Future Poltergeist

Careful: Spoilers! I read 'The Great Gatsby' a few years back, when I was doing my Great American Novel reading.  It was the first time reading it and the review is here .  I said that the story is 'slight' and, truth be told, so was my review.  One of the reading groups that I follow chose it for the month of May so I reread it last week.  I've been thinking about it quite a bit since then. As I was getting ready for the reread I realized that I couldn't remember very much about it.  All I could recall was a) I'd had a favorable impression, b) the story took place on Long Island and New York City of the 1920's and c) the story was told by Gatsby's neighbor.  That was it.  My previous review was from early 2007 so in six years, almost all of it had fallen out of my head. I wanted this time to be different.  I took my time reading.  Pausing and rereading paragraphs a few times if needed until I felt comfortable that I got the message....

A couple of months back I had a conversation with my dad about our various e-readers. I made a point to him that old, classic books were usually free. To illustrate this I used the example of the Great Books of the Western World series. All of this, I proudly told him, was now free through my Kindle. Well, almost all of it. If you're not familiar with the series, back in the 50's a collection of the important books of Western civilization was put together by Encyclopedia Britannica. It stretches back to the ancient Greeks and is as far forward as the 19th century, ending with Freud. We had it while growing up and dad gave it to me about ten years ago or so. Here is wikipedia on it . The only thing not out there for free was the introductory book, called 'The Great Conversation' and two volumes that index the set by ideas. After talking to dad I cracked open the Conversation just to see what it gave me. To my great surprise it had a suggested reading plan. The s...