What I read on my vacation: two books I didn’t finish, for very different reasons

I used to never give up on a book, but that’s all behind me. Life is too short. And so, though it comes weighted with Important Critical Reviews and the Man Booker Prize, I got only to chapter 4 (that's 7% in Kindle-speak) in Howard Jacobson’s “The Finkler Question.” I was inclined to give it some sympathy because it arrived with the unfortunate label of “comic novel.” And, true, there were a couple of smiles and one laugh. But there was also a sense of --say it--boredom. It’s possible I may reopen it in the future, but for now, no thanks. I’ll be glad to hear from anyone who has read the book and wants to urge me to give it another chance.

The reason for closing the other book was quite the opposite. I had been looking forward to reading “The Known World” by Edward P. Jones and I still am. It’s just that, a single chapter into it, I knew this was not the time or place. The book is a strongly written and engaging novel about slave ownership by blacks in the antebellum American south. I was immediately drawn into it. But every time I looked up at the beach and the waves, every time I reached for another dab of 85 SPF sunscreen or another pleasant little snack, I knew this book had to wait.

Now back home surrounded by the rigors of a New England winter I will be able to give “The Known World” the kind of reading it deserves.