A Summer of Faulkner?

I just joined Oprah's Book Club. I'm surprised I hadn't done it before, as much as I watch and talk about her. I have no idea how much I'll actually get into the reading though, especially with all the other reading I'm doing, but it's a start. At least I'll now have access to all the cool stuff in the site, especially Oprah's Classroom, a free online course where I'll be privy to video lectures, Q&A sessions, and discussion groups. That's what really peaked my interest.

I'm going to need all the help I can to get through these books!

This brings me to the second article I referred to in the last post. It's an announcement of the new books Oprah chose for reading over the summer. This month's selection is As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. The picks for July and August are also by Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury and Light in August. To make it easier for folk to get the books, they've packaged them together as a three-book set called A Summer of Faulkner.

There's actually a third article that I didn't mention in the last post. It's a sidebar story entitled, As You Lay Frying. I thought it was quite funny. It basically wretched about how long each of those books are (288, 366, and 528 pages respectively), and as the author put it, "dense as hell," and "even denser than hell." She basically recommended kicking those heavy, difficult tomes to the curb and getting CliffsNotes, which run about 72 pages each. This way you can get your reading in and still enjoy your summer. Hey, sounds good to me!