It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Last week I finished a bunch of things. I finally finished Cities of Salt, the first volume in Abdulrachman Munif's trilogy about the effects of the discovery of oil on a Persian Gulf community and its diaspora. I also finished two crime novels for a reading group I'm a part of, Georges Simenon's A Man's Head and Ross Macdonald's The Galton Case. I liked the latter more than the former, and I liked Cities of Salt but not enough to read the sequels. I'll try to get some reviews up soon.

Moving on, I'm reading Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies, her latest novel about the problems of trust-fund babies. So far I'm not exactly loving it but I'll stay with it for the time being. A bunch of friends of mine loved it, and I loved her last book, Arcadia, so I'm willing to hang in there.

I started Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story, by Boston-area author Maxim D. Shrayer, last week as well. I interviewed Shrayer for the Association of Jewish Libraries a while back, and I've known him casually on social media ever since, so I was happy to get a copy of his memoir about a year ago and I've finally picked it up. I'm enjoying it. It's about his family's struggle to leave the former Soviet Union and make a new life in the United States, and about growing up as a refusenik.  I'm only in the early chapters so far.

Still working my way through A Man of Good Hope, by Jonny Steinberg, which is a terrific and engaging and really thought-provoking study of a man's life amidst crazy conditions and chaos, not terribly unlike Shrayer's in some ways. Steinberg, a journalist, writes with verve and keeps the pages turning.

That's it for me this week! What are you reading?