Please Accept my Apologies...I've been MIA

After a painful and particularly aggravating round with my tendonitis/carpal tunnel, I could barely zip my pants much less type, so I haven't blogged in ages! I have missed you, however, and have a long list of books to review backed up from even before my absence. So I promise to start today.

First of all, I just finished THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB by Karen Joy Fowler. As a big Austen fan, I really loved the discussion about the characters from her novels. I liked the parallels in the lives of the club members, yet it wasn't ridiculously parallel. However, the entire time I was reading it, I wished I was reading it with a book club. It would be such a good book to read and discuss, chapter by chapter. Funny enough, THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB would make a marvelous book club selection in itself. It is one of the many books that, once finished, I'm dying to find someone else who read it, so we can discuss it. So yes, I recommend this book, with two pieces of advice: 1. Keep Austen close in reach, you'll want to pick it up over and over again. and 2. Get a friend to read it at the same time, or if you're lucky enough, a book club!

Next, I finally, ridiculously, after long last read THE GUERNSEY POTATO PEEL PIE LITERARY SOCIETY (I hope I got that title right, but it will be correct in the margin), and I just LOVED it. I confess that I have had the book for a while and just couldn't get into it at first as it is told through a series of letters, but about thirty pages in, it finally clicked for me, and I was hooked. It was a marvelous, heart-soaring adventure about community and small town life during a brutal war and the aftermath that lasts for generations. A beautiful, engaging story with a most satisfying end.

Summer is a'coming, so gather ye rosebuds-er, books- while you may, so they are on hand for summer reading. More reviews to come in the coming days. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be lucky enough to get a few new ones for my birthday tomorrow (how can someone gift you a kindle book-does anyone know?).

(Just a bit of eavesdropping...I just heard this in the other room:
My YS: Tomorrow is mom's birthday.
OD: Are you serious?
YD: Nah, it's too soon.
YS: Yeah, it is. I'm making this for her.


Anyway, I just returned from a great, inspiring trip to Ohio where I met with my best writing bud, Jody. We spent hours, and I mean, hours, in bookstores and in book talk, so I'm fired up to get back to writing. Thankfully, my wrist is up for it now! Woo hoo.

Everyone have a wonderful Saturday.