I picked up another Waugh novel for a pittance at the Strand Central Park kiosk. Evelyn Waugh is very, very funny, though this one is not quite as deep or as moving as previous novels I've read by him.
November 2009 Archives
This book is not a self-help guide. It's a novel about a a Jewish man in pre- (and post-) WWII Italy who marries into a Catholic family. I kept expecting it to be more about WWII itself (a Holocaust novel, as it were), but it's actually glosses over that period. It's about the family tension.
And now it's time to play "judge a book by its cover":
Despite the fact that this book features a male narrator/protagonist, the cover is pink and has a picture of a woman. Plus, it's called "The Jewish Husband" which puts the point-of-view of the title (if titles can have a PoV) with the wife. I find that a little odd.
My wife thinks that many people in publishing don't believe men read books written by women, and that this is an issue from childhood on. The issue being this mistaken belief. She's worked with teachers who will only assign books written by men and about boys because these teachers think that otherwise boys wouldn't read them (but, of course, they believe girls will read books by men and about boys). If there IS an issue as adults that men won't read books written by women (which I have no reason to believe) then perhaps it's the attitude of teachers like this who create the problem in the first place.
