Reading list

E.L. Doctorow and Julian Barnes are two of my favorite novelists.  On those long, long, long flights to and from Turkey (and for a week or two before and after those flight, while sitting on the back deck with a cigar) I read Ragtime (Doctorow) and A history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters (Barnes).  Both were disappointing.  Ragtime -- which I subsequently learned is #86 on the Modern Library's list of the 100 best novels of the 20th century but which, in fact, probably doesn't deserve to be included in a list of the 1,000 best -- is almost boring.  Half of A history of the world is wonderful, with funny, interesting stories marvelously told; the other half is . . . meh.

My absolutely perfect granddaughter, who is suddenly 11 years old, recently read and enjoyed The Watsons go to Birmingham--1963 and The Calder game.  In an attempt to get into the head of a perfect 11-year-old girl, I read them too.  The Watsons is about a fledgling juvenile delinquent from a northern black family who, with the rest of his family, happens to be in Birmingham in the summer of 1963 when the 16th Street Baptist Church is bombed, killing four little girls.  The Calder game is about pre-adolescent friendships, told against a background of modern art, theft, English country life, and the desperate search for a lost boy. Pretty heavy topics for an 11 year old, it seems to me.  When I was 11, I think my books were either A-boy-and-his-dog or How-Billy-won-the-big-game.

Claire Messud's The woman upstairs is very good.  I wonder what it says about me (maybe "Wuss"?) that I can relate to a lot of what goes on in the mind of the protagonist -- a 30-something year old unmarried woman who teaches third-grade.  Whatever it says about me, it clearly says that Claire Messud is a  pretty darned good writer.

I'm only three or four stories into The best American short stories 2012, but from what I've read so far I'd give it at least 4 stars.

Postscript:

Three novels, two kid's books, and a couple short stories spread over two or three months, I realize, isn't a lot of reading -- but it's more than I've read in quite a while..  How to explain it?  Simple: "I love me my Kindle."