Been reading:

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon was on my to read list for quite awhile -- it's a short book and was a quick read. I'm thinking it would be a must for any Sherlock Holmes fans as it's a story starring SH as an old man.  I never read any Sherlock Holmes, so I missed most of the references I'm sure.  It's a nice little derivative work. 

What I really like is the cover, which was created by Jay Ryan.  We have the print hanging in our hallway, as well as several other Jay Ryan works throughout the house.  (See more of his stuff at The Bird Machine.)

So, all in all, I suppose the book would be a must read for the Sherlock Holmes fan, but I wasn't all that excited about it.

Next up was Nowhere Man by Aleksandar Hemon which was recommended to me by Pete.  It was a very impressive read with a strange structure.  Many different narrators recount bits and pieces of the main character's life.  Instead of switching back and forth amongst these narrators, Hemon sequesters each one to its own section of the book. 

The story feels (and is) somewhat biographical -- telling the story of a young man who flees Yugoslavia and makes a life for himself in the US.  It's not dissimilar in feeling to some of the books on immigration that I read earlier this year (notably The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears), but is completely unique at the same time.  I definitely recommend this book.

Right now I'm reading (yet again) The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien -- although I'm reading a fancy version that Pete bought me several years ago which includes Tolkien's illustrations, as well as his color illustrations.  (My eyes are too bad for the ancient paperbacks which used to belong to my dad.)  I'm also following along in The Atlas of Middle-Earth which has a bunch of added maps -- yes, I'm a geek.  After that I plan to read the His Dark Materials Trilogy which is on it's way from Amazon.  Fun holiday reading -- yeah!

Comments

[=Tamar]

Surfing on by, I am boggled that you read Holmes pastiches yet haven't read the original. They are worth reading.