3.5. Although I only read the novella, not the short stories.

The main novella in this book is about a guy in his early 20's who works at a public library. The similarities with my life end there, but hey... Philip Roth is probably the most consistently good writer of the last century. He is not amazing like David Foster Wallace, Roberto Bolano, or Thomas Pynchon, but he is good book after book after book.

After reading a bit of the title novella, I realized that I had begun reading this once before and had apparently put it down without finishing. It just felt like more of what, after having read a couple of other Roth books, seemed like more of the same -- which is to say a smart Jewish guy being kind of shitty to an unlikable woman. I'm happy to read this sort of story, but when it begins to feel like the only story an author tells, it gets a little old. I slogged through the title novella anyway (it was only about 100 pages, after all) and was happy to read wholly different types of story in the other five pieces in the book. I especially liked "The Conversion of the Jews," "Defender of the Faith," and "Epstein."