Hi ho!

Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut
Like most of Vonngut's work, Slapstick is a critical look at American values and culture. It's told as a memior from the point of view of the last President of the United States before the fall from a technological height and back toward barbarism...which just might be better after all. While not pinnacle Vonnegut on the level of Mother Night, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, or Slaughterhouse-5, it is better than what 99% of what is out there. Highly recommended.

All This for a Twig

The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer
The premise of this book is really simple: Why did the custom exist of the Priest of the Sacred Grove at Nemi having to be slain by his successor, who first had to pluck the fabled Golden Bough? From this premise, Frazer sets off on a course through anthropology and mythology to trace the course of human thought that ultimately culminated in this seemingly unspectacular, if barbarous, custom. While the book is long and often tedious, it is also often fascinating and always fabulously rewarding for those interested in mythology, anthropology, or literature.

Not as Smutty as I Expected

Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
The man is an absolute master at relationships. I have not read any other writer that has his patience and skill at building complex, realistic relationships through the accumulation of minute detail. While the characters and plot are only adequate, the relationships between the characters, and the poetic prose, drove the novel and managed to keep me engaged the whole way through. I was surprised that this novel, at least, showed no indication of the smuttiness of which Lawrence has often been accused. Overall, a good introduction to a literary author who will get another look later.