In what way, he finds him worthy of describing page after page and there is no where near enough consternation vieled or unveiled in satirical tone or otherwise to make me believe that he is Not somewhat on his side, if you have the time, show me quotes, i also see where it says this book can be considered autobiographical, so he is honestly just milking his own anal glands

I always check if my library has the book I want first. If the library does not have it, I put it on my tbr list and hopefully get it as a birthday/Christmas gift lol.

I don't know but ya'll are both stressing me out!

Amory Blaine

So you realized a purposefully bad character is bad? At the start of a book? Amazing

A Funko dildo no less

Say Amory Blaine one more muthafuckin time...

I enjoyed it

I think you really missed something in those first 48 pages because Fitzgerald makes it very clear that Amory is awful and you're not supposed to like or admire him, and this is meaningful to the character's emotional journey in the remaining (checks paperback) 154 pages.

Dunno about OP but I need to like a character because then I like the book and that means as you should know that it's a good book and I only wanna read good books and BAD BOOKS MAKE ME PUKE AND THEY ALL OUGHTA BE SENT TO DEVIL'S ISLAND AND IF YOU DON'T STOP LOOKING AT ME THAT WAY HUCKLEBERRY FINN I'LL CUT OFF YOUR HEAD AND STUFF IT DOWN YOUR POX-SCARRED ESOPHAGUS.

I'm curious: 1) One of the fuzzy US terms I've no time for, or hadn't until reading OP, is 's/he has anger issues'. Is this the sort of thing ye mean when you use it? 2) Is it easier to read a rant all in upper-case/caps than one with occasional Germanic ones?

I'd recommend renting from your library, then if you really like a book you can buy it and annotate it. I do this myself and it has a lot of benefits - if I know I'm going to love and annotate a book I'm looking to buy, I'll spend more time looking for a nice edition, maybe even splurge if I can afford it. Can't do that with books I know nothing about, it'd be a waste of money if I didn't end up liking it.

An eReader is a life saver.

I'm older and downsized a year ago. I've had a Kindle for ages but still bought books. When It was time to move from 2400sq ft. to under 1000 I knew I had to so something.

I only kept special books. I have a few 1st editions, some that were my grandma's and have some books that are so old they aren't available on Kindle or Audible and my cookbooks, though I went through those.

When you browse your book stores and find interesting books, take a pic of the cover and get the eBook. I know it isn't the same but now I have room for all of my books and can add to them without worry about where I will put them.

My TBR is long but unpurchased. That make it all the nicer.

I am a bear about keeping books in categories. I even have one labeled ICK since I like to reread and there is noting more aggravating than downloading a book and it isn't the one I think it is.

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I'm secretly in one with my husband. He doesn't know yet.

He's reading a list that is several hundred books long, and the first book he mentioned to me sounded really good. So I'm reading it too. I'd like to read of them and bounce ideas off of him and vice versa, it would be fun.

But I'll see how he responds to having a member in his club.

EDIT: husband is reading novels which evoke aspects of the history and current character of every nation in the world, A-Z.

This is partially just to read some fiction, he reads a lot of grim reports for his work... but it's also to help him better understand the world, since his field is in human rights and geopolitics.

I told him I was doing this, in general we're trying to find more times to hang out as a couple now that our kid is in nursery, and he was touched.

But he's way ahead of me - I think he might be on the Bs - but I'm currently reading A General Theory of Oblivion.

I highly recommend it.

I'm in a weekly book club that averages 6-8 people. It's run by some friends of mine who own a used book store, and it takes place at their store in a side room with a table and chairs. VERY casual. Most people just wear normal street clothes or whatever they wore to work that day. Some bring food, since it's around dinner time. The store has snacks and free water bottles. Some people do take notes, either in the margins or a separate notebook. Other people use color-coded tabs. Some take photos of their favorite passages. Some don't take any notes at all. We sit and talk for about 60-90 minutes about the assigned portion for the past week, which is usually about 100-120 pages.

I love it, and it's become a highlight of my week! We fawn over characters we love, rant on ones we hate, snark on questionable plotlines, speculate about what's going to happen next, create our own head-canons about characters hooking up, construct over-the-top conspiracy theories that would make Shyamalan cringe... and frequently get sidetracked. Most of the books so far have been pretty light fiction. But there are a few memoirs and historical fiction on the list for later in the year.

Why are you under the impression that you need to like this character?

You need to finish the book or your opinion is suss.

If I saw a person with notes at a book club meeting, I'd immediately try to befriend them :) Used to attend this kind of meetings held by a local bookstore a couple of years ago. Almost everyone there had a notebook with them.

Youve just discovered what I call a hard truth. People will forgive a lot for a pretty face.

Take Gaston in beauty and the beast for example. I guarantee everyone knows he's an absolute jerk to Belle and her father and a general dickwad to everyone else. But because he's "handsome, strong, and fearless", everything is forgiven.

Who hurt you ?

Our book club eats, drinks and catches up for 30 minutes and then whoever hosted and picked the book is the one that leads discussion. We discuss for at least an hour. Mix of friends and people I don't know outside of book club. We connect reading to our lives, events, etc and get into some great discussions.

My local library hosts one every month. The librarian hosts it at the library. People will sometimes bring a snack to share and your welcome to bring a beverage of your choice.

We take turns rating the book, 1 to 10 stars and give a reason or two for that rating. She has a list of questions that we sometimes talk about. If we think any of them are dumb, we skip it. Sometimes a member will have a few questions they bring in to talk about. We have also been known to veer wildly off topic.

It goes on for about an hour, we find out about the next book we’ll be reading and depart. We tried a few over Zoom during the ‘Vid and I did not enjoy that as much as the in person meetings.

I abandoned 2666, but probably wasn’t in the right headspace at the time.

And for whatever it’s worth, which isn’t much, Balaño hated GGM and magical realism.

I can be the same way about a lot of things, so I say this in a friendly tone: just do what you want. Seems like you really enjoy browsing the bookstore with your coffee. You say sadly, and call it a bad habit, but it sounds a really pleasant way to spend some time! Your TBR stack is just a pile of inanimate objects. Don't let that pile rule over you and how you spend your time. You don't owe the books anything, and no one is keeping track of if you have a big stack of books or not. You do not have a duty to read those books.

Unless buying books is putting you in serious financial trouble, there's nothing wrong with what you're doing.