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The Family Man by Elinor Lipman

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CollectionsYour library (271)

Reviews201 reviews

Tagsnonfiction (90), fiction (77), novel (61), US writer (37), books I didn't finish (28), short stories (20), airport book (18), memoir (17), essays (15), history (13) — see all tags

MediaBook (272), Paper Book (268)

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About meMost people finish reading a book and don't have an opinion of it. Reviewing a book forces you to have an opinion. That's a paraphrase, but V.S. Naipaul said that. At least Paul Theroux says so in Sir Vidia's Shadow.

I don't do much of it nowadays, but I used to review books for regional newspapers and magazines. For the most part, I reviewed history, politics and other nonfiction related to Asia. The habit Naipaul speaks of has remained with me. I never reach the finish line or the halfway mark with the standard Web review: I hated/loved/identified/related/couldn't identify. I have enough details and arguments to spew a review of a thousands words or more.

The reviews here aren't anything like my formal published reviews. They're just notes to myself. Maybe if I download them, I'll stop running the review in my head. These scattered thoughts might be useful someday.

About my libraryThese books don't constitute my library. I'm going to use Library Thing to keep track of what I've read, though I might throw in the occasional old faithful. Because I live abroad and have moved a lot, I try very hard not to accumulate books. It hasn't been so difficult. If I know a book is in one of the libraries in town, or that a friend owns it, that's almost as good as owning it. Sometimes I donate a book to one of these libraries, so I can retrieve it if need be. Books of the airport/beach reading variety are recycled back to a secondhand bookstore.

I've let myself collect the best reference works, mostly academic stuff, on Southeast Asia, especially Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. If it's marginal, I donate it to the library.

GroupsA Quieter LibraryThing, Asian Fiction & Non-Fiction, Atwoodians, Club Read 2011, Feminist Theory, Girlybooks, Language, Le Groupe des Mignon Photos, Literary Snobs, Middle Eastern Literature —show all groups