What I'm reading ...

I have started Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan. JP is one of my favourite authors, so I am looking forward to being immersed in the book. Having heard that a number of her books have been banned in Florida, my enthusiasm to read her work is piqued. Here’s the blurb:

Olivia fled her abusive marriage to return to her hometown and take over the family beekeeping business when her son Asher was six. Now, impossibly, her baby is six feet tall and in his last year of high school, a kind, good-looking, popular ice hockey star with a tiny sprite of a new girlfriend.

Lily also knows what it feels like to start over - when she and her mother relocated to New Hampshire it was all about a fresh start. She and Asher couldn't help falling for each other, and Lily feels happy for the first time. But can she trust him completely?

Then Olivia gets a phone call - Lily is dead, and Asher is arrested on a charge of murder. As the case against him unfolds, she realises he has hidden more than he's shared with her. And Olivia knows firsthand that the secrets we keep reflect the past we want to leave behind ­­- and that we rarely know the people we love well as we think we do.

The Fran Lebowitz Reader - by Fran Lebowitz

This book was very entertaining; an easy read that got me attuned to her “voice” prior to seeing her live. She has lots of radical and off the wall ideas. Some serious, many not so. I am disappointed that there is no other published material of hers that is readily available.

What I'm reading ...

I have started The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz. I have seen her on TV and enjoyed her banter. I’ll be seeing her live in a few days, so I am getting prepared. Here’s the blurb:

Lebowitz turns her trademark caustic wit to the vicissitudes of life - from children ('rarely in the position to lend one a truly interesting sum of money') to landlords ('it is the solemn duty of every landlord to maintain an adequate supply of roaches'). And her attitude to work is the perfect antidote to our exhausting culture of self-betterment ('3.40pm. I consider getting out of bed. I reject the notion as being unduly vigorous. I read and smoke a bit more').

Watermelon - by Marian Keyes

This was a good rambling read. As I may have commented before, I definitely feel this author is channelling the late, great Maeve Binchy. I like reading a book where the story is told in the first person, as I feel this gives me some insights into how another person might think. In this case, being the voice of a woman might be teaching me something.

Overall, it was a well structured story with a dramatic beginning and a reasonably clean ending. I will come back to this author.