Books on Tuesday

Last time I wrote, I was listening to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. It turned out to be a delightful, funny, and sad book. The story's characters have lost people they love both in the Dresden bombings and on 9/11, so of course it's sad. But it's not so much about these events as the things people do to cope with loss, the way, for better or worse, one moves on.

Then, as is common for those of us who request books from the library, all mine came in at once. First I read Second Honeymoon by Joanna Trollope. A good solid story here -- an empty nest story. I had to read fast because it was a "week" book.

But then I came to Confessions of a Teen Sleuth by Chelsea Cain. This was a treat! I'd only recommend this to other fans of Nancy Drew. If you spent hours of your childhood with Nancy, her frocks, roadster, and chums, you'll enjoy this parody a lot. If not, not. For some reason I especially was tickled by the frequent use of the word "sleuth" throughout the story. This is a book for adults who grew up on these stories, not kids who like them now. Their day will come.

Now I'm reading The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I listened to several author interviews when this book came out. I wanted to read it, but was afraid of how sad it might be. And it is sad. But it's also well written -- a good story.