Wednesday 28 February 2007

Book Group

My monthly book group met last night. We had agreed to read My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. Despite our best intentions it didn't quite work as planned. In our defense this book is long (500 pages) dense and complicated. OK, maybe not War and Peace long but no working mother in her right mind is going to take that on. In defense of the book it is beautifully written and captivating. It won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006 so not your run of the mill chick lit choice. Given the difficulty I had in getting the book out of amazon, I thought we did rather well. K* excelled by getting the farthest through the book (about 1/5 of the way). S, B, and I managed about 200 pages. M is expecting a baby in the next few week and didn't get much beyond the first 50 pages or so. Hard to read when you gotta pee every 10 minutes.

We do all agree that what we've read is good (albeit very confusing) and worth the effort if only to figure out what the hell is going on. (I'm 200 pages through and I still don't know what the book is about - perhaps this is all a bit misguided.) We shall carry on reading and hope to finish this one and one more before March. Maybe we are gluttons for punishment. Next month's selection is The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld. Anyone read this?

* Names have been shortened to protect the innocent. At the request of some members of the group I have not included their full names to respect their privacy. (Their English and a bit odd really.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I actually got to page 75 but you haven't sold me on the idea of going on any further. I am doing slightly better this month but only just.

No bump news as yet. 12 days to go and have resorted the pineapple and curry diet.

By the way I think I am the least odd of the group, just blonde and pregnant!

LOL

M