Books du jour:

1. Appetizer: The Amazing Journey of American Women by Gail Collins, which I pick up randomly to see how us gals will get further in life.  This book was a little hard to get into, but now it’s really rolling.  The section on how washing machines changed the role of women forever and the part about the role of women (and the roles women were denied) in the Civil Rights movement literally made me gasp out loud.  I bet the people on the train with me would have been shocked to know I was making such faces about history rather than over a racy love story.
2. Main course: Thursday Next and the Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde.  I’ve read this series before years ago, but now that I’ve picked it up again, I can’t put it down.  It’s literary dorkiness at its finest: a kind but more sour than sweet detective protecting books from terrorists and inadvertently changing the course of history.  It stars the Cheshire Cat, Ms. Havisham, Captain Nemo, and is ripe with political drama as well as literary puns (at one meeting, everyone is waiting in vain for Godot).  I have “accidentally” stayed up until 2 or 3 am reading this series.
3. After dinner: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.  I’m usually too “full” to pick this one back up, especially because it’s so heavy.  But it’s fascinating, and incredibly well written.  Diamond goes into great detail about why the history of the world unfolded the way it did, and answers questions I never even thought to ask.
4. Dessert: we finish with a sweep dollop of the latest Cosmo and Glamour, updating me on the latest news on women’s health, the best dress deals, and how to do anything better.

And a new book related obsession: GoodReads.

Kat introduced me to this website where you keep track of the books you’ve read and what you thought of them, make a list of the ones you want to read next, and offer reviews to help readers like you find their next indulgence.  It’s really interesting to see what other people thought of books you loved and hated, and how you compare with your friends.  Anju noticed that “we started out as the same person with the exact same taste in books, and then somewhere around middle school, something went very very wrong.”  Now, we only overlap on the classics, while my bookshelves are riddled with romances, memoirs, and crime dramas, and hers are filled with sci-fi and post-colonial novels.

If you’re on Goodreads, find me!

[Shout-out to Jen whose latest post reminded me that I had bookish things to share.]