Book posts are pretty dull, sorry

I hope all this talk of books I am too lazy to read has stirred a desire for increased literacy in someone out there. I forgot what I said the next three categories were going to be, so here they are with new names and in a different order.



Category 3: Books I Have Read and Mostly Enjoyed

• Tears of the Giraffe. This is the second book in the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency series. I lent the first one to my mom, who lent it to my grandmother, who probably lent it to someone else and I'll never see it again. You don't have to read them in order though; the whole series is great! The main character is a female detective in Botswana. These books are (mostly) very light hearted and make Botswana seem like a place you would want to go on vacation. The characters are very likeable. If nobody speaks up about wanting this book, I am going to just pick someone at random and force them to read it.


• Word Freak. This book is about competitive Scrabble. For real. A whole book about Scrabble and the bizarre folks who play in Scrabble tournaments. Probably one of the top ten nerdiest pursuits ever. The thing is, by the time I finished this I was like, "I'm going to become a competitive Scrabble player!" Oh yeah, it gets to you.


• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. I liked it. I thought it would be depressing, but it wasn't.


• The Uncommon Reader. The queen takes up reading. This is a novella, good if you don't have enough time for an actual novel. It's a little bit proper though, being about the queen and all.


• The Dive from Clausen's Pier. I haven't actually read this one.

Category 4: Mysteries. Of the Something Happens and Who Caused it/Killed it/Stole it Variety. Not Like, Mysteries of the Universe.

• Maisie Dobbs. I think the cover is a wood block print! I did a wood block print in high school of a girl brushing her teeth. Boy, that was tedious to carve.
• Code to Zero. This is by Ken Follett, who is usually good for a page turner.
• The Necropolis Railway. Neat title.
• The Intelligencer. I actually have no idea if this is a mystery, because I lost the dust jacket. But the title seems kind of mysterious, and I opened it up at random and read this sentence, "Their spy had incredible cover." So that seems pretty mysterious too.

Moving West!

I know the title of this blog, paired with the title of this post, make it seem like I am embarking on a daring adventure. Something along the lines of moving to California during the gold rush. The much lamer truth is that I am moving 40 minutes farther west in the same state.

Anyway, I have made an elaborate packing plan which involves giving everything away because I am too lazy to pack it. So I am going through our bookcase now and before I donate all my books to charity I thought I would see if there is anything here my friends and family might like to read. Let me know, peeps.

Can you also let me know if my links are working? I am new to this and kind of slow on the internet uptake.

Category 1: Well Known Books I Should Read, but I Don't Feel Like it.

• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (I bought this because I thought my husband would like it, but he reads like one book a year and I'm not hanging on to this until 2040 with the hope that he gets around it.)
• All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot (I read this! It is about a country/farm vet in 1937. The cover says "The heartwarming true story... that has become the 'happiest book of the year'". So maybe if you like animals and feel like reading the happiest book of the year this is for you? However, the only story I remember is gross and involves a cow uterus. Just putting that out there.)
• Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth (I think this one is about sex, people. Sex!)
• The Promise by Chaim Potok (I really loved "The Chosen". So much so that I suggested to my husband that we name our son Reuven. He was, unfortunately, not very receptive to that suggestion.)
• Davita's Harp by Chaim Potok.
• Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. (Um, this is the abridged version. I have no idea what this book is about but if you have always wanted to read it but are short on time here is the abridged solution you have been waiting for.)
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (You will definitely be a more learned and all around better person if you read this book. I haven't read it, so you will at the very least be better than me.)
• Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger (I really meant to get around to this one, but then I remembered I didn't really love Catcher in the Rye.)

Category 2: Short Stories, Because I Don't Have a Lot of Free Time

I'm not linking these because the titles are pretty self explanatory.

• Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 (this collection mostly stinks, but there is one hilarious story about a loser who joins Cobra, as in the enemy of G.I. Joe, and has to tell everyone he works for the phone company, because Cobra training is TOP SECRET.)
• Best New American Voices 2001 (never even opened it.)
• Best American Short Stories 1998 (ibid.)
• Best American Short Stories 2001 (There is one in here I liked about a grandfather suffering from alzheimer's who tells the same chilling war story over and over.)
• Best American Sports Writing 2006 (Read the whole book; pretty good if you like sports.)

Stay tuned tomorrow for:

Category 3: Crappy Books that Don't Require a Lot of Thinking

Category 4: Memoirs, which Make Me Feel Better About the Direction My Own Life is Taking

Category 5: Pretty Good Books, Actually