Just finished Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. They have made a movie based on it, which usually makes me want to avoid the book, but I picked this up at Walgreens on my lunch hour, where there wasn’t much by way of options. I enjoyed it a lot, although I don’t like to read modern chick-lit. I like my books to be set at least 40 years in the past, preferably 100 or more. I don’t read just to read, I read to escape, so the more different it is, the better I like it. By contrast, I have a lot of little things in common with Julie, the author of this book. She married her highschool sweetheart when she was (gasp) less than 30 – I actually had to read that section out loud to my highschool sweetheart as we were cooking dinner. It was fun and charming and totally yucky (lobster murder) and very genuine. A nice read. I have made Julia’s crepes myself many times and there are none better.
A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen was, like the 1st book in the series, a lovely little light mystery. These ones are an afternoon read at most, fast and fun. Set in the 1930′s, England. The narrator is great – an impoverished cousin of the Queen’s. Georgie is expected to act like a royal and obey summons to tea with her royal cousin, but has no income, no maid and has only just learned to boil an egg for herself. She is funny and awkward and I love all of the nicknames like only the British do (Funghi, Tubby, Fig, Binky).
Summer Camp has sapped my brain, so I picked up and re-read for the eleventy-seventh times DragonSinger and Dragonheart by the redoubtable McCaffreys. I love pretty much everything she/they have ever written.
A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander. Number 3 in a series. Enjoyed the first two and this one as well. There are many similarities to this series by Deanna Rayborne and I can’t decide if I like these more or less. That being said, this was not my favorite in this series, but it was certainly enjoyable. This one is set in Vienna and I felt as thought I didn’t ever get a very good sense of where they were and the atmosphere of Vienna at this time. There was a lot of plot and a lot less character than I would like. It has also been long enough since I read the last one that I had forgotten much about the “bad guy” and he just seemed sort of lame and flat. This is part of why I re-read things so happily, I do often forget details.
The Private Diary of Mr Darcy by Maya Slater. Picked this up with much skepticism. I love anything having to do with Jane Austen as much as the next girl, but much like my loathing of “modernizing Shakespeare”, I am always certain that I am going to dislike anyone messing about with my Austen. This is written as though it is the private journal of Mr. Darcy, with entries that follow the story from P&P. A few moments made me go “Umm, no.” but for the most part, it was entertaining. The male perspective on some of the moments from the story were quite amusing and a few bits of back story had me thinking. Not for purists, but put it on your beach reads list.
