The Virginian

A friend of mine wrote "it would be a crime for an American to go through life without ever reading this book." I think he is right. The Virginian is the original western, and the character of the Virginian is the very definition of Western masculinity. This story of his friendship with a visiting New Yorker, and his love affair with a school teacher from New England, is a masterpiece.

Prince Otto

Prince Otto is at risk of losing both his middle-European principality and his wife, and is not sure if he cares enough to keep either. The enjoyable story keeps you hanging until the end, as to which he gets to keep, if any.

Pan Michal

Pan Michal, a secondary if delightful character in With Fire and Sword, and one of the main characters in Deluge, is now the protagonist of this, the final novel of Sienkiewicz's trilogy. Apparently Sienkiewicz was affected by the criticism of his earlier novels as being too (now unfashionably) romantic (in other words having happy endings) and so he wrote Pan Michael to be a much darker novel, with a not so happy ending. But he would only go so far to satisfy the critics--he added a chapter-long postscript describing the historic battle of Chochim, in which we get a happy ending after all. (But if you're reading Kuniczak's newer translation, beware, he leaves this postscript out. I didn't realize this until I finished the book, and had to go and buy another copy, with Jeremiah's older translation, to get the postscript).