When your library copy of Middlemarch is being used as a footrest under the dining table, it's probably time to give up and send it back.
When you've read the first 15 pages of Jeeves and the Tie That Binds three times and still don't feel all that compelled to keep going, it's time to give up.
Oh well. I gave it a go. Being that these books are classics, I know that for this breakup, it's me, not them, having an issue. Something about the density of Elliot's prose in Middlemarch (and the fact that I'd read it post-lunch, reclined on the couch, in the 80 degree heat of my sweltering living room) made me doze off.
Reviews of Jeeves (the last or close-to-last book in the Bertie and Jeeves series for P.G. Wodehouse) said that the previous novels were more charming. And who starts a series with the last installment, anyway? See, it's me, not the book. My library didn't have any of the earlier books available, though, so that's why I took it home. I promise to revisit Wodehouse at a later date because I know how popular (and entertaining) other erudite folks find the books.
My next attempts:
John Steinbeck's East of Eden and Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta.
I can nearly promise that Mother Teresa will definitely not end up as a footrest.
Have you started the Mother Theresa book yet? Would you like to do a "read-a-long" where we both read the book? I have it sitting on my shelf waiting for the perfect time to read it!
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