Lists of books one should read (a beginning)

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en…about 1800 small print pages, available in English finally from Chinese publisher...the ancient Chinese Buddhist classic about a crazy monkey with supernatural powers who brings havoc to the court of the Jade Emperor and has to be subdued by the Buddha himself, later released to provide aid to an old Chinese monk who has taken on the impossible task of traveling to the West to obtain precious Buddhist manuscripts unknown in China...based on a real historical journey...

More Neal Stephenson novels, series starting with Quicksilver, Cryptonomicon pretty interesting, hard to stop reading though long (1100 pages)

Robert Sheckley detective stories, did not know he even wrote any, such as: Draconian New York, Soma Blues, The Alternative Detective. Sheckley has been ill lately, he should be considered one of the most innovative science fiction writers of the 20th century...it is sad so few of his imaginative stories have made it to the silver screen...7th Victim comes to mind...but there are scores more worthy of being made into film...

Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels...apparently a novel of the battle of Gettysburg, which has always fascinated me

Ulysses S. Grant by Geoffrey Perret...Grant was the first modern President and did a good job despite the hatchet job done by liberal historians

A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss...cannot resist historical novels about England apparently

How the Scots Invented the Modern World...Arthur Herman...at least making a stab at this one...seems logical to me, even though I don't have any Scotch ancestry that I know of

Marking Time, The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar, by Duncan Steel...so detailed it scares me, but accurate to a microsecond

The Spanish Ulcer, A History of the Peninsular War, by David Gates...to provide more solid background to Spanish/British resistance to Napoleon's invasion and occupation of Spain...after finishing The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes by Mark Urban, a real humdinger

Did I say this was only a beginning?

Don Camillo books by Giovanni Guareschi

These books of short stories about a village priest in post-war Italy and his nemesis, Peppone, the Communist mayor, are always good reading. Never doctrinal or shrill, Don Camillo is street smart and wily as he maneuvers against the latest absurd power grabs of the local Italian Communist party. There is one moving story called “Christ’s Secret Agent” in which Don Camillo sneaks into an Italian Communist tourist group visiting the Soviet Union. Peppone cannot expose him without getting himself into trouble, so Don Camillo gets to see the reality of the Worker’s Paradise of Russia for himself. In this particular story he secretly performs Catholic rituals for a Catholic family on a commune, in particular an elderly Polish grandmother, in violation of Soviet law of course.

That such simple and harmless acts are considered high treason in a totalitarian dictatorship is highlighted. One recalls the Soviet occupation of Mongolia and the subsequent extermination of thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns, to know that this was standard practice in all Communist countries. This is the type of anti-religious program converts like Che Guevara relished and tried to duplicate. Even today Buddhist activity is severely limited in Vietnam, for example, and China regularly clamps down on Christian priests, while putting on a smiley face to the rest of the world.

This site has many Don Camillo stories online.

Another good site on the author of the Don Camillo books.