Fluffy and Fun

Now that summer is rolling around (or at least the heat has rolled in) my literary tastes tend to lean toward the fun and fluffy. The Rock & Roll Queen of Bedlam by Marilee Brothers is the perfect choice when I'm in this sort of mood. It's the story of a woman who teaches a rough-and-tumble classroom of teens and who ends up in the middle of a whole lot of crime. It's funny and sexy and a whole lot of fun. My only gripe were the typos in the book, but maybe soon it will be hot enough to let me overlook even those.

Broadway Baby Bio

Because I am a dork who loves to listen to the Broadway station on my satellite radio. I know . . . I am annoying to passengers. Anyway, I was very excited to read A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages by Kristin Chenowith. If you're not familiar with Chenowith, she originated the role of Glinda in the Broadway production of Wicked, she was in the quirky television series Pushing Daisies, and she's done tons of other stuff. She's cute and energetic and quirky and talented, and this book was a pleasure to read. Although it covers just a segment of her life, and not the whole thing, it was still full of interesting stories and good advice. It's interesting to hear from someone in show business who has a strong Christian faith and doesn't feel compelled to hide it.

Track Record

Sometimes a book will come into the library that I'm already interested in, and then I find out that it's written by someone who's written other books that I enjoy. Score!

Masha Hamilton wrote, among other things, The Camel Bookmobile. While this book did not have an easy, "Hollywood" style ending, it was beautifully written and had characters that I ended up caring deeply about. Now I'm in the middle of her newest, 31 Hours, which I think will prove to be more of the same. The story covers 31 hours in the lives of various people--a mother who has a premonition that something is wrong with her son; the son, who is planning a terrorist attack that will end his life; the son's girlfriend, who finally knows what it is to love; etc. Thus far, I'm enjoying it immensely.

A while ago, I read a wonderful book called Three Sisters and Their Brother, which was about celebrity, New York city, and the ties that bind families together. At the time, I said that it seemed like The Catcher in the Rye for a whole new generation, without the self-consciousness that goes along with being The Catcher in the Rye for a new generation. When I picked up the new book, Twelve Rooms with a View, thinking that I wanted to read it, I suddenly realized that the author, Theresa Rebeck, also wrote Three Sisters. Yay!!!