October Books 5) The Color Purple
5) The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

My Unread Books Project has not delivered me a barrel of laughs so far, and I have to say that my heart sank as the narrator is raped at the age of fourteen on the first page; Oh no, I thought, it's Beloved all over again. But in fact this turns into a really heartwarming story of triumph against economic and emotional adversity, of love and laughter overcoming the obstacles of gender and racial segregation. It was also (as the last in a reading programme which included The System of the World and The Brothers Karamazov) really short, only 244 pages. In fact, of the ten books I have read as a result of my pledge to make my "unread" list less embarrassing, I think this is the only one I have unequivocally enjoyed. (I did wonder to what extent the African bits were a response to Things Fall Apart.)