I need to take stock of what I’ve read so far. I know it’s far from the designated goals, and I know I’m missing a couple of books in there, but here is the gist of it, what I can remember:

Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
Quiet American, Graham Greene
Case Histories, Kate Atkinson
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
American Vertigo, Bernard Henri-Levy
Highest Tide, Jim Lynch
Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami
Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
Man of My Dreams, Curtis Sittenfeld

That makes TEN books. I have a few more I could report on tomorrow, but... I may not. Sigh. Well, this isn’t a Reading Year for me, I guess. More like the Year of Expensive Purchases, like a house, and a super-fancy mountain bike that I have ridden exactly once, and the fact that I have to keep buying the garbage bags and paper towels for the book store myself if I want to maintain any semblance of tideness. So I guess I've been so busy spending money that I have not had a moment to read a book! I'm pretty much out of money, though, so I think I can get back into it soon. Reading, thankfully, is cheap entertainment.

The Man of My Dreams

I just finished The Man of My Dreams, the second book by current literary darling Curtis Sittenfeld.

I really enjoyed it. Much like Prep, her first book, it was sort of girly, chick lit (hate that term), but also not quite as fluffy as all that.* And also like Prep, I (probably unfortunately) found myself identifying with her main character, Hannah. I say "unfortunately" because for much of the book Hannah comes off as negative and bitter. But I still loved the story, and connected with a lot of Hannah's struggles.

"I know I only met you once before today, but you seem like you have your act together. You don't seem like you need rescuing."

Is the depressing part that he's only half right - it's not that she doesn't need rescuing but that nobody else will be able to do it? She has always somehow known that she is the one who will have to rescue herself. Or maybe what's depressing is that this knowledge seems like it should make life easier, and instead it makes it
harder.

See? Kind of narcissistic, a little bitter, but I like it. Fun!