The Imperfectionists (2010)

Sweet-tempered, acutely observant, and wry novel-in-stories about a failing international newspaper that falls well short of the frothing plaudits it has received. It's a good, quick read, but hardly the tour de force that some have claimed it for. In saying so I am trying to get outside myself, in the sense that books about beleaguered writers written by straight white American men are a little bit too much my meat. If you are reading this you almost certainly know exactly what I mean. ( )

I thought this was well written. I liked that each chapter was a stand alone story about the different people involved in producing a world newspaper in Rome. I did think there would be a big reveal at the end, but was somewhat disappointed. In fact, I did not like the way this book ends rather brutally. I guess that's life in the newspaper business, ( )

While well written I'm not entirely sure what the hell this book really set out to accomplish. It was meh. ( )

This is an odd book for me - each chapter is a short story on one of the employees (and one reader) of a semi-major international newspaper published in Rome. Each chapter was well written, the characters fully realized. And the story was warm, full of humanity.

Unfortunately, in almost all of these stories, the protagonist ended up worst off than he began, from Hardy, who ends up dating a deadbeat, to the obituary writer, whose daughter died. It seems like every chapter has an affair in it, or was driven to an affair. I'm not sure if the message was suppose to be "those in the news business are sad, lonely people".

I enjoyed reading the book, and learning a bit about the news, however, at times, it was the same thing over and over. ( )

I have not yet read this book.