So Much for That!

I’ve been stuck lately choosing my next book, and haven’t read anything all week! I kind of did myself in by amassing a huge pile of potential next reads. They all look so good, I just don’t know where to start!

Many of the books in the pile are galleys of books I’ve chosen for my next book discussion class, “Hot Off the Press.” You can see these books in the nifty display to the right that my husband made for me with an Amazon widget. I’ll be reading all of those quite soon!

There are also a whole bunch I picked up from the library, including the new novel from Lionel Shriver, So Much for That. I like Lionel Shriver – I really enjoyed and recommend her book The Post-Birthday World. It’s a kind of “Sliding Doors” approach (great movie from 1998 with Gwyneth Paltrow) where the main character, in alternating chapters, lives out two alternative realities that could occur based on choice she makes one night (at dinner, handsome dinner companion, boyfriend out of town, lots of wine – you can imagine what that choice was to be made).

So I read the first 61 pages (3 chapters) of Shriver’s new novel. I do like it so far, and yet I don’t think I’m going to continue right now. The story in large part hinges on an almost-fifty year old woman’s discovery that she has a rare and advanced type of cancer, and the affect this has on her relationship with her husband, from whose point of view her story is told. So far, lots (lots!) of clinical detail about her medical condition, and even about health insurance plans (to the point where I wondered if there was a political message here). I’m starting to feel that I’m not really emotionally ready to spend 430 some pages with a woman around my age going through this. I’ll wait on this one.

And so, my next selection will be…