The Big Book We’re Diving Into Next Is…

Mark Your Calendar: Our Next Big Read Begins August 4

Call me an apostle for the novels of Henry James. I recommend them to readers at my bookstore, but I’m often perplexed at the reactions that I get. Folks seem reflexively disinclined to give him a try. And his best works are not well suited for the store’s monthly book club—too long, too dense. But they are perfect for The Big Book Project!

Need some convincing? Perhaps you were assigned Daisy Miller in high school and found it impenetrable, or think James’ subjects are too precious, his writing style outdated.

But believe me, James’ late novels are extraordinary, a pinnacle of what I call “abundant” literature. James reveals the depths of his characters’ psychologies. The shifts in their thinking and perceptions are fascinating chiaroscuros that James details with acuity. His sentences are lush and winding--nothing short of awe-inspiring. These are novels to which I return, again and again, when faced with a slump in my own reading or writing.

I’ve selected The Ambassadors as our next Big Book. It just may be my favorite of his works (depends on the day you ask), and it is the one about which James himself wrote, “frankly, quite the best, ‘all round’ of all my productions.” In this novel a middle-aged American widower is sent off to Europe to bring back the wayward son of a wealthy woman whom he hopes to marry.

Before we plunge into The Ambassadors, however, as a 250 page appetizer nearly as succulent as the coming entrée, we will set aside three weeks to read and discuss the great Cynthia Ozick’s 2010 novel Foreign Bodies, which is an homage to The Ambassadors. If you’ve never read Ozick or Foreign Bodies, you are in for a supreme treat!