Book Club Reading List | Book Chatter

Beautiful Ruins
By Jess Walter
(Harper Perennial, Paperback, 9780061928178, April 2013, 352pp.)

The Short of It:

Fitting title for a book that just didn’t work for me.

The Rest of It:

This story bounces back and forth between 1962 and the present. Pasquale Tursi, an innkeeper at the not so illustrious Adequate View Inn, finds himself in the middle of a scandalous cover-up. Dee Moray, an actress on the set of Cleopatra is sent away to deal with her cancer. At least, that is what SHE has been told when in reality, what she is dealing with is an unwanted pregnancy and the father happens to be none other than Richard Burton himself.

The Italian setting is lovely as is Pasquale Tursi. Even with his broken English, he is wonderful but there isn’t nearly enough of him in this novel. And Dee? A pleasant girl but clueless. Not really anyone I wanted to get to know. And the entire Richard Burton back story? Please. I will say this, I liked the parts set in Italy much more than the parts of the story set in Los Angeles. That whole Hollywood scene just isn’t my thing and I live here!

Many have given this book high marks. It’s been described as hilarious and fun. I didn’t find it hilarious or fun. At times I found myself frustrated with the back and forth and other times, I just didn’t care what happened to these people. Had it not been a book club pick, I probably would have put it down. It seemed a little cartoonish and stereotypical and as deep as I dug, I didn’t find any depth whatsoever.

I will say this though, with Walter’s work being so well-received by others, I would absolutely read another book by him. I think in this case, the subject matter just didn’t work for me.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Yesterday, my book club met to select our reading list for the year. We each get to pitch two books and then we go through a couple of rounds of voting to narrow it down to twelve or thirteen books. But yesterday, we didn’t have a lot of people show and some people only pitched one book so we only had to eliminate three books to get our list down to twelve.

The three that were eliminated:

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
The Cuckoo’s Calling by J.K. Rowling
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

It was a great meeting. There was food and lots of good book talk plus the day was so pretty so we ended up outside.

The final list is below, and I will also post it under the Book Club tab at the top of the page. I also list the previous lists there in case you are curious.

Final List: (Begins with March since we already had Jan & Feb chosen from last year, see full list on Book Club tab)

MAR – Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
APR – Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
MAY – And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
JUN – The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
JUL – The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
AUG – Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick
SEP – Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
OCT – I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
NOV – Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
DEC- A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines
JAN – TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
FEB – Havisham by Ronald Frame

I pitched Never Fall Down and Twelve Years a Slave but overall, I think these books will generate plenty of discussion.

As for today, not a lot going on. The sky is a very strange color. It sort of looks like it could rain but there is no chance of it happening according to the weather reports. It makes me want to just hang around the house though, which is perfectly fine by me. Next week, I have a parent meeting for The Girl’s track team, more rehearsals and I need to figure out what to bring to the Super Bowl party we are going to.

What am I reading?

Finishing up The Secret of Raven’s Point and then maybe I’ll start Orfeo by Richard Powers.

What am I cooking?

Nothing special. I might make a chicken stir fry for dinner. Sometimes you just want chicken and rice or something simple and today is one of those days.

What am I watching?

I just watched this week’s American Horror Story. What’s happened to that show? The first season was so brilliant. The second, strange but still watchable. This season is just a blood fest. With them being witches, they are killed and resurrected so many times, I can’t even keep track of who is alive anymore.

I think I need to go back to watching Leave it to Beaver.

Chatting with friends about books and life…