Book #5: The Great Gatsby

Title: The Great Gatsby

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Have I read this book before? Yes.

How obtained: Borrowed from my local library.

Why This Book? I read this book 3 times in school.  Once in high school, and twice in college.  I think that I still own a copy from my college days, but it is in a box somewhere.  I was at the library and I wandered into a section called book club where they have multiple copies of books.  I saw Gatsby and realized I had not read it for a while and picked it up.

Quote from the book: ForDaisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of new life in tunes. All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the Beale Street Blues while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. (p.151 of the 2013 paperback edition)

Here's what someone else thought about this book: Joan BaumThis puts me on schedule to finish  talks about the book's 95th anniversary in Dan's Papers.

What did I think? The prose in this book is downright gorgeous.  For a classic, it is an incredibly quick read.  It is a sad irony laced story, but it stands up to multiple readings even when there's no assignment involved.   

I finished this book on June 20th, the 23rd day of my summer reading program.  This puts me on schedule to read 21.73 books during the challenge.

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