I borrowed Bios from the library and finally finished it last week. Definitely not his best, but not bad either. The next night I read Diana Shaw's The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook while listening to Pink Martini on the radio. Reading cookbooks is actually ultimately a bit unsatisfying since I want to cook everything in the book immediately and almost never cook any of it.

Friday night I stayed home and finished Donna Tartt's The Secret History. While I enjoyed it, I'm not quite sure where all of the hype came from when The Little Friend came out. I did however buy The Little Friend at the library book sale on Saturday so we'll see how it is (sometime next year I assume).

I'm currently working on Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint. I'm about halfway through and don't think I've ever read a book with more references to masturbation (except perhaps The Guide to Getting it On).
posted by kristin at 1:58 PM

I finally finished 1968. Perhaps more interesting for me than it would be for someone actually alive that year (or maybe not) but it was neat to be able to get a world-wide view of the turmoil that year.

Last week I finished Patrick O'Leary's The Impossible Bird, the first of his I'd read. It was one of those books that's a bit ambiguous as to category. It could be considered fantasy or SF depending on your viewpoint but fun in that it took place in the present.

I finished Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita on the way to Chicago. I now understand why William had been recommending it for years. After that on the flight I got most of the way through Robert Charles Wilson's Bios and then managed to lose it in the airport. I tried a few bookstores near where I was staying to see if I could find a copy and just read the last 20 pages standing there, but no luck. It's on hold at the library now. So far it wasn't quite as good as his Darwinia but it was holding my attention enough to want to know what happened.
posted by kristin at 1:18 PM