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Feb. 11th, 2007 01:13 pmI am constantly writing down book titles and author names on little pieces of paper, and I never remember where I heard about them. By the time I find the book and read it, I rarely even remember what about it caught my attention in the first place.....
The Devil in the Junior League by Linda Francis Lee - this is top-shelf chick lit, mocking the pretensions and the rules of upper echelon Texas society (specifically, the Junior League, of course). Don't wear white shoes after Labor Day and so forth.... A number of the characters are stock stereotypes, but the ending totally redeems itself - our heroine doesn't just swoon into the male figure's arms and live Happily Ever After. Totally fun and rather amusing, even if the constant barrage of clothing descriptions got more than a little old.
Tolstoy Lied by Rachel Kadish - this book was *fabulous*. It's about an English prof who wants to write a book about Tolstoy's assertion that all happy families are alike - that's the lie of the title. She posits that happiness is the big scary no-no in literature, and she'll write her book..... as soon as she gets tenure. Meanwhile (of course), she meets a guy - the guy rushes things, there's romance that then goes boom.... I found the intradepartmental workplace tensions much more interesting than the romance storyline, actually. Lots of literary references. Very clever and funny. Amazon seems to be billing this as chick lit, but I totally didn't get that feel from it. I do know where I heard about this one - I heard the author give an interview on NPR.
In other news, I woke up at 4 or 5 a.m. unable to breathe. By the time the sun came up, I was ready to trade in my head for a new one that would actually work. I haven't had a cold in a long time, and this one is a doozy. Fortunately, I do feel better when up and moving around.
The Devil in the Junior League by Linda Francis Lee - this is top-shelf chick lit, mocking the pretensions and the rules of upper echelon Texas society (specifically, the Junior League, of course). Don't wear white shoes after Labor Day and so forth.... A number of the characters are stock stereotypes, but the ending totally redeems itself - our heroine doesn't just swoon into the male figure's arms and live Happily Ever After. Totally fun and rather amusing, even if the constant barrage of clothing descriptions got more than a little old.
Tolstoy Lied by Rachel Kadish - this book was *fabulous*. It's about an English prof who wants to write a book about Tolstoy's assertion that all happy families are alike - that's the lie of the title. She posits that happiness is the big scary no-no in literature, and she'll write her book..... as soon as she gets tenure. Meanwhile (of course), she meets a guy - the guy rushes things, there's romance that then goes boom.... I found the intradepartmental workplace tensions much more interesting than the romance storyline, actually. Lots of literary references. Very clever and funny. Amazon seems to be billing this as chick lit, but I totally didn't get that feel from it. I do know where I heard about this one - I heard the author give an interview on NPR.
In other news, I woke up at 4 or 5 a.m. unable to breathe. By the time the sun came up, I was ready to trade in my head for a new one that would actually work. I haven't had a cold in a long time, and this one is a doozy. Fortunately, I do feel better when up and moving around.
