Lately:

My Cousin Rachel, Daphne duMaurier. Love her. Did not so much love the neuroses of her narrator, and dammit, Rachel was not that  interesting.

How to Read and Why, Harold Bloom. Fust loves him and Asher hates him–I’m not sure where I stand. I am a little frightened by Bloom’s brain and the sheer volume of things he’s read and thought about, regardless of whether or not I agree with those thoughts. Who can touch him?

Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich. Glad I have a job I generally like. Not glad that some labor laws and things like breaks do not generally find their way into an average day at the store.

And the pièce de résistance: Gourmet Rhapsody, Muriel Barbery. One of the Booksmithers found out about my love affair with Hedgehog and brought me a proof of Barbery’s first book. It was published in France in 2000 and the English translation will be out in September. I’m digesting it still–for anyone interested in the sheer pleasure of food and flavor and taste, this is some incredible writing.  One paragraph in particular is about biting into a tomato; such is the allure of this book that I actually wanted, briefly, to eat one of the wretched things.

The resistance of the skin–slightly taut, just enough; the luscious yield of the tissues, their seed-filled liqueur oozing to the corners of one’s lips, and that one wipes away without any fear of staining one’s fingers; this plump little globe unleashing a flood of nature inside us: a tomato, an adventure.

Blegh.