Play It As It Lays

This is the next book.

I have to say, I am enjoying my New Year's Resolution to 'read more' immensely, so much so that I've started a third reading list.  So far, I've read "Amsterdam" by Ian McEwan and "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison.  This is the next book on the third list.

Here's what Time Magazine has to say about it:

Didion's mordant lucidity is like L.A. sunlight, a thing so bright sometimes it hurts. She's a descendant of the old California, the great- great-granddaughter of pioneers. But she was also schooled at Berkeley and in the literary circles of Paris and New York, so she's fully versed in the predicaments of a shaky modernity that she does not care for in the least. To drive home her belief that the world, or at least the part around L.A., is coming to a bad end, she gives us Maria Wyeth, a model turned actress turned hollowed-out woman who speaks to us from the mental institution where she has fetched up after a long slide into despair. Passing through a pointless career, a toxic marriage, an abortion, finally holding the hand of a close friend while he commits suicide; when she tells you, "I know what 'nothing' means," you believe her.

Sounds like fun, huh?  

I will tell you that I'm a little frightened of it, but I was also scared to death of "The Sound and The Fury" and "Song of Solomon" and I sucked them both down like peanut butter milkshakes.  I can't believe how much satisfaction I'm getting from all this.  

For the first time, in a long time, I feel intellectually challenged AND satisfied.  I've missed that feeling.  

I'm hoping that Ms. Didion won't let me down.  Somehow, I can't imagine that she will.  

If anyone else has read this, please let me hear from you!