Wrapped Around Your Finger
I plug along, reading--or rather listening--to those books that have been cluttering my bookcase, my car trunk, hell, my garage (could that be where my copy of "Infinite Jest" is--or has my daughter taken it like she takes my best CD's?), So now it's Zadie Smith's "On Beauty" At first it was a little to close to Allan Hollinghurst's "The Line of Beauty" to me but after listening to 120 pages and realizing that the swimming pool action will be all heterosexual, I'm relieved not to have to explore that subculture again . Curiously, the opening chapters echo Henry James' The Ambassadors, at least I think that's what one critic said back in 2007, I think. It's unfortunate that some of Smith's characters sound callow or pompous, but that makes for interesting reading I guess, and it may be the fault of the narrator. One of these days I'm going to have to read, or listen to something that's not a scathing satire. I mean I gave up nasty Terry Pratchett's Making Money temporarily to listen to this.