new book finished

For my birthday, John gave me the book The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, a novel by Reif Larsen. He had heard a story about it on NPR and thought that it would be worth reading. I finished it last night and I wanted to quote the praise from Stephen King.

"Two predictions about The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet: Readers are going to love it as much as I did, and few if any will experienced anything like it. I'm flabbergasted by Reif Larsen's talent, and I was warmed by his generosity. Here is a book that does the impossible: It combines Mark Twain, Thomas Pynchon, and Little Miss Sunshine. Good novels entertain; great ones come as a gift to the readers who are lucky enough to find them. This book is a treasure."

Since I am here, I will share the other books that I have read so far this year. My daughter is an avid reader and she gave me a reading list. I try to pick one off the list and work them into the ones on my list. The ones she recommended are in red.

1. Where are You Now? - by Mary Higgins Clark

2. The Guardian - by Nicholas Sparks

3. Gap Creek - by Robert Morgan

4. Fight Club - by Chuck Palahniuk

5. Angels and Demons - by Dan Brown

6. Vermeers Hat - by Timothy Brook

7. In the Time of the Butterflies - by Julia Alvarey

8. Running in Heels - by Anna Maxted

9. Artemis Fowl - by Eoin Colfer

10. Artemis Fowl the Artic Incedent - by Eoin Colfer

11. Choke - by Chuck Palahniuk

12. The Last Lecture - by Randy Pausch

13. When You are Engulfed in Flames - by David Sedaris

If any of you are fimiliar with some of these books, you will know what I mixture it is! Now on to find my next book!

David Sedaris

I am not sure how many of you have heard of David Sedaris, but if you are from the Raleigh, NC area it is hard not to. David Sedaris had a regular spot on NPR called This American Life.

I just finished reading When You are Engulfed in Flames, a #1 national bestseller. Most of his books are actually a bunch of short stories. This makes them very easy to read because you can pick it up and start any where you like. I am not sure which chapter I liked best, but I think it is April in Paris. He just reminds me that I am not the only crazy one out there. We all have little things that make us different.

His writing may be a little "crude" for some people - he says it like it is and doesn't care what others may think about it. But I do suggest taking a look at some of his work, you can't help but laugh or maybe cry, but it is all good stuff.

This is his official website: http://literati.net/Sedaris/index.htm and a little blurb about the book.

Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths. Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from "a writer worth treasuring" (Seattle Times).