When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
I want to thank you for all the suggestions. All excellent, but I think I found the new tonic, the new obsession, the new rabbit hole: LUTHER. A new TV series to wrap myself around in. A new detective. Toodles McNulty (oh, of course, I’ll always love you. Oh, and Ruth Wilson rears her head and her sinister lips in Luther) But I also realize as I’m writing this that I used feel this way about books. Now I push myself to read. (Forgetting that I read and edit manuscripts all day.) Though I did just buy the first Ferrante that everyone is raving about. And short novel by Heinrich Boll.
What are you reading for pleasure? Pure pleasure.
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Betsy Lerner 
“Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit. Love it.
Just finished the first Ferrante. Ambivalent. Some pleasure and some pain.
Agree. I kept thinking What’s all the fuss about?
IN THE KITCHEN by Monica Ali. Mostly, though, my head is filled with plans for a new novel, a big fat lush novel. It dazzles me.
I Loooovvvveee LUTHER!
Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror
Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell.
Okay, it’s not reading for only pleasure, but sometimes you find something to read that is intended to be for “study” and find it’s still nothing but pleasure. Love his writing.
“Hold Still” by Sally Mann
McNulty and Luther, huh? Next you’ll be into Shades of Blue and Ray Liotta. Ms Betsy likes bad cops! Who knew?
The short stories of Gahan Wilson, and Nothing Like It In The World, by Stephen Ambrose., and How We Got To Now, by Steven Johnson. Good stuff.
The Heart Goes Last – Margaret Atwood. I just finished the last Ferrante novel. I loved them. She made me feel like I had run into an old friend who was sitting across from me and whispering what really happened.
At the moment, rare plant and exotic flower bulb catalogs comprise my pure, pleasurable reading. They are the best distraction from both the unkind weather systems that prevent me from working in my garden, and from urges to act unkindly towards certain Day Job clients.
I just finished “Billie” by Anna Gavalda.
I loved this book and I love all her writing.
Pure joy!
Loving Elena Ferrante. Am on book 2. Such angst!
Barbara Barkin Sent from my iPhone
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The Portable Verblen. Realism re: talking squirrels. Yum!
Luther doesn’t last long! Sorry. I mainly read murder mystery for the catharsis. Some novel. Some historical. My guilty pleasure. And sleep syrup.
Finishing a Travis McGee novel. That series has not aged well. Will be moving on to Breakfast at Tiffany’s shortly.
I Want to Show You More by Jamie Quatro. I liked her articles in Oxford American and enjoyed this collection of interconnected stories. Before that was God’s Kingdom by Howard Frank Moser. Amazing story teller of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Next up is Snow Hunters by Paul Yoon. It’s on the way now, Sounds interesting and I got it for a penny (plus $3.99 shipping) from Amazon.
Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton, and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair.
It’s so dark and gray here. I’m hiding under the covers with Clan of the Cave Bear, Valley of the Horses, and The Mammoth Hunters. This is real live comfort reading. Like everybody, I read these books 25 years ago, when I was 25 —- they seem like completely different stories to me now.
I don’t read for pleasure. I’m a professional.
For pleasure I prowl the haunted halls of the innerwebs, looking for the lollys that will bring me joy
or, if not joy
never joy, no, i’ve traveled too far my road for joy
then a few moments’ passing pleasure
a laugh
a smile
a nebulous connection
cats
starlings
old recordings
songs and dances from the dead
words of wisdom shouted into gales of ignorant derision
my wife says supper is ready, i should go
Ferrante: My Brilliant Friend is all right, but The Days of Abandonment is the brilliant one.
The last book I loved was one that Suzy gave me, Elizabeth Strout’s MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON. It’s the kind of thing I read over and over, inserting my own stories into the negative space. It feels like a poem in that way.