Book Clubbed

Book Club was a little bit of a dud tonight. There were only five of us there, and only three people had finished the book, The Tiger's Wife. I was not one of those people, I'm about half through it. I'm finding it absorbing, though not as absorbing as I wish it were. I will have more to say when I'm finished because I do want to stick with it longer.

But I guess I am a lazy reader, or one kind of lazy reader, because when I'm reading a book that doesn't totally grab me, my mind wanders to a similar book that I would rather be reading, usually one that treats the same material and that I've read in the past.

So when I was reading that execrable Hotel of Bitter and Sweet book for my first book club meeting, I thought fondly of Snow Falling on Cedars and wished we were learning about the Japanese-American experience during WWII through that lens instead.

And reading Tiger's Wife, so far, makes me nostalgic for The Historian, which also has the family romance, grief and loss, and the persistence of folkloric beliefs into contemporary life, but also a tight, intriguing plot.

Next month we're reading Unbroken, which I hear people are loving but I am suspicious of as I don't like to be bossed around by inspirational reading. (But it will probably be awesome.)

Then the NEXT month we're reading The Wedding Gift, which I am really looking forward to, but which I am afraid will make someone in that room start talking about how slavery wasn't always so bad as we've been told. I wish I were kidding you, but I am not. Maybe this is no longer a regional thing, maybe there are apologists for slavery everywhere, but...argle bargle, this isn't where I wanted this post to go.

So, please, leave a comment and tell me the number one book you've read lately that you would recommend, and tell us something about it. I am looking for things that are very plotted and fun, but not light, you know what I mean? Like, I read that book Violets of March last year, expecting to really like it because it involves an old diary and a mystery, and it was just too easy and shallow. Maybe that isn't my genre. I think of it as too Nights in Rodanthe-ish even though I have never seen the film of Nights in Rodanthe or read the book. I am unfair that way. But you know, a woman who is hurting over something goes to some beautiful house owned by a well-to-do relative who has the decency to not really be around much, and she wears baggy pants there and holds her coffee mug with both hands.

Which sounds like a wonderful way to spend some time, actually.

But all the loose pants and baggy sweaters and adirondack chairs and solitary walks cause the cold, cold stone of her heart to thaw just a little.

Okay I was going to go on but I'm boring even myself.

So speak up about the books.

xo