Christmas Recommendations

Are you looking for something to brighten your holiday?

I have two great, hilarious book for those of you who would like to laugh through the holidays.

Laurie Notaro's Idiot Girls Christmas is great.

I'm skipping around in David Sedaris' Holiday's on Ice. If you only read one story about a Christmas Elf this season, read the first chapter in which David becomes an elf for Santa at a major department store. Laugh out loud funny, with a lesson in it for all of you holiday shoppers. Merry Christmas!

Bite Me!

Oh how I love Christopher Moore. He is one of my favorites, and he never fails to disappoint. In this the third of his vampire trilogy (Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck), it follows the story of Tommy and Jody, new vampires, and their hysterical minion Abby Normal (I know, I hear Igor in my head when I see that name too).

Are you not familiar with Tommy, Jody, Abby and the rest of Moore's San Francisco characters? Why? You should be. If you need an intro to Moore's San Francisco, start with Dirty Job, and then read this trilogy. I find them to be beautifully written. No, really, the man can write. But it's his humor that is the real find here. He's managed to pack a lot of funny into every page. I just loved him writing in Abby's voice, it was hilarious.

I read this book curled up on a couch, with my new cubs Snuggie, drinking starbucks Christmas blend. It was paradise. READ CHRISTOPHER MOORE. That is all I have to say. Fool (King Lear as told by the Fool) comes out in paperback soon. Read it, cherish it, tell me why you love it nearly as much as I do below.

Half Broke Horses

Jeanette Walls is a popular author, the Glass Castle was a great biography (I hear, I haven't read it yet, I'm going to I swear), and her latest Half Broke Horses was great. It's a fictionalize telling of her grandmothers life. Lily grows up on a poor ranch in Texas, moves to Chicago, and moves back west throughout the story, and throughout all of it, Lily is interesting and entertaining. Lily is tough, self assured, and independent during a time when that wasn't typical, making her life as a teacher, mother, wife and sometimes breaker of horses all the more interesting. I hear you should read this one before Glass Castles, but I'll let you know.

Sarah's Key

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay is just the latest in a string of WWII books I've been reading lately. I don't know why there is that theme in my reading, but it's there. I'm going to try to read mammoth books by my favorite authors for the month of December (Stephen King and Edward Rutherfurd put out huge tomes the last month or so). Sarah's key is about a young girl in France during, you guessed it, WWII. It details the French police's rounding up of Parisian Jews and sending them to Auschwitz. The story also follows an American in Paris in 2002 as she discovers that the apartment she and her family are about to move into has more history than they knew. I liked this book a lot, though the people who said it would make me cry were off the mark. I've had this book forever, but I lent out my ARC, and it only recently made it's way back to me, so many of you have probably already read it. I found it interesting and well written, but I'm not sure I understand why it's been so hugely popular. Thoughts?