I’d loved Goodbye, Mr. Chips since reading it in a Reader’s Digest collection my grandmother owned (as I recall). I got on a James Hilton kick about 25 years ago for a silly reason–I confused Jack Finney’s Time and Again with Hilton’s Time and Time Again. I’m not sure if I read this on that original kick, but it sure didn’t hold up now. A very slow-paced, talky novel about a scientist who has a nervous breakdown about nuclear science. Weirdest is the early on realization by the narrator that her mother and Brad, the protagonist, were having an affair.
Catch-up May-July 2010 – incomplete
Nevil Shute, A Town Like Alice (1950)
Neil Gaiman, American Gods (2001)
Agatha Christie, At Bertram’s Hotel (1965)
Johanna Spyri, Heidi
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (2008) – Wow! Lived up to the hype. A-