Today I did something with a book that I read for my book club that I have never done in more than 4 years of reading for it. I put the book in the give-away bag!
I posted our reading list earlier this year, so most of you know what we're set to read. This month's book was Moo, by Jane Smiley. I gave you a few brief thoughts about my take on the book before I went to book club.
Well, the meeting was interesting. We all agreed that the book could be very funny. But in the end, there just wasn't any "there" there. Nothing that would ever make even one of us pick up the book again to read. Nothing of substance. Nothing to take home and think about. Nothing that wasn't tied up in snarkiness and smartypants-ness.
I have purchased, rather than borrowing from the library, every book we have read in club. It's been a great way to add to my library! And, I suppose, it's not a bad track record to toss one book out of so many.
But still....it made me sad. So many of the other books have been such joy. What a downer this one was.
I know Smiley has won the Pulitzer Prize--for A Thousand Acres, I think. Does anyone have an opinion about the rest of her work? Or should I just write her off altogether?
a thousand acres...now there's a cheerful book. ugh.
I'm trying to read A Thousand Acres now, and I'm finding it quite tedious. I'm determined to finish, though, because I've made a goal of reading all the Pulitzer fiction winners. Some of them are better than others, though. I would recommend Empire Falls by Richard Russo first.
Have you been to Bookcrossing.com? A great place to distribute books you no longer want, and pick up a few, too.
Kat: We read Empire Falls in bookclub last year. I thought it was GREAT! Shows you the discrepancies among prize winners, I guess.
Dear Terry,
A Thousand Acres aka King Lear without the class. I don't know that we ever err in tossing aside the vast majority of modernist or postmodernist writers who are oh-so-clever and completely empty.
shalom,
Steven
Have you heard of the Fifty Page rule?
I can't remember who said it...in short, there are too many wonderful books to read. Why waste your time on something you do not like! Give it fifty pages...if you hate it, go on to something else...
Live is too short.
For what it is worth, a teacher friend of mine mentioned once that Smiley's books were always being pushed in his NEA (the terrorist organization) newsletters.
Oh Donna, the first I heard of the fifty page rule was from Nancy Pearl, who runs Seattle Public LIbrary's Center of the Book. I do not think she "invented it", but she is quite a big reader and her reviews are published yearly in book form, I believe.
Mark...I think you are right! I read Book Lust this year by Nancy Pearl.
Thank you for refreshing my memory :o)
Donna