What Are You Reading February 21 2015?

From Wikipedia:
"Erma Bombeck (née Fiste; February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996) was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life from the mid-1960s until the late 1990s. Bombeck also published 15 books, most of which became bestsellers. From 1965 to 1996, Erma Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns, using broad and sometimes eloquent humor, chronicling the ordinary life of a midwestern suburban housewife. By the 1970s, her columns were read twice-weekly by 30 million readers of the 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.
Early life
Erma Fiste was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, to a working-class family, and was raised in Dayton. Her parents were Erma (née Haines) and Cassius Edwin Fiste, who was the city crane operator.Young Erma lived with her elder paternal half-sister, Thelma. She began elementary school one year earlier than usual for her age, in 1932, and became an excellent student and an avid reader. She particularly enjoyed the popular humor writers of the time. After Erma's father died in 1936, she moved, with her mother, into her grandmother's home. In 1938 her mother remarried, to Albert Harris (a moving van owner). Erma practiced tap dance and singing, and was hired by a local radio station for a children's revue for eight years.
Formative years
In 1940 Erma entered Emerson Junior High School, and began writing a humorous column for its newspaper, The Owl. In 1942, Bombeck entered Parker (now Patterson) Vocational High School, where she wrote a serious column, mixing in bits of humor. In 1942, she began to work at the Dayton Herald as a copygirl, sharing her full-time assignment with a girlfriend. In 1943, for her first journalistic work, Erma interviewed Shirley Temple, who visited Dayton, and the interview became a newspaper feature.
Erma completed high school in 1944. Then, to earn a college scholarship fund, she worked for a year as a typist and stenographer, for the Dayton Herald and several other companies, and did minor journalistic assignments (obituaries, etc.) for the Dayton Herald as well. Using the money she earned, Erma enrolled in Ohio University at Athens, Ohio, in 1946. However, she failed most of her literary assignments and was rejected for the university newspaper. She left after one semester, when her funds ran out.
Erma later enrolled in the University of Dayton, a Catholic college. She lived in her family home and worked at Rike's Store, a department store, where she wrote humorous material for the company newsletter. In addition, she worked two part-time jobs - as a termite control accountant at an advertising agency and as a public relations person at the local YMCA. While in college, her English professor, Bro. Tom Price, commented to Erma about her great prospects as a writer, and she began to write for the university student publication, The Exponent. She graduated in 1949 with a degree in English, and became a lifelong active contact for the University — helping financially and participating personally — and became a lifetime trustee of the institution in 1987. In 1949, she converted to Catholicism, from the United Brethren church, and married Bill Bombeck, a former fellow student of the University of Dayton, who was a veteran of the World War II Korean front. His subsequent profession would be that of educator and school supervisor. Bombeck remained active in the church the rest of her life.
Housewife column
Housewife (1954–1964)
The Bombecks were told by doctors that having a child was improbable, so they adopted a girl, Betsy, in 1953. Erma decided to become a full-time housewife, and relinquished her career as a journalist. During 1954, Erma nevertheless wrote a series of humorous columns in the Dayton Shopping News.
Despite the former difficult diagnoses, Erma Bombeck gave birth to a son, Andrew, in 1955. The Bombeck family moved to Centerville, Ohio, into a tract housing development, and were neighbors to the young Phil Donahue. Away from her previous journalistic career, Bombeck initiated an intense period of homemaking, which lasted 10 years, and had her second son, Matthew, in 1958.
"At Wit's End" (1965)
In 1964 Erma Bombeck resumed her writing career for the local Kettering-Oakwood Times, with weekly columns which yielded $3 each. She wrote in her small bedroom. In 1965 the Dayton Journal Herald requested new humorous columns as well, and Bombeck agreed to write two weekly 450-word columns for $50. After three weeks, the articles went into national syndication through the Newsday Newspaper Syndicate, into 36 major U.S. newspapers, with three weekly columns under the title "At Wit's End".
Bombeck quickly became a popular humorist nationwide. Beginning in 1966, she began doing lectures in the various cities where her columns appeared. In 1967, her newspaper columns were compiled and published by Doubleday, under the title of At Wit's End. And after a humorous appearance on Arthur Godfrey's radio show, she became a regular radio guest on the show.
Diversified production
Success (1970s)
Aaron Priest, a Doubleday representative, became Bombeck's loyal agent. By 1969, 500 U.S. newspapers featured her "At Wit's End" columns, and she was also writing for Good Housekeeping Magazine, Reader's Digest, Family Circle, Redbook, McCall's, and even Teen magazine. Bombeck and her family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to a lavish hacienda on a hilltop in Paradise Valley.
By 1978, 900 U.S. newspapers were publishing Bombeck's column.
McGraw-Hill (1976)
In 1976 McGraw-Hill published Bombeck's The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank, which became a best-seller. In 1978, Bombeck arranged both a million-dollar contract for her fifth book, If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? and a 700-thousand-copy advance for her subsequent book, Aunt Erma's Cope Book (1979).
Television
At the invitation of television producer Bob Shanks, Bombeck participated in ABC's Good Morning America from 1975 until 1986. She began doing brief commentaries which were recorded at Phoenix, and eventually did both gag segments and important interviews.
For several years, Bombeck was occupied with multiple writing and TV projects. In 1978, she failed with the television pilot of The Grass is Always Greener on CBS. In 1980, then Bombeck wrote and produced her own show, the also unsuccessful Maggie, for ABC. It aired for just four months (eight episodes) to poor reviews; nevertheless the show meant that Bombeck was becoming quickly overworked, returning from Los Angeles to Phoenix only during weekends. Bombeck was offered a second sitcom attempt but she declined.
Equal Rights Amendment (1978)
In 1978 Bombeck was involved in the Presidential Advisory Committee for Women, particularly for the final implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment, with the ERA America organization's support. Bombeck was strongly criticized for this by conservative figures, and some U.S. stores reacted by removing her books. In 1972 the Equal Rights Amendment was proposed by the United States Congress to the states. Congress specified a seven-year period for ratification. Under Article V of the United States Constitution, ratification by at least three-fourths of the states is necessary, but at the end of the seven-year period, only 35 states had ratified, or three less than the required three-fourths. Bombeck expressed dismay over this development.
Great popularity (1980s)
By 1985 Erma Bombeck's three weekly columns were being published by 900 newspapers in the United States and Canada, and were also being anthologized into a series of best-selling books. She was also making twice-weekly Good Morning America appearances. Bombeck belonged to the American Academy of Humor Columnists, along with other famous personalities. During the 1980s, Bombeck's annual earnings ranged from $500,000 to $1 million a year. She was the grand marshal for the 97th Tournament of Roses Parade held on January 1, 1986. The parade theme was "A Celebration of Laughter."
Death
Erma Bombeck was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease (an incurable, untreatable genetic disease) when she was 20 years old. She survived breast cancer and mastectomy, and kept secret the fact that she had kidney disease, enduring daily dialysis. She went public with her condition in 1993. On a waiting list for transplant for years, one kidney had to be removed, and the remaining one ceased to function. On April 3, 1996, she received a kidney transplant. Erma Bombeck died on April 22, 1996, aged 69, from complications of the operation. Her remains are interred in the Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio, under a large rock from the Phoenix desert."

ETA: What are you reading question, talk about Erma Bombeck's mother, citation, touchstones

I met Erma Bombeck's mother at my grandparents funeral. I have a signed copy of her (the mother's) book somewhere.

What are you reading this week? Not just on February 21 :-).

Oh my gosh, I loved Erma Bombeck. It started with watching my mother laugh hysterically at Bombeck's books and the At Wit's End columns. I ended up reading most of her books and laughed almost as hard as my mother had. I was well and truly saddened when she passed away.

I'm still reading Glooms and Splendors and enjoying it but I'm scared for the children. Also, if anyone else here has read it, could you message me and let me know if the dog, Ruby, makes it? All the adults in this book seem capable of hurting the children and many authors think nothing of killing a dog. I really hate it when an animal or child gets killed. Unfortunately, I'm so far into the plot that I will simply have to soldier on no matter what.

I've also got The Plantagenets by Dan Jones on the go. Jones is so gifted at bringing these people and political to life. Wow, those wacky, power hungry Plantagenets!

I stopped into our local independent bookshop and picked up a few books, today. I'm doing what I can to support the local economy!

Thanks, MDG. I'm nearing the end of Death Before Wicket and Dinner with Buddha.

Both from the library:

The Marriage Game by Alison Weir
Follow up to her novel The Lady Elizabeth

Finished How Paris Became Paris by Joan DeJean (non-fiction)

3> I do enjoy some Phryne Fisher. I am a little sad that I am all caught up with the series. The meals with Buddha series is on TBR - someday.

2> Now I remember that when I planned using Erma Bombeck as the author of the week I meant to bring up the fact that she refused to use her celebrity status to move to the top of the kidney donation list. I remember at the time that someone in prison offered up his kidney, too. It is possible that if she'd gotten the kidney sooner that she would have lived longer. Both of her biological children have had kidney transplants at this point.

My whole family read Erma Bombeck when I was growing up, although mostly the books belonged to my Mom.

I am just finishing up My Sunshine Away tonight and then I am going to start A Spool of Blue Thread.

Like many others, Erma reminds me of my own mother who used to send her columns to me when I went to college. I can still hear her saying, "As Erma says, put a sweater on, I'm cold." I was very aware that she would not jump the queue for a kidney, unlike other celebs at the time who required livers due to alcoholism and had no problem jumping to the head of the line.

>2 enaid: I did read and very much enjoyed Splendors and Glooms. I can't recall specifically what happened to the dog, but I'm thinking that if something awful happened, I would have remembered. Keep reading!

Oh I loved Erma Bombeck and read all her books years ago. Common sense+humor=made her books unputdownable.

I'm still reading Trollope...The Eustace Diamonds.

I read about 60 pages of Strobo by Airen, but it was awful. Switched to Im Krebsgang by Guenter Grass, which is already much, much better. There's an actual story, for one thing.

Still reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

I read a couple of Erma Bombeck books years ago and found her funny. I had no idea about the polycystic kidneys and her refusal to use her celebrity status. I wonder if her family badgered her to do so. I would have.
I woke up this morning with the song All About the Base in my mind for some bizarre reason. There I was sitting at my kitchen table drinking coffee and reading Mary Oliver's wonderful Blue Horses and after every few poems my mind would blast me with I'm all about the base, "bout the base, no treble. Why, why?

I loved Erma Bombeck's columns.

This week I've started Death Without Company and Dead Wake. Hmm, I just noticed an apparent theme...

This week I finished up The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Vol 4 which covers the year 1663.

Continuing with my diary readings, I've started The Halder War Diary, a single volume abridged English translation of Franz Halder's day book. Halder was the chief of the German General Staff during the early part of WWII. His war "diary" isn't so much a personal daily journal as his working notes. It's comprised mostly of meeting notes and assessments of various contingency plans. It's rather long, so I'm probably going to be reading this one for a couple of weeks.

I loved Erma Bombeck's books. Thanks for the introduction, MDGentleReader.

Just finished reading, on Project Gutenberg, What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge, and am planning to read the rest of the Katy books; there are five of them in total. I have a real liking for 19th century/early 20th century children's literature. It can be so didactic, but some writers managed to weave a good story in with their lessons.

Am reading Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections but am having a hard time concentrating. It is beautifully written, but may not be the book to read right now.

I am reading a newly-translated (Spanish to English) offering from And Other Stories: Signs Preceding The End Of The World by Yuri Herrera. It is just okay. There are a few odd choices for words and they are used dozens of times; and for such a small novel, it's REALLY annoying. So not sure if it is an editing or translation problem. Other than that, the story is kind of interesting ... but would not go out of my way for this one.

Interesting bio - not someone I'm familiar with.

My reading this week - making my way through The Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko steadily, more slowly through The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara.

I finished listening to Pig-heart Boy by Malorie Blackman in the early hours of the morning and have given up on The Doll and other Stories by Daphne du Maurier because the audio really wasn't working for me. In their place I've just started listening to The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester read by the author. The book is subtitled 'The Murder, Mystery and Madness of the Oxford English Dictionary' or its alternate title is 'The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary'. I'm not quite sure what to expect but I thought that it might be interesting both in its own subject matter but also because this is the same author as the December Group Read Krakatoa.

I'm still reading my Early Reviewer, The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg. I like it so far.

Still reading The Heretic's Apprentice and The Very Best of Charles de Lint.

Just finished The Same Sky. Up next is The Shock of the Fall, then A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler.

I'm going to give Claire of the Sea Light a go, my first Edwidge Dandicat.

>1 MDGentleReader: Thank you for reminding me of Erma Bombeck. I read her column all the time and often she made me laugh until I cried. I lived in Phoenix (my family still lives there) and she was in both the major newspapers in that city. I suspect some of her work is a bit dated now, but some of it would remain relevant. So delightful.

Finishing The Escape this weekend because it's due back to the library. The book that's really driving me, though, is Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. She lived at such a fascinating time and participated in all of it so that it puts a personal touch on history. I'm half way through and Churchill has just become PM during WW II. In between finishing the other I allow myself a half hour to read more about Britain an the war years.

>7 NarratorLady: Thanks! I finished it and not only did Ruby the dog emerge unscathed, she actually comforted one of the questionable adults. Splendors and Glooms reminded me of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, in the best possible way.

>10 Citizenjoyce: You have my sympathy. Of all the songs and what a disconnect with the Mary Oliver! :)

I have no idea what to pick up next for my fiction reading. I will alert you all as soon as I know!

>19 jnwelch: That's a very good place to start. You could then easily move on to Krik? Krak!. They kind of get you ready for the horrors of Brother, I'm Dying and Breath, Eyes, Memory. I, unfortunately did them the other way around and was continually surprised that I could go on to another one.

>21 enaid: Thanks, it's still there on the edges but fading. I'm hoping for total remission soon.

Just started Delano Ames' Murder begins at home

I just started River Thieves and am really enjoying it! I so enjoy the writing of Michael Crummey.

>23 Bjace: What a great title! Let us know if the book is any good.

I finished listening to Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski and I was pleasantly surprised by the recorded version of that YA fantasy title. I expected this one to be a schlocky YA dystopian romance on the same lines as the Matched series and it wasn't even though it should have been. It has all the standard tropes for a same-old, same-old romance novel; master-slave relationship, thwarted romance, nobel self-sacrificing man, and prideful female, etc. etc. Somehow this book managed to transcend that and be an exciting engaging novel that provided me with 8 hours of listening enjoyment.

I immediately started listening to The Increment by David Ignatious. I don't really care for the reader but I do like the story.

>22 Citizenjoyce: Thanks, Citizenjoyce. That's encouraging. So far I'm liking Claire of the Sea Light. The simple, direct writing style surprised me. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.

Finished Food, Inc. but haven’t yet reviewed it. Finished Their Eyes Were Watching God but haven’t yet reviewed it. Finished and briefly reviewed Cycle of Fire. The unreviewed books are piling up; RL demands through this weekend, then should have more spare time. Started Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science, an ER.

Finished The Heretic's Apprentice and started The Potter's Field by Ellis Peters.

I have way too many books going right now (what else is new?)

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness for RL book club this week
Tehran Noir - an ER book of noir short stories that is getting noirier and noirier and is rapidly getting beyond my comfort zone.
Cosmos - a book chosen from Planet TBR by a random number generator. (I'm doing one totally random book a month)
Brideshead Revisted for the British author challenge - audiobook in the car
Pride and Prejudice for the read all of Jane Austen challenge/group read

>30 streamsong: Brideshead Revisited and Little Dorrit were the first two classics I read as an adult that I absolutely hated for their charactrerization. Waugh's characters are, to me, so amoral as to be inconsequential, and Dorrit is nauseatingly good, pure and servile. I don't know why anyone would like either book, but this is not a popular opinion - at least not in Waugh's case.

>31 Citizenjoyce: Well, that's not encouraging. ;-) I've read mixed reviews this month from people reading it for the British author challenge. I've barely started it, so I don't yet have much of an opinion.

I haven't read Little Dorritt. I don't hate Dickens but don't seek him out, either.

>32 streamsong: Well, lots of people love it. How many movies have been made of it? Let us know what you think.

Have nearly finished Bad Blood by Lorna Sage which is very good and The Little Girls by Elizabeth Bowen which I haven't enjoyed.

>30 streamsong: I liked Brideshead Revisited but I read it at the beach and that makes everything seem better. I did prefer the quite short Handful of Dust. For some reason, I never find Waugh as funny as other people I know do. He's a little mean spirited for me.
>34 cappybear: I loved Bad Blood! It broke my heart when I heard she had died.

I flew through Simon Tolkien's sophomore effort The Inheritance. I rated it 2.5 stars because everyone was so dense and/ or nasty. It was drowning in a sea of overwrought courtroom scenes; do English lawyers really get to ramble on about their pet theories when examining a witness? Half the time, their yapping didn't even end in a question for the witness. It irked me even more because I think Tolkien is a very good writer and has some great characters but it's wasted. Maybe a good editor?

That said, his next book is available on kindle for a mere $1.99 and I'm feeling lucky!

I finished The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and stared on The Marvelous Land of Oz.

Just finished An Untamed State, a first novel by Roxane Gay. Edwidge Danticat wrote a blurb for the book and is thanked by the author in the acknowledgements. It's a very raw story about the kidnapping of the daughter of a wealthy Haitian in Port-au-Prince but the writing is superb.

I had to put down River Thieves because of the extreme animal cruelty. I understand that is part of the times (fur trade in the early 1800s in what now is Newfoundland; as well as hunting for food) and such, but I simply am no longer able to read fiction with that in it. But for that, I likely would have kept on ... although I liked Galore TONS better overall. Will still seek out some other novels of his - on different topics.

Not sure what is up next. Heading off to the library's new fiction stacks to explore.

I slogged my way through the last 50 pages of Night Watch by Sarah Waters and would put this title in the same box as Penelope Lively's Consequences - the boring box. I appreciate Waters attempt to do something different with the structure of the novel - moving from present to past rather than the more common past to present timeline, but it just doesn't work because the writing is not up to the task. This novel is short on plot and long on structure and innovative structure alone cannot carry a novel. In the end the reader has to care about the characters and I just didn't have a feeling for caring for any of them. I only finished the book because I felt that to make an objective judgement and therefore be able to participate in the discussion about Waters and her work I should read the whole thing. I did, but didn't enjoy the experience. Glad to be done with it and move on.

I am now reading Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman and am enjoying that one very much. Hard to believe that it was first published in 1973.

Art is getting longer and life is getting shorter. . .

Delving into the delightful The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, a Mma Ramotswe novel by the equally delightful (and prolific) Alexander McCall Smith.

Am 100+ pp into my 700+ pp LT Early Review copy of Selected Letters of Norman Mailer and it's proving revelatory and fascinating.

Kindle has on it The Gardens of Kyoto by Kate Walbert, If I'm not mistaken this was an NBA finalist. It's a quietly powerful novel in the style of Marilynne Robinson.

Finally, filling in the reading spaces with Victorian satirical novel that's laugh out loud funny, Mr. Midshipman Easy by Frederick Marryat.

>39 benitastrnad: Fingersmith was the first TV adaptation of Sarah Waters' books I saw, and The Night Watch was the first book I read. I loved it. Still sometimes when it's dark I remember her recollection of the advice given during the London bombings in WWII, close your eyes and count to 10 to allow your eyes to adjust to the dark. I think that book may have been the first time I got any understanding of what life was like in England at that time.

The discussion above about Evelyn Waugh has reminded me that I have not read anything by him in a long time, and as I am between books, may give him a read next.

As things are stressful on the home front, I've been relaxing by re-reading some Neil Gaiman. I read The Graveyard Book yesterday, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane today, and now feel adequately prepared to face the world again, stressful bits and all.

Yesterday, I finally finished Elizabeth I: A Novel by Margaret George and rated it only 3.5. It was not riveting until the final third and I love the Tudors and Elizabeth I especially.

Now racing through Shannon Mayer's 4th book in the Rylee Adamson series Shadowed Threads and can hardly catch my breath it's so frantic!

I finished Penelope Fitzgerald's delightful The Golden Child and will now begin A. S. Byatt's Angels and Insects.

Finished No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Still reading Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond and temporarily set aside To Be the Poet by Maxine Hong Kingston

and started listening to I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot By the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai.

Finished the Natural Histories by Guadalupe Nettel, Evelina by Frances Burney, and As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride by Cary Elwes.

Currently reading Dans la nuit Mozambique by Laurent Gaude, and listening to The Quiet Game by Greg Iles.

I started the second in The Order of the Sanguines series Innocent Blood by James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell. I really am enjoying this series! Good plot, enough detail to keep it interesting... lots of action. :)

Held up with a cold/flu/sinus blech, so trying to take it easy and relax. Sinking into the wacky world of Bonita Avenue ... for anyone who liked Freedom, Seven Types of Ambiguity and/or maybe Emperor's Children, this would be right up your alley. Dutch bourgeois/academia dysfunctional family that we see from different voices, viewpoints and psychological layers. So far, I REALLY like the writing ... intelligent, witty and just interesting. So far, no one really likable, but sometimes that is the way it goes.

I finished City of Thieves night before last; it was excellent. Yesterday morning, while enjoying a delayed opening due to surprise snow, I began The Invasion of the Tearling, an ARC a friend grabbed for me recently. As we have more snow coming in tonight and no upcoming weekend plans, I'm anticipating lots of reading time in the days ahead. :)

Zipped through Shadowed Threads in 2 fun filled days and just a chapter or two into Henry and Clara which has been waiting on my Kimdle for some time. This is the couple who was in Lincoln's box at Ford Theatre instead of US Grant. Their lives proved to be tragic.

I have never heard of Erma Bombeck before but now I want to read all her books!

I read Deaf Heaven which was informative but not well-written. Then I read The Color of Water which I really enjoyed.

Now I am reading Dear American Airlines.

Just finished The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry - a delightful and touching read.

Finished Bad Blood (very good) and The Little Girls (not very good). Still reading The Boy in the Song by Michael Heatley and Frank Hopkinson and have started Flying Dutchman by Anthony Fokker.

I finished The Story of a New Name which is the second of a series. It was as gripping as the first. The third of the series came out this year but since I've learned there is to be a final forth this fall, I think I'll wait on the third to spread them out.

Reading Duty by former defense Secretary Robert Gates. As a veteran, I really like that guy. I think his heart was always in the right place.

Finished reading Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond and listening to I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot By the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai. In Collapse, Diamond builds good arguments and I liked the history in it. Repetition within paragraphs detracts from this book and makes it too long. It seemed as if sentences were constructed so as to contain all information in the paragraph if quoted out of context. I'm not saying this right. Anyway, I'm not sorry I read it and will continue to read Diamond. I Am Malala was at first difficult for me to tune into, but eventually it became tolerable. I haven't looked at the photos yet.

Still reading bits of To Be the Poet by Maxine Hong Kingston.

Started Breathless by Dean Koontz. I usually don't care for this author, but it was late, doesn't weigh too much and it was on top of a pile, so I thought I'd try it.

>55 AuthorTomYoung: Your link goes to a different book:
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (1990) by Ray Monk

Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War by Robert Gates

Hi Just finished Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges and started Us: A Novel, David Nicholls

Finished Disorderly Conduct: Excerpts from Actual Cases by Rodney R. Jones. I bought this to give to my son who is an attorney and read it first. He won't mind!

Now reading Larissa's Breadbook Baking Bread And Telling Tales With Women Of The American South
by Lorraine Johnson-Coleman

I enjoyed both The Leaning Girl and Claire of the Sea Light. Consider the Lobster has some great and not-so-great moments among the essays, but I loved seeing David Foster Wallace point out that Kafka is funny (it's true!), and to read his rip-apart of an Updike novel (I'm not a fan). Now I'm in his daunting essay on modern usage of English.

Also started The Sportswriter by Richard Ford for Mark's American Author Challenge, and the graphic novel Stumptown. Still dipping into Kay Ryan's collection, The Best of It.

>51 Tara1Reads: Oooh, a lovely feeling to introduce someone to a new author. Just a heads up, I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise: Children Surviving Cancer is not one of her typical books. I've read it, I've read them all, but this one is not from her humor columns. I do hope you enjoy them.