To the extent that Jonathan Safran Foer’s often brilliant, always original but sometimes problematic new novel, “Here I Am,” has a central narrative, it involves four generations of a Washington, D.C., Jewish family, the Blochs — Jacob and Julia, their three sons, and Jacob’s father and grandfather. During the month or so at the center of the novel’s chronology, the Blochs face various typical family issues: possible infidelity, what it means to be Jewish, what the children know (and don’t) about their parents, the fate of an aging patriarch, a son’s apparent misbehavior in school, the propriety of a bar mitzvah in the face of the young man’s reluctance to have one, kids’ engagement with virtual reality, an incontinent dog. They also face atypical, and improbable, issues: especially, a huge earthquake in the Middle East that further destabilizes an already unstable region and results in Israel’s call for Jews around the world to come “home” and defend the nation.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3353282&forum_id=2#31420203)

u read anything good recently?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3353282&forum_id=2#31420232)

i enjoyed the first 50-ish pages and thought it held promise -- compelling bits satirizing contemporary internet culture and academia -- but it derailed quickly in a serious way. it's rare for me to quit on a book, but i was realllllll fucking tempted. editor was atrocious.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3353282&forum_id=2#31420339)

now im reading ironweed

I tried to read GR and got 200 pages in and then I stopped reading it for a week and lost track of things. I'll tackle it again some other time. What companion guide did you use?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3353282&forum_id=2#31421099)