50 book challenge: #53, #54, #55 (last 2007 post edition)

#53: Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great. God, you're so vain. You probably think this book is about you.

#54: Ellen Litman, The Last Chicken in America. A so-called "novel in stories," which means that it was basically a collection of short stories, but those don't usually sell well so hey, let's call it a novel. Stories from a Russian Jewish immigrant to Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh. Occasionally cloying, but the local detail was irresistible.

#55: Stendhal, The Red and the Black. A remarkable novel. Julien Morel was one of the most singular characters I've known. It's not often you can have a thoroughly hypocritical, only marginally likeable person carry a novel for 600 pages, but when you have a supporting cast as forceful as Madame de Renal and Mathilde de la Mole - and a motivating genius like Stendhal's - you can do it. The novel was so thoroughly interworked with very subtle references to French politics of 1830 that I'm sure I missed a lot, even with the notes (and the lousy translation didn't help), but A+++ would read again.