sarahmichigan | What I've been reading

"Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?" by Jeanette Winterson, as an audiobook read by the author. This is a memoir of growing up lesbian, working class and adopted in England. It covers childhood and adolescence up until she gets into Oxford, and leaps over some middle years to hear late 40s, when she finally gets around to looking for her birth mother. Her home life is grim, but she has great compassion for even the most damaged people in her life. I love that the book is read by the author. It was moving and funny and well worth a read.

and

"Unbound," the third in the "Magic Ex Libris" series by Jim Hines. The husband and I have a little two-person "book club" and pick a book to read out loud to one another, reading 8 or 10 pages at a time and then switching, usually a chapter or half a chapter each time we read out loud. The latest read for us was this novel, the third in a series of books about "libriomancy," the ability to magically pull items out of books. Former librarian and ex-Porter Isaac Vainio has to save his student, Jeneta, from an ancient and deranged being, Meridiana, who has taken over Jeneta's body and is using Jeneta's special libriomancy skills to wreak havoc around the globe. Isaac goes around the globe and into other dimensions and puts himself in mortal danger to defeat Meridiana and her ghost army, while the Porter organization is torn by factional strife. I'm looking forward to the final book, "Revisionary."

My full comments on both books here.