"You should read this author. You'll like him"

About a year and a half ago, my friend R. brought over a book as an apartment-warming gift: Tim Winton's The Turning. He had told me about this book a few years back and how much he loved it. Naturally, he figured I'd adore it too. I had heard a lot about Winton but had never read him, and appreciated R.'s gesture in buying me one of his favourite books. I had a couple of other books on the go at the time, so I didn't end up picking it up for about a month.

Now I had half-a-feeling that the Winton book would be tough for me. For one, according to the back-cover blurb, the stories were "set in small-town Western Australia." That was an immediate red flag: while I do try my best to read things outside of my comfort zone, I'll admit that I've always struggled with stories based solely in rural settings. It's a bias, for sure, but a bias nonetheless that is difficult for me to overcome. (I guess that's the inherent nature of a bias...) Moreover, it's a book of short stories, albeit "overlapping," which is also not my default reading pleasure. I much prefer the full-length novel - something I can truly sink my teeth into. Still, this was a gift, and my friend R. is a learned and curious reader, so I was willing to unshackle my natural inclinations to ignore this type of work and give it a shot. More important, interesting and well-wrought characters and stories should be interesting and well-wrought regardless of the setting, yes?

Well, I only made it to page 19 (the book mark is still there), so not even two complete stories. I figured my mood at the time wasn't right for this book, so I put it down, determined to give it another go later in the year. However a whole slew of other books got in the way, so the Winton was left to gather dust on my "to read" shelf. R. asked me a couple of months after giving me the book whether I had read it and enjoyed it, and felt the need to come clean and said that I tried it but just "couldn't get a handle on it." I then admitted my struggles with books set outside urban areas (I think I might have used the phrase "in the bush"), but that I would eventually read it.

Anyway I was out at R.'s last night - we brought over a wonderful late harvest Riesling along with some cheese, pears and apples - and we got to talking about the Philip Roth book, Sabbath's Theater, I had just finished about 30 minutes before arriving at his place. I was waxing (probably not very eloquently though) on how wonderful the book was - Tier A Roth, which in my eyes is Tier A literature. To my surprise, R. admitted that he didn't much like Roth! "So now we're even!" I said, recounting my struggles with the Winton. When we thought about it some more, it made some sense that we didn't like each other's favourite authors: despite our friendship and apparent similarities, we don't have shared sensibilities when it comes to literature.

But we did end up striking a deal: that I would give a more earnest attempt at the Winton if he would give Roth a fighting chance. I'm picking one of the easy Roth books for him: The Ghost Writer. It's the one I tend to recommend for those who have never read Roth since it's fairly short, tightly written, and doesn't meander off into crazy flights of prose and narrative as other Roth novels are wont to do. (Of course that's one of the things I love about his work, but recognize it's not something others tend to enjoy.) It's a pure pleasure from beginning to end, at least for me. (My friend H. told me he reads this book every second year, and he's not the biggest Roth fan.)

So it's onwards to Tim Winton's The Turning! Once I start and finish Martha Baillie's The Incident Report first, of course. It's due next week at the library.