Books, Books, Books

There is a virus going around and my doctor says it's highly contagious and rampant throughout our area.  Since I have a normal low-white-blood count, I haven't felt threatened. I can't tell you the last time I've caught a virus.  Until now.  Ian was down with it two weeks ago and since the incubation period is two weeks, I suspect I caught it from him.  It's been over a week and I had no idea it was possible for the human body to produce so much mucus or for a throat to be so raw.  A foreign county could take over America by simply giving everyone this bug.

I've had to miss yoga but the gain I've made in neck flexibility seems to be holding.  At least my neck doesn't hurt as the rest of my body melts.  Because our guild has a big weaving outreach soon and it's the first one, I am serious about getting well.  This virus seems to last two weeks and I'm especially nervous since it seems to make people prone to pneumonia.  That means it's been a cycle of rest, gallons of hot tea, Mucinex, water, and repeat.  Which is why this blog post is more books.  When I could stay awake I knitted or read.

I did a David Sedaris marathon and read
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls,
Me Talk Pretty One Day, and
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
I find his essays, I guess that's what you call nonfiction short pieces, to be interesting and engaging but not challenging to a Benadryl addled brain.  I have no idea where any of the titles of his books from from - not one!

And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini - This was my book club's January selection.  While still an important book, I felt it was over-reaching and didn't have the impact that his first two did.  Still, it's a window into life in Afghanistan and it's harsh.

Good Evening Mr and Mrs America, and All the Ships at Sea, by Richard Bausch - This was a best seller in 1996.  I had picked up the hardback from the library book sale and it's been on my shelf ever since.  Time to either read it or take it back to the library.  It's the type of book I'm most fond of, told through character development against the backdrop of contemporary events, ala Anne Tyler.  It's out of print now but available on Kindle for $3.79.

Real Happy Family by Caeli Wolfson Widger - This is the second book I've gotten through Kindle First, and again it's not one I would have chosen, but I read it anyway and was thoroughly entertained.  It's not literature but it's the kind of book I like when I need to read something easy since I don't ready Cozy Mysteries.  The premise is a star-struck mom who desperately wants her daughter to make to the big time, at any price.  Sick and wickedly funny.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - This has been this on the NYT bestselller list for quite some time so when Amazon offered it cheap, I snatched it up.  Once I realized it was about childhood cancer, I couldn't bring myself to read it.  Stuck here with limited books, I decided to read the first 20 pages and was hooked.  It's oddly like Moyes' Me Before You, in that somehow the author has taken a morbid subject and left you feeling uplifted in the end.  I gave it 5 stars.

The Autograph Hound by John Lahr - Lahr is a staff writer for The New Yorker and I've loved his writing for years.  This is his first work of fiction and I'm sure it's appeal is limited to denizens of Manhattan.  The story unfolds during one week in June 1969.  Again it's a character development story against the backdrop of current events.  The character is a mentally retarded busboy with a Walter Mitty imagination who is passionate about collecting autographs.  Quiet and quirky.

The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning by Hallgrimur Helgason - The author is well known in Iceland but this is his book book published in English.  Again, it was one of the Kindle offers where you're invited to pick one of four books.  This particular offer was all suspense genre so I asked Ian to look at the selection and see if any appealed to him.  He picked this one and it's me who's read it. Once I started, I got swept along.  It's really an international tale of the trickle down effects of war, profane and funny.

I'm on hold for 14 Kindle books at the library but I have limited books here and don't want to buy any more.  I suspect I'm housebound for another week.  Boy will I ever be glad to see an end to this winter!