BOOK #88

Amanda Quick is in my top favorite romance authors of all time. She also writes as Jayne Ann Krentz. Majority of Quick's book are set in the turn of the century when women were courted and men were gentlemen. I just love that era.

And her stories are always of psychical nature. The baddies are indeed bad, the women are strangely independent and the men are always tormented.

I just love her work. This was a four hundred pager and I read it in a couple of hours. Nothing like getting lost in a story to waste a day.

I suppose one of these days, I'll get back to some serious reading. Ha!

BOOK #87

Once I start a Nora Roberts series, I always have to finish all of them. I almost didn't with this one, though. Loved the first one, but wobbled badly on the second and third. Thankfully though, the fourth one made up for the last two.

This series is set at Vows. The private estate of Parker Brown that she has turned into a wedding/reception venue. She and her three closest friends are all key components of Vows: a photographer, a florist, a baker and Parker runs it all. And of course, there are the Nora Roberts men. All strong and capable. Each book in turn is about one of the girls, her romance and inevitable engagement.

The fourth installment is Parker's story and it's just more interesting than the rest. Mostly because her story is a bit more complicated than the others and the man she tangles with is equally mysterious.

This series is not really Roberts best writing but good enough. And even her good enough is better than most.

BOOK #86

The author's life was in the shitter. Failed marriage, long custody battle, never ending lawsuit, running out of money. So he simply decided to put more good out into the universe than complain about the bad. He started writing thank you notes. To everyone. His kids, his employees, his fellow lawyers, his ex-wife. And slowly his life turned around. Not necessarily from the thank you notes but from his attitude change. I believe all the notes actually made him stop and think what was good in his life versus what was bad.

And attitude is everything.

BOOK #85

Without a doubt, Patton Oswalt is one of the funniest smartest comics working today. If you don't know him from stand up, you might know him from "King of Queens" or more recently, the voice of "Ratatouille".

His essays are brief but true to life and very very funny.

I highly recommend this book. But only if you HAVE a sense of humor.

BOOK #84

I should really make a point of starting to write down why and where I find a certain author. It's usually a link off a link from goodreads.com or sometimes even a review. I honestly cannot remember how I found about this author. But I'm glad I did.

This book is kinda sorta like "The Help" but in modern day Texas. And the kinda-sorta is a long stretch. Set in a fictional Texas small town that sounds like someplace I would live. I actually think it's based on Austin, only way smaller.

The characters are funny and believable. The horrible ex-husband is way horrible and I found myself saying out loud 'kill him!' and 'stab him!' more than once. Thank god I was tucked in bed in snowbound Wisconsin when all this killing was going on in my head.

Another fun ride of a book.

BOOK #83

I'm still on my quest to figure out why I'm retarded when it comes to love, intimacy and relationships. I discovered Dr. Berman from the OWN Network. She has a terrific sex/relationship show and I never fail to miss it. She's a very very good therapist. And the show only proves that a lot of relationships and sex lives got jacked up somewhere in the person's past. Dr. Beran is very good at untangling the couples and putting them back on a strong path.

But, this book wasn't anything new or revealing for me. One of my previous posts talked about a book called "Attached" that was a way bigger help for me than this one. But it was encouraging to know that everything she talked about in this book, I've already incorporated into my life. So I must be getting close.

But if you are not a reader of these type books, I still encourage you to either read this book or find her show on the OWN Network. She's worth it.

BOOK #82

In one of my earlier posts, I reviewed Crosley's first book of essays "I Was Told There'd Be Cake", which I loved. Next to David Sedaris, Crosley is rapidly becoming one of my favorite funny writers.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel the funny, humanity or warmth from this book as I did in the first one. Which is funny as a lot of other reviewers feel the opposite. They didn't like the first book as much as they did the second. So who knows.

But remember, any artist's first published work - whether it be writing, poetry, photography or music will be a culmination of years and years of work. It's always going to be the second body of work that shows whether they can hang tough. Crosley can. I hope she writes again.