Sunday Salon Feeling Under the Weather Edition

I have bronchitis this week so my reading has had its ups and downs.

Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel by Audrey Niffenegger Not sure how I feel about this one. It's by the same author that brought us The Time Traveler's Wife, which I greatly enjoyed. Her Fearful Symmetry was just odd. It was about ghosts and twins and twins who become ghosts and ghosts who become twins. Confused yet? Yeah, me too.

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson  I really want to like like this book. I love Bill Bryson, but this one is falling a little flat. First off we get it--you hate Republicans. Fine,  I can deal with that, just quit reminding me every other sentence. Second, why are you writing a book about America if you seem to hate America so much? I've set it aside for now, but I will pick it back up again in a few days. I'm willing to give Bill a second chance.

Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel  by Jonathan Safran Foer. Another book I really wanted to like. Good story. Good concept, in theory. It's told through the voice of a Russian translator who has had 2 years of English at college. It's like reading a book narrated by Yakov Smirnoff. Got old after about 40 pages. I won't be picking this one back up.

the god cookie: a novel by Geoffrey Wood I almost gave up on this one. Too much dialog. It was like reading a Vince Vaughn movie. I'm glad I stuck with it, though. It turned out to be a pretty cute story. It had a cake recipe in the back that I am baking as I type. You line a bundt cake pan with refrigerated cookie dough then you mix up a Duncan Hines chocolate cake mix according to the directions on the box and add a bag of chocolate chips. You pour the cake mix into the lined cake pan and bake for 1 hour. If it turns out correctly it will be a chocolate cake inside of a chocolate chip cookie. YUM!

Juliet, Naked: a novel by Nick Hornby This is basic Nick Hornby--A neurotic guy obsessed with music in a bad relationship. Only difference is this time the story is told from the point of view of the girlfriend. Very much worth reading.

Wendy