Looking for a Good Read?

I've got one for you:

Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett

As it was so perfectly written here:
Female friendships are one of the most complex human relationships, regardless of age. And in TRUTH & BEAUTY, author Ann Patchett does nothing to dispel the mystery of girlfriends. If anything, she adds to it.

Although this book is nonfiction, it reads like fiction. Readers will dive into the story, greedily gathering information about the two main subjects --- Patchett and her friend, Lucy Grealy --- like characters in a novel. They were two young and ambitious women who go directly from Sarah Lawrence to the Iowa's Writers Workshop, the most coveted graduate school for writers. They develop a friendship that straddles the lines of intimacy, and they find literary fame. Along the way they form a bond that is difficult to describe. It spans continents, weathers illnesses both physical and mental, and seems to survive even death. But this is not a work of fiction, and so the eloquent writing of this well-known author packs even more of a punch. These are real people; this is Patchett's life, her beloved friend who lives, metaphorically speaking, just beyond her reach.

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I am technically listening to this book (the audiobook version), narrated by the author herself who really brings this story to life. I am on CD 5 of 7 and am totally captivated. Ann Patchett's fiction works are all amazing, but this non-fiction reads seemlessly. I highly recommend it!

More literary rambles....

so I've mentioned my new found obsession with the library, right?
well now I've got dan on board too.
the first few times I headed out to the library I got a nice, whitty jab about being bookish or nerdy or whatever he could come up with on the fly…
all in good fun of course…
but now it’s a different story.
last night I dropped off my books and came home with only one new item.
and it was for him!
not so funny anymore is it?

and since i'm always curious to see what others are reading
i figured i'd post a list of what we're borrowing each month.
its amazing how much you can save by taking advantage of the library.

and another perk i realized this morning is that if you're not all that interested in the book
you can skim it, or simply return it without feeling guilty.
while i am enjoying The Simple Living Guide right now, i don't feel like i have to read every single section in order to 'get my money's worth.'

similarly with the audiobooks. the first one i downloaded was The Almost Moon by Alice Seabold.. now while it might be an interesting story to read, hearing the details of how this lady euthanized her mother, with flashbacks to her horrible childhood was not exactly motivating when i was trying to get through the third mile on the elliptical at the end of the long day. I gave it a few tries, and then I said "forget it!" I'm deleting that one, and that's ok :)

so this is what we're reading, or in Dan's case- listening to. if you have any book recommendations let me know!