My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul
I really, really, really wanted to love this book. Just based on the title, I should have been able to read one paragraph and be hooked on every word until the end. Bob, is the author's Book of Books, a carefully guarded and respected listing of every book she's read since being a teenager.
I know plenty of people who keep this kind of a list. I consider this blog my list of books and maybe I should start referring to it as my "Blob", a blog of books. Since I took over leading my book club, I also have a rather long list of books the group should consider reading and I find myself adding to it regularly. I've become obsessed with finding the perfect book for us to discuss.
Bob appears to be a very well rounded collection of books, about three quarters of which, I had never heard of. And I read a lot. Her choice of books were more obscure, and very few contemporary titles of which I am fond. Book selection is highly personal. But when she tried to relate her book choices to what was happening in her life, I got lost. One minute she was living in Thailand and the next, she was married and had moved to London. The books she read in the throws of divorce seemed to me like all the other books she read. Suddenly she's reading The Hunger Games while breast feeding her third child. When did she get married again and give birth to the first two children? The story lacked consistency and cohesion.
When she absolutely had to read Les Miserables after the Paris terror attacks, I felt I'd had enough. In trying to make connections of books to living real life, she was grasping at straws. She did say however, that there is not another book list in the world exactly like hers, in the order she read them. I can relate to that and I hope my Blob is conveying my feelings of my book choices in a manner that makes sense to me and entertains you. If it isn't will you please let me know before I fall into a trap like My Life With Bob?
I really, really, really wanted to love this book. Just based on the title, I should have been able to read one paragraph and be hooked on every word until the end. Bob, is the author's Book of Books, a carefully guarded and respected listing of every book she's read since being a teenager.
I know plenty of people who keep this kind of a list. I consider this blog my list of books and maybe I should start referring to it as my "Blob", a blog of books. Since I took over leading my book club, I also have a rather long list of books the group should consider reading and I find myself adding to it regularly. I've become obsessed with finding the perfect book for us to discuss.
Bob appears to be a very well rounded collection of books, about three quarters of which, I had never heard of. And I read a lot. Her choice of books were more obscure, and very few contemporary titles of which I am fond. Book selection is highly personal. But when she tried to relate her book choices to what was happening in her life, I got lost. One minute she was living in Thailand and the next, she was married and had moved to London. The books she read in the throws of divorce seemed to me like all the other books she read. Suddenly she's reading The Hunger Games while breast feeding her third child. When did she get married again and give birth to the first two children? The story lacked consistency and cohesion.
When she absolutely had to read Les Miserables after the Paris terror attacks, I felt I'd had enough. In trying to make connections of books to living real life, she was grasping at straws. She did say however, that there is not another book list in the world exactly like hers, in the order she read them. I can relate to that and I hope my Blob is conveying my feelings of my book choices in a manner that makes sense to me and entertains you. If it isn't will you please let me know before I fall into a trap like My Life With Bob?
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