Recently read

Per usual, skip it if you wanna.



1. The first three Harry Potter books. (Chamber of Secrets, Sorceror's Stone & Prisoner of Azkaban.) Kid lit, but I really enjoyed them - fast reads, with good (if fantastical) plot lines. If, like me, you've been avoiding reading these because they're "kids' books", go ahead. They're actually quite well-written.



2. Velva Jean Learns to Drive by Jennifer Niven - Novel about a young woman who wants to sing at the Grand Ol' Opry. Set in the thirties, this was a really interesting book. I liked it.



3. The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips. Novel about 1930s Alabama. This was the best book I've read in quite a while - I even bought it after reading the library's copy, because I know I'm going to want to read it again. It was reminiscent (to me, anyway) of To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't understand why this one didn't get a lot of press, because it's really, really good. Read it!



4. American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell - Short stories about marginalized people. These stores were good reads. Not like most of the other fiction out there, subject-wise, and I enjoyed that. Recommended.



5. Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens - Novel about an old woman living in a trailer park who takes in an abandoned girl - pretty good.



6. Sporty Creek by James Still - Fictionalized account of a boyhood in Depression -era Kentucky - Technically a kid's book, but still interesting for the period details.



7. Just Checking by Emily Colas - Vignettes from the life of an OCD sufferer. I thought I had a bad case of OCD, but this woman is flat-out batshit crazy. Her accounts of incidents in her life so unnerved me that I couldn't finish it.



8. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin - Novel about an Irish woman who immigrates to Brooklyn in the 1950s - Entertaining and a quick read - I just never felt really close to or involved with the main character - she seemed a little stand-offish and cold to me.





So! That's it for now! Anything out there I should be reading?