flashquake May We Suggest?

May We Suggest?

David Shapiro:

I've been reading to elevate my disposition with a little humor lately, and I'll share three novels that did the trick. The number of yuks tend to run in inverse proportion to the seriousness of the literary intent, and I list them in order of literary intent:

The Memory of Running, by Ron McLarty
A story about a middle-aged guy without a clue who starts to get one on a bizarre cross-country bicycle journey to claim the remains of his long-lost sister whose insanity made a wreck of his life. Smithy Ide is memorable for his answer to almost everything, "I just don't know." McLarty is a TV character actor whose name you might not recognize, but whose face you probably would. He voices audio books as a sideline, and The Memory of Running was first released in that format.

Goodnight Nobody, by Jennifer Weiner
A tale of an out-of-place Connecticut housewife who left a literary job in NYC to raise three kids in the suburbs. She relieves her boredom — and strives to improve her social standing among the immaculate moms who snub her — by investigating the murder of a neighbor, which re-entangles her with an old flame from the city. This book has the same smart wit and social commentary of Weiner's earlier novels, Good in Bed and In Her Shoes, with a clever mystery thrown in for good measure.

Skinny Dip, by Carl Hiaasen
This one's a pure comic romp about an heiress who miraculously survives being pushed off an ocean liner by her husband and spends the rest of the book plotting revenge while falling in love with her rescuer. The story features Hiaasen's usual collection of imperfect heroes, sleazy villains and a bunch of outright loons who fall somewhere in between. His rips at corrupt politicians and businessmen who rape South Florida are scathing in an entertaining sort of way.

Debi Orton

The Castle In the Forest by Norman Mailer
In his latest — and possibly his last, he says — Mailer tells the story of what formed Adolph Hitler, from the point of view of one of Satan's minions charged with his development. Despite his penchant for long-windedness (and a side excursion to pre-Bolshevik Russia for the coronation of Czar Nicholas), Mailer is still able to focus the reader's interest on the mundane, and writes about Hitler's parents as if he had intimate knowledge of them. I was one of the few who liked Mailer's Egyptian saga Ancient Evenings, and his ability to create credible narrators is on display here as well.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
The author is the chief TV critic at Entertainment Weekly, but if her debut novel is any indication, she REALLY needs to quit her day job. Sharp Objects is a rollercoaster ride about a cub reporter with numerous abuse issues who returns to her small Missouri home town to report on a series of murders of young girls. She needs the story to advance her career, but returning to a home town and a family she sought to divorce herself from is proving hazardous to her health.

Sean McKlusky:

Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings, edited by Marcus Borg
There are many parallels between the philosophical teachings of Jesus and Buddha; so many in fact that some scholars believe that Jesus was influenced either directly or indirectly by Buddhist teachings. But don't worry, this book isn't about conspiracies or an attempt to explain the lost years of Jesus. Nor does it press a Gnostic agenda. It simply places the expressions side by side allowing the reader to come to their own conclusions and ponder the universal human experience and perhaps the universality of the truth which is said to come to all who seek.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
What a great vacation read! (So I'm behind on my pulp fiction reading list and no, I have NOT read The Da Vinci Code!.)

Sean's newest music acquisition:
Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection by Def Leppard

"Rise up, gather round,
Rock this place to the ground.
Burn it up let's go for broke,
Watch the night go up in smoke."

Didi Wood:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
When I read that this book was narrated by Death, I rolled my eyes and thought, "What a gimmick! He'll never pull it off." But I loved Zusak's I Am the Messenger, so I gave The Book Thief a try. And I'm glad I did, because it's amazing, heartbreaking, and — dare I say it? — important. Don't miss this one.

Costello Music by The Fratellis
My husband always knows what's new and good in the music world, and that's how I got to hear this album, which won't be released in the U.S. until March 12. You may recognize "Flathead" as that catchy song in the iPod television ads — the rest of the album is just as good.

Back to Black by Amy Winehouse
Another British import scheduled for release in the U.S. on March 12. This is classic soul with a capital S. See her perform "Rehab" live at the Brit Awards 2007, where she received the award for Best British Female Solo Artist ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-TPVZCi9q4).