Comments | linthornhill: Reading, reading, and more reading while I recuperate

linthornhill

Reading, reading, and more reading while I recuperate

Jun 06, 2009 08:04

I met Karen Joy Fowler at the Festival of Books, and I was impressed with her erudition and the way she talked about writing. Of course, I immediately bought her The Jane Austen Book Club and her newer work Wit's End. I've been reading the first since then, along with another book my mom bought for me, Maisie Dobbs, written by Jacqueline Winspear ( Read more... )

Comments 5

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linthornhill June 6 2009, 20:32:15 UTC

I'm so relieved you were another who didn't warm to it. I've given it another go this morning, and just ... no. It doesn't work for me.

Well, the care package seems to be growing as I've added the Fowler book and its mate to the stack. Life's really too short to waste on a book which doesn't enrich it.

dickgloucester June 6 2009, 17:48:17 UTC

Can't abide books like that, where I don't warm to the characters. No matter how stylish the writing, or how clever the plotting, if it doesn't touch me then there's little chance of my finishing it. Life's too short - and therre are other books to be read, and written.

linthornhill June 6 2009, 20:33:49 UTC

Exactly; I couldn't agree more.

I'm not saying the book isn't someone's cuppa -- a lot of someones apparently -- but it isn't mine. I want something to snuggle with as I sip my tea and snuggle my toes under the lap blanket.

mochi_tsuki June 10 2009, 01:16:19 UTC

I own and once started to read the Book Club. Hated it. Couldn't finish it. It's only once every year or three that I start a book I don't finish, but I found that one absolutely unreadable. Not only was there no one I liked, there was no one I even found interesting enough to want to know what happened to them.* I congratulate you on your fortitude for ploughing through it, but I have to wonder, why?

* I never liked that Humbert guy in Lolita either, but I was interested. In kind of a sick way, but I think that's part of the point of that novel, to provoke our inner sickos.

linthornhill June 11 2009, 06:35:48 UTC

Actually, I haven't continued with the book. I gave it another chance the morning I wrote this post, and still heartily disliked all the characters, so I've packed it in a care package for my dearest Selkie's used bookstore. Let her sell it and use the funds toward another month's rent!

Nabokov was such an interesting writer, his prose was gorgeous, but his characters were grim and unpleasant and I haven't read anything more of his.