Good afternoon readers! My name is Luriel, and I am the newest Prep for Prep intern at Workman Publishing this summer. As a lover of books (and the Internet), I’m putting together a new-old segment here on the Workman Blog called #SummerReads based on the old #FridayReads feature. All summer long, I’ll provide weekly book reviews, recommendations, and book lists in collaboration with everyone here at Workman.
Along with #SummerReads, I’ll also be bringing back Wednesday Cute (which is exactly what it sounds like) along with starting some brand new features – so stay tuned!
To kick off the #SummerReads series and in honor of (a very hot and rainy) 4th of July, I would like to recommend the all-American modern classic and comedic novel that is John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces.
Each page of this novel is brimming with hilariously elaborate scenes and outrageous characters. The protagonist is a large, unpleasantly eccentric, and often flatulent man named Ignatius J. Reilly who lives in New Orleans with his less eccentric (but just as dramatic) mother. Most accurately described by Walker Percy in his foreword in Toole’s novel, Ignatius is a “slob extraordinary, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one.” Ignatius resents all modern conventions and is stubbornly focused on his own “scholarly” beliefs and ideas, causing problems for both himself and everyone in his vicinity along the way. A Confederacy of Dunces is a masterpiece and will have you laughing until the end.
Have a great 4th of July, and keep visiting for upcoming #SummerReads!
– Luriel
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