Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

So, I reread this after reading Pamela Aidan's books about Mr. Darcy. Just as simple and wonderful and light as ever.

These Three Remain, by Pamela Aidan (#3 in the Mr. Darcy series)

See below.

Duty and Desire by Pamela Aidan (#2 in the Mr. Darcy series)

See below.

An Assembly Such as This by Pamela Aidan (#1 in the Mr. Darcy series)

A wonderful idea: write the story of Pride and Prejudice from Mr. Darcy's point of view. You get very little of him in Austen's book and Aidan does a nice job of staying true to the language, the tone, and the character of Austen's original. I don't think she needed to write three books to do it, though I'm sure it made it more lucrative for her. I found some of the passages where we were in Mr. Darcy's head pretty tedious. I'm a big fan of the show over the tell. But I really enjoyed the books, I just wish they had cut the fat out and made it just one novel.

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen

So, I was on a game show! Merv Griffin's Crosswords, to be exact, and I am contractually prohibited from sharing the outcome. But I think I can admit that it was a lot of fun, and that I spent a lot of time sitting around and reading.

I read this Jane Austen on the set of the game show, and around the same time as the Mr. Darcy books and Pride and Prejudice. Very clever little book, though not as engaging as her others, to me.

No Good Deeds, by Laura Lippman

Jury duty PI thriller. A good one.

The Cabinet of Curiosities, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Another ridiculous thriller. Passes the time.

Darkest Fear, by Harlan Coben

Jury duty thriller. Enjoyable; I like Coben's books

The Surgeon, by Tess Gerritsen

I had jury duty, so I got a bunch of fluffy paperbacks at the library, in case I needed to kill a lot of time. As it turned out, jury duty lasted about 3 hours. By the time they had the case, they realized it was going to be about 6 weeks (who can do that?) and, in a surprisingly generous way, released all potential jurors who were self-employed. No fighting necessary, and I was ready to throw down, if need be.

Anyway, The Surgeon: good, solid thriller/murder sort of thing.

The Last King Of Scotland, by Giles Foden

Great book. Not surprisingly, much better than the movie. The early changes made in the adaptation are good, and still serve the story, but the drastic changes made to the end unhinged the film a bit, and now that I've read the book, I understand why we were not as happy with the movie as we expected to be. I'm now wanting to read some more about Idi Amin and see how true this story is to real life. Very interesting.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell

Writing non-fiction, particularly science-based non-fiction, is a really impressive talent. Gladwell is one of the best. I loved The Tipping Point, and this one achieves what Gilbert was trying to do with Stumbling on Happiness, I think. He organizes ideas and stories in such a way that the connections are easily made, and I feel like I understand human nature a little better.

Stumbling on Happiness, by Daniel Todd Gilbert

There was so much fuss about this book, and I liked it, but it didn't read to me so much about happiness as about how we make decisions, and I liked Gladwell's Blink better. This one is an interesting collection of studies and anecdotes, but Gilbert's tone verges on smug for me.

Helpless, by Barbara Gowdy

This one reminded me of the Lovely Bones a little bit, though it's told from a broader perspective, and there's no dead narrator. The tone is similar, though, and I think less effective. I don't have a problem with being asked to consider the point of view of an "bad" guy, but it has to be done just right, or it seems like the writer is making excuses for their behavior. I'm not sure I bought this "bad guy" character. I also recognize that kids can be very precocious, but the child's behavior didn't ring true for me, either.

The Skin Type Solution, by Leslie Baumann

If you have trouble with your skin, this is an excellent book to read. It helps you understand your skin type (one of 16 that she has identified) with a detailed survey, and gives very specific recommendations for treatments and products. Very user-friendly.

The End of the World As We Know It: scenes from a life, by Robert Goolrick

A book I couldn't put down. Goolrick's memoir is so detailed and tragic, it kept me riveted. He grew up in what appeared to be a perfect family, but his childhood was marred by a tragic event at age four, which continued to affect his life in extremely negative ways. A truly sad, but involving story.

Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

We saw the LA production of the Broadway show for my birthday, which was a lot of fun. I had read the book about a hundred years ago and remembered very little in the way of details, which is good, since they would have marred the experience.

Every time I mentioned that we were going to Wicked, people gushed like you wouldn't believe, which actually made me just a little nervous, considering how critical Chris and I often find ourselves of things that everyone else just adores. We thought the show was fun, but not great. The story didn't hold together in the end, and in really basic ways, like the timing didn't come close to matching the source material, The Wizard of Oz.

As it turns out, after reading the book again, I see that bad adaptation is the root of the problem. Significant features of the story were changed, and not in what I consider ways that served the story. The book itself gets a little dense and overdone at the end, but is still really fun to read.

It's also pretty racy, as far as violence and sex go, and I wonder how many of those pre-teens at the show have been encouraged to read it after seeing the show.

The Discomfort Zone, by Jonathan Franzen

I have to confess that I have still not read The Corrections, though I did hear the beginning of it on an audiobook a few years ago. It's on my list, I promise.

This is a memoir about Franzen's youth and early adulthood, and it was really fascinating. I was skeptical about it, but it kept me really engaged, and was appropriately short. Now I feel like when I read the Corrections, I might be able to draw parallels or something.

The Grotesque, by Patrick McGrath

Sort of an English horror story. Another of my thrift-store-leave-at-the-hotel books for the trip to Seattle/Yakima. It passed the time.