What I'm reading now.
Oh, I loved this so much it is hard to write about it. Noel Streatfeild, my favorite writer, wrote this "autobiographical novel" about growing up the middle daughter in a family living in a vicarage in the years between 1910 and 1914. I am starting to cry as I type, it was so good. An absolutely unvarnished, clear eyed look into what must have been one of the last homes of it's kind- a kind of late Victorian life lived in the early 20th century, with all that was to come hidden from view, thank god. This really might be the best book I've read all year, all sentiment aside- absolutely magical, and unexpectedly devastating. I'm hunting down a copy to own. I love this book.
Beautiful, haunting novel. 17 year old Mariette Baptiste joins a convent in upstate New York in 1906, and her passionate faith disrupts the calm orders of the priory. Made for a fantastic book discussion!!!
This was wonderful beyond all reason. What seemed to start off as a stunt premise (the book's subtitle is My Worldwide Quest To Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock On Their Door, and Ask Them To Come Out And Play) turned into one of the most satisfying adult non-fiction reads I've enjoyed in ages. Wallace has such an enjoyable voice, and what he discovers as he really does find friends from a well-travelled childhood honestly had me reading the last 100 pages simultaneously laughing and weeping. Fantastic.
Beautiful photography- some amazing images I'd never seen from the enigmatic Billy Name, the photographer who chronicled the goings on at the Factory. n
Bath book, Hamish Macbeth solves yet another murder in scenic Lochdubh.
Awful, LA noir-ish tough chick mystery. Plot holes you could fly a 747 through, and I didn't care if the heroine, Kinsey, lived, died, or dematerialized into a pluff of smoke. In fact, that would have made her (and the book) substantially more interesting, and would not have interfered with what passed for a logical storyline. Can't belive Grafton is up to U in the alphabet series- readers' appetite for shite seems insatiable.
Very funny set piece, parody of the nauseating NYT Wedding section.
A very good, enjoyable puzzle-filled 6th grade-ish mystery.
Always hilarious Wodehouse collection of short stories about crime (of the lightest sort). Country house shenanigans, etc.
Excellent conclusion to the powerful YA dystopian Hunger Games trilogy. Political, violent, thoughtful, redeeming.
One of my reading equivalents of comfort food- I read this over and over, and laugh myself silly every time. Pel and Ursula are one of my all time favorite fictional couples.
- the rage for Chinoiserie and Japanning, for example. 
The last book in the 39 Clues series!
