On LibraryThing I entered all of the drawings for free ARC copies of books. I actually got one! In the mail from Random House I recieved "The Art of Forgetting", the debut novel from one Stefan Merrill Block. So far I'm torn on it... don't get me wrong it is a really well-written novel. The set-up sort of reminds me of one of my all-time favorites, Nicole Krauss's "The History of Love" where we follow two different people and they somehow intersect. One half of the book deals with a young, isolated boy whose mother is diagnosed with a type of Alzehemiers that occurs early in life. The other half deals with an old man with a hump, currently and flashbacks to when he was younger. He is in love with his brothers wife and when the brother goes off to war he impregantes the wife. Again, it's beautifully written and delves into these characters DEEP. So deep, actually, it's painful. The book is a complete downer and I'm ashamed I've been forcing myself to return to it so I can get my review in ASAP.
So I'm reading two other books that are effectively getting my mind off that one. One if "Suddenly You" by Lisa Kleypas. I've just recently got into historical novels after picking on them my whole life, by Amanda Quick's "Slighty Shady" and the wonderful Julia Quinn has brought me over. So far I'm loving this book, the heroine is a really cool, independent author with really interesting characters surrounding her.
The other book is one I wasn't planning on reading right away, but when it showed up from my favorite site Paperback Swap I picked it up and haven't been able to put it back down. It's a memoir by model/actress Karen Duffy called "Model Patient: My Life As an Incurable Wise-Ass". She was on top of the world with her career (including her work on Michael Moore's TV shows, which I loved her in. Also her ads for that old Cover Girl perfume "Navy", which I wore religiously and wanted to look like her badly) and dating Dwight Yokem and casually seeing Chris Farley and George Clooney on the side, when she started feeling major pain. She was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a rare disease that attacks the central nervous system- it basically hardens on your soft organs, disturbing their function. The book is incredibly funny and reads as fast as my eyeballs can go, so I highly recommend it. Ever since I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia at 18 and systemic lupus at 21 I've had an obsession with memoirs of people that suddenly get sick, especially at a young age. One of these days I'll put together a list of the best I've read.
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