Finally!

Well, it's been a while! I started this blog so that I'd be better about keeping track of books I've read, and what do I do but...quit keeping track. It's time to try and catch up!

I JUST finished Charlaine Harris' Dead in the Family (Ace, May 2010), the tenth in her Sookie Stackhouse series. Sookie's a fun protagonist with her small-town Southern manners and sexy collection of vampire, werewolf, shape shifter, and fairy acquaintances. This is a series you inhale rather than read!

I seem to be unintentionally on a vampire theme because last week I finished The Historian (Little, Brown, 2005) by Elizabeth Kostova, which takes a more historical approach to Dracula. This novel contains nuances of another favorite genre, travel writing, as various historians search through the centuries and several countries for Vlad Dracul's tomb. I'm anxious to read more of Kostova's work!

Last week I also finished the audio version of Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures. I think I've read all of Chevalier's novels (Girl with the Pearl Earring and others), and I was not disappointed with this one. Remarkable Creatures is set in early 1800s Lyme Regis, England, and is based on true accounts of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, two unlikely friends battling gender and religious barriers as they explore the complex and unknown world of fossils in the cliffs and beaches of their coasts. The reading in this audio book is very well done. I loved the change in voice and dialect as the POV switched between Elizabeth and Mary.

Finally, I can't say enough good things about Kathryn Stockett's The Help (Penguin Audio, 2009), another audio book with fantastic readers. Set in Mississippi in the 1960s, Stockett's novel also depicts an unlikely friendship. Where Chevalier addresses gender, economic, and religious issues, Stockett addresses racial ones as Skeeter, a white 20-something Southern belle fresh out of college, and Skeeter's snooty friends' black maids, Aibilene and Minnie, navigates the confusing waters of the Jim Crowe, civil rights battles of the South. I love the message in this book, and I enjoyed the various historical references. The Help definitely deserves a place on the shelf right next to the beloved To Kill a Mockingbird!

I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but I feel caught up, at least! Much better!