Saturday, July 31, 2010

What Books Do You Enjoy Most?

In several posts on this blog, I have featured some of the books I enjoy.  I reviewed the books of several authors in my Featured Authors series. 
http://closetprofessor.blogspot.com/2010/07/author-spotlight-jason-goodwin.html
http://closetprofessor.blogspot.com/2010/07/author-spotlight-geoffrey-knights.html
http://closetprofessor.blogspot.com/2010/07/author-spotlight-wilbur-smith.html
image
I have many more that I would like to bring to your attention, but I would like to know what you like to read?  Who are your favorite authors?  What genre of books is your favorite?  What are you currently reading?
What’s really hot about the picture above is that he’s reading Keats in front of Keats’s grave! John Keats is buried in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome, Italy.  His grave is in a quiet corner close to the Pyramid.
imageMost people who go to Rome do not visit the Protestant Cemetery, it is kind of out of the way and not really near many of the major tourists sites.  However, if you are ever in Rome, I highly recommend that you go.  Many of the gravestones of Americans were carved by some of America’s greatest sculptors.
image
image
image
image
Likewise, the Protestant (or English) Cemetery in Florence is well worth seeing as well.

4 comments:

Uncutplus said...

My two favorite authors are Thomas Hardy and Reynolds Price.

It's hard for me to narrow my reading down to particular genres because so many different ones attract me. The Revolutionary War period in US History interests me because of my ancestors during that period.

Right now, I am reading Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie because I recently saw the PBS video.

I now have a Kindle which makes reading so much easier

Joe said...

Uncutplus, contrary to what might be popular to believe, I am not a fan of history books (most historians are bad writers), but of the Revolutionary and colonial American historians, my favorite is Edmund Morgan. He may be old fashioned by today standards, but he was a great writer. Personally, I prefer mysteries. As for my own favorite author (the one that I have to read as soon as his books come out) is Greg Herren.

I have not read Thomas Hardy or Reynolds Price, but I will have to look into them. Of the classics, I am a big fan of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Hawthorne.

One other thing, I have Kindle on my phone, but I love the feel and smell of a book, old or new it doesn't matter, as long as it is not too moldy, LOL.

Uncutplus said...

I really enjoy my Kindle, because I often read more than one book at a time, and it is an easy way to carry them around, and the Kindle2 (my version) is very comfortable to hold and read. I tried reading books on my Palm Centro smartphone, but it was just too small.

I agree that I like the feel of a real book and I have many that I treasure (too many according to some). And of course not all titles (such as those by Reynolds Price) are available for the Kindle. BTW, I loaded THE CLOSET PROFESSOR on my Kindle today and read your blog on it! Cool!

The new Kindle comes out next month and is a lot cheaper and somewhat improved. As always, I should have waited.

I think I have read every thing that Hemingway ever wrote, and recently reread The Old Man and the Sea. Speaking of mysteries, have you read Agatha Christie's Murder On The Orient Express?

Joe said...

I have not read Murder on the Orient Express, but I have seen the movie, LOL. It is on my long list of books to read when I finally have time. Probably when I retire, far in the future, they will eventually find me dead one day with a book in my hand. At least that is how I hope to go.