Friday Books

Last week I mentioned the book I was trying to read, Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian and Mabel Lee. I valiantly tried to continue reading the book. Supposedly it's a good one - it's a Pulitzer Prize winner! After pushing through the equivalence of about 100+ pages in a 500+ page book, I decided I'd given it a proper trial and gave myself permission to stop. I couldn't quite get this book.. a guy is trying to find himself, or find his country, or figure out the soul of his country or something. Each chapter is a different vignette of him along this vague journey, trying to find some elusive village that no one will speak of openly. He sometimes refers to himself as he, but sometimes it's you and she (as two people). Just too weird and disjointed for my taste; I gave it the old college try and feel I deserve the right to set this book aside. And it was so.

Next I started on Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson, New Women in Search of Love and Power by Susan Hertog. Reviewed by Laurie Hertzel in the "St Paul Pioneer Press" (she is the Books Editor), it sounds like a book that I will enjoy. I started it and got a respectable start on it, when I received a notice that the book I had requested at the library was in.

Off I went to the library, then stopped for lunch with only the library book in my hands. I had to start reading it while eating my lunch. This one is The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein. It's an attention grabber right from the start. Reminds me of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes so far.

I hate to start a book and interrupt it with another one, unless I've decided to give up on the first book. (Well, for goodness sake, who believes this? I do it all the time!) I think I'll fly through The Invisible Wall and then get back to Dangerous Ambition which has no due date. It's in my Kindle. The Invisible Wall is a book chosen by my online book club. Hopefully I'll get it read before the due date and be well prepared for our book discussion when it comes up.

More on Dangerous Ambition at some future point... for now I'm absorbed in The Wall. Happy reading, everyone!