Friday, October 12, 2007

Jeffrah's Book Club

So, I know at our last book club meeting I told you I was reading Memoirs of a Buccaneer, Dampier's New Voyage Round The World by William Dampier. Unfortunately, I decided to put this one aside and save it for summer. It's a great book but it just wasn't sucking me in as I had hoped and I think first-hand tales of pirates and treasure will make for a great beach read.

So I decided to go old school classic and picked up The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Five hours later, I had finished one of the best books I have read in a long time.

Sure, I was supposed to read Gatsby in school like everyone else but I never cared much for being told what to read. I either skimmed the Cliff's Notes or just cheated my way through most lit examines. If you did the same, or its been so long since you read The Great Gatsby and the years of drinking have wiped the memory of it from your booze-addled brain, then I highly recommend giving this classic another look.

I enjoyed it so much that I decided to read another Fitzgerald novel, The Beautiful And Damned. I'll let you know how that one is as soon as I finish it.

So, what's everybody else reading?

8 comments:

  1. I just burned through "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz. It's about a sci-fi nerd from the Dominican Republic, a very interesting story of an immigrant family but riddled with references to comic books, 'Dune' and 'Lord of the Rings.'

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  2. I finished both of the books I was reading since the last meeting of Jeffrah's Book Club. I haven't started a new one yet.

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  3. I'm biting off JenniB (and Oprah)and reading Eat Pray Love. I'm liking it, but I'm not sure I could hang with the author either...

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  4. Anonymous9:12 PM

    I read HATCHET by Gary Paulsen. Kids book, but very cool survival story. Boy survives a plane crash and must survive in the Canadian wilderness with nothing except a hatchet.

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  5. Anonymous6:29 PM

    Agreed! I love that book...am now reading "The Island at the Center of the World."

    Good. A little tedious at times, but good.

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  6. I loved Gatsby. I read it a couple years ago again to make a lesson plan for h.s. english. It put quite a twist on the read, but probably made me pay a lot more attention to it.

    I'm reading old Flannery O'Connor books now.

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  7. Anonymous10:08 AM

    Fitzgerald is the fave author of MY roaring twenties (the first half), followed by Hermann Hesse (second half). Gatsby speaks to the remote possibilities slumbering in every man's soul. And he's rich, damn rich! Even so he's still just a pleb with a dream, a dream as sleepy and fleeting as sunset reflected off a receding tide. And I love Jordan Baker. I wanted to be her for a while. Glad you posted the classic required reading paperback cover. Good post, Jeffe.

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