January - The Common Reader

[JV]

Any opinions? I didn’t care for it though I see why it’s on the list. Ended up not finishing.

[Chuck]

While I did nominate the book, it has been a hectic month and I am just getting into it. I'm not at a point that I can make a fair assessment. I do like the way Woolf thinks and her level of detail, but it may be that her talents were best applied to fiction.

I also made the discovery on Wikipedia related to the source for our GR group that also relates to our current book:
"A Common Reader: Books for Readers with Imagination was an American mail-order book catalog, established in 1986 by James Mustich Jr., a bookseller, editor, and writer. It was notable among general-interest book catalogs for its eclecticism, with large sections of each issue given over to obscure literary classics.

The catalog was named in honor of Virginia Woolf's two-volume collection of essays, entitled The Common Reader (1925) and The Second Common Reader (1932), which collected her lectures and writings about the nature of reading and how best to approach it."

[Carlton]

I read this back in 1987 and liked it sufficiently to read the Second Common Reader collection of essays a couple of years later.
I like, and so have read, books about books and if you would like further books about books, then I would second James Mustich’s recommendation of Michael Dirda.
I also like the books about books by Milan Kundera and Alberto Manguel.

[Joshua]

Hey all, been awhile since I've participated!

I enjoyed this one quite a bit, while I think a much better well read reader would get more out of it, I was honestly surprised at the ease of readability of her writing. while not exactly modern, it was fun to read, especially out loud to my 3 month old.

I have the second reader waiting for me to read soon, although I may read it a bit slower than I did for the first one.