Book Report

I'm with Cheesehead on the whole Potter Phenom. I enjoy the hullabaloo from afar, and I like the books OKAY, and I will read them, but I'm not, you know, INTO it.

However, I'm always picking up recommendations from other bloggers so my Eli-sized trips to the library can be efficient and are are not spent falling into the coma I can so easily get into in the presence of the shelves of books, so here's what's been on the bookshelf lately.

I was up all night finishing The Name of the Wind, which I heard about from 33 Names of Grace where I'm a frequent lurker. (Hi 33 Names! Delurking for a minute!) It's pretty good for a first time novel - great characters and an interesting world. And it's sort of kinder and gentler than lots of books in that orphan-goes-to-magic-school-and-fights-evil genre.

I got about half way through Assasination Vacation on Peacebang's recommendation, but honestly it was too self referential even for me. I KNOW it's the point of the whole book, but I kept wanting to say, "Sarah. I know you're all Gen Y and everything, but the Lincoln assassination is not really about you, actually."

I agree with Songbird about Susan Cheever's American Bloomsbury, which, I also started and did not finish. Too confusing for no reason, even though Cheever says in the introduction that being confusing is part of her MO. I can much more highly recommend either Miss Alcott's Email or The Peabody Sisters if you want to read about that crowd.

I've been really enjoying Good Omens, cant remember where I heard about that (but really, it's a very silly book - probably much too silly for this very serious blog).

And the intrepid reader is always looking ahead. We have vacation coming up in a couple of weeks, and I have some books set aside for that - King Hereafter, which I read on a blog I cant remember now was somebody's favorite book. (If it was you, let me know so I can add a link!) Also, in a whole other genre, Grace Eventually. For now, I'm getting going on Vision of Light, which I'm not going to FINISH by next Monday, but at least will crack open. See you at book club!