Less, by Andrew Sean Greer

“Almost sixty years ago, just after midnight, a few feet from the river where they danced, a wonder of modern engineering occurred: overnight, the Berlin Wall arose. It was the night of August 15, 1961. Berliners awoke on the sixteenth to this marvel, more of a fence at first, concrete posts driven into the streets and festooned with barbed wire. The knew trouble would come but expected it in degrees. Life so often arrives all of a sudden. And who know which side you will find yourself on?” (pg 124).

It isn’t often I am so deeply disappointed in a book. Largely because it is so very rare that I get so excited for a book. Yet, this book captured both: my anticipation and my deep disappointment.

Grade: C-

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My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok

“He left a taste of thunder in my mouth” (pg 4).

“I’m not made for this. I need people. I hate sitting with telephones” (pg 24).

“To survive, you learn to learn quickly” (pg 38).

“A Jew should not only talk, he should also do” (pg 81).

“Live and be well” (pg 83).

“To touch a person’s heart, you must see a person’s face” (pg 117).

“We must fight against it. Otherwise it will destroy the world” (pg 177).

“Every great artist is a man who has freed himself from his family, his nation, his race. Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a ‘universal’ without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere” (pg 203).

“Only those who have mastered a tradition has a right to attempt to add to it or to rebel against it” (pg 213).

“You have a gift, Asher Lev. You have a responsibility” (pg 217).

“You will enter in truth or you will enter not at all” (pg 287).

“You have cross a boundary. I cannot help you. You are alone now. I give you my blessings” (pg 367).

Grade: A+

One of my all-time favorites. I rarely read a book more than once, but this one is an exception.

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