Secrets of the City

Stiff + Body Worlds = fun

I’m so totally bummed this tread didn’t take off. Would’ve loved the tips. I remember the music thread similar to this one a couple months or so ago and it went on for 100+.

I, for one, just started into some Jonathon Lethem essays and am enjoying them thoroughly.

And, shame on Tom for not even dropping a suggestion in his own thread. Tisk, tisk.

Not too late: I’m reading the short stories of Patricia Highsmith currently and am planning, finally, to read Madame Bovary. I have read most of the Twin Cities Noir book already, and it’s damn good. The Brad Zellar story is typically strange. But maybe not as much as his blog is every day.

embarassingly enough, I just discovered historical fiction, and am melting my brain on some Phillipa Gregory.

David McCullough’s 1776 is also on the bedside table.

I’ve also been plunking away at Robert Richardson’s “Emerson: The Mind on Fire” for quite some time…it’s one of those “when I’m in the mood for historical fiction” I crank out a chapter or two then forget about it for a couple weeks…

Yeah, uh, “…historical non-fiction…”

I was distracted.

I’m gonna keep it real and admit that I’m reading “Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities” by Alexandra Robbins. I started reading it so I could live vicariously through it, but it’s actually a quite astute sociological study as well.

I am currently reading a mystery series from Robert Wilson (Instrument of Darkness, The Big Killing, Blood is Dirt, and The Darkening Stain). The novels are set in West Africa along the Gulf of Guinea. Very Raymond Chandleresque in his style and you can’t get more noir than that

The War of the Saints, Jorge Amado

Rew, Philippa Gregory is a delightful way to melt your brain! Don’t be ashamed!

I just started Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it through. I’ve been feeling like I should read it for years, because when I was a writing tutor, I had to see lots and lots of horrible intro-level papers on it. They were horrible in such a way that led me to suspect the work itself is great. Which it probably is, I think it may be a little heavy for summer reading.

When I’m looking for summer reading (read “trashy romance novels”), Jennifer Crusie is consistently pleasing.

Of course, now I think I’ll have to ape Amber in reading Pledged.