nextnextbook

Here are my suggestions for the next next book:

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon
at the risk of turning this into a gay-themed book club, I read this book a few months ago and liked it very much. This is Chabon's first novel, he wrote it when he was 24; Chabon won the pulitzer prize for a later book. It is the story of a young man's first summer after graduating college. It is about growing up and the search for self-knowledge and -understanding. It is a simple, relatively straightforward narrative -- boy meets boy, boy meets girl, boy gets boy, boy gets girl, boy is confused -- but I think there is plenty to talk about. I found it to be an engaging and fast read, Chabon's writing is terrific. And it's a mere 300 pages!

The Autograph Man, Zadie Smith
We read Zadie Smith's first novel, White Teeth, way back in the beginning, remember? This is her second. It could be fun to compare the two. I read this recently, and liked it a lot. The basic story is about the life of a professional autograph collector/seller and his quest for the elusive autograph of Kitty Alexander, a reclusive '40s movie actress. Of course, like White Teeth, it is multicultural -- the main character is half-Chinese and half-Jewish, his girlfriend and best friend are black Jews, the book is filled with quotes from and references to the Kabbalah, and there's quite a bit of zen buddhism. This book is funny, clever and entertaining, but underneath it is also dark and sad, about "deferred mourning and arrested development, the attraction to and repulsion from emotional engagement" (the guardian). Most importantly, Scott, there are references to Wittgenstein. It's only slightly longer than Mysteries at 330 pages, but there's a lot of interesting stuff going on with the narrative -- some reviewers think too much -- like chapter headings taken from the kabbalah, a few diagrams, a couple pop quizzes. In sum, there is a lot to discuss. It's definitely a more challenging read than Mysteries, but I found that the writing is so good that it moves fast.

I will post some links if i can figure out how.