Hope everyone out there had a happy Thanksgiving! One of the things I was thankful for this past weekend was having selected two great books to bring home from the office. One of them, The Queen of Palmyra, won’t be out until the summer (but if you liked The Secret Life of Bees or The Help, you should definitely keep an eye out for it, as it also perceptively deals with a young girl and race relations in south in the 60s). But the other one is out now.

I finished In a Perfect World this morning on the subway and it was SO AWESOME. It’s the story of Jiselle, a young flight attendant who thinks her life will be perfect once she marries the handsomest man she’s ever met and becomes the stepmother of his three children. But things don’t go exactly as Jiselle has planned, especially since the country is being ravaged by a mysterious flu and the world is changing right before her eyes.

Laura Kasischke, the author, is a poet, and it shows. The language in this book was just astonishingly beautiful, and the story was so compelling I finished in two days. Lucky for me (and for all of you!), Laura will be appearing on Book Club Girl on Air tomorrow, December 2nd, at 7 pm to discuss the book! Tune in here to listen live during the show.

(If you’ve read the book, you should absolutely tune in, but come by even if you haven’t. If we discuss the ending, which we probably will since I think it’s been fairly polarizing, we’ll let you know to stop listening for a few minutes.)

The other day, the office was shocked (shocked!) to discover that Book Club Girl had not read Little Women. But we were also inspired to list the books we haven’t read on the office whiteboard (actually, it was Carrie’s idea. She inspired us.)

As you may or may not be able to see in the upper right hand corner, all participants are required to read these books over the summer and share a book report here on the olive reader. That may or may not happen (though I WILL read P&P). On the other side, there’s a quote from one of our cover designers, Milan:

“I’m an immigrant. I haven’t read any of these.”

Strange but true. I know this question gets asked a lot, but what classics have you never read? Bonus points if you explain why, like with Book Club Girl, it’s especially surprising that you in particular haven’t read that book.