My reading list is varied, and sometimes a little on the odd side. It's pretty evenly mixed between fiction and non-fiction and between contemporary and historical works. At present, I'm making my way through Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West," which prompts some interesting and uncomfortable comparisons to the United States today. I'd probably get more out of it were I able to read it in the original German, but my sprechen sie is inadequate to the task; ask me to order a pilsener and a plate of schnitzel, and I can manage, but a treatise on politics of the Weimar Republic? Not so much.

I've always been addicted to reading. My parents were as well; Dad in particular hated television but whenever he was sitting still, he always had a book at hand. Mom, too, was addicted to reading and was fond of murder mysteries and Jane Austen novels. My own reading was limited to Louis L'Amour novels, and Pat McManus' short story collections such as "A Fine and Pleasant Misery," until I was about 16. //

[My American Lit teacher] handed me a book with a bookmark in place and said, "Read this." I looked at the cover; it was a compilation of Ernest Hemingway's "The Nick Adams Stories." I opened the book to the bookmark and found a story called "The Big Two-Hearted River." I read that. Then I read the rest of the book. Then I went back to the teacher asking for more. I was hooked. //

Reading - and writing - are great endeavors. It's a pity that so many in our political class seem to do neither. //