I love the idea of reading challenges, although I haven’t done too many. I’ve got a roster for 2023 of twelve books suggested by book friends. (Haven’t read one yet, but there’s plenty of time.) I got farther with the alphabet challenge a few years ago. It is just as it sounds: read titles alphabetically A-Z. The only thing I remember about it is that I read a novella by Wendell Berry.
While searching alphabetically by title, I noticed a peculiarity in my TBR pile: I have two books with nearly identical titles. I had a chance to read them recently and here is what I discovered. Call this a light challenge: two books with similar titles.
1.
Florence Darrow works as an editorial assistant, aspiring to see her short stories published by her employer. After a drunken faux pas, she is fired and quickly takes a mysterious job to pay her rent. She is hired to assist an author named Maud Dixon, who has gained literary fame despite complete anonymity. She travels upstate to work for her new boss.
After Maud convinces Florence to travel with her to Morocco to do research, a car accident kills the author. Florence sees an opportunity to write Maud’s book because the publishers won’t know the difference. Who exactly is Maud Dixon: the author or Florence?
I loved the setup of this novel, as well as the travel aspect. However, at a certain point the plotting becomes obvious. You would have to be an infrequent noir reader to not see where this is going.
2.
After a beating by her mother, Vera Kelly steals her car and is arrested. A stint in a reform school leads to a job in Greenwich Village and a chance encounter with a CIA recruiter. Soon Vera is surveilling possible KGB agents in Argentina on the eve of a coup.
Told in alternating chapters featuring her youth in the 1950s and her CIA work a decade later, this is an easy read that is light on substance. Vera is incidentally bisexual, having relationships with both men and women that don’t seem to amount to much. The spy story is similarly quixotic. The protagonist and tone reminded me of something Marie Semple would craft.
Books Smitten 