JIM'S BOOK CLUB

Oprah’s got her book club so why shouldn’t I start one? So here’s how it works. I read a book. Then I put a little description and review on here. Then you folks read it, or not. If you read it you can either agree or disagree with me, unlike Oprah who demands that you like everything she recommends. If you don’t read it you can make something up like you did for book reviews back in junior high school. Simple, right? All the books will be available at a public library so you don’t even have to buy them. That is unless you’re my sister who has a compulsion to buy books. Okay here are the first three titles for your consideration.

NoVa by James Boice
This novel about some of the people in a neighborhood in the suburban area of Northern Virginia (NoVa) is brutal. The prose is largely a stream of consciousness outpouring from the varied cast of characters written with amazing insight. The author moves from character to character, young to old, male to female with ease and an unwavering sense of what it is to be that person. But this book is not friendly. In fact I don’t think the author likes his characters at all, except for the seventeen year old boy who is the focus of the novel, whom we meet as he hangs dead from a basketball hoop in a neighborhood playground. The novel explores the people who had some contact with this boy, some in only a tenuous way, others, like his parents who, while living with him, didn’t grasp what was happening in his life in the least. As I said, the story is brutal with unflattering images of every character involved. There is adolescent sex, drunkenness, insanity, drug abuse and crass materialism spelled out in language both harsh and beautiful. It was a book I had to put down many times after being overwhelmed by the power of the images created by the writing. So I recommend this book with a cautionary advisory; it’s not easy to read or like, but it is worth the effort.

The Bible Salesman by Clyde Edgerton
A young man in the post World War Two South starts a career as a traveling Bible salesman and through a chance encounter gets involved in a life of crime, crime he doesn’t even realize he’s committing. This is a very funny story full of great characters and a few challenging questions about life and beliefs and fate. With interesting and easy to follow flashbacks we learn how the young salesman came to his chosen profession and what influenced and shaped his personality. The criminals in the story are never totally evil but shaded with the gray that makes them more real and human. A few plot twists and a nice romantic sub-plot make this a fun and enjoyable read.

Lessons From the Land of Pork Scratchings by Greg Gutfeld
This book is basically a series of short essays by a magazine editor who takes a job in London. The essays explain how he adapts to and comes to like life in Great Britain. It also offers some humorous and interesting comparisons of customs and attitudes between the USA and the UK. Often crude but largely engaging, the chapters move along quickly and explore such things as pub behavior, dating, work place practices, and neighborhood life. Having a son-in-law from the UK and having seen some of these cultural differences on a couple of trips over there made this book especially interesting for me. But if you’re looking for some good humor writing and some observations about how alike our two cultures are while, at the same time, pointing out some rather odd differences then this book might be fun for you as well.

Okay kids, start reading. Reports are due in two weeks.

Have a fine day.