Code Name: Verity by Elizabeth Wein. It's amazing, about a Scottish girl spy captured by Nazis and writing her confession. But really she's writing about her friendship with an awesome girl pilot! Telling you anything else would ruin it, except to say that it's GREAT. Starting to get a ton of buzz and very worth it.

I just read The Psychopath Test, which I found a tearing good read: entertaining and surprising, factual but not at all academic (which can be good or bad; I choose to think it's good in this case), and at times laugh-out-loud funny in a kinda horrible way. It's light, quick reading: I bought it on Friday, and by Saturday, both The Fella and I had torn through it.

Mario Puzo's The Last Don (1996), a classic trashy beach-side read. Spans the Bronx, Vegas and Hollywood. The pages almost turn themselves. You should find a copy at your local used paperback shop.

Also, not so trashy, but great thrillers. Frederick Forsyth's Day Of The Jackal, William Goldman's Marathon Man, and Alistair MacLean's Puppet On A Chain. I have read all of these (again) in the last few years, and they have each aged remarkably well.

Cha ching cha ching I have those three books on Kindle now.

Thank you, darling bunnies.

I've heard good things about Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. If you can find it. It's been sold out everywhere I've looked.

Rosamund Pilcher's The Shell Seekers and September (tangentially related through a shared secondary character) always struck me as the kind of books you would find at the bedsides of old ladies, but when I finally got around to reading them, they were so enjoyable. Both have sprawling feels at times due to a wide geographic and chronological spread, but they have very well-written characters -- old and young, male and female -- that give them an intimate feel. Several back and side stories going on at once, but still easy to follow and absorbing.

The Goon Squad. I just finished it. Really great and really hard to put down and yet it is a Good Book. Also, MGL put up a 5 star review of Middlesex in Goodreads. She says it is a good book which is also a page turner.

bearwife, that's by Michael Dingess?

Almost anything by Georgette Heyer. I just reread False Colours and was reminded why I love her writing so much. That's not actually one of her best (though still good). If you were starting out I think I'd recommend The Grand Sophy.

Goon Squad is Jennifer Egan, Middlesex is Jeffery Eugenides. I just started Siri Hustvedt's "Sorrows of an American."

I am almost finished with The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead. It is hard to pin this novel down.

It takes place in NYC, described to the nth detail, but unnamed. Also a fantasy world, except that nothing fantastic happens. The protagonist is Lila Mae Watson, an elevator inspector with the Department, and also an Intuitionist. That she has the best record for accuracy in the department, even surpassing the more numerous Empiricists, makes her a target. Also that she's one of two African Americans (coloreds, as they are called in the book) and the only female.

The book has reminded me of Woman on the Edge of Time by Piercy, and Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer, by Katchor. Another reviewer likened it to Ralph Ellison.

But it is oh so fun, and I am racing through it.