Sorry for the delay in posting my final decision on the September book. I appreciate those who voiced an opinion on the three books I selected. On further consideration, I decided to go with none of the above.
Instead, I'm choosing The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. Written in 1955, it's the story of a young father struggling to find balance and fulfillment in home and career. It has the added benefit, for those less literarily inclined among us (*cough* Alvin *cough*), that it was made into a movie starring Gregory Peck.
One caveat: I haven't finished the book yet, so am unable to give a full content advisory. However, based on the first 50 pages the profanity is kept to "hell"s and "damn"s, and there is little else that is offensive (unless you find pervasive Martini drinking offensive).
I finished The Third Policeman a couple of days ago. I'll try to get my thoughts in order for a post later tonight.
4 comments:
Peter, as you are the person in this group most likely to own a flannel suit (or 4), it's not a surprising choice. I was very excited about an excuse to watch a good Gregory Peck film, assuming it's anywhere near To Kill a Mockingbird or Roman Holiday. However, my library system doesn't have the movie or even the audio book. All (2) of the paper copies are checked out, so this makes 3 out of 4 times, I've been unable to get the book of the month before the month is half over. I think I need to move to another county.
In consideration of the other books you had considered, I found The Post-American World at our local library (unabridged audiobook to boot) and have nearly finished it. What a fascinating look at the current world, how we got here and where we might be going. I highly recommend it. Yet, I am looking forward to the one you have chosen instead of Post-American hoping that I might find it to be friendly and reassuring, like the pockets of an old suit.
Excellent choice. I remember watching the movie (not reading the book) for an English class at BYU. Guess I'll have to read it this time. Maybe.
Just in case, anybody checked Netflix, Blockbuster, Youtube, etc. for the movie?
To those who might not have immediate access to the book, you can read the first several pages at Amazon.com, using the "Search Inside" option and reading the "Excerpt."
Also, if you wish to be devious, you can read several more than given in the (relatively) brief excerpt by "searching" for the next page number (in this case "7"). In this way I read the first 50 pages of the "Why Men Hate Going to Church" book, as well as the first 50 or so pages of "Profiles in Courage."
Eventually, you get an error message from Amazon, which I think is generated when a single IP address has consumed too many pages of a particular book. The error message is a bit ominous (I think it says, effectively, "For security reasons we are restricting your access to this book. We can't tell you why, but please have a nice day"). I wonder if I do it a sufficient number of times if I could get banned from the website altogether.
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