I don’t read books that sound uninteresting to me. Maybe I should. Maybe that’s what really challenging yourself is, opening your mind to the books that sound dull but actually aren’t! Or the ones that really are duller than spoons, but knock you up with loads of useful facts. Maybe it’s worth it, just to remind yourself how good really good literature is.

The thing is, there’s no time for that. Nor is there a dearth of really interesting sounding books. Like Amy Bloom’s Where the God of Love Hangs Out, which is mostly sets of connected stories and a handful of unrelated-to-the-rest thrown in. Everything can be said and done in a short story, at least in Amy Bloom’s. And the best ones make novels feel like long-winded masturbatory slogs. Nearly all of the people she writes about are sure of themselves, even at their most insecure; they are the types who encounter or create disastrous situations for themselves and then face their fates head on, eyes open, and wittily! And still, they don’t feel like impossible literary concoctions from a writer’s wishful thinking well. I found this book and these hearty characters comforting, during my least favorite 31 days of the year, the meanest month of them all, 25 years and counting.

Once you’ve read it, can we also discuss where you think the god of love hangs out? I’ll tell you what I’m putting my money on. (And it’s not the F train, which is where the god of inconvenience hangs out CONSTANTLY.)