Weekly Reading Round-Up
What with covers and contests and all sorts of other things (ahem, Pink IX, ahem) this has been a relatively anemic reading week for me. Here’s my meager list:
— Boy Meets Girl, Meg Cabot
What I found so fascinating about this book– aside from Cabot’s signature lively writing style– was that the story was told entirely through different sorts of media: IMs, emails, scribbled notes on a menu…. A very neat concept and one that actually worked!
— The Crying Child, Barbara Michaels
I fell back on an old favorite for a rainy day. This ghost story, set on an isolated island off the cost of Maine, gave me chills back in sixth grade. It still makes me look nervously over my shoulder as I turn on extra lights.
— I’m a Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryson
Short essays on the oddities of American life by a very, very funny man.
Now, despite the fact that I came home with whopping great piles of books from RWA, I’m off to the bookstore to buy myself the new Kristan Higgins and a mystery novel about a haunted guest house that popped up on Amazon recommendations.
Any other suggestions?
I am amused/chagrined that you classify three books in a week as meager. I will crawl back into my Slow Reader hole now. (Though I guess I could count research books…)
I finished Ripley’s Game (Patricia Highsmith) over the weekend. I like her writing and I think Tom Ripley and his wife Heloise are fun in their amoral way, so I liked this one. It’s a good thriller, kind of a riff on Strangers on a Train (which she also wrote). It was a quick read.
Now I’m reading The Swan Thieves (Elizabeth Kostova) which I’m enjoying quite a bit. It’s not a page-turner like The Historian–more of a slow burn–but her writing is really lyrical. The basic plot involves an artist who attacks a painting in the National Gallery in DC and then refuses to talk about it, so his psychiatrist tries to put the pieces together by talking to his wife and his lover, and by reading a packet of letters written by French artists 19th century that Robert (patient) always keeps with him. So far so good.
If you’re looking for a terrific ghost story, I recommend Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black. It’s cozy and British but I slept with the lights on for a week.
Finished up Lisa Kleypas “Dreaming of You” and started Johanna Lindsey’s new one “That Perfect Someone”. Am going to town this weekend and am going to pick up some Nora Roberts Bride book. I usually stick to historical romances (blame it on the history degree!) but thought I should branch out on the suggestions seen here. Thanks Ladies.
So glad I read this before I left for the bookstore, Pam! Susan Hill… Woman in Black… I’ll have to remember that.
Very good to here about Elizabeth’s other book its one i have been meaning to buy when i get the money. I loved the historian and her writing.
I was really disappointed by The Swan Thieves. My friend and I were actually talking one day about the books we were reading and both said we didn’t like the current selections, then discovered we were both reading The Swan Thieves. I found the whole thing very slow and the end was utterly unsatisfying. I loved The Historian and I really wanted to like The Swan Thieves and I couldn’t.
I’m currently reading Lisa Kleypas’s “Love in the Afternoon,” which I’m loving so far. Next up I’m taking a small break from the romances and reading “The Happiness Project,” which I’ve really been looking forward to reading.
I’m so glad to hear you loved “Boy Meets Girl,” Lauren! Have you also read “The Boy Next Door” and “Every Boy’s Got One”? They’re interconnected (some characters are related to those in other books, some work at the same newspaper) and really fun! I love how everything’s an email/IM/letter, etc., too. It’s a lot of fun!
I also forgot to mention that I read the new Kristan Higgans (my first Kristan Higgans, actually) and really enjoyed it! Hope you will, too.
I hated The Swan Thieves with a passion, if just for the fact all the characters were obssessed with eating soup, wtf! I’m almost finished with the new Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight, as is the case with my fav. Pratchett’s, a slow start, but once you’re hooked it becomes a favorite!
I always love this place for great book suggestions! I finished Mr. Impossible, which I read for the first time. I love, love, LOVE Rupert :c)
Other than that, classes are starting so I’ve been reading that but I am tempted to pick up Kristan Higgans now. I’ve never read anything by her but the glowing recommendations have piqued my interest.
Meg Cabot is always a great author to pick up too!
I’m glad to see all the raves over The Historian which I’m listening to on audio. I had no idea it was going to be so De Vinci Code-ish. Not bad so far…
I’m also reading Confessions of a Scoundrel by Karen Hawkins which I’m really enjoying but haven’t had a chance to get very far into it yet, busy week for me. I just had my last day at my present job yesterday and I’m starting a new job Monday, so it’s been hectic tying up loose ends – and then the contest too! Busy!