Favorite Books 2005-Part 1

The Wonder Spot
by Melissa Bank

Yes, along with Helen Fielding, Bank did help shape the pastel genre known as "chick lit". Yes, it is very similar in tone and subject to her first book, The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, but it is written so well, with so much understanding about the lives and problems of women that I didn't care.

Julie and Julia
by Julie Powell

I know I like a memoir when I want to befriend the author. That was certainly the case with this one. Unsatified with her life Julie seizes on her French cookbook and determines to make every recipe in one year and blog about it. Funny and crazy, I read this one in a weekend.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
by Amy Krause Rosenthal

This little book was a total charmer. I want to be Amy's friend too because we feel just the same about so many things (books seperate you from the world, magazines make you connected to it).

Prep
by Curtis Sittenfield

An amazing debut, this novel is about a lonely girl isolated from her fellow students at the exculsive prep school she attends. The tone was so dead on in this one it made me uncomfortable to read it because it brought back so many bad memories of my own school years.

Everybody Into the Pool
by Beth Lipnick

Of all the candiates to be the female David Sedaris, Lipnick is my favorite. Funnier than Sarah Vowell, less crazy than Laurie Notaro, Lipnick tells the story of growing up with her eccentric family with the right mix of honey and vinegar.