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Sunday, June 22, 2008
Summer Reading Challenge
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What are you reading this summer?

Each summer, the Populist tries to tackle a big book, one of those classics that most of us are embarrassed to admit we never read and we might regret never having read on our deathbed.

That's not to say that great books consitute all our summer readin, or that all Great Books are work.

Trollope proved enormously entertaining, both The Way We Live Now and Orley Farm. A few years ago, The Brothers Karamazov attracted a few snickers from fellow beachcombers but proved an absolute treat and surprisingly funny in parts.

During the summer, the Populist has also discovered some terrific true beach writers like mystery greats Robert Wilson, Alan Furst and Jake Arnott.

Please share your recommended summer reads or what you plan to devour this season.

So far we have recommendations of the new War and Peace translation, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,  James Joyce's Ulysees, Crime and Punishment, and Cry, The Beloved Country. Oh, and also Anna Karenina, which we candidly admit to having never read.

Other suggestions?

Posted by Karen Heller @ 12:19 PM  Permalink | 7 comments
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Posted by jamesinphilly 02:34 PM, 06/22/2008
This summer? Time to read one of the Russian novels I've been putting off--maybe "Crime & Punishment" or "The Brothers K" or "Anna Kareninna" could be on my shelf. I'm not sure if I'm ready to tackle "War and Peace" yet, even though there is supposed to be a strong, new translation.
Posted by jerry bizzak 05:34 PM, 06/22/2008
I have assingned myself Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Posted by AimeeG23 08:07 PM, 06/22/2008
I'm about to read Crime and Punishment, then Cry the Beloved County, A Thousand Splendid Suns (Kite Runner was so good...just the way the author can jerk the reader's emotions around), and hopefully finish The Chinese, a book about China and the economy, etc.
Posted by Anne1159 09:15 AM, 06/23/2008
I am taking on James Joyce's Ulysses.
Posted by Karen Heller 09:37 AM, 06/23/2008
Let me know how the new War and Peace translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is. I read the classic Constance Garnett one many summers ago. Perhaps it's time to take another go at it. Decline and Fall, that's ambitious. Ulysses, too.
Posted by KarenA 10:21 AM, 06/23/2008
I have often read the classics during the summer (often times into the fall) months--"War & Peace", "Anna Karenina", "Nicolas & Alexandra", "Pride & Prejudice" just to name a few. I haven't decided what to tackle this summer having just recently finished Doris Kearns Goodwin's "No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt; The Home front during WWII". It may not be considered a classic, but I highly recommend it. Eleanor Roosevelt was an extraordinary person and a first lady who blazed a trail for Hillary Rodman-Clinton and possibly Michelle Obama.
Posted by Gruff 06:10 PM, 06/23/2008
Eusebius's "Ecclesiastical History."
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About Karen Heller
This week Karen Heller is live-blogging the Republican convention in true blogger style - at home, surfing the Web and watching TV. She's covered five other conventions. Three were Republican, two were Democratic. Read all of Populist here.

Karen Heller has interviewed Philip Roth and Zsa Zsa Gabor, spent time with Pink and the Philadelphia Orchestra, the celebrated and the exemplary unsung. She's covered Miss America and political conventions. She's been a provocative voice at The Inquirer for nearly 20 years, garnering awards for criticism, feature writing and investigative reporting, and was a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in commentary.

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