Our book group discussion on The Optimist's Daughter raised a couple of things I wanted to address at greater length. Dark Puss asked about our next book, and I've yet to choose it (although I do have some strong candidates in mind), but I thought we should have a break over the summer, taking July and August off and reconvening in September. I'll get the next title up as soon as I can, so keep an eye out for it - it will appear in the left hand sidebar and the post itself will be found any time in the Book Group books category, should you miss it in the normal course of things, but before I make my choice, would you tell me whether you'd like something short and 'undemanding' that you can easily fit in with your summer reading, or something longer that you can really get your teeth into, but which can be read at as slow a pace as you'd like given that we'll have around ten weeks to do it. Which would you instinctively prefer: long or short?
Secondly, to take up a point raised by Barbara in her comment on our Eudora Welty book I gave a link to a short clip of the late John O'Donohue. Here is a wise man of great intellect whose books I've never read, though I was aware of them, but when Pamela referred to one the other day I went off to find out more about their author and ended up listening to a long, unedited interview with this philosopher, poet and former priest which I found quite fascinating. Would that there was more of the same. His books live on, though, and I wondered if you'd read any, for example Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World
