Customer Reviews

Literacy and Longing in L.A.

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

At first this book kind of turned me off. The main character came across as a snob and I thought this would be yet another chick lit with a snobby heroine.

I am so glad I continued reading. I think what got me really into this book was the descriptions of the main character secluding herself in her house with her books. She would avoid the world and here life by hiding behind her books - I especially love the bathtub scene. This hooked me. Every bibliophile can identify I think.

I also thoroughly identified with the main character trying to explain to her family her love of reading and how it was NOT a hardship to sit home and do it. That she actually preferred doing it than to socializing!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yes!!!!!!!!!!

The writing was intelligent and while, obviously, there was romance, none of it was really over the top or too "sugary".

I thought this was a chick lit with a twist, written with wry humour and intelligence.

BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!and bring on the next book.

On Saturday, I plowed through Literacy and Longing in LA, a debut novel by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack. To be honest, it is basically chick lit. Good chick lit, but chick lit nonetheless. The protagonist is Dora, named after Eudora Welty, of course. She is a hard-core bibliophile. When life gets her down, she locks herself in her apartment with stacks of literature. She goes on book binges. She takes two-hour baths with a stack of books next to the tub. (People are calling asking if these authors know me.)

The real joy of this novel is Dora's ruminations on books, reading, different categories of readers, book clubs, specific books she's read or is reading. I turned every page wanting to know if I'd read what Dora had, and if I agreed with her assessments. And there were so many quotations I wanted to read aloud to bookish friends. I'll restrict myself to just two here:

"I collect new books the way my girlfriends buy designer handbags. Sometimes, I just like to know I have them and actually reading them is beside the point. Not that I don't eventually end up reading them one by one. I do. But the mere act of buying them makes me happy--the world is more promising, more fulfilling. It's hard to explain, but I feel, somehow, more optimistic. The whole act just cheers me up. "

And here:

"I like stories about lovers, seduction, sex, marriage, violence, murder, dreams, and death, and also stories that focus on the family with all its dysfunction and grief. I love writers who make their women characters independent, smart, and courageous but also passionate and romantic. I love plots about bitter old men and women who turn all soft and mushy for the love of a child. I love writers who focus on women who reach middle age and ask, 'Now what?' or lonely disappointed women who live in suburbia and can't get out, or authors who write about the pain of growing up, searching for identity. But most of all I love books about spontaneous love affairs that go wrong or veer off in uncharted territory. It's the sudden twists of fate that I like and the unexpected outcomes. Doesn't everyone?"

I need to memorize that speech for the next time someone asks me what I like to read!

Dora is far more attractive than any bookish girl I've ever met. She has too much money and has bought into the whole Angelino lifestyle to an alarming degree. Nonetheless, what bibliophile girl could fail to identify with her quest for love in a bookstore? For God's sake, the novel has literary footnotes and a 9 page book list (of references made within the text) at the back. I loved it!

As a former metropolitan journalist who turns to books and the duvet in times of crisis, I couldnt wait to get my chops around this one, but I found it sort of patchy. The heroine's life was somehow unbelievable, what with the the husband who is the head of Sony (not just average Joe who works there) the best friend who is a teamstar, the apparently posh parents, the hokey new best friends who have their house trashed by drug users and quote the Bible.

Run that one by me again?

I cant help wondering if this has got something to do with having two writers: "Hey Jen, lets make the boyfriend...". Ironically, given that the book is about the intimate relationship we readers have with books and their authors, this more film script approach left me feeling disinterested and uninterested.

Dora grew up in a Philadelphia household with her sister Virginia in which her mom was a drunk who destroyed two cars in less than a year with one landing in the Schuylkill River mud. Dad, knowing his clubs were ruined, began his odyssey to stay away from home until finally he never returned. When things were bad, which seemed the normal, Dora and Virginia leaped into the world of literature, binging on the written word.

Years later, both siblings remain extremely close to one another, but Virginia has her feet solidly planted in reality while Dora still runs away to literature when the going gets rough. She has been married twice and at one time after Columbia was a rising journalistic star in Los Angeles, but that was a decade ago. Her second husband Palmer supports her financially especially her book binges, but he always wondered whether she cared as he is no longer wastes his emotions on depressing Dora the non-explorer. Dora meets comparative literature professor Fred at a bookstore and soon afterward his mother, Bea, who is raising her granddaughter six years old (Fred's niece) yet "adopts" Dora.

Though the ending seems off kilter from the deep look at a person in mental trouble, fans will appreciate this strong character study. Dora is a great person who faces problems by hiding in books. The cast is fully developed to bring out Dora's only means of coping book binging. Fans will relate to the thirtyish protagonist as she struggles in life but receives a boost from Bea, who acts like a surrogate mother as she not the two men in Dora's life help her. This terrific tale has the audience rooting for Dora.

Harriet Klausner

*Sold under the title "Book Lover" in Australia*

I bought this novel on a whim from a newsagent while waiting for a hair appointment. The simple cover and large type attracted my tired mind after slogging through hours of textbook reading the day before. My mistake was to leave "Book Lover" sitting on my self collecting dust for a few months before I ever noticed it again. I'm sure glad I did.

"Book Lover" is not only witty and fun to read, it's relatable. I ended up identifying with the healing act of buying a book and jealous of Dora's "book binges" and carefree lifestyle. Oh, to have the time and money to live like that...

The language used by Kaufman and Mack made the read all the more enjoyable for me as I read the same patterns on the pages that I think with. Although I didn't understand many of the literary references (I'm not as well read as all that), the handy Book List in the back of the book is definitely a brilliant addition for future experimenting.

I highly recommend Book Lover to anyone with even the slightest love of reading. You won't be sorry.

I'm hugely surprised by all the positive reviews. I was deeply annoyed that I wasted $12 on this book. The premise is great - romantic comedy combined with bibliomania; what could be better? - but the characters are vapid, the plot is thin, and the whole thing is poorly written. Don't bother.

I finished this book this afternoon, having started it yesterday... it definitely has a story that makes you want to keep reading, and I love all the literary references (I kept a sheet of paper in the book to jot them down - before I realized they were all listed in the back). I wasn't expecting the storyline about Bea and Harper, though I thoroughly enjoyed it... it just confused me about Fred; I wanted more development of him -- he seemed to do a few things that would have been "dealbreakers" for me and I was frustrated when they weren't. But I really liked Dora, Darlene and Virginia... and I appreciated the idea of the book -- I can certainly understand escaping into books! It's definitely a must read for anyone who loves books... I just felt like there was a little something missing.... and I feel like I need to discuss it with someone now that I've finished!

Here is the light, scintillating, funny book I've been waiting for! It's Chick Lit for the Person Who Doesn't Read Chick Lit. Dora (named for Eudora Welty; she has a sister Virginia named for Virginia Woolf--their mother's idea of a fun day when the girls were little was to go on a journey to visit homes of authors) is in a depression at the end of her second marriage. Her therapy is reading...everywhere, including the bathtub. She has stacks of books all over. A compulsive and voracious reader, she consumes mostly good contemporary literature, but classics also. The novel is chock full of references to authors, poets, books, and artists. Relevant and timely quotes from novels and poems abound; the writing is witty, clever, often brilliant. Don't worry: plot, romance, and sex are here too, and several finely delineated secondary characters. Here is a book for booksellers (I have worked part time in a wonderfully eclectic bookstore for 10 years since retiring from teaching high school English), English teachers, ex-English teachers, but, above all, for omnivorous readers and book addicts.

Not a page turner. Felt like authors were name dropping by listing so many other books and authors. I chose the book to read because I like to read and pretty much lived my younger life lost in books. I wanted to see if I identified with the character; I did not, because of the extensive details about sex and the desire for sex. This book is not one I would recommend to my book club.

An irresistable mixture of a delightful, witty, romantic story and a celebration of books. A page turner---couldn't put it down until 3AM. Appealing and offbeat heroine.