I just finished reading Michael Faber’s “The Crimson Petal and the White.” I read it for a new book club a friend has started that I’ve joined. I think it is probably the longest book I’ve ever read – about 900 pages, but it certainly keeps your interest.
It is set in Victorian England and follows the life of a prostitute as she claws her way from the most humble of beginnings to a different kind of life.
One of the things things I kept thinking as I was reading was, “Hmmm… I think maybe the other people in this book club are smarter than I am.” But I now know a lot about contraception in the 1870s in England – not information I ever expected to know. I’m guessing when we meet to discuss the book that people will point out things that I totally missed in my reading.
That’s one of the great things about a book club – you read things you never would have picked up on your own, and you get different perspectives on them. I haven’t been in a book club for a lot of years so I’m looking forward to this.
One of the funny things about this was I ordered the book while I was visiting my family in rural Kentucky at Thanksgiving. I decided to have it shipped to Kansas. When it arrived, I noticed that it was mailed from a town in Kentucky about an hour from where I was when I ordered it. It probably would have been logical for me to go pick it up. It truly is a small world!
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