Stupidest tagline ever?
This seriously upsets me. I know that on one level the progression of fun-funner-funnest makes sense (think about the dumb-dumber-dumbest copywriters who worked on this ad), but come on! "Funnest" isn't a word.

My favorite books of the year ... so far

One of my book groups compiles a list of each reader's top ten books of the year. Although we don't do this until early January, someone already brought it up at one of our September meetings. Although books in the Top Ten don't have to be published in 2008, there have been so many great books this year that I might make my list all 2008 pub dates. Yes, I know there are still three months of reading to be done. But here are five guaranteed to make my end-of-year best books list:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson
Attack of the Theater People by Marc Acito
Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos

I'm not even half way through The 19th Wife, but it has me completely hooked. Ebershoff also wrote one of my ALL-TIME favorite books, The Danish Girl.

Hannah West on your iPod ... or even iPhone.

My friend Terry emailed me yesterday to tell me that she came across my middle-grade mystery series, Hannah West, available on audio. Had I forgotten to mention it to her? There was no forgetting -- BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW! Ay caramba. How does that happen?

I'm thrilled that any book of mine is an audio book (although I wish someone had told me that was in the works). I was especially excited to see this little bit of promotional copy: "Use your own iPhone, mp3 player or iPod for playing Hannah West on Millionaire's Row audio book.

I don't have an iPhone, but my fictional creation can be heard on one. That greatly amuses me. If the series is succcessful on audio, I will be further amused and pleased by royalties.

Flower Children by Maxine Swann:

Maxine Swann’s story “Flower Children” won both an O. Henry Award and a Pushcart Prize, and was included in The Best American Short Stories. Nearly a decade later, that story forms the first chapter of her lyrical novel, Flower Children, about four siblings raised by their living-off-the-land hippie parents in the 1970s. Everything about this short novel is beautiful, from the occasional and (successful) experimental plural third person protagonist to the stunning descriptions of how children with unlimited freedom yearn to conform.

Consider this passage from when the children first go to school and learn penmanship and rules:

“They learn not to swear. They get prizes for obedience, for following the rules down to the last detail. They’re delighted by these rules, these arbitrary lines that regulate behavior and mark off forbidden things and they examine them closely and exhaust their teachers with questions about the mechanical functioning and the hidden intricacies of these beings, the rules ...”

Gosh, you know, that whole section was delightful when I first read it. The problem with posting it here, out of context, is that it might not actually entice you into reading this book. That’s always a problem with excerpts, though.

This is the kind of writing I used to revel in. Too often these days, I read for a different kind of escape, where I want to get whisked into a story or involved with the characters. Now, don’t get me wrong – I cared a lot for the four kids in this book. But it was the writing that I most looked forward to each time I opened the book, the way that Swann let me in to observe this family and their friends, never making a judgment. I think this would be an exceptional fictional companion read for The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeanette Walls.

It's Mii! (A Wii me, for the uninitiated.) I love love love Wii tennis. You can probably tell how good of a player I am by my focused, determined look and my smooth two-handed backhand.

I'm way behind in posting about books and vacation. We just got back from two weeks in Belize. Our first trip to Central America, first trip to the Caribbean, and first trip to the jungle. I'll post a couple of pictures later, but the real travelogue will be on Flickr.

The Year of Fog
By Michelle Richmond

Photographer Abby Mason and her fiance’s daughter, six-year-old Emma, are enjoying the day at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Abby stops to photograph a dead baby seal, a diversion that lasts maybe 20 or 40 seconds – seconds that will replay endlessly in Abby’s mind during the next year; a few seconds that were long enough for Emma to disappear. When Emma isn’t immediately found, the assumption is that she must have drowned in the unpredictable currents. Most people give up, but Abby continues to believe that Emma is out there – she just needs to be found.

Memory plays a big part in this story, as Abby examines how we remember things, confabulation (filling in gaps in memory with fabrications that one believes to be facts) and how memories disappear. Abby struggles to find Emma, struggles to keep her relationship with Emma’s father and struggles to understand why Emma’s mother, who has been absent from the little girl’s life for three years, is back in a picture that has no Emma.

The plot recalls Jacquelyn Mitchard’s Deep End of the Ocean, but I think this book does much more on a literary level. The writing is spare, managing to be more vivid and emotional than you assume. My friend Susan said it’s “underwritten,” and that is a perfect description. Emotion, too, is off the pages, as if hiding in the margins and waiting to unfold in your head. The Year of Fog has a perfect balance of story and underlying philosophical ideas.

I Love You, Beth Cooper
By Larry Doyle

I kid you not, this is seriously the funniest book I’ve read in the last four years. During his graduation night speech, Denis Cooverman, valedictorian at Buffalo Grove High School, urges his fellow classmates to leave with no regrets for the things they wanted to say but could not. Our hero pauses for dramatic effect, and then blurts out, “I love you, Beth Cooper.” Beth -- voted Most Popular and Best Looking by 513 BGHS seniors – is, predictably, a cheerleader; Denis’s team of choice is debate and his recreational reading includes the Journal of Juvenile Oncology. Graduation night heads a different direction after Denis’s memorable speech, and soon Beth and her two sidekicks are meeting up with Denis and his best friend, Rich (who, he says, is not gay and who also makes reference to his “female fiancée” who works at Hooter’s). The characters and plot may be a tad predictable, but I laughed so much I’m not sure I noticed.

The author wrote for The Simpsons, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Daria. (He also writes for The New Yorker, but since those articles are too long, I am more familiar with his multi media endeavors.) I Love You, Beth Cooper is packed with lines to savor and quote, just like an episode of The Simpsons. This is total movie material in the spirit of Dazed and Confused, and it didn’t surprise me at all to see that the book was optioned and may hit the big screen in 2009.

Here’s Dave Barry’s blurb on the back cover: “This book made me laugh out loud. I’m not saying it will make you laugh out loud. But I am saying that if it doesn’t, something is wrong with you.”

Lucky Library Day

When there's a book on hold ready for me to pick up, the library sends an email. Sometimes I check the hold shelf even if I didn't get a message -- just in case something should arrive. I miss the days when I browsed the shelves, just looking for a book that sounded interesting or coming across a title that I'd meant to read but hadn't had the time. The pure serendipity of discovering a new book or author seems rare these days when what I usually do is put things on hold, and then pick them up. Check the hold shelf "just in case" is about as near as I get to surprising myself with what I'm going to read next. Anyway, today a wonderful surprise was waiting for me: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. Lucky me!

I also picked up: I Love You Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle (good reviews and cover) and Summer Reading by Hilma Wolitzer .

Talk about Books: Four Big L’s

Laura Lippman and the Three Lisa’s – Lisa Gardner, Lisa Unger and Lisa Scottoline – are four mystery and suspense writers I depend on for page-turning stories with strong women characters.

In one month I read the newest titles from these four with a 75 percent success rate.
What the Dead Know by Lippman is her best stand-alone novel yet. (In fact, it deserves a separate blog entry. I’ll get right on that.) Hide by Lisa Gardner brings back D.D. Warren , a thinking woman’s kind of detective. Sliver of Truth, a follow up to Beautiful Lies, presents Ridley Jones, a magazine reporter still caught up in the mystery of her own identity.

But Daddy’s Girl? That’s the latest from Lisa Scottoline. I can’t believe I even read a book with that title (and check out that cover. Ug!). Natalie “Nat” Greco teaches law at Penn. She’s not exactly an inspired lecturer, and she offers even less when trying to save herself from being framed for a murder. Not only can I not believe I read a book with a title like this, I can’t believe I finished this one. Nat bumbles along – and not in an endearing way -- to the last page, making me wonder how she ever got a job at an Ivy League school, let alone as a main character in a Scottoline novel.

Back to talking about books ….

My intent with the Reading Undercover blog was to talk about books and reading, and it’s time I get back to that.