Major waste of time

I'm in a new book club. My old book club fizzled out because people didn't want to read anything heavier than “Mr. Snuffleupagus Goes to the Zoo”. I have no idea if this is a real book, but I think you see my point.

So, my new book club is reading “Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy” by Frances Maynes. This book is a major waste of time. Major.

This broad and her husband, who both happen to be faculty at two San Francisco area universities when the writing occurs (I later discover that she's at SFSU. Not sure where he teaches, because I don't give that much of a crap.). Anyway, they purchase this home in Tuscany, Italy and it hasn't been inhabited for 30 years, so it's a major fixer-upper. They need to get rid of scorpions and spiders that have invaded the house. Yeah.

This book pissed me off for several reasons:

1. Having so much money to burn that I purchase a second home, 7,000 miles away from my current home, where I can only spend a few months out of the year at.
2. Purchasing a home, regardless of location, that you have to sink a ton of money into in order to have basic things like heat, hot water and a functioning kitchen.
3. Two highly-educated people purchasing a home that requires above mentioned (and lots and lots of other) work and having the work done WHILE THEY ARE IN SAN FRANCISCO. And corresponding with the contractors by FAX. My parents and I never talked about building your own home or major construction projects, but common fucking sense tells me that I need to be present when that shit is going on.
   

At one point in the book, she mentions that she's the department chair—I later read on line that she was in charge of the Creative Writing department, so, really, the entire goddamn book could be a major embellishment, because let's face it, Creative Writers are people who creatively write and they are trained to MAKE SHIT UP. They go to school for years, spend thousands of dollars and they end up taking jobs where they MAKE SHIT UP.

The version I have of this book that I BORROWED (lemme tell you how glad I am that I didn't waste my hard earned money on this piece of shit book) is 310 pages long. I read the first 100 pages, skimmed the second hundred pages, and I'm not sure I'm going to waste my incredibly valuable time reading the last 100 pages. Zel suggested that I read the first and last paragraphs of each of the remaining chapters, and that I should still get the gist of what's going on. While that's a great idea, I'm not sure I want to waste anymore time on this huge piece of crap.

Oh, and Ms. Maynes, I mean no disrespect, but you're really not the brightest bulb. And, how in the fuck did you get a contract to develop your own line of furniture? Honestly.

And, no, I'm not gonna see the movie.