Reading Lolita in Tehran : : a Memoir in Books

Locations
Call Number: 921 Nafisi, Azar, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Nafisi, Azar
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	921 Nafisi, Azar	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Nafisi, Azar	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Nafisi, Azar	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Nafisi, Azar	4-week checkout	On Shelf

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Didn't work for me submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on August 27, 2016, 5:15pm 2/5 stars. The reason I write reviews is so that people can understand why I give a book a particular rating. What works for one reader may not work for another, and while I can absolutely see why this book will appeal to some people, it really, really did not work for me. Here's why:

_Reading Lolita in Tehran_ belongs to a category that I call "books written by English majors for English majors." They are books that revel in talking about other books. They list them; they summarize them; they analyze them. They feel, to me, like a contest between college seniors to see who has had the most English professors assign the most reading and who has had the most philosophy professors teach them the best way to analyze things to death.

Can you tell that this does not appeal to me?

At any given point in time I am reading THIS book, whatever it is, because I want to know THIS story, whatever it is, and not because I want to hear the character talk about someone else's story. That's what my To Read list is for... to read those stories.

I picked up _Reading Lolita_ because I recently read the amazing graphic novel _Persepolis_, about a girl growing up in Iran, and I thought that _Reading Lolita_ would be a perfect follow up for another angle and more information. I stayed with the story all the way through because there were, indeed, elements of this. But FOR ME, there was far too much analysis of other people's books. I understand why some of it was relevant to Nafisi's story. How her students engaged with the literature that she taught was very relevant to the time, context, and culture of Tehran. But there was far more of it than was necessary to achieve that purpose.

And that's OK, because that wasn't her only purpose. The subtitle of _Reading Lolita_ is "A Memoir in Books." I should have caught on sooner. I wish I had. This was clearly not the book for me. Nafisi is a good writer, and if you don't mind reading a book that is a series of English class lectures about books you may or may not have read with smatterings of Iran's revolution surrounding them for context, then you will probably enjoy this thoroughly. But I'll pass.