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This week,
Booking Through Thursday asks another short questions: What is the "best" book you have read recently?
I have two answers. The first is based on an objective standard; the second on a subjective standard.
Objectively, the best book I've read lately is
The Fixer by Bernard Malamud. Applying the "reasonable person standard" we lawyers are so fond of -- or, in this case, a "reasonable reader standard" -- Malamud's
Pulitzer/
National winner is a good book. Everyone should read it, and everyone who reads it will be a better person for it.
Subjectively, the book that I think is the best I've read lately is
Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth. Pure enjoyment. It also made me think, but it was pure enjoyment.
I read both of these for my
Battle of the Prizes Challenge. My review of
The Fixer is
here. My review of
Goodbye, Columbus is
here.
.
You have excellent taste, but I don't care about so-called "objective standards," and Goodbye, Columbus is as good as they come. The Fixer is good, but Columbus is better. So there! :-)
ReplyDeleteI actually like the distinction between the two. Many books are good in different ways. For instance, I might think a children's book is the "best" book I've read recently, but presenting it as such is fairly unrepresentative of everything else recently read. I suppose.
ReplyDeleteI probably shouldn't blog from work, because the law firm atmosphere makes me think about things like objective versus subjective standards. I need to turn off my lawyer brain before I blog. :)
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