<p>The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a quick and beautiful read. Keep tissues handy…</p>
<p>To the OP: Middlesex is a good enough book, it would be a pity to race through it or to give it only fractured attention if your life is busy with other things. Save it for a vacation to read.</p>
<p>A couple of other books to try: John Updike’s “Terrorist” and Don DeLillo’s “Falling Man.” Both are responses to 9/11 by two great American novelists. DeLillo may be an acquired taste. Updike has a wonderful feel for the texture of modern life, and this book has an unusually riveting plot (for him).</p>
<p>I was lukewarm on the book. I got about two-thirds of the way through a couple of weeks ago and then got interrupted and have picked up other books since rather than finish it. I expect to go back to it, but it didn’t grab me. I think I prefer nonfiction.</p>
<p>so for bookgroup we are reading White Teeth- I haven’t picked it up yet is it a fast read?</p>
<p>Yes, fast and quite enjoyable-- my book group generally liked it.</p>
<p>My book group universally loved Middlesex…such a truly humane book, refreshing protagonist, nice component of letting us in on some other historical moments while enjoying a contemporary story. I would go as far as to say the book altered/broadened/deepened some of my perceptions about sexuality and identity. At my age, books don’t alter people that often.<br>
Another thing I liked was that the author in an interview referred to one of my favorite novels as one he greatly appreciates: Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. Middlesex is going to be read for a long time in my opinion.</p>