I spent most of this beautiful day, sitting in the backyard finishing my reading of The Privileges by Jonathan Dee. I really didn't like the book. I kept thinking that maybe I just couldn't like a book about wealthy people who, for the most part, had no real struggles, and when the did have struggles, they bought their way out of them. But I know that's not true, I've read and enjoyed books about ultra-wealthy people before, but Dee's depiction of the Moreys never engaged me enough to become sympathetic to any of the characters. Even when I finally thought something exciting/interesting would happen, I would be disappointed with a too easy, too fast resolution to the conflict--money really does buy everything for these people. Although I thought the writing was good, it wasn't so good that I wanted to keep reading. I finished the book because I have a difficult time not finishing books and because it was a book club selection. We met tonight to discuss the book, and I wasn't the only one who didn't like it. Only a couple of members liked the book, but neither of them loved it.
After we finished discussing The Privileges, we picked out our next read from a list of four books, one of which was immediately eliminated because a member had already read it. We settled on a The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I'm not very excited about the choice; I would've preferred The Lotus Eaters. The other choice was The Glass Castle, which every other book club in the world as probably already read. I really dislike memoirs even though I recently read and loved Just Kids, so I was just glad that everyone else didn't want to read it. Surprisingly, no one even named it as one of their top two choices.
Before I start the The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I am going to start a new big book. To me a big book is any book with more than 500 pages. I've narrowed my choices down to these six books, all of which I have owned for some time now:
- 2666 by Roberto Bolano, 912 pages
- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, 1104 pages
- Light in August by William Faulkner, 512 pages
- Native Son by Richard Wright, 544 pages
- Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson, 720 pages
- Drood by Dan Simmons, 976 pages
3 comments:
Well, it's not on your list, but how about Atlas Shrugged by Any Rand. That's over 1100 pages
Maybe this comment is a little late, and you already decided which of the books you ought to read. However, Native Son is great, and if you haven't read it yet, I think you should pick it up.
Melissa, I decided to read Drood, but I interrupted by reading of it to read book club books and young adult books for work. I'm going to restart it soon and should be able to finish it this month. It's my turn to select a book for book club, and Native Son is definitely a possibility. However, I have decided to read James Joyce's Ulysses this summer, so it might be the fall before I get to Native Son. I will read it before this year is up, for sure.
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