Now reading

I rarely leave the library with fewer than six books. I go in for one, I leave with six. I'm the Angelina of library books.

I won't bore you with the details of my bibliophilia. But I picked up some pretty fantastic books the other day, and I'm really excited to read them.

Like, writing-my-budget excited!!

Here they are, with handy links to Amazon and descriptions pulled from the book jackets (therefore, the use of the evil serial comma is not my own). The first three are the ones I'm most looking forward to... and the last three are guilty pleasures. (Don't judge.)


The Butcher and the Vegetarian
Tara Austen Weaver

"Growing up in a vegetarian family, Tara Austen Weaver never thought she'd stray. But as an adult, she found herself in poor health and, after trying cures of every kind, a doctor finally ordered her to eat meat. Warily, she ventured into the butcher shop, and as the man behind the counter wrapped up her first-ever chicken, she found herself intrigued. Eventually, he dared her to cook her way through his meat counter."


The Other Wes Moore
Wes Moore

"Two kids with the same name were born blocks apart in the same decaying city within a year of each other. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation."


Sum
David Eagleman

"At once funny and unsettling, Sum is a dazzling exploration of unexpected afterlives — each presented as a vignette that offers a stunning lens through which we see ourselves ... With a probing imagination and deep understanding of the human condition, acclaimed neuroscientist David Eagleman offers wonderfully imagined tales that shine a brilliant light on the here and now."

(The best part about this book so far is the review by Stephen Fry: "You will not read a more dazzling book this year than David Eagleman's Sum. If you read it and aren't enchanted I will eat 40 hats.")


Pretty in Plaid
Jen Lancaster

"She was a badge-hungry Junior Girl Scout with a knack for extortion, an aspiring sorority girl who didn't know her Coach from her Louis Vuitton, and a budding executive who found herself bewildered by her first encounter with a fax machine. In this hilarious and touching memoir, Jen Lancaster looks back on her life — and wardrobe — before bitter was the new black, and reveals a young woman not so very different from the rest of us."


My Remarkable Journey (Please click and take in the cover photo. Could it be more creepy?)
Larry King

"Married eight times, Larry didn't actually meet the son who had been named after him until Larry King Jr. was thirty-three years old. He has been fired, incarcerated, struggled with a three-pack-a-day smoking habit, had a heart attack and quintuple bypass surgery, and founded the Larry King Cardiac Foundation. A father, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather, Larry King is a man who can tell some tales. And he does it with humor and candor."


Mommywood
Tori Spelling

"Like most parents, Tori wants her children to have the one thing she didn't have as a kid — a normal family ... When the cameras aren't rolling, Tori's still having awkward run-ins with a former 90210 costar at a laser tag birthday party, scooping rogue poo out of the kiddie pool on a resort vacation, and racing to win back her pre-baby body before the media starts calling her fat. For all her suburban fantasies, Tori Spelling is no June Cleaver."


Even if I glean nothing insightful from Tori Spelling's book, at least I can thank her for adding the phrase "rogue poo" to my bag of tricks.