I read this after a coworker passed it on because he knew I loved books and this is a book about a book theft from a world class library and then set in a bookstore featuring mostly authors and booksellers. I mean come on that’s like catnip to a book blogger, right?
Unfortunately, this book was 100% forgettable. I’m not sure if it has to do with it not being a legal thriller or if it has to do with the weird split narrative. But whatever it was I just wasn’t feeling it.
I’m writing this a few days after I finished and I don’t remember any of the characters names and really only remember the first theft, a lot of dialogue from boisterous authors gossiping about each other, some pretty unthreatening thuggery, a half-assed love affair, and pseudo-spy story. And really that’s all you need to know because not much matters other than ultimately some people are successful and others aren’t. Meh.
I took note of a lot of the titles mentioned in this book, but doubt I’ll read most of them:
- In Cold Blood – Truman Capote88*
- Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison*
- The Sound and the Fury – William Falkner
- The Beautiful and the Damned – F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald*
- The Last Tycoon – F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
- This Side of Paradise – F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
- Catch-22 – Joseph Heller*
- A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemmingway
- For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemmingway
- Papa Hemmingway – A.E. Hotchner
- The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer
- The Paris Wife – Paula McClain
- The Moviegoer – Walker Percy
- Goodbye, Columbus – Philip Roth
- The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger*
- Cup of Gold – John Steinbeck
- The Confessions of Nat Turner – William Styron
- Rabbit, Run – John Updike
Maybe it’s because it’s just a bunch of old dead white men, but meh. Doubt I’ll pursue many of these other than those I want to re-read (*) because we read them in school (or when I was younger) and I have a feeling I’ll have more appreciation (or at least understanding) of them now.
Recommendation: Pass. This really is a forgettable book. I did see there was a follow up to this one, but I have no desire to read it. If you like Grisham you might like this as a light beach read, but it was a bit of a struggle for me to stay interested in it.
Opening Line: “The imposter borrowed the name Neville Manchin, an actual professor of American literature at Portland state and soon-to-be doctoral student at Stanford.”
Closing Line: “She watched him ease between the tables and leave the coffeehouse.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)
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