Summer reading round-up

I've been trying to slow down and not get over-busy, so that slows my reading down a little. Mainly, right now I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov. I've always wanted to read it because so many writers I love -- Dorothy Day, David Foster Wallace -- love it. I'm about a third of the way through.
It's fascinating reading, for sure, especially Dostoyevsky's outlook on religion, which he clearly takes very seriously. Also I like his characterization the dissolute father, Fyodor Pavlovich, who reminds me of a few people I know. These are all superficial impressions, I should do some more rigorous thinking on the novel, but right now I'm just enjoying all the great characters and dialogue and not thinking too terribly deeply.
I think I've also found the perfect use for SparkNotes (online Cliff's Notes for you oldsters like me). I read the plot summaries on SparkNotes to help me remember which character is which, and keep track of all the nicknames, some of which are not obvious at all, e.g. Mitya=Dmitri. So you see, there is a use for SparkNotes besides shirking your college reading!
As a lark, I finished the Michael Lewis memoir on fatherhood, Home Game. I still like him a lot but this book was too light and flip for my taste. In the last section, he gets a vasectomy, which he plays for laughs, and which I really did not need to know about. Hey, but that's OK, nobody's perfect. He's still one of my favorite authors. I think this is definitely a book for guys and only certain guys.
While I'm being kind of trivial here, guess what I found! Another volume of Jane Austen paraliterature, this time yet another book masquerading as Mr. Darcy's diary. But the new twist here is that Mr. Darcy was friends with LORD BYRON. For those of you who don't know, I was obsessed with Lord Byron is high school. I checked the dates, it's not totally implausible, though I think Darcy would have been a little bit older than Byron, but it depends on when you date the events of Pride and Prejudice. After I finish Karamazov, I will get my own copy of this book and read it and give you a detailed critique. I read the first chapter at the book store: Mr. Darcy is not so upstanding as P&P would have you think, but he's also not fully embracing of all of Lord Byron's mad, bad and dangerous-to-know ways. This is really hilarious to me -- Mr. Darcy and Lord Byron!