays that were commercial successes. He had great technical ability to take an idea and turn it into a successful play.

Othello, The Shakespeare Theater
http://www.shakespearedc.org/othello.html

The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

To me, Gogol summarized his writing best: "But what is strangest, what is most incomprehensible of all is how authors can choose such subjects. I confess, that is utterly inconceivable, it is...no, no, I utterly fail to understand. In the first place, there is decidedly no benefit to the fatherland; in the second place...but in the second place, there is also no benefit. I simply do not know what it...." I would ask the question in a different way: How can such a brilliant writer waste his talents writing such drivel.

When I read Vikram Seth, I wondered why such a good writer would always write stories in which his central character was so stupid. When I read D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love" I wondered again why such a brilliant writer would write a book with such a stupid ending. It seems that some brilliant writers have difficulty with their story lines; a brilliant author is one who combines brilliant writing with a brilliant story. Some writers are brilliant writers, but not brilliant authors because they are lacking in their ability to write good stories. To me, Gogol falls into this category. His writing is truly brilliant, but his stories are completely intellectually vacuous.

On the other hand, I am very pleased that I read this book. Reading one story was worth reading the entire book -- "The Diary of a Madman." That is one of the most moving stories I have ever read -- exceedingly sad and moving. In addition, Gogol's writing, even about inane subjects, is truly wonderful. Sometimes I found myself forgetting the story and simply marveling at the words he used and the way he wrote. He was a truly brilliant writer. I feel good about reading the book; I learned something about a renowned writer, I read one truly great story, and I was mesmerized by his writing ability. So I feel good about reading the book.

Hairspray

Last night, I went to the Kennedy Center to see "Hairspray". The show was a movie in 1988, but was produced on Broadway in 2002. If you Google John Waters, you will get about 60,000 hits, you can get a professional description of "Hairspray". It is particularly interesting to see the movie stars who were in the original movie. I will give you my strictly amateur version. John Waters grew up in Baltimore, and like most writers, he wrote about his own observations in life. In this show, he created caricatures of people he saw in real life in Baltimore in the 1950s. Television stations in many East Coast cities during the late 50s and early 60s had afternoon shows for teenagers in which teens danced to popular rock music, and this show was about the teen dance show in Baltimore, or more precisely, about the integration of the show by both unattractive teens and Blacks. Waters wrote characters who were caricatures of people. The lead in the show was a "chunky" girl who wanted to be a dancer on the show, but was not "beautiful" enough to be on TV. Her mother was an obese woman, and her dad was was a very thin man who owned a souvenier stand. Her best friend was a pretty dull girl, whose mother was even less brilliant. The pretty girl on the TV show was the daughter of the show's producer, and a spoiled brat. The tension of the show was in the struggle of the plump girl to get on the show. An added struggle was also introduced when she was sent to detention at school and there, learned new dance steps from Black kids who were also in detention. In the end, all worked out happily. The music of the show was good, upbeat, but not memorable. An added bonus in the show last night was that the normal lead in the show was not able to perform and was replaced by her understudy, who was brilliant -- Katrina Rose Dideriksen. When she came out for her bow at the end of the show, she got a standing ovation, and she cried at that. It was quite touching. A very good show. Here is the link:
http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showEvent&event=TFTSH#details

Lady Windermere's Fan, June 30, 2005

I have seen many plays; I estimate 150 at least. This play was in the top group, perhaps the top 10 of all the plays I have seen. The set alone was one of the most beautiful, most wonderful sets I have ever seen. It was incredibly grand and beautiful. The actors were dressed in formal costumes most of the play, and that added to the beauty and elegance. Dixie Carter was the lead, Mrs. Erlynne, and she was wonderful, and her husband of many years, Hal Holbrook, was in the audience. And of course, the play itself is wonderful. It is truly a wonderful play. I was in awe. They got a standing ovation, and I was among those standing. What a wonderful play. Here is the link:

http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/lwf.html

Here are some wonderful quotes from the play:

LORD DARLINGTON. Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. I take the side of the charming, and you, Lady Windermere, can't help belonging to them.

LADY WINDERMERE. Are ALL men bad?
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Oh, all of them, my dear, all of them, without any exception. And they never grow any better. Men become old, but they never become good.
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Pretty child! I was like that once. Now I know that all men are monsters. [LADY WINDERMERE rings bell.] The only thing to do is to feed the wretches well. A good cook does wonders, and that I know you have. My dear Margaret, you are not going to cry?
LADY WINDERMERE. You needn't be afraid, Duchess, I never cry.
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. That's quite right, dear. Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones.

LORD WINDERMERE. How hard good women are!
LADY WINDERMERE. How weak bad men are!

MRS ERLYNNE. I can fancy dancing through life with you and finding it charming.

LADY PLYMDALE. How very interesting! How intensely interesting! I really must have a good stare at her. [Goes to door of ball-room and looks in.] I have heard the most shocking things about her. They say she is ruining poor Windermere. And Lady Windermere, who goes in for being so proper, invites her! How extremely amusing! It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing.

DUMBY. Sensible woman, Lady Windermere. Lots of wives would have objected to Mrs. Erlynne coming. But Lady Windermere has that uncommon thing called common sense.

LADY PLYMDALE. Because I want you to take my husband with you. He has been so attentive lately, that he has become a perfect nuisance. Now, this woman is just the thing for him. He'll dance attendance upon her as long as she lets him, and won't bother me. I assure you, women of that kind are most useful. They form the basis of other people's marriages.
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. [L.C.] Yes, dear, these wicked women get our husbands away from us, but they always come back, slightly damaged, of course.
DUMBY. What a mystery you are!

LORD DARLINGTON. Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. I love you –

LORD WINDERMERE. Well, that is no business of yours, is it, Cecil?
CECIL GRAHAM. None! That is why it interests me. My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's.

LORD AUGUSTUS. I prefer women with a past. They're always so demmed amusing to talk to.

CECIL GRAHAM. [Coming towards him L.C.] My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. I only talk gossip.
LORD WINDERMERE. What is the difference between scandal and gossip?
CECIL GRAHAM. Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I'm glad to say.

CECIL GRAHAM. Now, my dear Tuppy, don't be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don't love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.

DUMBY. I congratulate you, my dear fellow. In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy! But I am interested to hear she does not love you. How long could you love a woman who didn't love you, Cecil?

CECIL GRAHAM. What is a cynic? [Sitting on the back of the sofa.]
LORD DARLINGTON. A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
CECIL GRAHAM. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market price of any single thing.

DUMBY. Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.
CECIL GRAHAM. [Standing with his back to the fireplace.] One shouldn't commit any. [Sees LADY WINDERMERE'S fan on sofa.]
DUMBY. Life would be very dull without them.

LADY WINDERMERE. [Rising.] She is sure to tell him. I can fancy a person doing a wonderful act of self-sacrifice, doing it spontaneously, recklessly, nobly--and afterwards finding out that it costs too much. Why should she hesitate between her ruin and mine? . . How strange! I would have publicly disgraced her in my own house. She accepts public disgrace in the house of another to save me. . . . There is a bitter irony in things, a bitter irony in the way we talk of good and bad women. . . . Oh, what a lesson! and what a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us! For even if she doesn't tell, I must. Oh! the shame of it, the shame of it. To tell it is to live through it all again. Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . . Oh!

LADY WINDERMERE. [Rising.] There is a bitter irony in things, a bitter irony in the way we talk of good and bad women. . . . Oh, what a lesson! and what a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us! For even if she doesn't tell, I must. Oh! the shame of it, the shame of it. To tell it is to live through it all again. Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . . Oh!

LADY WINDERMERE. Arthur, Arthur, don't talk so bitterly about any woman. I don't think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad as though they were two separate races or creations. What are called good women may have terrible things in them, mad moods of recklessness, assertion, jealousy, sin. Bad women, as they are termed, may have in them sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice. And I don't think Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman--I know she's not.
LORD WINDERMERE. [Smiling as he strokes her hair.] Child, you and she belong to different worlds. Into your world evil has never entered.
LADY WINDERMERE. Don't say that, Arthur. There is the same world for all of us, and good and evil, sin and innocence, go through it hand in hand. To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.

MRS. ERLYNNE. [Rising.] I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to retire into a convent, or become a hospital nurse, or something of that kind, as people do in silly modern novels. That is stupid of you, Arthur; in real life we don't do such things--not as long as we have any good looks left, at any rate. No--what consoles one nowadays is not repentance, but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date. And besides, if a woman really repents, she has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one believes in her. And nothing in the world would induce me to do that. No; I am going to pass entirely out of your two lives. My coming into them has been a mistake--I discovered that last night.
LORD WINDERMERE. A fatal mistake.
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Smiling.] Almost fatal.
LORD WINDERMERE. I am sorry now I did not tell my wife the whole thing at once.
MRS. ERLYNNE. I regret my bad actions. You regret your good ones- -that is the difference between us.

MRS. ERLYNNE. Yes. [Pause.] You are devoted to your mother's memory, Lady Windermere, your husband tells me.
LADY WINDERMERE. We all have ideals in life. At least we all should have. Mine is my mother.
MRS. ERLYNNE. Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they're better.
LADY WINDERMERE. [Shaking her head.] If I lost my ideals, I should lose everything.
MRS. ERLYNNE. Everything?
LADY WINDERMERE. Yes. [Pause.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. Did your father often speak to you of your mother?
LADY WINDERMERE. No, it gave him too much pain. He told me how my mother had died a few months after I was born. His eyes filled with tears as he spoke. Then he begged me never to mention her name to him again. It made him suffer even to hear it. My father- -my father really died of a broken heart. His was the most ruined life I know.
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Rising.] I am afraid I must go now, Lady Windermere.
LADY WINDERMERE. [To MRS. ERLYNNE.] Oh! What am I to say to you? You saved me last night? [Goes towards her.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. Hush--don't speak of it.
LADY WINDERMERE. I must speak of it. I can't let you think that I am going to accept this sacrifice. I am not. It is too great. I am going to tell my husband everything. It is my duty.
MRS. ERLYNNE. It is not your duty--at least you have duties to others besides him. You say you owe me something?
LADY WINDERMERE. I owe you everything.
MRS. ERLYNNE. Then pay your debt by silence. That is the only way in which it can be paid. Don't spoil the one good thing I have done in my life by telling it to any one. Promise me that what passed last night will remain a secret between us. You must not bring misery into your husband's life. Why spoil his love? You must not spoil it. Love is easily killed. Oh! how easily love is killed. Pledge me your word, Lady Windermere, that you will never tell him. I insist upon it.

MRS. ERLYNNE. [Humbly.] Nothing. I know it--but I tell you that your husband loves you--that you may never meet with such love again in your whole life--that such love you will never meet--and that if you throw it away, the day may come when you will starve for love and it will not be given to you, beg for love and it will be denied you--Oh! Arthur loves you!

Hecuba, May 29, 2005

Saturday night, I attended the play "Hecuba" at the Kennedy Center. This play is a Greek tragedy written by Euripides in 425 BC. As advertised, the play was very tragic and very sad. It was extremely well done, by the Royal Shakespeare Company, but in the end, it was still a tragedy that left everyone feeling pretty horrible. Because I have season tickets, I sit near the same group of people most of the time. ALL of the women were of one mind about this play -- they did not like it. The play is about a woman whose last two remaining children were killed, and then in an act of revenge, she killed two young boys of the man who killed her last son. Everyone lost in this play. However, the play was a morality play -- about the morality of the time. It was a play whose message was that killing was hurtful, although killing for revenge was not only acceptable, but honored. It seems to me that society still believes that revenge killing is a good thing, so I am not sure how far we have come in the past 2500 years. In those days, when armies conquered a people, they killed all of the men and many of the children as well. The women were made slaves. Euripides tried to show that making the women slaves, and killing their children were wrong, and created great emotional pain and suffering. However, he still believed that slavery was okay, in general, and that if a woman's children were killed, revenge killing was right and honorable. Even now, the play was very thought provoking. I was not affected by the tragedy; I had read the play before going, and I knew what to expect. I found the morality of the play to be very interesting. It is also interesting that Euripides was permitted to stage such a play at that time.

Toulouse-Lautrec, April 18, 2005

Today I visited an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art -- "Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre". It was a wonderful exhibit. Toulouse-Lautrec posters are happy posters; their purpose was advertising. Their intent was to convey happiness and joy, and they were incredibly successful. It is too bad that Toulouse-Lautrec died at the age of 36; he could have done so much more if he had lived to be an old man, as Picasso did. Here is the link to the exhibition: Toulouse Lautrec
If you love Paris, and love the Montmartre area of Paris, you will love this happy exhibit.

Mr. Roberts, April 3, 2002

Last night, I saw the play "Mr. Roberts" at the Kennedy Center. This play was on Broadway in 1948, and it is about men on a cargo ship in the Pacific Ocean during the second world war. I think the play is supposed to be a comedy, although it really was not funny to me. As a comedy, the play is supposed to be shallow, a light-hearted look at the war. To me, it is a characterization of what we think of when we think of sailors during the war -- a bunch of very aggressive young men, who complain constantly on the ship, and get drunk and fight and complain and fight some more. Although they talk constantly about women, they have no contact with women except a prostitute once in awhile. Mostly they drink and fight. Not a very attractive play.

Reading List -- 2004 to Present

(Updated frequently.)

Fiction


Rickshaw (Lao She)

A Suitable Boy (Vikram Seth)
An Equal Music (Vikram Seth)
Two Lives (Vikram Seth)

The Hero's Walk (Anita Rau Badami)
Tamarind Woman (Anita Rau Badami)

Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri)
The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri)
Unaccustomed Earth, (Jhumpa Lahiri)

A Singular Hostage (Thalassa Ali)
A Beggar at the Gate (Thalassa Ali)

Bombay Time (Thrity Umrigar)
If Today Be Sweet (Thrity Umrigar)
A Breath of Fresh Air (Amulya Malladi)
The Sound of Language (Amulya Malladi)
The Rice Mother (Rani Manicka)
The Great Indian Novel (Shashi Tharoor)
Flash House (Aimee Liu)
Brick Lane (Monica Ali)
The Inheritance of Loss (Kiran Desai)
The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
The Yacoubian Building (Alaa Al Aswany)
Palace of Desire (Naguib Mahfouz)

The Siege of Krishnapur (J.G. Farrell)
Zemindar (Valerie Fitzgerald)
The Far Pavilions (M.M. Kaye)

The Winter Queen (Boris Akunin)
Murder on the Leviathan (Boris Akunin)
The Turkish Gambit (Boris Akunin)
The Death of Achilles (Boris Akunin)
Special Assignments (Boris Akunin)
Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog (Boris Akunin)
Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel (Boris Akunin)

Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
The White Russian (Tom Bradby)
The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (Translated by Richard Pevar and Larissa Volokhonsky)
Stories (Anton Chekhov)
The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov)
Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)

Women in Love (D.H. Lawrence)

Suite Francaise (Irene Nemirovsky)
The Little Book (Selden Edwards)
Paris Tales (Short Stories of French Authors Translated by Helen Constantine)

Flashman Series by George MacDonald Fraser
Flashman
Royal Flash
Flashman in the Great Game
Flash for Freedom

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series
The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (5 Volume Set) (Alexander McCall Smith)
Blue Shoes and Happiness (Alexander McCall Smith)
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (Alexander McCall Smith)
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (Alexander McCall Smith)
The Miracle At Speedy Motors (Alexander McCall Smith)
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Isabel Dalhousie Mysteries
The Sunday Philosophy Club (Alexander McCall Smith)
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate (Alexander McCall Smith)
The Right Attitude To Rain (Alexander McCall Smith)
The Careful Use of Compliments (Alexander McCall Smith)
The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday (Alexander McCall Smith)

Professor Dr. von Igelfeld Entertainments
Portuguese Irregular Verbs (Alexander McCall Smith)
The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs (Alexander McCall Smith)
At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances (Alexander McCall Smith)

44 Scotland Street Series
Expresso Tales (Alexander McCall Smith)

La's Orchestra Saves The World (Alexander McCall Smith)

Short Story Collections
The Girl Who Married a Lion (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)

The Soloist (Mark Salzman)
The Impressionist (Hari Kunzru)

The Kite Runner (Kahled Hosseini)
A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)

Shantaram (Gregory David Roberts)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)
Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
World Without End (Ken Follett)

Dark Angels (Karleen Koen)

The Terra Cotta Dog (Andrea Camilleri)
The Reflecting Sky (S.J. Rozan)
The Thai Amulet (Lyn Hamilton)

------------------

The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
Lie Down With Lions (Ken Follett)
The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
All He Ever Wanted (Anita Shreeve)
Open House (Elizabeth Berg)
The Law of Similars (Chris Bohjalian)
The Rule of Four (Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason)
The Human Stain (Philip Roth)
Skipping Christmas (John Grisham)
Still Life With Woodpecker (Tom Robbins)
High Maintenance (Jennifer Belle)
The Rake (Mary Jo Putney)
The Preacher's Wife (Cheryl St. John)
True Grit (Charles Portis)

Poetry

Eugene Onegin (Aleksandr Pushkin)
The Golden Gate (Vikram Seth)

Biographies

George Washington (Joseph Ellis)
Founding Brothers (Joseph Ellis)
George Washington (James Thomas Flexner)

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman (Richard Feynman)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (Richard Feynman)

Dreams From My Father (Barak Obama)
The Audacity Of Hope (Barak Obama)

Two Lives (Vikram Seth)

P.S. I Love You (Cecelia Ahern)

Sandy Koufax (Jane Leavy)
The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle (Jane Leavy)
Ted Williams (Leigh Montville)
Duke Snider (Duke Snider)

Nonfiction/Other

Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin)
Stones into Schools (Greg Mortenson)

Are Men Necessary (Maureen Dowd)
Reading Lolita in Tehran (Azar Nafisi)
Blink (Malcolm Gladwell)
Freakonomics (Steven Levitt)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Lynn Truss)
Three Weeks With My Brother (Nicholas Sparks)
From Heaven Lake (Vikram Seth)
Notes from a Small Island (Bill Bryson)
A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson)
Made in America (Bill Bryson)
The Year 1000 : What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium (Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger)
Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong (Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow)
A Town Like Paris: Falling in Love in the City of Light (Bryce Corbett)
An Italian Affair (Laura Fraser)
The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca (Tahir Shah)
Heaven Is For Real (Todd Burpo)