take a look, it's in a book

For the first time in my professional career I find myself without friends to have lunch with. This is bad because I like friends. It's good though, because I'm not as tempted to go out to lunch (oh, the money I save when I bring my lunch!) and because I have an hour each day to read. I love reading and have always wished I could find more time to devote to pure pleasure reading. Here are the books* I've been able to read the past couple of months, kind of, sort of, vaguely in the order that I liked them.

A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park

Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale

And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie

Peter and the Star Catchers, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck

The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush, by Ann Gerhart

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling

Criss Cross, by Lynne Rae Perkins

The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

Eclipse, by Stephanie Meyer

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting Rich in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich

Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser

The Innocent, by Harlan Coben

What Do You Do All Day, by Amy Scheibe

Why Do Men Have Nipples, by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle


And sitting on my shelf, just waiting to be read in the next week, are:

Peter and the Shadow Thieves, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver (which I am really excited about because I loved her book The Poisonwood Bible)

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the story of a mouse, a princess, some soup, and a spool of thread, by Kate DiCamlilo

Anna and the King of Siam, by Margaret Landon (I have actually started this one, but it keeps getting pushed aside so I can read other books.)


I would also like to say that I have discovered a love for the public library. In Orem, we really only went to the library to get books on cd, and even this I never felt comfortable there and didn't enjoy the time we spent there. The library here is completely different. It's tiny, first off. Sometimes I think I could just fold it up and take it home in my pocket, it's that small. What do you expect, though, from a city as small as the one I live in? Anyway, the beauty of this library is that they have everything I go there for. And what they don't have? They run out and get it for me. Then they email me to tell me that they have it waiting there for me. Oh, the joy. I never knew reading all the books I ever wanted could be this easy.



*You might notice that most of these are recommendations from the amazing Janssen. Some day I'll read as fast as she does and be able to recommend good books to her.