Malott's Better-Than-Oprah's Book Club

February's Selection

A Painted House by John Grisham (paperback? But of course!)

I'm not a black woman and a heretic, but I do know good fiction when I read it. This New York Times Bestseller is about a poor Arkansas family in 1952 that plants cotton. I couldn't put it down.

If it had been written by Harper Lee, it would be a critically acclaimed, instant American Classic. But it wasn't written by Harper Lee... So it's just a good book. But Harper Lee might have named it A Painted Mockingbird... or To Kill a House...

Literary trivia: In To Kill a Mockingbird, the little neighbor boy named "Dill" is based upon Lee's childhood friend, Truman Capote. If Capote had written this month's selection, he might have named it In Cold House. But he is dead and doesn't write anymore.

On the Malott Reader-Meter, A Painted House comes in at a solid 8.

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