A while back Ed Studzinski inone of his monthly MFO commentaries recommended reading Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow. It's a wonderful book, one that could restore your hope in humanity while providing great entertainment. (The Classical goal of literature is to instruct while entertaining, the old professor in me intones.) I read Towles' earlier novel, Rules of Civility, also very satisfying and providing many lessons from our first president on how life should be led. I'm just finishing the latest novel, The Lincoln Highway, a rollicking saga that defies description but which had me laughing aloud while on a late flight into DTW last night. Throughout Towles' writing is an emphasis on the importance of social conventions, good manners, and rules of comportment, which, if observed, can actually make us happier and make some sense out of our place on the planet. For me, nothing these days is more significant than finding an antidote to the meanness and incivility in our public discourse. Highly recommended.
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There's absolutely no reason why this post couldn't be used as an ongoing "anchor" for something like that, though.
I just finished The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin - by Paul Vidich. A piano tuner in 1989 Berlin goes missing - could he have been a spy? Is he dead? A good yarn, a very short read.