“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” 

– Marcus Tullius Cicero – 

I’m sitting here this afternoon sick as a dog. (Though I wonder what that expression really means.)  I didn’t feel like working on my book today because my concentration is shot to hell and the trips to the bathroom are frequent.  So, I did what any good writer does, I read.  I wanted to take a second though to catch you up on some of my more recent reads.

Because life has been a little stressful lately, comic relief is necessary.  So when I stumbled across “Girl Walks Into A Bar” by Rachel Dratch, I knew I was in for a treat. 

You may have seen her on Saturday Night Live. This former cast member put pen to paper and wrote a fabulously funny midlife memoir about dating and becoming a mother when she was 44 years old. 

She talks about her “high school methods” of birth control and breaking the news to her boyfriend.  I have to say, breaking that news isn’t a fun moment and her recollection of the story is totally relatable. 

I also got an “insiders” look at Hollywood and, just as I suspected, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. 

Another great read with characters that spring off the page is “Gone: A Novel” by Cathi Hanauer. 

It’s a pretty quick read.  I got to see inside the minds of both the main characters, Eve and John.  The book is a modern take on marriage and finding one’s self.  I can’t say it’s the “best” book I have read, but it does show some of the trials and tribulations of marriage and family and coping. There were a couple of sagging parts and there were some nutrition / health related subplots that were a little weird for me and I can’t place my finger on “why.” Maybe it was the tone that was used? Maybe that’s just me. My only real concern was the ending appeared a little abrupt, but overall, it’s worth the read.