Captive Queen; Red Queen; Hollywood; Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake; I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell; Dead and Gone

Finally, a few new ones that didn't suck! "Captive Queen" by the amazing Alison Weir was a fictionalized account of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Weir does her usual brilliant job of making the story come to life and she really couldn't have picked a more fascinating woman than Eleanor.
"The Red Queen" by Philippa Gregory was the sequel to "The White Queen" and told the story of Elizabeth Woodville's counterpart, Margaret Beaufort, mother to King Henry VII and grandmother to Henry VIII. I always imagined Margaret was a bitch on wheels, and Gregory does nothing to disprove this notion. *Everyone* thought Margaret was a bitch. She really was the woman everyone loved to hate, so convinced in her righteousness of purpose of putting her son, with his incredibly weak ties, on the throne over people with better claims (like Henry's future wife and Elizabeth Woodville's daughter, Elizabeth).
"Hollywood" by Larry McMurtry was his third in the trilogy of memoirs, the other two being "Books" and "Literary Life". I didn't care for the first two, finding them too short and I had no idea who any of the people he was talking about where. "Hollywood" was better. It was still awfully short, but it was funny and at least I know who everyone was.
"Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" by Aimee Bender was better than I expected, since it's been getting such great word of mouth buzz I figured it would disappoint, but I liked it. It had an intangible quality that I can't quite explain and a bit of a sci-fi sort of feel to it that I wasn't expecting. It reminded me of "The Time Traveler's Wife" in that sense. Rose discovers on her ninth birthday that she can taste people's emotions in the food they cook, and her brother Joseph disappears without warning. She ends up learning how to cope with her strangeness and function in normal society, Joseph does not.
"I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" by Tucker Max was a reread. I caught part of the movie on TV the other night (it was atrocious, don't bother) and wanted to revel in his debauchery again, since I lead such a tame and quiet life. Hilarious.
And finally, "Dead and Gone" by Charlaine Harris, the Sookie Stackhouse book before "Dead in the Family" that I somehow missed when I was getting caught up on Sookie. It was pretty good and I enjoyed the way Sookie was able to realize she might actually need some help fighting off all the bad stuff that comes into her life. Just quit your beer slinging job and move in with your gorgeous husband, Eric, girl! Yeah, I know, I know--if she did that there wouldn't be a story anymore. FINE :)