Book List

Currently reading: Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (of The Da Vinci Code fame). Reason for choosing -- I liked The Da Vinci Code, though I didn't have quite the overwhelming reaction some people did. The writing is good, researched, intelligent, and the book is LONG. A key ingredient for someone who reads rather quickly.

Just finished: Stiff by Mary Roach; about how science and research use cadavers in the US and some history about cadavers generally. Well-written, often humorous nonfiction that deals with its subject respectfully but candidly. Favorite part -- this author is a big proponent of donating organs and/or cadavers to benefit the living, and she's very up front about that. Grossest part -- the chapter on medicines made out of body parts. Ewwww.

Before that: The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan; read her memoirs recently, which I really enjoyed, and decided to revisit this author. Am looking forward to reading The Bonesetter's Daughter and The Kitchen God's Wife next. I also put The Joy Luck Club on my Netflix queue.

Started but couldn't get into: Collected Novellas by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; love this writer (100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera), but I wasn't in the mood for Leaf Storm, which was the first of the three novellas. Will put it on the shelf and return to it later.

Most anticipated arrival in the order from Powell's: Miriam's Song by Mark Mathabane. I read Kaffir Boy at the recommendation of my mother. KB is the author's own memoir of growing up in apartheid ghettoes of Johannesburg, South Africa. Miriam's Song is a kind of sequel to that; it tells the story of his younger sister who grew up in Johannesburg as apartheid fell while Mark was going to college in the US on a tennis scholarship.

Recommendations from visitors?