How Long to Read Choices

How Long Does it Take to Read Choices?

It takes the average reader 6 hours and 25 minutes to read Choices by Theodore L. Gross

Assuming a reading speed of 250 words per minute. Learn more

Description

Choices is a vivid protrait of a man's rise to the leadership of a university and the personal consequences of his overvaulting ambition. The novel traces Scott Bernstein's journey as an administrative leader in the trauma of open admissions at Gotham College in New York to his presidency of Jefferson University in Chicago, a mid-size institution that resembles the large majority of colleges and universities struggling with open access, academic standards, and the fundraising essential for survival. His first wife Sandy is loathe to leave New York and sacrifice her successful career, even though an essential part of her shares Scott's ambition and his eagerness to be a university president. She has stuck by her husband through his compulsion to succeed professionally: their decision, against her wishes, to postpone and then not have children; his publication of an indictment of open admissions in Saturday Review, which results in the loss of his job, and his need to escape from Gotham College for a position at Penn State, which separates them for four years. Now, in their forties, he is asking her to leave her beloved New York and an advancing career, which fills her with conflicting emotions of resentment at what she has and will have sacrificed and her pride in Scott's accomplishment. She is losing an important professional definition of herself, but she does want Scott to succeed, she does want to preserve the marriage, and she does support this achievement that both of them have been working for from the time they fell in love as adolescents. Before they leave New York, Sandy contracts breast cancer, which further divides them. She is a trouper, nevertheless, and prepared for a new life in Chicago; but before she can redirect her own career and acclimate herself to the Midwest, she dies tragically of breast cancer, which fills Scott with guilt at having pursued so single-mindedly his own goals. They've achieved the presidency both always desired, but she will not live to share it with him. Scott's second wife is Alice Palmer, a beautiful, wealthy woman older than himself, who deftly pursues and captures this attractive sixty-year old, widowed university president. She is a stunning seventy-two year old local celebrity, a fundraiser par excellence, who bravely joins in his heroic quest to transform Jefferson University. Their love affair and marriage are inevitably in conflict with Scott's obsession to be one of the great university presidents of his time-- his presidency of Jefferson is a kind of redemption for the failure of open admission at Gotham College, his having written an essay that exposed its intrinsic and insoluble problems, and his critical role in that educational experiment, as he struggles to make this second-rate, mid-size Jefferson University a more impressive institution and even the finest of its kind in the nation. His unrealistic professional expectations and his bitter personal conflict with Alice's middle-age daughter lead to the dissolution of the marriage. Scott Bernstein's leadership of Jefferson University is moderately successful, although he suffers from "overvaulting ambition" and never achieves the heroic status he craves. His marriage fails, partially due to an irreconcilable conflict between the daughter and himself but also because he has lost himself in the seductive presidential world of prominence, prestige, and wealth that university leadership can provide; he has lost his true self. There are many choices along this turbulent journey, but the fundamental one is, as Yeats puts it, the choice between "perfection of the life or of the work." Most fiction concerning the academic world is viewed from the wry and often satiric perspective of either a faculty member or an outsider, but none views the complexities of university leadership from that of the president himself. Choices is concerned with the desire of one man to lead a meaningful life in a world t

How long is Choices?

Choices by Theodore L. Gross is 376 pages long, and a total of 96,256 words.

This makes it 127% the length of the average book. It also has 118% more words than the average book.

How Long Does it Take to Read Choices Aloud?

The average oral reading speed is 183 words per minute. This means it takes 8 hours and 45 minutes to read Choices aloud.

What Reading Level is Choices?

Choices is suitable for students ages 12 and up.

Note that there may be other factors that effect this rating besides length that are not factored in on this page. This may include things like complex language or sensitive topics not suitable for students of certain ages.

When deciding what to show young students always use your best judgement and consult a professional.

Where Can I Buy Choices?

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