Nicole

If you have read the novel "Tender is the Night" (and I'm sure you haven't...poor, ignored blog), Nicole is probably the most fascinating character. If we ever get around to discussing this novel, her character is were I want to start.

In the meantime, a picture of the beach right outside Montpellier!

A New Suggestion for the Summer

This blog should be called the Rare Things Book Club seeing how little we use it. Summer is approaching and I have a suggestion for a book that is a step above chick-lit. It's Fitzgerald's lesser known masterpiece, Tender is the Night. I just finished it actually, but that means I'll be ready to discuss when I return from my own French adventure June 13th.
Now here's why:
1) it takes place on the French Riviera. What says summer more than rich 20-somethings on a beach in the south of France?
2) it eerily forecasts the Fitzgeralds' descent into alcoholism and madness. And still manages not to be extremely depressing.
3) I thought it was better and more complex/rewarding than Great Gatsby.

So how about it?

Odds & ends

The NY Times has an article on book clubs. You can read it here.

By the way, who has finished The Wordy Shipmates? I'm still reading.

Any other ideas for this book club blog to keep it active?

In these times

I think we're reading this book at a particularly telling time, with the election and issues of leadership, civic duty, freedom swirling around. You can't help but think of our current climate when reading, or at least I can't. I was really struck by how much literature, writing, and knowledge were emphasized by the Puritan colony Vowell focuses on, basically our founders. It's sad to think how far we've gotten away from that. Especially when the love of knowledge, learning, traveling, writing, literature, complexity, and attending the very same Ivy League schools that the Puritans founded is referred to as 'elitist.' Just thought I would share.

Sarah Vowell on Letterman

In case you missed it, like I did:

Out today

The Wordy Shipmates is now officially out, so pick up a copy at your local bookstore or library. I did. I'm pretty sure Kate did. So I hope you all resort to peer pressure and do your part to boost our economy. Buy it. Or check it out. Just do it.

More Puritan Fun!

Even though I'm usually not a fan of books written in, well, the last couple of decades, I'll give "The Wordy Shipmates" a try if simply because I'm taking an American Literature class that focuses on Puritan Lit. Puritan Lit is as boring as hell (Puritans, if they were reading, would take offense not only because I dissed their literature but because I swore. That's why I did it). Winthrop is an abstract bore with one good catchphrase (Sarah Palin, it was Winthrop who coined "city on a hill" first, not Reagan. Although it is quite possible that ole Reagan knew Winthrop back in the day, Winthrop still deserves credit because frankly it's the one claim to fame he'll ever get); Jonathan Edwards inspires anger in even the meek with such classic imagery as spiders over cauldrons (sinners in this case being the spider and the cauldron...I'm sure you get what the cauldron represents); Bradford is a killjoy who even manages to make a trial over bestiality boring. All in all, I think I've done the most research for Vowell.