I agree with Amy, send pizza!

While I was in Africa there was a lot of “safari-ing” in a tour bus.  We stopped frequently to look at birds.  Some of the birds were purple, which was cool.  One looked like Zazu!  Most were not, so thrilling; I was sort of unimpressed.  So I spent a lot of time reading and knitting while other people spotted the animals for me.  Lazy, it’s how I roll.

I finished the Barbara Kingsolver I’d been reading forever and three other books on the trip, which was great.   I also completed two scarves and a major portion of the Christmas Stocking that May Be the Death of Me.  I need to quit my job; my hobbies suffer so because of it.

Pigs in Heaven, by Barbara Kingsolver
When I was in high school I had a teacher/family friend who encouraged me to read Barbara Kingsolver.  I refused.  I read a lot of John Grisham and Pat Conroy.  I was such a rebellious child.  As a result, this was the first book I’ve read by Kingsolver, which I realize in shocking in the wake of The Poisonwood Bible and Oprah and all that.  Don’t worry, that’s on my shelf for “someday.”

I was expecting Kingsolver to be dense and literary.  I was so wrong.  This book was full of likable, approachable charcters doing likable approachable things.  But at the same time, they were characters unlike any I’ve ever know, so there was a sense of the fantastic even as they did pedestrian things such as pay rent (or not, depending on their finances).

This book is a sequel to The Bean Trees.  I would have read that first, but it wasn’t on my book shelf.  I would recommend reading the two in order.  Having read the sequel first, I feel like I’ve cheated myself out of enjoying The Bean Trees as fully as I could have.

Stiff, by Mary Roach
Over a year ago a friend (the Boy’s old roommate, actually, my back-of-the-class Shakespeare buddy from college) recommended this book to me and offered to lend it.  I was squicked out.  It’s about cadavers.  My mother has donated her body to science, something that it has taken my 13 years to be able to utter without bursting into tears.  I don’t really want to think farther on it.  My friend assured me I should try it, so I said, “Yeah, I’ll borrow it when you’re done and think it over.”

Then he lost his man purse, complete with book.  Damn

Fast forward to this summer, I noticed the book on another friend’s bookshelf and asked if I could borrow it.  She said no, as she had not read it yet.  So finally, in anticipation of my trip, I picked it up while I was at B&N purchasing a rather thrilling tome on Macromedia Flash 8.  Imagine my surprise when I took it home to my mother to show her, and she simulataneously handed me her copy.  So yeah, it was destiny.

My mother, she who’s body shall be hacked, said there were parts of the book that squicked her out so much she had to put it down.  I actually didn’t have that problem.  I think that’s probably because I am so set on my physical body being cremated (and not in the horrifying old-style public way, a la HIgh Fidelity) that the other possibilities were very remote.  Well, then I read the physical description of cremation and gagged on my airplane supper.

This book was on the Times bestseller list for ages, and with good reason.  It’s good.  It’s funny.  It’s informative.  If you’ve read anything by Sarah Vowell, it’s like that, but about corpses.

Also, I think I’d like to be freeze dried when I die now.

My Own Country, by Abraham Verghese
I bought this book 3 years ago when I was working in James Madison University’s campus bookstore, after I’d graduated from my own (ahem, better) college.  It was a rough time in my life.  BUT there were books on sale for a dollar and I got a 20% discount, so I picked this up for 80 cents.  That is value.

This book is a little outdated now, in that the tone is a very 1990’s mixture of hope and dispair toward the subject of AIDS.  I don’t actually claim to know what tone the medical community takes now, but this book felt very 80’s/90’s to me.   AIDS is still horrifying (especially in Africa, where I was reading the book.  It provoked a couple good conversations with our hosts’ son).  And this book does not shy away from the horror; it actually made me cringe much more than Stiff.

Regardless of any of that, though, this is a fabulously well-written book.  Eye-opening, even this long after the fact.  And this man can write.  Even as I could see him as a character in his own book neglecting his family for his work and irritating the ever-loving hell out of me, I could also feel the compassionate doctor with a writerly mind caring for his patients beyond all belief. 

Probably the best 80 cents I ever spent.

The Geographer’s Library, by Jon Fasman
Also a book from my mother (she has a friend who passes them her first), this was a good read.  Sort of Da Vinci Code-ish, but less with the imflamatory religion.  The main character was a recent college grad, likable guy.  The prose was often absolutely gorgeous.

There were some definite problems with the plot, though.  I would have to say it rather resembled some of my attempts at creating  my own muffin recipe.  Everything ought to work out great, but the final result is..  eh.  The time spent reading it was worthwhile (although, bear in mind I was stuck on a place for 18 hours!), but then ending didn’t do a damn thing for me.

Good thing today is pay day…  after all that book-thought I think I’ll just have to spend my lunch break at Barnes and Noble!  Margaret Atwood has a new one out, you know….