The 70 proof staff enjoys three things above all else. And it just so happens that reading is third behind only... well, let's just say it's third.

Every few weeks we'll provide brief reviews of the books we've been reading in hopes of helping you, our valued readers, make better choices the next time you're at the library, book store, or refined brothel.

We rate books on a scale of zero to four shots, with four being a work of true genius.

Feel free to let us know if you have any books in particular you would like us to address. We can be reached at dell1921@comcast.net.

updated 07.30.07

FOUR SHOTS
"Poor White" by Sherwood Anderson
"The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin
"Dear Brutus" by J.M. Barrie
"Peter Pan" by J.M. Barrie
"Tommy and Grizel" by J.M. Barrie
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum
"Molloy" by Samuel Beckett
"Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett
"Seven Men" by Max Beerbohm
"Zuleika Dobson" by Max Beerbohm
"In the Midst of Life" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Death of the Heart" by Elizabeth Bowen
"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte
"The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck
"The Fall" by Albert Camus
"A Happy Death" by Albert Camus
"The Plague" by Albert Camus
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll
"Through the Looking-Glass" by Lewis Carroll
"A Lost Lady" by Willa Cather
"Lucy Gayheart" by Willa Cather
"The Man Who Was Thursday" by G.K. Chesterton
"The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins
"Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" by Thomas De Quincey
"A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens
"The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"The Double" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"The Gambler" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"The House of the Dead" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"Notes from Underground" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"Poor Folk" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"The Possessed" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"The Hound of the Baskervilles" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Sign of Four" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"A Study in Scarlet" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Basil and Josephine Stories" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The Sufferings of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Diary of a Madman and Other Stories" by Nikolai Gogol
"The Inspector General" by Nikolai Gogol
"Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
"I, Claudius" by Robert Graves
"The Thin Man" by Dashiell Hammett
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway
"The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway
"Knulp" by Hermann Hesse
"Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
"Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse
"Lost Horizon" by James Hilton
"The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving
"Main Street" by Sinclair Lewis
"The Moon and Sixpence" by W. Somerset Maugham
"Moby-Dick" by Herman Melville
"The Piazza Tales" by Herman Melville
"The Middle-Class Gentleman" by Moliere
"Utopia" by Sir Thomas More
"Under the Net" by Iris Murdoch
"Pale Fire" by Vladimir Nabokov
"A Spy in the House of Love" by Anais Nin
"Animal Farm" by George Orwell
"The Gold Bug and Other Stories" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Mystery of Marie Roget" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Purloined Letter" by Edgar Allan Poe
"William Wilson" by Edgar Allan Poe
"Naseau" by Jean-Paul Sartre
"The Wall and Other Stories" by Jean-Paul Sartre
"Hamlet" by William Shakespeare
"Macbeth" by William Shakespeare
"Othello" by William Shakespeare
"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
"Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
"Wayward Bus" by John Steinbeck
"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson
"The Suicide Club and Other Stories" by Robert Louis Stevenson
"Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson
"The Wrong Box" by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
"Dracula" by Bram Stoker
"Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift
"The Rum Diary" by Hunter S. Thompson
"The Death of Ivan Ilyich" by Leo Tolstoy
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain
"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" by Mark Twain
"Rabbit, Run" by John Updike
"Miss Lonelyhearts" by Nathanael West
"The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton
"The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde
"Lady Windermere's Fan" by Oscar Wilde
"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde
"Native Son" by Richard Wright

THREE SHOTS
"Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe
"Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis
"Another Country" by James Baldwin
"Going to Meet the Man" by James Baldwin
"Father Goriot" by Honore de Balzac
"The Admirable Crichton" by J.M. Barrie
"Mercier and Camier" by Samuel Beckett
"The Sheltering Sky" by Paul Bowles
"The Postman Always Rings Twice" by James M. Cain
"The Professor's House" by Willa Cather
"Troilus and Criseyde" by Geoffrey Chaucer
"The Ball and the Cross" by G. K. Chesterton
"The Incredulity of Father Brown" by G. K. Chesterton
"The Innocence of Father Brown" by G. K. Chesterton
"The Scandal of Father Brown" by G. K. Chesterton
"The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins
"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" by Stephen Crane
"The Ginger Man" by J. P. Donleavy
"Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"His Last Bow" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Return of Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"Jennie Gerhardt" by Theodore Dreiser
"The Love of the Last Tycoon" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Monsieur Lecoq" by Emile Gaboriau
"Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol
"Loving" by Henry Green
"The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories" by Ernest Hemingway
"Demian" by Hermann Hesse
"Gertrude" by Hermann Hesse
"The Trial" by Franz Kafka
"Ignorance" by Milan Kundera
"Of Love and Other Demons" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"Amphitryon" by Moliere
"Tartuffe" by Moliere
"The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
"The Unicorn" by Iris Murdoch
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor
"At Lady Molly's" by Anthony Powell
"All's Well That Ends Well" by William Shakespeare
"King Lear" by William Shakespeare
"The Merchant of Venice" by William Shakespeare
"Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare
"The Taming of the Shrew" by William Shakespeare
"Twelfth Night" by William Shakespeare
"Brideshead Revisited" by Evelyn Waugh
"A Handful of Dust" by Evelyn Waugh
"The Loved One" by Evelyn Waugh
"Scoop" by Evelyn Waugh
"The Invisible Man" by H. G. Wells
"A Cool Million" by Nathanael West
"Ethan Frome" by Edith Wharton

TWO SHOTS
"Malone Dies" by Samuel Beckett
"The Unnamable" by Samuel Beckett
"The Way of All Flesh" by Samuel Butler
"Exile and the Kingdom" by Albert Camus
"The Club of Queer Trades" by G. K. Chesterton
"Manalive" by G. K. Chesterton
"The Man Who Knew Too Much" by G. K. Chesterton
"The Secret of Father Brown" by G. K. Chesterton
"Tales of the Long Bow" by G. K. Chesterton
"The Wisdom of Father Brown" by G. K. Chesterton
"A House to Let" by Charles Dickens
"The Valley of Fear" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"Save Me the Waltz" by Zelda Fitzgerald
"The Natural" by Bernard Malamud
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
"A High Wind in Jamaica" by Richard Hughes
"Chrome Yellow" by Aldous Huxley
"A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen
"Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving
"Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome
"Amerika" by Franz Kafka
"The Castle" by Franz Kafka
"Lose with a Smile" by Ring Lardner
"Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann
"Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller
"Parnassus on Wheels" by Christopher Morley
"Bend Sinister" by Vladimir Nabokov
"The Four-Chambered Heart" by Anais Nin
"Love's Labours Lost" by William Shakespeare
"The Two Gentlemen of Verona" by William Shakespeare
"The Moon Is Down" by John Steinbeck
"Perfume" by Patrick Suskind
"Alice Adams" by Booth Tarkington
"Monsieur Beaucaire" by Booth Tarkington
"Cane" by Jean Toomer
"A Double-Barreled Detective Story" by Mark Twain
"My Man Jeeves" by P.G. Wodehouse
"Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf

ONE SHOT
"The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer
"Ragtime" by E. L. Doctorow
"The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"Intruder in the Dust" by William Faulkner
"A Family Party" by John O'Hara
"The Bores" by Moliere
"The Tempest" by William Shakespeare
"The Dream Life of Balso Snell" by Nathanael West
"The Optimist's Daughter" by Eudora Welty

NO SHOTS
"Falconer" by John Cheever
"Balthazar" by Lawrence Durrell