Monday, August 1, 2011

What are you reading?

It is Book Report Monday, a day I officially made up when I realized I have 5 books going at the same time, plus a nice list of books you've all recommended [thanks again, you are brilliant].  And I need to discuss.  So:


Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi
I'm not sure why this was on my TO READ list, even though I love her in Arrested Development and on Better Off Ted [which, if you have not watched that sadly short-lived comedy brilliance, then you must do so immediately.  Trust me.  I've already blathered on about it here.  You will thank me every day in your prayers. EVERY DAY.  Even if you don't pray.].  I'm not a big biography reader, because most autobiographies are written by people who can't write and ghostwriters and most biographies are written by scholarly people who can't write.  I'm not sure where Kitty Kelly falls in this, but I digress.  Anyway, I've been reading this book while working out at the gym, and I just realized that maybe reading a book about a woman who suffered from severe eating disorders while hitting the [seated] elliptical is probably not the best idea.  I like it ok, but I find her attention to her food issues kind of boring. Which begs the question, why am I reading a book about food issues? I have no idea.

Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster
I'm actually re-reading this.  Thanks to Jenners for her audiobook recommendation of Ms. Lancaster, who I started reading many, many years ago when I was working in a bookstore and got an ARC of Bitter is the New Black and I don't AT ALL feel seven kinds of jealousy that she has gone on to WRITING SUPERSTARDOM while my half-completed manuscripts and fully finished novels are moldering away.  What the fuck was I thinking, becoming a lawyer?  Anyway, I'm re-reading this and for some reason it's in the bathroom, which I'm not a person who reads in the bathroom, because I am in there ALL THE FUCKING TIME ANYWAY, and I'd really rather not extend the time I have to spend in such a tiny place, but it's in there and sometimes I'll flip through a page or two before I realize that I haven't shut the door completely and the girl has a friend over.

What am I talking about?  Oh, yes, so anyway, that's TWO books I'm reading about people with food issues and weight issues and yes, I get it, I'm not skinny anymore ladies, and maybe the ice cream maker is getting more of a workout than it should, but what the hell, subconscious? What are you trying to tell me? 


Death of a Valentine by M.C. Beaton
I'm listening to this on the way too and from work.  I've written before about my orgasmic love for the reader Graeme Malcom, and it's good to know that the guy can still bring it.  By it, I mean good feelings in my you-know-where [MY VAGINA].  [Also my heart.]  Anyway, I'm not quite sure what the story is about, except that there was a letter bomb explosion delivered in a valentine card to a pretty but bitchy girl who was on drugs.  I think.  I don't know.  I just listen to the mellifluous voice and ignore the honk-beep-brake-swerve that is going on around me.  So I think it's an excellent book.


The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene
NANCY DREW!!  NANCY DREW!!

I've loved Nancy Drew since I was little.  I voraciously read all the books I could get my hands on, and passed that love of Carson Drew's detecting daughter on to the girl.  We've collected quite a few of the books, and the other night I was heading to bed and couldn't think of what I wanted to read.  I can't read something new, because then I'll stay up, so I like to re-read things so my brain will be o.k. with falling asleep because it already knows how the story ends.  Anyway, I'm reading this and enjoying not only the stilted writing and deepening mystery [Will the Tophams keep the inheritance? Or will the good, kind people Nancy meets get their fair share??], and in particular, the passage where:
Nancy was attracted to both girls.
Did you know Nancy Drew was gay? I did not!


Undead and Unappreciated by Maryjanice Davidson
This is one of those vampire chick lit books, but it's fucking hilarious. Not only because the vampire queen is a bitchy, self-involved not always on top of it narcissist, but because Davidson doesn't seem to take the whole vampire premise too seriously.  This is my pool book, which I enjoy reading not only because I've read it before, but also because it's just fun and fluffy and light and when it's hot and my brain is fried, that's what I'm looking for.  And, for the record, Davidson is a GAJILLION times better writer than that purveyor of abstinence porn.  And even Anne Rice [who, also for the record, really needed an editor].

What are you reading?  Do you keep more than one book going at a time?  WHAT IS THE SECRET OF THE OLD CLOCK?

22 comments:

  1. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
    Because I am fucking high brow.

    The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry
    Because I fucking love him so much.

    Imagine: John Lennon by Andrew Solt & Sam Egan
    Just because.

    The Autograph Man By Zadie Smith
    Because everyone says it is faAbulous but frankly, I'm finding it dull as dishwater.

    1964 Parade magazine advertisements.
    Because they are hilariously offensive - especially to a 'husky girl'.

    Sarah xxx

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  2. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd

    What was that?... I'm behind the times?... Yep I know - that's my MO. :)

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  3. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart. - awesome in a funnier 1984 sort of way.

    Goal, Motivation & Conflict; the Building Blocks of Good Fiction by Debra Dixon - good tips for writing fiction, but some are SUPER obvious

    The Sandman #1 (graphic novel) by Neil Gaiman - just started it. So far I like it.

    I Drink for a Reason by David Cross - if you like David Cross, you'll like this book. It's wildly offensive, which is kind of up my alley.

    I hate being in the middle of only one book.

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  4. I'm stuck on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I've not read the last one that someone else wrote since his death. I'm saving it for some strange reason. I can pick up any book in that series and be in my own little world for a bit.

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  5. I'm a one-book-at-a-time girl, and I just finished Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. It's a young adult book and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The combination of the stories and creepy old photos works well. I don't know what I'll read next, but I'm heading to the library in a bit!

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  6. I heart Nancy Drew, too! I am always reading several books at once. Though, currently, only a couple because I'm at a "heavy" book stage. Last one was Devil in the White City and now Pillars of the Earth. Love me some Jen Lancaster, too. Will probably read her newest next - need some fluff!

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  7. Nancy Dreeeeeeeew! I went through all of them whe I was in grade school. We had them all in our library and I would read a new one every week. I was, like, the only girl who did at the time. But who's surprised? Not me. Anyway, I love her.

    Oh, and Better Off Ted? Great show!!

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  8. This post is right up my alley- I so love books. And reading. And reading books! :) This is a great list!

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  9. I love Queen Betsy in the Undead series. I think about how her hair looks like it did when she died and I need to get haircut & eyebrow arch just in case I die & become a vampire & I don't want to look like this forever.

    I finished Dirty Girls Social Club by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez yesterday. I finished Spooky Little Girl by Laurie Notaro saturday. I'm fresh out of books.

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  10. With it being a long weekend for me, I went a little book-happy and devoured a few books in the last couple days.
    Thursday I had just finished re-reading "Pretty in Plaid" by Jen Lancaster (LOVE HER). Friday two books arrived and were both done by Sunday...Bossypants by Tina Fey, and It Looked Different On The Model: Epic Tales of Shame and Infamy by Laurie Notaro. Now I'm reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. Fuck, I'm all over the place. Happy Reading!

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  11. ugh. i'm reading the girl who played with fire. i read the first 80 pages last year, gave it away, started reading in my kindle, forgetting i had already read the first 80 pages. now i have to finish it, just on principle alone.

    thanks for the recos!

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  12. The secret of the old clock is probably that you have to wind it. So old timey.

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  13. I'm normally a "one person, one book" guy, but I actually have three books ongoing. First, is a Dance with Dragons by George R R Martin, a fantasy series that has been going on for FOREVER, but has me completely infatuated.

    Whenever I start geeking out too heavily to that, though, I head to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

    And, when I want complete fluff, the Lincoln Lawyer.

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  14. I LOVE Jen Lancaster.

    I have several books going right now (between beach mass markets and what is on my Nook)

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  15. I'm reading The Help (finally) and Schulz, the biography of Charles Schulz. I have no expectation of finishing the biography. It's just too boring for words.

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  16. Damn it, if I ever finish reading blogs and National Geographic, maybe I'd start another book.

    Last book I read was Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment...because I'm that big of a nerd.

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  17. I am reading the new book by the chick who wrote the devil loves prada, but am finding it boring...so I don't know if i will finish.

    I just finished finished The Lonely Polygamist which was weird, but strangely captivating at the same time. Now i want to watch big love.

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  18. For my book club I am reading "The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother."
    For myself I just finished "The Comfort of Strangers" and "First Love, Last Rites" by Ian McEwan.

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  19. Those books sound fabulous, but I'll admit I'd rather read you.

    (in or out of the bathroom.)

    p.s. Since most of the school year I'm home alone during the day AND I drink a lot of water/coffee/tequila/whatever AND I have to pee all the time, I do not flush. Much. I'm ecological like that. The only time this sucks is when the kids bring someone home and the downstairs bathroom has like eleventy wads of toilet paper in it and the neighborhood thinks our toilet is perpetually clogged. Yeah. My kids love me.

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  20. Bet you wish you could borrow my nancy drew t-shirt, hmm? Which I love. On an un-Nancy note, an autobiography that was really good was Andre Agassi's. Seriously. Good. Even if you don't give a shit about tennis. Also the thrillers by a guy named Jo Nesbo, another scandinavian. Don't know what is going on up there in the arctic circle, but they produce crazy-ass thriller writers. Nesbo can write circles around Steig Girl Who Played...Larsson. Also, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. Funnier than Bossypants, I promise.

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  21. blogs, that's what I am reading, BLOGS and BLOGS and BLOGS and I'm writing and when I do go to read it's a magazine that requires VERY LITTLE of me.

    I miss my books, but I'd miss the blogs more right now, I think. Sigh.

    I have been "reading" The HELP since May. Maybe I will finish it sometime before Christmas.

    I love, love, love Jen Lancaster. I was hesistant to read her because she's not really my type, but OMG, I laughed so hard at every single book that I devoured...that I now consider her a hero of mine.

    Sort of you like you, but you're smarter and you know my name. ;)

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  22. The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory, Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Year of Wonders (again) (for work this time) by Geraldine Brooks. I probably have a few others waiting in line, but - oddly - I can't think of them off the top of my head.

    I heartily approve of this post/day/meme/whatever. I've been trying to figure out how to incorporate my reading into my blogging, but I am having a hard time finding the time for both & the desire to continue the second.

    I still love to read blogs - I just get so behind!

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Every time you comment, I get a lady boner.