Little Pink Slips

Now THIS was a great read. Sally Koslow, former editor of McCall's before Rosie took it over, pens a roman a clef about a women's magazine that 's taken over and run into the ground by an outsize celebrity. All kinds of dish about the workings of a magazine, plus a romantic sub-plot and a happy ending. Fun fun fun.

Jemima J

By Jane Green. Borrowed this from a friend in Denver. I'm woefully under-read in the chick-lit arena, considering my job as editor of a women's website. Although the ending is clear from about page 2, it's still an enjoyable page turner, especially for a cofirmed anglophile such as myself. Even if the random switching from first-person/second-person narration gets a little mish-mashy.

Throne of Jade

Yes, I am a confirmed geek. No surprises there. I thoroughly enjoyed this, the second installment of Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, in which dragon and handler visit China during the Napoleonic wars.

Blood at the Root

by Peter Robinson. Detective Alan Banks investigates the death of a skinhead.

Not my favorite, but I always like Robinson.

Affinity

Dark Victorian novel/thriller about a gentlewoman who becomes entranced by one of the prisoners she visits as part of her suite of Victorian-lady good deeds. This is one of those where I came this close to missing my subway stop. Sarah Waters is so enormously engaging.

Freddy and Fredericka

Loved. It. I think this is the kind of novel you could describe as picaresque -- loveable rogue-ish hero and heroine, rollicking adventures across the U.S., lashings of satire. Hmm. That didn't sound that good. This book was so much fun, I'm telling you.

Plot: Prince and Princess of Wales, who bear a passing resemblance to the Charles and Di of yore, need to prove they're worthy of the crown, so are sent to America to conquer it. I love Helprin, and this was very him. Humor interspersed with magical, lyrical passages about nature and life and spirit.

Mindless Eating

Borrowed this from my Health Editor friend who had it on her shelf. I remember being curious about it when it came out. By Brian Wansink, PhD, it's addressed the growing amount of obesity in the U.S. by examining how various cues can cause us to overeat. He's basically a sociologist -- a food psychologist, I think is his official title -- who did all kinds of experiments involving making it harder or easier to eat. The "bottomless soup bowl" is one people seemed to report on when the book came out. He and his grad students (at Cornell, he's the director of their Food and Brand Lab) created a setting where they could keep a bowl of soup perpetually filled, so that the "stop eating" cue of an empty bowl never happened. Not only did people eat and eat, they didn't have any awareness that their soup wasn't disappearing at the right rate.

Anyway, all kinds of stuff like that. Most of it is "obvious", but a number of chapters address how even the obvious goes unnoticed by all of us. Even experts, even well-educated knowledgeable people, even the author himself. A pretty powerful argument for putting more veggies on your plate, and making your plate smaller in the first place. But the best part is how readable it was, fun, and not opaque in the slightest.

Lucky

I have to say, I didn't think I was going to enjoy Alice Sebold's memoir about how she was raped as a college student. But I did. The voice of the narrator -- her -- is that of a survivor. But rather than identify as a Survivor, she is adamant about being a person to whom something awful happened, rather than a career victim.

She has a unique, super-charged engaging voice and I thought the book was terrific.

I'm still wary of The Lovely Bones. Something about a story narrated by a dead girl, I find off-putting. Even having seen what Sebold did with her own personal horror story. But I have moved a little. I used to be adamant about not reading Bones. Now I'd probably be willing if I came across a copy. But I'm not going to seek it out.