I'm trying a new format this month because I always want to talk about every book I read, and that makes my posts turn out reeeeally long. I usually only finish 1-2 books per week, so I hope this is more effective!
Books Bought:
- Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates)
Books Read:
- My Ideal Bookshelf (Thessaly La Force and Jane Mount)
- The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
My Ideal Bookshelf is described as a coffee table book, but I read it cover to cover. The book features about 100 famous (or accomplished) people talking about books and includes an illustration of what they would put on their "ideal bookshelf" - favorite books, books that are important to their careers, etc. I love reading books about books - I checked this one out from the library, and I didn't love it enough that I would want to own it, but it was entertaining to see which books were most often selected: some were not surprising (Lolita, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catch-22, The Catcher in the Rye, anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald or Flannery O'Connor) and some that I'd never heard of (Elizabeth Bishop's poems are very popular). Mainly, this book reminded me how many books there are out there that I just have to read. (So when I saw Revolutionary Road, which was included on two or three ideal bookshelves, for $4 on Amazon, I bought it!)
My favorite quotation from the book came from Malcolm Gladwell, and it completely summed up my love affair with buying books (and could also easily be hash-tagged "musicology problems"):
"I've probably acquired 150 books just for this project. I haven't read all of them, and I won't. Some of them I'll just look at. But that's the fun part. It's an excuse to go on Amazon. The problem is, of course, that eventually you have to stop yourself. Otherwise you'll collect books forever. But these books are markers for ideas that I'm interested in. That's why it's so important to have physical books. When I see my bookshelf expanding, it gives me the illusion that my brain is expanding, too."
I adored The Color Purple and will definitely be adding it to my list of favorite books. It includes some of the best character development I've ever seen in such a relatively short novel (actually - I'm not really sure how short it is because I read it on my Kindle...it felt short). I believe part of the reason I enjoyed The Color Purple so much because I really didn't know anything about it beforehand, other than it won a Pulitzer Prize at some point. I think it's be incredibly tempting to throw one of a handful of different labels on this novel (and one look at the reviews on Amazon confirmed this), but the beauty of the book is that it fits into so many categories. I read this book in less than 24 hours and highly recommend it to pretty much anyone.
It's wonderful to have finally begun my summer reading! And no better way to start than with Irish author Marian Keyes's latest book: The Mystery of Mercy Close is a book that Keyes's fans have been waiting for for years. The main character, Helen, is the youngest of the five Walsh sisters - Keyes has already written books about the four older sisters. Keyes is one of my favorite authors because she tackles heavy subjects in comedic fashion without taking away from the seriousness of whichever malady the main character suffers from. Helen has always been a source of comic relief in the earlier four Walsh sister books (she is a mean and scrappy private investigator), so I was curious to see what would happen to her. I wasn't surprised that the book involved a mystery, but this is not a mystery novel and the mystery itself ties more into Helen's struggles than provides a source of suspense. I usually try not to give away plot points in this blog, but we find out fairly early on that Helen has depression. However, I still wouldn't describe this as a "book about depression," just as I wouldn't describe any of Keyes's earlier books as "books about alcoholism" or "books about domestic violence." It's about Helen.
