On my night table: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Ok, so I finished this book about a week ago, but I still wanted to write about it because I love, love, LOVED it!  Dark Places is a little lot darker of a story than I usually get into and I was a little hesitant at first, but the way the book is written, it just pulls you in and keeps you engaged right from the beginning.  I'll let you read a little synopsis, but I highly recommend it.  I'm going to the library after work to pick up her other book, Sharp Objects, and I can't wait to crack it open!

From Publisher's Weekly:

When Libby Day's mother and two older sisters were slaughtered in the family's Kansas farmhouse, it was seven-year-old Libby's testimony that sent her 15-year-old brother, Ben, to prison for life. Desperate for cash 24 years later, Libby reluctantly agrees to meet members of the Kill Club, true crime enthusiasts who bicker over famous cases. She's shocked to learn most of them believe Ben is innocent and the real killer is still on the loose. Though initially interested only in making a quick buck hocking family memorabilia, Libby is soon drawn into the club's pseudo-investigation, and begins to question what exactly she saw—or didn't see—the night of the tragedy. Flynn fluidly moves between cynical present-day Libby and the hours leading up to the murders through the eyes of her family members. When the truth emerges, it's so twisted that even the most astute readers won't have predicted it.

today I love...

...these literary tees and sweatshirts from Out of Print because I heart the classics!  The ones above are my fave.

(via Wit and Delight)

On my night table: Talking to Girls About Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield

From Amazon.com:

Don't be fooled by the title: 'Talking to Girls About Duran Duran' may sound like a dream come true to all the women who she-bopped through the 80s, but at heart it's the Feminine Mystique that every boy-next-door has been waiting for (and will actually read). It's something like a prequel to Rob Sheffield's first, fantastic memoir, Love Is a Mix Tape, taking its cue this time from a musical decade so addictive and eclectic that, as he notes, "every night in your town, you can find a bar somewhere hosting an Awesome 80s Prom Night." This hilarious and heartfelt collection of coming-of-age vignettes is arguably a much more satisfying way to spend an evening, though, particularly if you have even an ounce of the New Wave obsession that courses through it. Sheffield riffs on the songs that saw him through the rapture and misery and bewilderment of being a guy who wanted to understand girls, gleefully skewering Duran Duran along the way (even as he professes his love for them) and paying tribute to tunes that captured some of his best moments. If you're going to revisit your youth, let Rob Sheffield be your guide. Nothing compares to him.

On my night table: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

From Amazon.com:

Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.
In this lively and compelling account of that year, Rubin carves out her place alongside the authors of bestselling memoirs such as Julie and Julia, The Year of Living Biblically, and Eat, Pray, Love. With humor and insight, she chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.


Her conclusions are sometimes surprising—she finds that money can buy happiness, when spent wisely; that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that "treating" yourself can make you feel worse; that venting bad feelings doesn't relieve them; that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference—and they range from the practical to the profound.

Written with charm and wit, The Happiness Project is illuminating yet entertaining, thought-provoking yet compulsively readable. Gretchen Rubin's passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire you to start your own happiness project.

A great book club read!  Order a copy here or from your local public library.

On my night table: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

From Amazon.com:
 
Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.

Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.

Read along with me!  Pick up a copy here, at your local bookstore, or at your local public library.

On my night table: My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster

I needed a little break from the Mystery genre that I have currently been absorbed in, so I picked up a copy of the newest Jen Lancaster book.  Like her other books, it had me laughing from the get-go.  If you've never read her books, you don't necessarily need to start with her oldest.  My favorite is Pretty in Plaid (the description of her trying to zip her skinny jeans in the 80's with a rat-tail comb had me rolling on the floor laughing!), but they are all equally witty and snarky.       

From Amazon.com:

Readers have followed Jen Lancaster through job loss, sucky city living, weight loss attempts, and 1980s nostalgia. Now Jen chronicles her efforts to achieve cultural enlightenment, with some hilarious missteps and genuine moments of inspiration along the way. And she does so by any means necessary: reading canonical literature, viewing classic films, attending the opera, researching artisan cheeses, and even enrolling in etiquette classes to improve her social graces.

In Jen's corner is a crack team of experts, including Page Six socialites, gourmet chefs, an opera aficionado, and a master sommelier. She may discover that well-regarded, high-priced stinky cheese tastes exactly as bad as it smells, and that her love for Kraft American Singles is forever. But one thing's for certain: Eliza Doolittle's got nothing on Jen Lancaster-and failure is an option. 

Available here.
You can also follow her tweets here.  Hi. Larious.

On my night table: A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

If you feel like I just recently posted a new book I was reading, your eyes do not deceive you.  I am a very fast reader (which is why I use the public library.  Buying books is expensive!).  I finished U is for Undertow in about a week.  That was a really good one; I highly recommend it (the whole series, really).  I like to vary my book genres from week to week, so this week, I have moved from mystery to food memoir.

In 'A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table', Molly Wizenberg recounts a life with the kitchen at its center. From her mother's pound cake, a staple of summer picnics during her childhood in Oklahoma, to the eggs she cooked for her father during the weeks before his death, food and memories are intimately entwined. You won't be able to decide whether to curl up and sink into the story or to head straight to the market to fill your basket with ingredients for Cider-Glazed Salmon and Pistachio Cake with Honeyed Apricots.

You can pick up a copy here or at your local public library.

On my night table: U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

I'm a little late on posting this one as I started the book on Friday and I am already almost finished with it.  In true Grafton form, this book will suck you in right off the bat.  I can't wait to find out "who-done-it"!

From Publishers Weekly:

"False memory syndrome provides the core of bestseller Grafton's intriguing 21st crime novel featuring wry PI Kinsey Millhone (after T Is for Trespass). In 1988, Kinsey takes on client Michael Sutton, who claims to have recovered a childhood memory of men burying a suspicious bundle shortly after the unsolved disappearance of four-year-old Mary Claire Fitzhugh in 1972. But Sutton has a track record of unreliability, and Kinsey must untangle and reconfigure his disjointed recountings to learn if they are truth or fiction. Chapters told from the point of view of other characters in other time periods add texture, allowing the reader to assemble pieces of the case as Kinsey works on other aspects. A subplot involves Kinsey wrestling with conflicting information about her estranged family. Though whodunit purists may be a bit disappointed that the culprit is revealed well before book's end, both loyal Kinsey fans and those new to the canon will find much to like."

You can get yourself a copy and read along here.

On my night table: Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner.

I finished The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks on Sunday.  It was a good read, if not a little predictable.  If you are looking for an easy read, I would definitely recommend it.  If you generally like something a little heavier, than maybe not so much.  As for the movie, I think I'll be waiting for Netflix (sorry Miley).

Last night I started Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Wiener.  I am waiting for a couple books to come in at the library, so I was scrounging last night for something to read before bed.  I remembered that I had used some credits at the used book store a while back, so I dug through my bookshelf and, lo and behold!, I found one!

From Amazon.com:

For Kate Klein, a semi-accidental mother of three, suburbia has been full of unpleasant surprises. Her once-loving husband is hardly ever home. The supermommies on the playground routinely snub her. Her days are spent carpooling and enduring endless games of Candy Land, and at night, most of her orgasms are of the do-it-yourself variety. 

When a fellow mother is murdered, Kate finds that the unsolved mystery is the most exciting thing to happen in Upchurch, Connecticut, since her neighbors broke ground for a guesthouse and cracked their septic tank. Even though the local police chief warns her that crime-fighting's a job best left to the professionals, Kate launches an unofficial investigation -- from 8:45 to 11:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, when her kids are in nursery school. 

As Kate is drawn deeper into the murdered woman's past, she begins to uncover the secrets and lies behind Upchurch's picket-fence facade -- and considers the choices and compromises all modern women make as they navigate between marriage and independence, small towns and big cities, being a mother and having a life of one's own. 

Want to read along?  Pick up a copy of your own right here, or check out your local used book store or public library.

**Also....don't forget to enter to win a set of Stripe Cupcake Flags and a Burlap Package Kit over on the Forget Me Knot Weddings blog this week!**

On my night table: The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks

Ok. I admit it.  I am a Miley Cyrus fan.  Now, before you click over to the next page on your web browser, hear me out.  I actually did reserve a copy of this book at the library after seeing the preview for the upcoming feature film version of the story and seeing that she was in it.  BUT.  I decided to read this book not for the afore mentioned reason, but after realizing that Nicholas Sparks is the same author of The Notebook (a movie that I refused to watch when it was made into a movie because everyone cried over it and I didn't want to go there, and five years later was forced to sit through it by my husband....and I LOVED IT).  

Long story short: I probably will not see the movie version in theaters, but I am looking forward to a lovely, easy, tearjerker of a read in this book (and you never know what will be in my queue in six months).  Don't hate.

From Amazon.com:

Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alientated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie's father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church. The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story of love on many levels--first love, love between parents and children -- that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that love can break our hearts...and heal them.

 

Want to read along with me?  You can pick yourself up a copy right here or check out your local used bookstore or public library.

On my night table: Cleaving by Julie Powell

 

Well, I finished The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King over the weekend.  I absolutely LOVED this book.  It was not what I expected it to be at all.  It was much more lighthearted and not so "mystery book-y" (if that makes sense).  I will definitely be reading A Monstrous Regiment of Women (the next book in the Sherlock Holmes/ Mary Russel series) very soon.

But up next, Cleaving by Julie Powell. 

From Amazon.com:

Julie Powell thought cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking was the craziest thing she'd ever do--until she embarked on the voyage recounted in her new memoir, CLEAVING.

Her marriage challenged by an insane, irresistible love affair, Julie decides to leave town and immerse herself in a new obsession: butchery. She finds her way to Fleischer's, a butcher shop where she buries herself in the details of food. She learns how to break down a side of beef and French a rack of ribs--tough, physical work that only sometimes distracts her from thoughts of afternoon trysts.

The camaraderie at Fleischer's leads Julie to search out fellow butchers around the world--from South America to Europe to Africa. At the end of her odyssey, she has learned a new art and perhaps even mastered her unruly heart.

You can purchase your very own copy here.  I think Costco still has this novel and don't forget about the public library!

On my night table: The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

 

I was so inspired by Ellie's post on Thursday that I thought I would begin sharing with you some current reads of my own.  I love love LOVE to read and though sometimes I can only make it through a few pages each night before falling asleep in bed, it is definitely one of my most cherished past times.  

First up, The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King.

From Barnes and Noble.com:

Long retired, Sherlock Holmes quietly pursues his study of honeybee behavior on the Sussex Downs. He never imagines he would encounter anyone whose intellect matched his own, much less an audacious teenage girl with a penchant for detection. Miss Mary Russell becomes Holmes' pupil and quickly hones her talent for deduction, disguises and danger. But when an elusive villain enters the picture, their partnership is put to a real test. 

~Martin's Press.

Here's a link if you' like to pick up a copy of your own, though I tend to like to use the public library or the local used bookstores.  It's a little greener than buying new and I adore the smell of old books (strange, I know).