Assorted Reading

I've been forcing myself to set aside time for personal reading. It's tough, as my days and nights are filled with work, family and Guild Wars. Still, I've managed to get though a few things in the past few months.
I just finished Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. I read it (along with most of H's other books) about 20 years ago, and it's still good! Hemingway's great for a quick read. It's brutal, like a jab to the ribs, without a lot of subtext. I felt hung over when it was done.
I started and finally finished Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It took me a while to really get into it -- it starts slowly. By the time I was 2/3 through it started to pick up. What I had to learn is that it is one of Dickens' two historical novels. This means that the pacing and characters are not what you'd find in David Copperfield or Great Expectations. When I finished it last week, I was just grateful to be through it (like I was with Anna Karenina a few months ago, a book it's taken me a solid decade to read). As I've been thinking about it (and reading a bit of criticism), I'm coming to appreciate it more. It's ending is almost ethereal, you almost feel as if you are Sydney Carton.
Right now I'm reading Joseph Girzone's Joshua, a modern-day parable of Christ's return to a small American town. It's very profound and a quick read. I'm liking it a lot.
On the non-fiction front, I'm getting back into John Keegan's The First World War. I'm a big fan of his WWII history (and think it's the best one-volume history of that war to be had). It's tough going in the early pages, but I'm getting through. It's my car book at the moment, meaning I read it when I'm in restaurants alone.
What are you reading??

Democracy in America

I feel great this morning, and not just because my candidate, Barack Obama, won the presidential election last night. I feel great because it was a great example of American democracy at work. I feel great because of the record turnout all over the country (and hope it's a trend that continues in future elections; I think it will). I feel great beacuse, after a bitterly-fought campaign that got a bit negative at the end, both candidates showed remarkable grace last night.
John McCain's concession speech was powerful and re-affirmed his commitment to country and to public service. How we lose is just as important as how we win, and McCain showed the world what it's like to concede with class. It was bittersweet--he would much rather have given a victory speech--but in his concession, I saw the... well, presidential McCain that I'd been looking for since August.
Barack Obama's victory speech hit just the right notes. It was celebratory without being triumphalist. He acknowledged a fact that is overlooked or ignored by most victorious candidates, that he must be the president both of his supporter and his detractors. Were I to assume elected office (which I hope never to do), I hope I would always remember my duty to all the people: those who voted for me and those who didn't. I'd even go so far as to suggest that elected officials have a special responsibility (duty?) to listen to the voices of their political adversaries. President-Elect Obama acknowledged this last night.
Anyhoo, I feel great today. Hopeful.