Read, Remember, Recommend.

A few weeks ago my Mom gave me a journal called, "Read, Remember, Recommend: A Reading Journal for Book Lovers." The Journal contains over 150 pages of book lists. The lists include annual winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, National Book Award winners, New York Times Best Books of the year, Oprah's book Club, and many more. The first thought I had about these lists was that no two book lists are the same. In fact there are several best books of the century lists, all with differing opinions. My next thought was one of defeat. There are too many books in the world! Thousands of books contained on these lists and new books coming out every Tuesday. Even if I were to read over 100 books every year for the rest of my life, I will never even scrape the surface of the literary masterpieces, much less all the smutty vampire novels I intend to read! The good news is that I can check off "Olive Kitteridge" the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction from the list.

Update Book 45: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

I didn't realize that this book was short stories until about a quarter of the way through. I kept waiting for the characters to come back in the next chapters. The title character Olive Kitteridge makes an appearance in each of the stories. We start off from the perspective on Olive's husband Henry. After that we move to the perspective of other inhabitants of the small town. Each chapter chronicles that person's story. Olive is a retired teacher, who appears to many as very harsh. The first topic for discussion in the back of the book is: "Do you like Olive as a person?" Halfway through my answer would have been a solid no. But Strout created a very complicated character in Olive, and by the end I think I liked her more because I understood her better.

In the past I've rarely enjoyed short story compilations. To be honest if I had known "Olive Kitteridge" was just that, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. But I'm glad I have broadened my horizons. I liked this book. This is one of those instances where I say something along the lines of, "If I were an older woman I think I would appreciate it more." Not in a condescending way, but I have not lived a long enough life to have been through any of issues that Olive had to deal with and never felt an emotional connection with her.

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