The Last Girls - Lee Smith

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9781565124059-7 - In college, a group of girls traveled down the Mississippi River on a raft...roughly thirty years later, one of the girls has died in an accident, and the others are reunited for another trip. While the book is set in 1999, there are flashbacks to the girls' childhoods and time in college. It is very similar to the Ya-Yas - though the women haven't mantained their close friendships over time, if they ever were actually friends to begin with. While some of the characters were a bit tedious, overall I really enjoyed the different stories about their lives growing up in the South.

Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith (Isabel Dalhousie Series - Book 1)

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780676976892-0 - The first installment of the Isabel Dalhousie series by the author who writes the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series (which I recommend) - like his other novels, this one was relatively simple. It centers around a man who falls off an opera balcony in front of the main character - Isabel. She spends the novel searching for clues about the man and the cause of his death. But, the book is more about Isabel's character and her relationships with her maid, niece, and niece's ex-boyfriend, than about the actual mystery. Not the most riveting book ever, but a fast read - for some reason I just like this author.

Moo - Jane Smiley

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780804117685-0 : This one has been sitting on my shelf for years, and I finally got around to it - I thought it was excellent - very fun and full of interesting characters. The book is set on the imaginary college campus of Moo - filled with self-centered philandering professors, nervous freshmen, and academic politics. At times it seemed like Smiley was trying to do too much, but overall this was really well written. I recommend it (along with her Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Thousand Acres)

End of January

No, "End of January" is not the title of a book. Sadly, the month is over and I only finished 2 books!! Though I did get started on a couple. Tomorrow we are headed to Maui for Greg and Jessica's wedding. I'm hoping that will give me a chance to finish up a couple new ones for February!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-0671027344-0 - Raz gave me this one for Christmas - it is a quick read, written in the format of letters from the main character - Charlie - to an unidentified friend. The books takes us through Charlie's freshmen year of high school where his best friend has just commited suicide and Charlie appears to have no other friends. The book is very simply written - to the point where I often assumed Charlie was supposed to be slightly mentally retarded. But, given his performance in school and special attention from teachers, it is more likely that he is incredibly intelligent and just completely socially inept. While the book has no amazing revelations, it is very beatifully written - and often painful in its truth. I really enjoyed reading this - though the ending was a tad bit depressing.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl

http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780143112129-0 : Ashley gave this to me for Christmas, after she started reading it. Listed as one of the top 5 fiction books of 2006, this is the fictional autobiography of Blue Van Meer, a high school senior with the IQ of a genius. After moving from town to town with her professor father, the two finally settle down for Blue's senior year at an exclusive prep school. While there, Blue falls in with an eccentric film teacher and five students. A strange death occurs, and Blue finds herself in the middle of a mystery. While pretentious at times, the writing is fabulous and the story engrossing. I found the ending a bit unsatisfying, but overall I would highly recommend this book - definitely among the best I've read in a very long while.

"A Study in Scarlet" - Arthur Conan Doyle

I recently bought The Complete Sherlock Holmes - after I had a taste of the detective over a Stanford alumni serial email. A Study in Scarlett was the first short story/novella in the collection. The writing is a bit dense and tends to go off on seeming tangents...but I did enjoy the introdcution to the famous, albeit arrogant, Holmes. The frustrating part of the mystery is that it is impossible for the reader to solve - meaning that no clues are dropped along the way. As I was reading online about the story, it was pointed out that this mystery "convention" had not yet been invented - and that Doyle was in fact developing the mystery genre as he went. It's very interesting, though at time tiresome, to read Sherlock Holmes - fun to see the genre developing, but frustrating that things we've become so accustomed to seeing in detective fiction are not yet included. I'm excited to keep reading the collection now and again.