Let's see...Blogger has revolutionized itself and I'm not sure at all I can deal with the "c" word--change. So bear with me, please.

I just brought home a new book, The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. I had high hopes for it--what a title! I figured as a Jane Austen fan I'd have to love it. I started reading it last night and after the first chapter, quickly scanned the rest of the book to see if it offered more of the same. It did. And back to the library it goes. I realize from all the reviews that I have managed to miss the beauty of this book, but if Fowler is trying to create Austen-like characters, there is an essential ingredient missing, and I think it is sympathy, that understanding or regard for one's characters that makes them worth reading about.

None of the characters interested me in the slightest, mostly because they are presented as boring, superficial people. The narrator, who is not and cannot be identified in the first thirty pages, is condescending in her/his descriptions of each character she/he introduces, appears to have no sympathy for the entire cast, and is supercilious to boot. Out! Out! Out of my house!

The Midnight Disease, mentioned in my previous post, is so fascinating that I can even block out the distractions of "24," which I think is the most difficult program to try to sit and read by. (Ken and Sophie feel abandoned if I don't sit on the couch with them.) I have only a wee bit left to read and I'll be sorry it's over; in fact, the most complex sections which discuss the brain and how it affects the ability to write and to be blocked from writing, should definitely be read more than once.

And I'm sorry to say that I have one more dud to report. But I'm only blogging on one flop per post. More later.