I've Done A Lot of Reading Since I've Been Gone!

I'm back from a short leave, and in the time since I last blogged, I have read a few books that I have greatly enjoyed. They are the following:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Brave New World - So ahead of its time. I couldn't put it down. A very frightening and tragic story of the future that doesn't seem all that impossible in today's world. It's hard to believe that Huxley wrote this novel in 1932. I have been wanting to read this for so long, and now I'm glad I did. Definitely recommend this one.

The Maltese Falcon - What fun! A suspenseful and intriguing mystery...everything I have heard about Hammett is true. A master of mystery fiction, his Sam Spade character is exactly what a detective should be; rough around the edges, hard drinking, and cynical. This book was a delight, and all the better as I read the Franklin Mystery edition of it. A must read for lovers of mystery!

A Farewell to Arms - What can you say about Hemingway that hasn't alread been said? This is the second book of his that I have read, the first being For Whom the Bell Tolls, and both are wonderful and tragic accounts of war. I love Hemingway's no nonsense prose, and the story is gripping and hard to put down.

I am currently reading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. I tried to read this book a couple of years ago, and the stream of consciousness was so confusing that I gave up. I enjoy stream of consciousness writing (Heny Miller being one of my favorite authors), but this was just too hard to follow. Much of it is told by a mentally challenged man who doesn't really understand the world around him, so you are left to try to understand his thought, which consequently jump all over the place. Plus, there are a number of narrators, and the author switches between them without warning. I'm reading it much more slowly this time, and I think I'm getting a lot more out of it. I will report back on this one again once I am finished.

Happy reading friends!