I'm reading Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz and I'm finding it fascinating! The main character is an admission officer at Princeton so part of the story focuses on the admission process of Ivy League schools.

After having come here 2 weeks in a row, announcing that I quit on my book because I didn't like the device, I'm re-reading Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

I'm having a good time. So far, some of my favorite descriptions are, Dead men are heavier than broken hearts, and …her face fell apart like a bride’s pie crust. This is a special favorite: She approached me with enough sex appeal to stampede a businessmen’s lunch…

I discovered Chandler by accident while I was in 9th grade. One of the boys in my class was caught reading a brown-paper covered paperback of Mickey Spillane's, I, the Jury (swiped from his brother, home from college) and the way all h*ll broke loose, you'd have thought he was holding infant sacrifices in the 3rd floor boys' room! When the rest of us saw just how near apoplectic the faculty and administration had become over this, why, it was our civic duty to all - each and every one of us! - read it. From there, we passed around paperback copies of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. (It's both stunning to remember and almost impossible to explain just how repressed and controlling High Schools were back then)

I don't think that, at 14 or 15, I knew enough to really enjoy Chandler. I certainly didn't appreciate the innocence of the era.

I'm experimenting with polygamy this week. I'm still reading the novel House of Leaves, and for a non-fiction break, I've picked up Graham Robb's The Discovery of France. Yesterday a real stunner was perched on my desk -- Eiffel's Tower, due for a May release -- but I resisted a casual fling.

Let's see:
Peter Straub's Hellfire Club - slow going, but little by little, it's starting to get interesting

Liberation by Brian Slattery, one of those books that opens strong and keeps the throttle wide open

Return Engagements - Harry Turtledove (on my iTouch) - it's the first Turtledover book I've read, he does alternate histories, pretty good stuff

I have just finished, A Year on Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball. It was excellent. I also read Joanne Fluke's Cream Puff Murder. It was an excellent addition to her series.
I also read Scat by Carl Hiaasen to preview for my 6th grade class. It was a good novel for younger readers.

Truth in Comedy, the improver's Bible.

It's a helpful book with lots of suggestions and games and some interesting quotes from famous people. But it's really weird to read the multiple quotes from Chris Farley that are really dedicated to his professionalism and how he honed his craft through improv. Farley was never a subtle comic, but he was thoughtful, certainly moreso than I ever thought. And it's unfortunate that he's mostly remembered as a "fat SNL guy who ODed" cliche.

I really want to read Mists of Avalon but it's quite the chunkster so I need to find a bit more time for that one.

Right now I'm almost finished BoneMan's Daughters by Ted Dekker and boy is it keeping me on the edge of my seat. I'm also read The Traitor's Wife by Susan Higginbotham which I'm really enjoying too.

Dave, how are you liking House of Leaves?

Nancy tried telling me it was "horror/thriller" but I really thought it was a lot more than that. The physical layout of the book was very intriguing and really altered my experience of what the book was.

For my What I'm reading I just re-opened Eggers What is the What. We'll see how it goes this time.

I'm reading Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry, and as usual, Winterson weaves her magic.

Pat, it's taking me a while to get into House of Leaves. The story's intriguing and the mystery is beginning to develop. The style takes some getting used to, because it's a tale told by a madman, so there are diversions that are maddeningly obtuse.
Hope you like WITW -- it's very sad but very compelling.

Disturbing author ids -- I run into that problem all the time, or perhaps I'm reading too much into what I'm reading. And it doesn't even need to be an id, just a jarring bit of characterization that throws me out of the story and makes me start speculating about the author.

The worst case of this I ever ran across was Sharyn McCrumb's "If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him," which indulges in male-bashing to the extent that it made me wonder what happened in the author's life. Not only does one of the characters take up 'romantically' with a dolphin (because men are not to be trusted), but the detective's husband (long since established in earlier books as a swell guy) is simply discarded -- lost at sea -- in a manner completely irrelevant to the plot. It made me think the author could no longer believe in the existence of a nice guy, but couldn't quite bring herself to sleaze him up like all the other men in the book.

Most recently, I read a couple of mysteries by Michael Craft, which feature a New York theatre director (female) transplanted to the American Southwest ("Desert Spring", "Desert Autumn"). They're told from the female character's viewpoint, and like the books of Robin Cook, I'll read them for the plot, but the persona doesn't ring true. In this case, they struck me as a gay man's idea of a female character, which could be a lot of fun in another setting, but was just preventing me from suspending disbelief in this one. I say that without knowing anything about the author; it's just the way they struck me, so maybe I should blame the reader id rather than the author id.

The mention of polygamy above reminds me that I enjoyed "The 19th Wife" much more -- casually recommended to me by a man in a restaurant who saw me reading. Fascinating bits of history (including fake Wikipedia entries that made me check out the real thing) and a novel within a novel.

Well I haven't yet created a world wide rave, but at least that book won me a book. It's good for something.

I will be well prepared to read Jailbait Zombie. I'm now reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's all Nancy's fault. She has started me down the zombie path. Actually, though, I have to admit -- it's a lot of fun. Very, very clever. I'm enjoying it. The illustrations (e.g., Elizabeth lifted her skirt, disregarding modesty, and delivered a swift kick to the creature's head) are terrific, although they're probably not as good on the Kindle as in the hard copy. Just in case anybody's looking for it on the Kindle, the book is listed in the Kindle Store at Amazon, but the Kindle edition doesn't seem to be referenced at all where the hard copy of the book is listed on the Amazon website. Maybe this is the work of a zombie or Jane Austen lover hacking away at Amazon.

I am thoroughly enjoying "A Charmed Life : Growing Up in MacBeth's Castle" by Liza Campbell. It's non-fiction, but quite a ride. The author is the daughter of the former Thane of Cawdor, who seems at least half-mad in her telling of the family story. And doesn't every family have a "family tree" within the castle walls?