Books, Yay!

It's not that I don't like book clubs...I do (I really do!). In theory.

 

It's just that book clubs in my experience can go one of two ways. They're either really stuffy, where the members kind of compete against one another to see who can find the most obscure and difficult book, so I end up slogging through tiny print and unnecessarily complicated phrasing only to fall out 2/3 of the way through the work and skim a Cliff Notes the week before the club meets, then show up with my obligatory bottle of wine and appetizer feeling like a total moron. Or, option B, the books of choice are all chick-lit with unironic high heels on the cover and 14-point font. To be fair, book clubs in the B category tend to have significantly more enjoyable meetings, even if the works chosen are a complete waste of time and valuable natural resources.

 

So, because I still love to read, I've made my own little book club which looks like a stack of novels I picked up from the used book store a while back. You might remember we talked about this already. Well...I'm plowing through that stack and having a great time. VERY quick reviews? Okay:

 

THIS book is by my favorite author in the Happy Medium category. This particular book is more earthy and sexy than any of her other books I've read. It tells three stories of human love which are loosely connected to one another and the ending is just overflowing with hope and promise. Loved it! My favorite character was Mr. Garnett Walker, just because he's so hilariously cantankerous.

 

And THIS ONE! Oh my word oh my word. It is a stiff contender for The Best Book I've Ever Read. It tells the story of three unlikely friends in a French apartment building and on page 110, one of the narrators sentences to death a woman who uses an extranneous comma. I'm not saying that is my favorite part in the book, but it's pretty awesome. This book is deeply funny, moving, thought-provoking, tragic. It's a must-read, and it's about $8 on Amazon for the paper (as opposed to Kindle) version, so you have no excuse. Read it, seriously. You can thank me later.