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The highlights:

(1) The Big Love by Sarah Dunn. Simply the best chick-lit book I've read in awhile. The story is familiar -- guy breaks up with girl, she's broken hearted and ready to rebound. But Dunn writes with a perfect touch, infusing the story with hilarious observations.

(2) The Family Tree by Carole Caldwalder. A wry and funny look at British family life. The narrator contemplates her lackluster marriage to her geneticist husband, and remembers her 70's era childhood.

(3) Apaloosa by Robert Parker. I'm a big Robert Parker fan. Huge. Especially the Spencer books, even though Susan Silverman annoys the snot out of me (which I don't feel guilty saying since I read somewhere a few years ago that Parker's wife also can't stand Mrs. Silverman, understandably, since everyone thinks that the uber-annoying character was based on her). I am not, however, a fan of westerns. But I loved Apaloosa. It was Spencerish, in that there was a lot of attention paid to what kind of men are drawn to the sort of work of killing other men, but the setting and characters made it fresh. And Parker's spare, insightful dialogue is as great as ever.

(4) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling. A few weeks have passed by since I read this book, and I honestly don't know how I feel about it. Like all of the HP books, I was riveted. But I think it was my least favorite of the series so far, mostly because I was 99% sure of how it would end (and I was right). It seemed more like a bridge between the fifth and final book . . . more of an explanation of what to come, rather than what was currently happening. But still, it was Harry Potter, and -- just like brownies -- even the least best one is still pretty damn good.

Posted 08 August 2005 at 11:44 AM