Curled Up With A Good Book

Ah, winter. No better time to find yourself a snug place to hideaway and read. I’m one of those people who always have at least one book going at any time, and now, with the Kindle Mr. Mary Kay gave me for Christmas, the possibilities for new books seem endless. So, what have I been reading these past few months? Just finished the ARE (advanced reader’s edition) for my friend Patti Callahan Henry’s new book, Coming Up for Air. I think it’s her first set outside of the South Carolina Low Country, with a theme of lost love and family secrets, and I know her readers are going to love it. Not due out til September, but you can pre-order here. I do love a big, juicy biography, and this fall was fascinated by Jane Levy’s ambitious and revealing The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood. Susan Elizabeth Phillips is always on my auto-buy list, so I bought Call Me Irresistible the day it was released last week,and gobbled it right up. Last summer when I was staying in Nag’s Head, writing Summer Rental , I discovered the work of Elinor Lipman. Can I just tell you that she is my new book crush? I loved all her books, including And Then She Found Me, (which was made into a meh movie with Helen Hunt and Bette Midler), but if I could only recommend one it would be, hands down, The Family Man. Funny, droll, heart-warming, this is a book about acceptance and forgiveness and late-blooming love. How I wish I had written this book! Another day while I was writing away at the Nag’s Head library, I discovered the Regency Romances of Eloisa James. I hadn’t read a Regency since my teen years, but what a delight it was to find Eloisa–who is, in real life, a Harvard and Yale educated Shakespearean scholar who teaches creative writing at Fordham. Don’t be shy about those “clinch” covers, either. After all, if the guys can buy all those thrillers with submarines, stealth bombers, guns and knives, why can’t a girl buy a book with a bare-chested hunk on the cover? Just sayin’…I flew through her Desperate Duchesses series, and then last week, downloaded her eNovella, Storming The Castle. Great fun. I got to meet Eloisa at a romance convention last summer, and through her was introduced to the steamy Regency Romances of Lisa Kleypas, which I actually listened to on audio. Have mercy! What else have I been reading? Oh, you know. A little Michael Connelly, The Reversal–awesome, as always. Some old Jennifer Crusie re-issues,if you’ve never read Crazy For You, or Tell Me Lies, boy, are you missing out. I received Nora Ephron’s, I Remember Nothing for our book club Christmas swap, and I love Nora, so that’s next on my TBR stack. And then there’s a new novel getting a lot of buzz, The Weird Sisters, that I’d like to read. And my pal Laura Lippman has a new Tess Monaghan mystery novella called The Girl in the Green Raincoat. By the time I finish those, that should bring us to March, when oh happy day, we will have both the movie of Connelly’s Lincoln Lawyer, and his next Mickey Haller mystery. Oh yeah, and I’m supposed to be writing a new book of my own. Details.

8 thoughts on “Curled Up With A Good Book”

  1. That's an impressive reading list(I don't know when you find time to write!) I just found Elinor Lipman last year and have been trying to grab every book of hers I can. Currently on the hunt for anything I haven't read by Ngaio Marsh, who seems to be mostly out of print. And I pretty much love any of those Persephone books, if you, you know, run out of reading material….

  2. I had a day off Monday and read the new Susan Elizabeth Phillips – a fun way to spend a few hours for sure! I loved The Girl with the Green Raincoat (Lippman) and definitely read The Weird Sisters by Elinor Brown, I think you will enjoy it. It an Amy Einhorn book (The Help, The Postmistress) and she is 3 for 3 with me. And the next Michael Connelly is up to his usual standards – I'm only halfway through the ARC but I am loving it. When is your next book??? Going through withdrawal here!

  3. Great list – I haven't read any of them (and now I feel slack!). Have you read Emily Giffin's books? She's in Atlanta – great fun reads.

  4. I am reading The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I had read some reviews and considered it a challenge, but am finding it fascinating. It's a history and a biography of the disease (treating it in a very personal way, which is appropriate for this very vicious and personally devastating disease). I recently read So Much for That by Lionel Shriver, a novel about a man who has planned for a wonderful life after retirement, but must concentrate his emotions, his energy and his finances on his wife, who has been diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma. I hope to somehow absorb and better appreciate, through these two books, how physicians and scientists work to cure what may or may not be curable, and how patients and family members can make informed decisions about their own illnesses and lives.

  5. LOVE IT:))))) SEP is one of my all time faves:)! And I love Miss Patti! Just bought the Weird Sisters today – the title grabbed me. Right now I am reading Water for Elephants…still early, though. My most recent favorite is One Day by David Nicholls…loved it! Incredible, even thought I did NOT like the ending.

    btw…when is your next book coming out?

  6. I have to agree with Stacy, I too am going through major withdraw waiting on your next book! It is too long since the last one, which by the way was my very favorite "Fixer Upper" (if that is possible)!!! I zip thru your book because I cannot put them down and then I am lost waiting for the next one. I jotted down your suggestions for new reads, but is there another author that writes like you do? If so, I would love to have an alternate to you in between books. Thanks for the stories! I love them and I share them with my mom and aunts.

  7. I loved "I Remember Nothing," and just finished Fannie Flagg's "I Still Dream about You." Now I'm getting started on Bill Bryson's "At Home." Other books recently read were William Tapply's last novel, S.J. Rozan's newest and some John Sandford. The new Robert Crais is waiting on the shelf. And I've been reading Jennifer Cruisie and Michael Connelly ever since you told me about them years ago. Thanks!

  8. I am currently reading "A Thread of Truth" by Marie Bostwick. . . it's book two in her trilogy about the Cobbled Court Quilt Shop. Book one is about dealing with breast cancer and book two is about spousal abuse . . . keeps you turning the page!

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