Irish Girls are Back in Town

I've been reading, just haven't been posting. Sometimes it's hard to find the time. Book club last week was a little random. Half the people read The Myth of You and Me and the other half read To Kill a Mockingbird. I read The Myth of You and Me and about half of To Kill a Mockingbird. I've read it at least 20 times, so I felt okay leading the discussion. Most of the discussion of The Myth of You and Me was about whether or not you'd ever broken up with a friend, and the two women's relationships with their parents. All the breaking up with friends was over a guy, either a friend hooked up with your boyfriend, or a recent ex. Interesting. We didn't really discuss To Kill a Mockingbird very much. As I was reading it I realized what a great book it is and how much I enjoy reading it every time I pick it up. I'm going to finish it as soon as I get a chance.

Book club meets again on Jan. 23rd. We're reading A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. I probably wouldn't have picked this because it's so popular since Oprah chose it as one of her selections. I don't usually have any great desire to read the popular book of the time. That's why book club is good for me, I never would've read Da Vinci Code either. If there's too much hype, I assume (sometimes wrongly!) that a book will never live up to it, and it's not worth my time to read it when there are so many other books out there to be read.

I just finished Irish Girls are Back in Town, a collection of short stories by Irish women authors. Some of them were good, but overall it wasn't one of the best short story compilations I've read. A few of the stories were really just kind of boring. I'm pretty certain I've read a few other books recently, but I have a hard time remembering what they are. Since the baby arrived, my memory has been kind of iffy. Oh well. Honestly, he gets cuter every day!

Waiting

We sort of discusses Waiting, by Ha Jin, at book club the other night. Only 3 people actually read it, so the discussion was kind of short. Maybe 15 minutes. Then we spent an hour and a half in the hot tub talking about non-book related things. A good time was had by all. I suggested The Myth of You and Me, A Long Way Down and To Kill a Mockingbird. For some reason, we ended up selecting 2 books, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Myth of You and Me so I get to prepare questions for both books. That also means I need to read both of them. Better get started. Book club meets again on Dec. 19th.

Right now I'm reading Snowed In by Christina Bartolomeo and I'm still plugging away at First Families. I think it's time I acknowledged that I'm just not going to finish it. It's not that it's a bad book, I just never pick it up before bedtime. Maybe if I moved it downstairs I'd read more of it. Snowed In is about a woman who moves from DC to Portland, Maine with her husband. Their relationship isn't the greatest, so it talks a lot about what she does and he is more of a peripheral character. It's alright.

I feel like I must have read something else recently, but I can't think of anything. Snowed In is taking me quite a while. Ryan's eating less or more quickly, so my reading time is decreasing.

Everyone Worth Knowing

Everyone Worth Knowing was pretty good. Again, people doing crazy jobs that I'd never even knew existed and sound a little far fetched. It's hard to believe people actually live like that and have those kind of lives. I also finished Waiting yesterday. Just in time for book club tonight! For different reasons, this was also about a complete different lifestyle and culture that is hard to imagine. I don't know if I felt bad for Lin, the main character, or not. I guess I feel worst for his wife, Shuyu. I'm not sure how I feel about Manna Wu either. It seems like they all ended up in situations that they couldn't really do anything about. That frustrates me b/c I feel like people should have more control over their lives. We'll have a lot to discuss at book club tonight.

I'm going to suggest The Myth of You and Me and Long Way Down and I need to come up with one more. I'm considering A Town Like Alice, or To Kill a Mockingbird, my two favorite books. I doubt either would be chosen but I still might suggest them.

The Mommy Fund

I recently finished The Mommy Fund by Madeleine Jacob. It was okay, a little hard to believe. There was also a whole lot of nothing in it. The whole shopping spree part was sort of long winded but unimportant. It could've been summed up a lot more succintly and not drawn out as much. I got that they went shopping and had their hair done and bought all these nice clothes, but ho hum, sort of boring. It also wasn't very believable, which is one of my pet peeves.

All in all, okay, not great. They could've cut way down on the New York trip and expanded the part at the end where the Mommy Fund (hence the title and, you would think, an important part of the book) is developed. They kind of glossed over exactly what the Mommy Fund is and how it worked.

I'm still reading First Families: The Impact of the White House on Their Lives by Bonnie Angelo and have started Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger. I'm not that far into it. What I should really be reading is Waiting by Ha Jin, my book club book. We meet on Monday. Ack!

Speak Softly, She Can Hear

I just finished Speak Softly, She Can Hear, by Pam Lewis. This book sort of snuck up on me. I started reading it while I was feeding Ryan and found it so disturbing, every time I picked it up I planned to get another book and read something else. Then I'd forget to bring another book up with me and would just keep reading it. It was disturbing b/c the first scene is a major scene in the book and the subject was not only disturbing, but something that made me feel uncomfortable to read while feeding my sweet little baby. I kept reading it though, mostly just because I didn't have another book handy, and found myself really wanting to find out what happened! Throughout the book, I kept wanting to make different choices for Carole. I wanted her to tell someone (her Mother, Father, Will?) not sure who, but understanding why she felt she couldn't. The end was tied up a little too neatly, and the fact that the author tried to redeem Naomi was a little annoying, but all in all it sucked me right in and kept me interested until the end, after I got past the wanting to put it down part. That was more b/c of the proximity to the baby than the content of the book though. I'll have to do a better job picking the books I'm going to read while feeding, although if that had been the case, I probably never would've read it. Outside of feeding time, I don't have a whole lot of time to read.

That's why it's taking me eons to read First Families: The Impact of the White House on Their Lives, by Bonnie Angelo. That's one of two books I'm reading right now. The other is The Mommy Fund by Madeline Jacob. This is an extremely light read that I'm not sure I'll finish. Although, based on my reasoning in the above paragraph, I probably will!

The book I should be reading is Waiting, by Ha Jin, this month's book club book. We meet on Monday at my house and I don't even have a copy of it yet. A friend from book club started it and couldn't finish it. That doesn't make me want to run out and get started. I will though. Maybe tomorrow...

I've been too busy

I've been too busy the last few weeks to post. Work's been hectic and outside of work I've just been running around. I'm going to just post a quick list of some books I've read lately, the ones I can remember!

War Reporting for Cowards, Chris Ayres
A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City, Anonymous

Always a Bridesmaid
Bono in conversation with Michka Assayas

It's a combination of nonfiction and very light reading. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a light, easy read! I recently read the first two and am currently reading the last two.

We had book club the other night and briefly discusses Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner. It was okay. Next month we're reading Waiting by Ha Jin. I've heard good things about it so I'm looking forward to it. I suggested The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart, which also looks good.

Twins of Tribeca & 84, Charing Cross Road

I finally finished Twins of Tribeca. It turned out to be better than I thought it would be. It took me a while to get into it. It's one of those books, like The Devil Wears Prada, where you can hardly believe that people have that kind of work environment. Crazy. I read a really interesting book, nonfiction, a while ago about the history of a talent agency. That's another of those ridiculous jobs where people have to do the strangest things as part of their normal work day. It's so far removed from what I do. I can't for the life of me remember what that book was called and it's going to bug the crap out of me until I figure it out.

I also finished 84, Charing Cross Road. It was okay. Really, that's all I have to say about it.

Ok, I finally found it. The book is called The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up. I really liked it. It was a history of talent agencies and how people start out in the mailroom doing all kinds of grunt work and work their way up in the company. It's a series of interviews with various people who have worked in mailrooms over the course of the last 50 years or so. Very interesting.

September Book Club

Book club met last night to discuss Life of Pi. Everyone liked it. I liked it, but I wouldn't read it again, and it's not the best book I ever read. There was quite a bit of discussion about the two different versions of what happened on the boat. The consensus was that the animal version was the better, if not the true, version of what happened. There was some discussion of religion but not a whole lot. We talked quite a bit about the island and how unbelievable that sounded. The one part I didn't really like was that the island ate a person. Now, really. And then the person's teeth were wrapped up in leaves that Pi pulled apart? That seems a little ridiculous. I guess he needed a good reason to leave the island that was otherwise so good to him, but a people eating island? For some reason, after all the potentially unbelievable things in the book, that was the one that stood out to me!

The three books suggested for next month were:

Goodnight Nobody, by Jennifer Weiner. This is what we're reading.

Empire Falls, by Richard Russo

Lucky, by Alice Sebold

This rarely happens, but nobody had read any of these books. I actually had already checked out Goodnight Nobody and planned to read it, so that's the one I voted for. Next month is our 2 year book club anniversary! Wow! Instead of meeting at someone's house we're going out to dinner. Everyone's going to suggest a book since there's no hostess, except for Judy and Chrissy who suggested last and this month's books.

In other reading news, I'm still reading Twins of Tribeca. It started out really slow for me. It's gotten better, but it seems to be taking me a very long time to read. Ryan keeps reaching out to grab whatever is behind him so I end up holding the book up in the air and my arm gets kind of tired! I've also just started reading 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff which is an epistolary novel (which I love) containing the correspondence between a London antiquarian book dealer and a New York journalist. I'm reading it before I go to bed, so it's just a few pages every now and then.

Twins of Tribeca

Society Girls was a fun, easy read. It went really quickly. The main character, Clemmie, reminded me a little of the main character, Becky, from the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. She is a little more self aware and doesn't get into as many ridiculous situations though. She is also a little more believable. For people who hated Becky (I'm talking to you Brooke :) ) you might like Clemmie a little better. I also liked Sarah Mason's previous book, Playing James. It has the same family as Society Girls, but focuses on another daughter, Holly. Very cute.

This morning I started Twins of TriBeCa by Rachel Pine. I'm not sure about it yet since I'm only a few pages in.

Society Girls

I finished Life of Pi over the weekend. I really liked it, again, much more than I thought I would. It's nice not to be able to predict exactly what's going to happen. I also like books that are believable. Even if something is completely fantastic, like surviving for 200+ days in a lifeboat, if you can make me believe it could actually happen, I'm perfectly happy going along with it. If you tell me a stupid story about walking down the street that doesn't make any sense, that irritates me.

Right now I'm reading Society Girls by Sarah Mason. Another book I'm liking more than I thought I would. It's a light read set in Britain. It's funny in a way that I really like. The characters can laugh at themselves.

Life of Pi

I'm reading Life of Pi for book club. So far it's pretty good. It's funnier than I thought it would be. It was always one of those books that I'd heard too much about and was sure it could never be as good as the hype. I felt the same way about The Da Vinci Code.

I'm also reading Thicker than Water, Coming of Age Stories by Irish and Irish American writers. I read a story while I pump at work. They're Young Adult stories. Pretty good.

My new blog

I don't know that I'll have time to keep up with this, but what the heck!