Books I've read this summer:
James Joyce - Dubliners
My first forray into Joyce, I was pleasently suprised by his control and pacing of each of these short stories. Some had me barely scraping through to finish them, but a few really captured my attention (Counterparts and The Dead, especially).
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian...or the evening redness in the west
Savage...primal...powerful....this book had me in awe through it's entirety. It's a voyage into the brutality and beauty (I use the term loosely) of the American west with some truly unforgettable characters (The Judge [god] will have you reading the book fiercely for any word of his exploits).
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
This was by far the funniest and most scandelous book I believe I've ever read. I was shocked and appalled, yet sympathetic and at times delighted at the plight of Humbert^2. Nabokov is one of the most humorously detailed and witty writers I've ever had the please of reading. I'll be bounding through the rest of his books in no time.
Johann von Goethe - The Sorrows of Young Werther
I was a bit dissapointed by this book, not at all to draw away from how good it is (as it's quite good) but simply because I let it depress me. It's hardly "a book to keep you company at the darkest of times" as the author calls it in his foward.
J.K. Rowling - The Harry Potter series (1-6)
Until this summer I had read only up to the 4th in the series, but the release of the 6th sparked my interest just enough to reread those, then jump into both the 5th and 6th (which I just now finished, eyes watering). Yes yes, they're children's books, but only at times (and really only the first 3). I'm a slow reader (I call it "thorough" reading) yet I was able to read all of these in a little over a week, giving them the title of "printed heroin". At least these books resparked my interest in the rather mundane of late fantasy genre.
Next up on my summer reading list (or autumn reading list, as it's drawing so close) are Dune, A Game Of Thrones, The Sun Also Rises, and The Divine Comedy.