BOOKS THREAD

I'll second that. Each one seems to get more over the top in terms of characters etc. Skin Tight may be my fave Hiassen book.

 

HC, I do get your point with Franzen's characters. Franzen is a brilliant writer, and one of the best of my generation.

I think someone mentioned this earlier and I am of this philosophy ... I just don't CARE about the characters.

 

I have Roth's latest (Nemesis) but haven't started in on it yet.

 

I found that I really got to care about them as the book went on. Wasn't sure at first if that would happen.

 

Just chiming in to say that I really enjoyed The Plot Against America as well. Haven't read much Roth but probably should.

 

Plot Against America was a somewhat surprisingly fast read.

 

Maybe I've been under a rock, but I started reading "The Silent Season of a Hero" by Gay Talese, and am blown away by his talent and insight.

 

I know Esquire picked Richard Ben Creamer's "What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?" as the best sports story in the history of their magazine, but for my money, it's Silent Season of a Hero. I think they just didn't want to pick two Talese stories. I love the Williams story, but the DiMaggio one is like music.

 

I like "Freedom," but I think that Franzen has an annoying habit of getting very, very colloquial at times. It can be distracting. The pop culture references are a little distracting, too. But my main gripe is that at times he writes colloquially in a way that, say, someone like F. Scott Fitzgerald or Hemingway never would. Also, the political references and views are so ridiculously on-the-nose at times that it's about as nuanced as Rush Limbaugh.

I think he definitely has to work on smoothing out some of those flaws if he really wants to be a great American novelist, a la Roth or McCarthy.

 

Just finished a book I don't know how to describe. "Kraken". Weird, strange, good.

 

I find that those "on the nose" political references and views are on both sides of the aisle, though. I think he's a great chronicler of our time.