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...the behinder I get. Really, I have like five books going at once now and I have to start just finishing them. This does not include the books I have to read for school. Also, is "behinder" a real word? I don't know. Today I am at work and it is just thrilling. I did manage to finish What I Was by Meg Rosoff last night, and I really enjoyed it. It was not half as good as How I Live Now, but that was a better story. I also just finished The Invention of Everything Else and I really enjoyed that. I loved the historical elements in it: Tesla's interaction with Mark Twain are brillient and Thomas Edison came off exactly as I had always imagined him. Overall, the book is filled with a sadness that is in stark contrast to an en-"light"-tend New York of the time and the effect is mesmorizing. I can't think of anything to compare it to, which is a good thing, but it is goofy and wonderful in the same way The Royal Tenebaums charmed viewers. I recommend it for...

I have to say that I am getting very excited about my cousin's upcoming wedding. It is not just because I am maid of honor, or only because I love the two of them so much. I think it is because it is NOT my wedding that I find myself ooohing and ahhing over dresses, tiaras, and invitations and I am not one bit stressed (the bride, however...). Anyway, we managed to get a lot done this weekend, including the all important spa appointment. Bliss! The Invention of Everything travelled with me, but I wasn't on the train long enough to really put a dent in it. Plus, lets face it, riding the train is fun! I guess if I had to do it everyday wouldn't think so, but I thought it was great.

Well, I'm off to Maryland for the weekend, so I thought I'd leave behind a super edition post. It reminds me of when I was a kid and the Babysitter's Club or Sweet Valley High would release the fat volume with some kind of (usually scary) theme, and I would think: Score! Yes, once a dork, always a dork. There has been a whole lotta starts and finishes going on around here. I started the new semester at school (crowd cheers " Yay " in sarcastic chant), I finished Duma Key (crowd boos), and finished The World Ends in Hickory Hollow (crowd " Aws "). Duma was a great read. I don't read too many page turners, and this one was really great. There was just enough supernatural stuff going on to keep me interested. Say what you want about King, people, and I'll defend him with my dying breath. He is this generations Edgar Allan Poe. The man makes tennis balls scary. That said, and this is coming from a true book snob, the real genius of King's wo...

The first thing I do when I visit someone's house is check out their bookshelves. Honestly, the place could be a mess and the mice could be doing the cha - cha on your entertainment center. I don't care. I just want to see what is on your shelves. A personal library tells me more about a person then anything else. I really want to know what you are reading, or what you have bought and not read yet. So, here is a peek at my shelves (because it wouldn't be fair for me to be the only peeker ). I just grabbed an entire shelf and stacked 'em on my bed. No, the dog does not usually sit on the bookshelf, she's just there for perspective. Delilah likes children's books best. Note the top book: The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, which is not one of the best books I have ever read, it maintains (for me) the BEST BOOK TITLE EVER award.

Yeah, well, what I do in the minutes I am not reading (all twenty-six of them) is watch Doctor Who, Torchwood , Lost, and Life On Mars. As I have seen everything but the new episodes, I can multi-task while they are on. When I am in school, I have very little free time, and it goes without saying that the kids always come first. Out of the time I have to myself, if I don't have homework to do, like now, I invent projects for myself to do. I love to craft, but I don't enjoy any kind of work where I am trapped in a chair (like knitting or cross stitch). As pretty as it is, it just makes me feel old to do it (despite listening to audio books while knitting). I figure I'll knit when I'm old-or in case the world ends and I need to knit my kids sweaters. It is a valuable skill. Speaking of skills, I regret not learning a musical instrument when I was younger, and I would like to remedy that. I am also unable to cook, but am blessed with a mother who can cook like a demon. The...

Today I finished Promise Not to Tell. It is a ghost-involved story of a woman who returns home to care for her ailing mother and is sucked into a new murder mystery that eerily resembles the death of her childhood friend thirty years before. Now, I'm not a murder mystery fan. So I could care less about how the mystery is revealed and blah, blah, blah. However, this little charmer involves childhood flashbacks to a seventies commune where the main character grew up and a local legend about ghost of The Potato Girl-who is responsible for everything in town from bad weather to bad fortune. For a first novel, I thought the writing was about par. The story was interesting and the clues left by The Potato Girl were original and clever. So even though we see the murderer from a mile a way, the real story of how we treat one another over the course of our lives was much more effective. I would recommend this to fans of Alice Hoffman, or to those who loved The Lovely Bones. It is a quick r...

I just finished Now You're One of Us by Asa Nonami . This creepy, not too chilly chiller was a page turner. A young woman marries into her husband's super happy family. Things are weird from the get-go and hints at a deeper darkness emerge slowly as the story unfolds. What I really admired was how Nonami shows repeat themes in the plot without rehashing the story over and over again. The main character falls into an obsession over the death of a neighbor who had connections with the family. At the same time, the family is influencing the young bride in an effective manner and the change in the character's demeanor is subtle and complete. I couldn't put it down. By the end, the story had fallen into a hypnotic, trippy nightmare that leads to a complex spooky climax. My only regret is that I didn't read this one in October or during a thunderstorm. Woooooo ....(insert ghostly howling) Other reviewers comparing the story to Rosemary's Baby are not far off, and l...