Just catching up and found four more books on your lists I've also read: The Day the World Came to Town... Loved it and made me really want to go and visit Casey in Newfoundland. Marley & Me... it was about an ill-behaved dog with some real personality issues and an owner/writer who glorified his existance. Forgive me, but I didn't find this book cute and touching like so many others have. Poisonwood Bible... One of my all time favorites, but then I enjoy most of Kingslover's books. Shadow of the Wind... Kept me spellbound and wanting for more. Jodi-

I just finished "Twelve Years a Slave" by Solomon Northup and "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood. I considered both thought provoking. Twelve Years is a true story and there is a movie that came out a while back. I am currently reading "The Difference: How Anyone Can Prosper in Even The Toughest Times" by Jean Chatzky. I haven't really come across anything I didn't already know, but sometimes I like to remind myself of what I do know. My kids love to read also. It's hard to keep them in books. There are four of us who usually read each book so I go ahead and buy them. Plus, the library never seems to have the complete series. I just bought my boys "The Giver" series by Lois Lowry and "Ender's Game" series by Orsen Scott Card. Dd is currently reading the Harry Potter series and the latest "Dork Diaries" book.

Wood - the Sarton book was "The House by the Sea" which was written when she was older and had moved away from the small town where she had lived. As I mentioned before, I found it to be an interesting meditation on life... I have put Maeve Binchy to the side for right now (temporarily) and in its place picked up "The Understudy" by David Nicholls (he who wrote "Starter for Ten" and "One Day" which I know other RPers have read)... "The Understudy" is another winner. A good plot involving an English superstar actor, his understudy (the hero of the book), and his friendship with both the star and his wife. Great fun to read -- one of those rare books which suck you in and he has his characters doing things that you (i.e. me) would do. For example, the protagonist is in his agent's run-down office and is sitting on a chair with the yellow foam sticking out and he has to remind himself not to pick at the foam... Maybe not the best example, but I honestly felt that I had known his characters by the end of the book. Anyway, if you like his other work, you'll like this one. (Also found out that David Nicholls was one of the creators of the tv series Rescue Me which has a great sly sense of humour in it...) Then picked up a NF book about extreme weather events, but the author has such a drive to talk about his agenda and take on global warming, that "everything" is put into "quotation marks" and it gets a bit "irritating" after a while. Additionally, he sucks the "interesting" out of any of the weather situations he talks about. How can you make a tornado boring? I don't know, but he does. Not too sure what to read next... but isn't that half the fun of reading?

At Swm Two Boys, It may be a bit of a challenge, because it is so Irish lol. Very lyrical. It took me a bit t get into it but it is one of my most favorite books. And of course, Angela's Ashes. I read that one in a day. Completely enveloped me. That was my father and mothers Ireland. My dad says he could never read it, that McCourt should never have written it, it was a very "disrespectful" book. I said well at least he waited till after his mother had died. My dad said, doesn't matter. Us irish are good at being totally in denial lol. Roddy Doyle is another writer that my sister and I enjoy.