Two-Sentence Book Reviews / Baby Update

My update for you is that I will be pregnant forever and will never have this baby.  I'll just  keep getting bigger and bigger and lay around my belly until the end of time.  Still - the silver lining is that I'll get a lot of reading done!

Over the last couple of weeks, I have knocked out five books.  You don't have forever to read this blog post, so I'll keep it concise with a two-sentence review for each.  Plus, I just got a new book from the library and am eager to start it!  Also, Vivian needs some kisses.  So - win, win, win.  

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

This was a fun and unusual read we selected for our June book club meeting about memory competitions and chronicles the author's experience with fairly quickly becoming a national memory champion.  I especially enjoyed all of the interesting folks Foer meets along the way, and have a wonderful new method for remembering a grocery list for the rest of my life (which features Claudia Schiffer in my kitchen, dripping with cottage cheese - wheee!)

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Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven

I've already been recommending this amazing YA novel left and right.  It's not predictable, it's not angsty, and the heroine weighs 300+ pounds (down from 600+) but we don't follow her on any sort of boring weight loss journey....the whole book is super refreshing and I drank it down like I wish I could drink down the bottle of Dark Horse Cabernet that Jeff left sitting on the counter.

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The River by Peter Heller

Modern Mrs. Darcy said that this was the best book she's read all year and I therefore went in with pretty high expectations that were bound to be shattered.  It was beautifully written and would be a great novel to pick apart with others, but nothing in it was so memorable to me that I will even probably remember it in six months.  

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Super lame cover, though.

The Pursuit of Other Interests by Jim Kokoris

This book about a corporate advertising bigwig who gets fired is an excellent example of a tired plot that is perfectly executed and I couldn't help but love every minute of it.  It's so gratifying to watch a turd polished into a decent human being, and I found the whole book funny and insightful.  

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The Library Book by Susan Orlean

I just finished this book about the Los Angeles City Library fire (and really about libraries in general) a few minutes ago, though I've had my eye on it forever.  I loved it - Orlean volleys all around between the fire, the suspect, the past, present, and future of libraries, libraries around the world, and back to the City Library and it really worked for me.  

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Next up:  I've got what I believe will be a fairly heavy read for book club to start momentarily (after Vivian kisses) and to balance that out, I downloaded a fluffy but hopefully not TOO fluffy romance on my phone.  

As a legit update, I do expect to be having a baby in the next week or so (July 10th at the latest).  I will not be giving up my blog, but posting could be spotty for a month or two.  Then I'll post pictures of us reading together and it'll be the cutest thing ever.