While I enjoy reading books like
Crashing the Gate, I have to admit that great fiction has shaped my mind more than all of the political books combined.
Let's use this diary to talk about great fiction. What are you reading now? Are there a few books that you think your fellow dKos readers shouldn't miss? Let's create a reading list for the progressive mind...
I'll start with recommendations of books I've just finished and list books I'm still reading. My nightstand always has several books on it that I am working through at the same time. Are you the same way?
-Terrorist by John Updike: While this book has gotten mixed reviews, I found it very thought-provoking. Updike's descriptions of a society obsessed with materialism and the self and a young man's hunger for a purpose larger than himself are powerful.
-Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky: This is actually two novellas about the lives of ordinary French people living under German occupation in the summer of 1940. The first novella is about people fleeing Paris and the second is about life in the countryside. The most haunting part of the book is the appendix in the back that sketches out the author's ideas for the rest of what was supposed to be a five-part series; this never happened as she was deported to Auschwitz in 1942. Her daughters held on to her notebooks containing her writing, publishing these pieces for the first time in 2004.
Still working on A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz and Snow by Orhan Pamuk.