Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich

Once again, I laughed out loud (or at least snortled) at least once almost every chapter. What a terrific summer beach read! Evanovich's writing is crisp, her characters are loony, Grandma Mazur is a pip, and who even cares about the plot? (Although the plot wasn't that bad either.)

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes -- And Why, by Alexandra Ripley

Amazing book - fascinating, well-written, and surprisingly not that depressing. I'm going to quote from the introduction here, since it does a better job of explaining what the book is about than I could.   "All across the nation we have snapped plates of armor onto our professional lifesavers. In return, we have very high expectations for these brave men and women. Only after everything goes wrong do we realize we're on our own. And the bigger the disaster, the longer we will be on our own. No fire department can be everywhere at once, no matter how good their gear."   "This book goes inside the black box and stays there. The Unthinkable is not a book about disaster recovery; it's about what happens in the midst -- before the police and firefighters arrive, before reporters show up in their rain slickers, before a structure is imposed on the loss. This is a book about the survival arc we all must travel to get from danger to safety."

The Sister by Poppy Adams

Thanks to Diane C for recommending this spooky contemporary Gothic novel to me. It was a page-turner... but like Diane, I was left with some unanswered questions after I got to the end. (To say more would probably spoil things for other readers.) If I had to choose between two contemporary Gothic novels I'd pick Diane Setterfeld's The Thirteenth Tale over this one, but it's still a pretty good summer read.

What I Know Now: Letters to my Younger Self edited by Ellyn Spragins

The tagline is "Extraordinary women share the wisdom they wish they'd had when they were younger" and I can't say it any better than that. Some of the letters these women wrote to their younger selves gave me goosebumps. I'm buying this for a bunch of people!

What I've been reading lately

Lots of trashy magazines

"House of Many Ways" by Diana Wynne Jones - an enjoyable "sequel" to Howl's Moving Castle

"Without A Map" by Meredith Hall. A memoir about what happens when a family abandons their child after she makes a mistake.

"The One Thing You Need To Know" by Marcus Buckingham -- interesting!

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg

Another wonderful book by the talented Elizabeth Berg. These short stories are funny, touching, and really ring true. This author is wonderful!

Eternity Road by Jack McDevitt

Not bad, not bad -- but I prefer his more futuristic stuff.

The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones

A very satisfying book by the extremely talented Ms. Jones. I am dying - DYING! - to read the sequel to Howl's Moving Castle which came out recently. Unfortunately they didn't have a copy at the bookstore so I guess I'll have to wait till the copy I requested from the library comes in.