(picturing this) ME: And make sure you don't miss a spot. These are suede. Use the prologue...modern readers don't like 'em anyway. RICE: They don't?! ME: Not when they're long like that they don't. Trust me.

I bought "Girl with a Pearl Earring" last night and read it, and didn't love it. It was fine, but not particularly engaging.

I don't understand all the hype and glowing reviews.Sometimes, I wonder how MUCH book reviewers actually read -- I mean, how many books they plow through in a week. Sometimes, it seems to me that they are overly lavish with their praise on books that aren't that amazing, if you've read a goodly amount of books.

It wasn't bad certainly, and I think it will be a lovely movie. But the book? Left me wanting more detail.

Erin, I had that reaction to Chevalier the first time through. But then I found myself imagining bits she'd left out, and that left me wishing I'd written the thing, and that made me go back and read it again, and I found that my own head had put things in the second time around - I ended up feeling almost proprietarial about it.

I just finished Old School by Tobias Wolff. It was good though I found the narrator's voice to be emotionless and quite cold. I'm also wondering if I missed something important with regard to the dean who quits and then returns a year later.

Anyone else read this? It seemed to receive a lot of acclaim and criticism.

I'll probably end up reading it again, down the line. Prolly after the movie, which I DO think will be nice. I think the very visual aspects of the book might make it more effective as a movie than as a book. To me, at least. And hey, Colin Firth!!

You know what I'd like? I'd love to read another book by Liza Dalby -- she wrote "The Tale of Muraski" and I really liked it, and have read it several times. I liked it better than Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha" but both books put me on a geisha nonfic kick last summer that was cool.

Anyone else read this? It seemed to receive a lot of acclaim and criticism.

I haven't read that yet, but I usually love Tobias Wolff's short stories. Have you read anything else by him? I like his stuff because it's usually about something unlike a lot of short fiction. He's good at blending funny and sad at the same time - there's a great story of his about a priest and a few nuns who wind up staying in a Vegas hotel. My favorite Wolff story I read about 5 years ago in the New Yorker and it was about a doomed high school romance (which sounds hackneyed but it was incredible). I think it was called "The Kiss".

Have you read anything else by him?

This was my first Wolff exposure. Have any of his short stories been published in a collection?

I think his first collection is Back in the World and he has a more recent one, The Night in Question. Also, if you go here you can listen to his story, "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs".

ETA: Actually, it looks like they have several of his stories at that sight (plus a lot of other cool stuff).

Cool, thanks Maysa! I'll check my library for those collections.

So, I got this book for Christmas, Mr. Timothy, by Louis Bayard. "Mr. Timothy" is Timothy Cratchit, aka Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol. It's basically AU futurefic -- he's grown up now, not a cripple, and says he was never the annoyingly pious little kid his father wanted him to be. It's interesting, because the story would hold up without him being Tim Cratchit -- it's a story about a young man struggling in London and a prostitution ring and whatnot -- but it gives the background a lot more depth, without the author actually having to go into it. The character could still have a rich "Uncle" without it being Ebeneezer Scrooge, but that fact that it is means as you read it, you know more about the characters than the author tells you. Interesting.