On choosing

My book club met last night to discuss Bittersweet by Nevada Barr. As always, it was a treat to get out of the house, hang out with friends, consume wine and cheese, and talk about books. The book, however, left much to be desired.

Bittersweet sounded like a good idea: lesbian lovers out west in the late 19th century search for social acceptance. But the plot was pat, the prose clunky, the characters undeveloped, the coincidences improbable. In short: don't bother reading this one.

I've read several clunkers in a row now. Bittersweet was no one's fault -- Doulicia heard about it at work -- how were we to know?

I'm thinking I need to change my method of choosing books.

Method? Do I have a method?

My current method is to take the Tempestuous Toddler to the brand-new Pittsfield Branch of the dear old Ann Arbor District Library. The new building has this . . . contraption . . . that lets you shoot a ball high up a chute, and then it comes back down, around and around and around, thereby illustrating some property of physics. Toddler heaven. And bless their hearts, the library designers placed this contraption smack in the middle of the adult area. So I can browse while Daniel operates the contraption. The only problem is, if there is another child present (and there always is) I have to keep half my attention on Daniel because he tends to get rather territorial. This is how I ended up with Goodnight Nobody a few weeks ago. It's how I ended up with Drop City, which I am enjoying to a certain extent, though hippie communes are not my number one choice of subject matter. So, perhaps this isn't the ideal way to choose books.

I used to subscribe to the New York Times Book Review. However, I rarely if ever felt inspired to read any of the books they reviewed. In fact, the opposite was true. First of all, I got a little tired of the word "luminous." Why is it that all the best books have "luminous" prose? Second, the reviews give away way too much plot. Third, don't even get me started on their reviews of biographies -- which tell all about the subject and nothing about the biography qua biography. Fourth, it comes too often. If it was a monthly I could keep up, but every week? No way. So that's out.

Another possibility: go down the list of Pulitzer, Booker, etc. award winners.

Or do what Ella's doing: read the Modern Library.

Here's another idea: we have a copy of the complete annotated list of all the Penguin Classics currently in print. I've been studying this list (okay, we keep it in the downstairs bathroom). What I like about the list is that it's in alphabetical order by author, which lends it an appealing randomness. If I did this, A to Z, I would have to start with Flatland, by Edward Abbott and end with Thérèse Raquin, by Émile Zola. If the titles were in chronological order I wouldn't even consider it.

There are some drawbacks to this plan. First, and this is huge, I hate Penguin Classics. They just aren't very nice books to hold in your hand. Margins and leading: way too small. (For those not in the know, leading is the white space between the lines. In olden times the typesetters used strips of lead to make the spaces even and uniform. It rhymes with sledding, not bleeding.) Font: ugly and too small. Contrast: too low. The second drawback is that this isn't just a list of novels here. There is No Way I'm going to spend my precious reading time on, say, The Portable Machiavelli, even if it is an "essential collection" and even if I am married to a history teacher. I'm. Just. Not. But I could skip over the philosophy, economics, poetry, plays and short stories. Novels only. I'm prejudiced that way.

I think I'll give it a try. Flatland, here I come!