Awesome Books That I Have Recently Read

Yes, it’s true: I do actually read books that I like as well as Books That I Hate Enough To Bitch About Them On The Internet (BTIHETBATOTI).  In this post I will regale you with information about the three that have been the highlight of my last summer/early fall reading.

First, Tina Fey’s Bossypants.  I spotted the unabridged audio version at our public library and it was read by Tina Fey herself, so how was I supposed to resist that?  I brought it home and listened to it in my kitchen and it was very funny.  So much so that at one point my 14 year old son watched in amazement as I doubled over from laughing while doing the dishes and listening.  Great fun if you like Fey’s sense of humor and this is one of those books that I actually think benefit from being read out loud.  The only downside was that some of Fey’s asides are difficult to hear… and I always wanted to hear every word, so I did have to backtrack sometimes.

There is a .pdf file of entertaining photos from Fey’s life on the fifth and final compact disc, as well as a video of Fey portraying Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live.  I enjoyed these items but had to ask my computer-guy husband to help me access them.  I am just clueless about that kind of thing,  I guess.

Rules of Prey by John Sanford has been on my mental To Read list for a long time.  Years.  Like since 1997 or so.  I finally got to it, starting the Prey series about which I have heard many good things from reading friends I trust.  And… it is great stuff, fast-paced, violent (but not too graphic, at least in this first book in the series).  It’s well written and I really enjoyed it.

Sidenote: I lent Rules of Prey to a co-worker who was stuck in an Individual Patient Assignment (IPA) with a patient who was sleeping or otherwise out of it.  My co-worker was under the misapprehension that this book was nonfiction, perhaps because it is set in the Twin Cities area and it depicts Minnesota so clearly and realistically.  But no, it isn’t non-fiction; it’s made up. 

Thankfully.

And now we come to Judy Blume’s classic, Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret.  I read this book waaaaay back when I was in grade school and vaguely remembered enjoying it.  Julia, my 10 year old, is so interested in Growing Up and All Things Puberty that I ordered a copy for her for her birthday.  She read it in short order and it was sitting there… so I picked it up again.

I’m so glad I did!  I had forgotten almost everything about this book. Mostly I remembered that it was a book about puberty and a girl named Margaret.  I had entirely forgotten the huge struggle that the main character, Margaret, is going through, trying to choose which religion she might be… Catholic or Jewish?

This is a very fast read and so well done, brilliantly capturing the desire of young people to just be “normal” as they enter puberty - and trying to figure out what that might even mean.  Julia loved it and I highly recommend it for preteen and tween girls and for those of us who might want to remember how scary, exciting, and confusing this age was for us, too.

So… these three books aren’t adding to or subtracting from my personal library.  Bossypants needs to go back to the public library and the other two I’m keeping. 

And I’m buried in trying to move right now (!), so who knows when next I will blog about books.  But I will do it.  You will see.