The Known World

My book club recently read The Known World.

I checked out a copy from my library and started to read it. My mother hijacked the copy for a few days when I went to visit her back in mid-January. I took the book with me to ALA Midwinter in San Antonio. I finished reading it at the airport while waiting on the return flight to Houston.

I think it's a great book. I like the way Jones goes from a contemporaneous recounting of what's happening to a quasi-historical perspective and back (and forth again). I liked the journey of reading it very much. The ending was somewhat disappointing-- well, not really. I wasn't expecting happy endings; however, there were characters I liked, and I was disappointed in their fates.

I got to choose the next book for book club. It's At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien.

As TD noted earlier this morning, fans of Lost have become readers of his work. This NYT article briefly goes into Lost fans' newfound fascination with O'Brien.