So many of our preferences seem to be about our "timing"---our reading the right book at the right time--possibly when those volumes answer where we want to go and who we want "to be (or not to be" ;-)!

Thomas Wolfe is absolutely my favorite writer---IF you mark the thousands of real poetry and poems about the romance of AMERICA and it's history from those times he was writing about.

BUT Wolfe did write the same book over and over---and over and over) again!!!!!!!!   Only his name (his protagonist) got changed from book to book. Aleen Bernstein (her actual name, his lover, was in all of his books too---serving the role she filled in Tom's actual life.

I read the passages I've marked at least once every couple of years---in all his books. The actual plot and the doings of actual characters in the books --except for his editor, Maxwell Perkins various personas---I cannot stomach at all.

I do even regret having read those parts of his books ONCE.

(See, no thread creep here no matter what it might seem.)

Art