Twelve Sharp

I finished three books this week. Somehow I'm finding more time to read these past few weeks. It's kind of nice. I read Twelve Sharp, the latest in the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. I thought it was good. The books are becoming very similar. I think in a previous book she was kidnapped, taken to a remote location and chained in a bathroom. I could be wrong. I still liked it, but it wasn't as laugh out loud funny as some of the earlier books. Also, I kept waiting for her car to blow up, and it never happened! She did have to accompany her Grandma to a funeral, so that hasn't changed.

I also recently read Baby Proof by Emily Giffin. I had read her Something Borrowed and Something Blue and really enjoyed them. This one was a bit of a disappointment. I didn't like the main character at all. I wasn't crazy about the storyline either. It just didn't do much for me.

Earlier today I finished Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot. It was a bunch of fluff, but I liked it. The main character was very flaky, which I usually find annoying. I found it annoying this time too, but I liked the supporting cast of characters. Parts of the book reminded me of Sophie Kinsella's Can You Keep a Secret? The ending was kind of open-ended, so I'm wondering if there might be a sequel in the future.

Rumspringa & Welcome to the Real World

I recently finished two books - Rumspringa: To Be or Not To Be Amish by Tom Shachtman and Welcome to the Real World by Carole Matthews. The Carole Matthews book was one of the freebies I got at the Book Expo.

Rumspringa was really good. I'm fascinated by the Amish, so I thought it was really interesting. It was mainly about the period in an Amish person's life after they turn 16 until they decide to join the church. Or, in some cases, not to join the church. I think the retention rate is something really high, like 80-90 percent eventually join the church. The focus was on teenagers, but the author interviewed a lot of Amish people, so it provided a broad picture of Amish life. It really is a crazy thing to suddenly be exposed to all these new things and be able to do things you've never been allowed to do before, and never will be allowed to do again, if you join the church. As the Mom of a one-year-old I've given no thought to the upcoming teen years. Now I'm terrified! Reading this book made me realize how hard it must be for parents to let go as your kids get older. Right now, I control so much of Ryan's little life. I guess it's a gradual process, but you get to the point where you have to let your kid make the big decisions and take responsibility. I'm not looking forward to that! I guess I have a few years to prepare myself. Anyway, I really enjoyed the book.

I also enjoyed Welcome to the Real World. It was a typical chick lit kind of love story, with one twist. The basic story was aspiring singer sings in bar with her good friend who she's known forever, dated briefly a long time ago, and he's been in love with her ever since. She meets this other, older, rich man and sparks fly. Circumstances keep them apart and you're sure she'll wise up and realize she loves the friend that's been in love with her. Surprisingly, that doesn't happen and she ends up with the other man. It was entertaining.

Right now I'm reading Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes. I haven't read that much of it. It's part of a series about the Walsh sisters that includes Rachel's Holiday, Angels and Watermelon. She's written quite a few other books that I've enjoyed.

Queen: the Definitive Biography & Chang & Eng

I finished Queen: the Definitive Biography last week. It was really interesting. I love Queen, so I enjoyed reading about how the band formed and the path their career took. I didn't start listening to them until college, so I missed the time when they were really popular, and I really had no idea how big they were, at least how big this book made them sound. Very exciting! I have been a diligent Queen fan recently - I've seen both the Queen musical, We Will Rock You, and went to see Queen with Paul Rodgers in DC just a few months ago. Both were excellent!

For book club we read Chang & Eng by Darin Strauss. I think 4-5 people finished it, a few more read part of it and 2 people didn't start. I think that's about average. While I like reading all the books, I think it's nice that in this book club, you can go even if you don't finish the book. Or even start it! I really like this group of people and enjoy getting together with them once a month. I thought the book was ok. It was written from Eng's perspective and went back and forth through different periods in their lives. I thought that was an odd, and unnecessary way to write it. I'm probably missing some important parallels that were obvious to everyone else, but I found it distracting. The book left me with more questions about Chang and Eng than I had before I started. I guess that's a good sign since I wasn't so sick of them, I never wanted to hear their names again! We had a good discussion about the book and their miserable lives. Since the book was fiction, based on their lives, I'm not sure which parts were fiction and which were reality. Were their marriages as awful as the book made them out to be? Was Chang a drunk?

Our book for next month is The Sad Truth About Happiness, by Anne Giardini. I voted for One Thousand White Women: the Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus, but was outvoted. Oh well.

Red Dress Ink Jackpot!

I went to the Book Expo in DC last weekend and stumbled upon a Red Dress Ink book signing. I was so excited! You can tell I don't get out much. There were a bunch of my favorite authors from that publisher signing their books. Some of the books I got signed were:

Girls Night Out, a short story collection I had signed by Marian Keyes (one of my favorites!), Meg Cabot and Laura Caldwell. I read this already and really enjoyed it. The stories were really good for the most part, and I wanted to read more.

Me vs. Me, by Sarah Mlynowski. I read this as well and really enjoyed it. I was happy with the "Me" that she chose in the end and (spoiler ahead) was happy that she and Cam ended up together. I was also pleased that Cam was not the same guy who refused to elope at the end of the AZ part of the story, but seemed to have changed as well.

I also had books signed by Carole Matthews, Mindy Klasky and one or two others whose names escape me right now. All in all, a great surprise for me!

I also had a book called My Father the Dog signed by the author. It's a very cute children's book I"m going to give Mark for Father's Day. He'll really like it. I had it signed for Ryan.

Otherwise, I'm still reading the Queen biography which is really interesting. Their lives at the time sound like all they did was record and tour. It's hard to imagine how they had a personal life outside of that. I need to start reading Chang & Eng, but I still have 2 weeks until book club.

In the Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant

At book club this past Monday, we discussed In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant. It was pretty good. The story is told from the perspective of the courtesan's dwarf. I learned a lot about the profession of courtesan in the 16th century, the life of a dwarf in the 16th century and about Venice in general. We spent some time discussing how the profession of courtesan/prostitute has changed from then until now. Pretty funny. After we finished the discussion we got in the hot tub and set a new record with 7 people!

Since it was at my house I had to suggest books to read for next time. I suggested The Bingo Queens of Paradise by June Park, Big City Eyes by Delia Ephron and Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss. We chose Chang and Eng, which is a novel based on the lives of the Siamese twins. It looks really interesting.

Outside of book club I just finished Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty. This is the third in a young adult series. The first two are Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. It took me a long time to get into this third one. I didn't like it as much as the first two. It's set over her entire time at college. I did get into it more the farther I read and found myself caring what happened to her. I was happy that Marcus reappeared, since I find myself liking him better than Jessica, but thought she was quick to take him back. Jessica did seem to mature over time and come to some realizations that made her more likeable.

This morning I just started reading Queen: the Definitive Biography by Laura Jackson. I'm only a few pages in, but so far so good!

Killing me Softly

I haven't been reading all that much lately. Too busy! My last book club book was Killing me Softly, by Nicci French. It was kind of disturbing. It's hard to imagine being caught up in that sort of dysfunctional relationship. I couldn't help wondering why her friends didn't do more to help her when it was obvious that it wasn't a healthy relationship. I guess they were in a difficult position since they were all close to her ex as well. Anyway, it was interesting, but I'm not sure I really liked it.

While I was at my parents and had two built in babysitters, I read Vince & Joy, by Lisa Jewell. Another book about people in dysfunctional relationships. And again, I don't know how they let that happen to themselves for such a long period of time. Especially Joy. I've read a few other books by Lisa Jewell, and really enjoyed them, so this one was a little disappointing.

Right now I'm reading Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns. Mostly I'm reading it because it's one of the few books on my shelf that I've never read. I'm not sure when I got it or why, but I'm basically reading it out of desperation! Funny, because I work in a Library and have my choice of thousands of books. Must start finding better books to read. This book actually is pretty entertaining and I'm enjoying it more than the other two I mentioned. I used to work with a woman who absolutely loved this book and that's stuck in my head all this time. There's a sequel, but I'm not sure I'm going to read it.

For book club this month we're reading In the Company of the Courtesan, by Sarah Dunant. I haven't started it yet, but it looks good. Previously for book club we read The Birth of Venus, which I really liked. Hopefully this one will be as good. Book club is at my house next month so I'll have to pick out three books to suggest. My goals are to 1) not leave book selection until the day of like I usually do and 2) not wait until two days before book club to start the book like I usually do. I have a problem with procrastination.

Father Joe by Tony Hendra

I finished this month's book club book Father Joe by Tony Hendra last night, just in time for tonight's book club. It was good, better than I expected. I found myself more interested though, in the story of Father Joe than I was in the story of Tony Hendra. I've never heard of him, either of them, actually, so I didn't really have any preconceived notions of who Tony Hendra was or what he was like. It was really interesting at the end to find out that Father Joe has had such an influence on so many people's lives. I would've liked to have heard more about that. It was also interesting to read about life at Quarr and I found myself wanting to learn more about how monks live. That's often how I find things to read - I take one aspect of a book I'm reading and want to learn as much as I can about it.

Other than Father Joe I've read a few trashy novels. Nothing I'd really like to report on! I'm betting that we'll pick something on the lighter side at book club tonight. Our last two books have been nonfiction and not exactly happy reading.

In other news, Ryan's really starting to enjoy reading, or at least rapidly flipping the pages of his books. Every morning after I feed him, he picks out a few books and brings them to me and he sits on my lap while I read to him. Some of his current favorites are: I Love you as Much, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Binky, and Blankie. So sweet!

Come Again

Book club was really interesting. We discussed A Million Little Pieces in between James Frey's appearance on Larry King and his appearance on Oprah. One of the women had taped the Larry King show so we watched that. Interesting. Kind of funny that on that show Oprah's still defending him and a few days later is ripping into him on her own show. Hopefully this whole debacle doesn't send James right back to the bottle. Otherwise, he probably shouldn't have made up so much and then tried to peddle it as nonfiction. It wouldn't have been a bad fiction book, but once you know he made it up, it's hard to take seriously. The part that amuses me the most is that he exaggerated how much of a badass he was in rehab. That to me is funny, b/c that really is what he tried to convey. As someone at book club pointed out, once you hear him talk, it's hard to imagine anyone taking any of his threats seriously.

I also finished Party Season which I really liked. Hopefully Sarah Mason will write something else soon since I really enjoy her books. I've also recently reread 2 books that I own - Come Together and Come Again by Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees. I liked both of them, but definitely liked Come Together better than Come Again. Come Together is the story of Jack and Amy and how they got together (hence the title). It's the basic plot of boy and girl meet, fall in love, something terrible happens or there's a big misunderstanding so they break up, true love conquers all and they get back together. Cheesy, but I enjoyed it. Come Again is about 4 of Amy & Jack's friends and it's a little harder to follow and as there are 4 main characters, you don't get to know them as well. Also, Jack & Amy are planning their wedding at this point and come across as kind of lame. I didn't like the 2 of them as much in this book.

I just finished this morning a book called The Prince of Central Park about a young boy who ran away from his abusive foster mother to live in Central Park. It was good, if a little unbelievable. Shockingly, I'm not reading a single book at the moment since I finished this last one. Must find something good to read...

Wedding Day by Catherine Alliott

I recently finished Wedding Day by Catherine Alliott. It was pretty good. There were a few loose ends that were tied up a little too neatly. Namely the main character conveniently getting out of her upcoming wedding by her fiance letting her off the hook and then moving to South America! Yeah, that could happen. I did like the main character, even though she was a bit of a pushover throughout most of the book. I also never got the amazing chemistry between the main character and her love interest that seemed obvious to everyone in the book, but not to me as I was reading it. Can you tell I've already forgotten the names of the characters? I did actually like it, even though I don't seem to have many nice things to say.

Right now I'm reading two books. I'm almost finished with my book club book A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. Unfortunately, as I was about a third of the way through it all the allegations of him fabricating large parts of the book surfaced. I read the entire Smoking Gun article on it, and it was a long one. Now as I'm reading parts of it, I just get irritated and think about what a big liar he is! It might just be me, but he's also very arrogant and for someone who supposedly needs as much help as he does it seems actually stupid for him not to take the advice of people who have been through it and overcome their addictions. He is quick to call bullshit on other people and other people's beliefs, but seems 100% certain that his way is the right way. Anyway, it should make for some very interesting discussion on Monday night!

The other book I'm reading is The Party Season by Sarah Mason. This is the third book by Sarah Mason that I've read recently and I really like them. I'm not too far along in this one, but I'm really enjoying it. One thing I like is that I know something is going to happen with Isabel and Simon, but I have no idea what! Most books are so easy to predict. Also, Isabel's roommate Dom is involved with someone, but I don't know who. My wild guess is Isabel's sister, but I'm not sure about that.

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.