What should I read next?

My reading pace has slowed a lot in the last couple months and I'm dragging on finishing a couple of long books. If I can get through those, I'm thinking of Comte de Monte-Cristo as my major October read.

For a thorough break from seriousness and self-improvement, go for a Wodehouse. If you'd prefer something with more meat on it, O Pioneers! would be an excellent choice, but only if it fits your mood, which might require a soufflé over meat and potatoes.

after reading the Neapolitan novels, How Should a Person Be?, I Love Dick, and in the middle of The Flamethrowers, I have not gotten enough of novels about women artists who are by turns attracted to and disappointed by men. What are some other things in this category?

Nathaniel P is good one

Collected works of Jean Rhys?

Stella Bowen's DRAWN FROM LIFE? (She was an Australian artist whose husband, Ford Madox Ford, was also sleeping with Jean Rhys for a sizeable chunk of their marriage)

Rhys' books don't centre on female artists though?

No? Bum. A while since I read them all--misremembered some of the protagonists as writers, etc. Ah well.

You are probably right James. Can't recall rn.

I’d like to read some historical fiction or ripping-yarn-type history about renaissance Italian statesmen and popes engaging in skulduggery, or else a highly recommended low-magic fantasy pastiche of same. What am I looking for?

Just got a Daedalus Books catalog which incl. In The Name of the Family---A Novel of Machiavelli and the Borgias: "In this sequel to Blood and Beauty, Silver Dagger Award winner Sarah Dunant explores the House of Borgia's final years. It is 1502, and Rodrigo Borgia, a womanizer and master of political corruption, sits on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter and longtime pawn Lucrezia---three times married by the age of 22---is discovering she too has power. But his son Cesare has become increasingly unstable, and too close to Florentine diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli, who puts what he sees into The Prince. While the pope rails against old age and his son's erratic behavior, Lucrezia navigates the treacherous court of Urbino and another challenging marriage to create her own place in history."

Didn't mean to type all that, but, though I haven't read Dunant's books, did watch all of The Borgias cable series, starring Jeremy Irons, and this description pulled me back in.

Promising!!