Cleopatra and Antony; Multiple Blessings; Stealing MySpace

"Cleopatra and Antony" by Diana Preston was a great book about the original power couple, Queen of Egypt Cleopatra and Mark Antony. While there was very little new information in here for me (I do read a lot about them, though) for someone less obsessive this would be a great introduction to why Cleopatra and Antony continue to fascinate us, even after two thousand years.
"Multiple Blessings" by Kate Gosselin is the story of TV's "Jon and Kate Plus 8". It's the early years, before the TV show. On TV Gosselin doesn't come across nearly as preachy as she did in the book. It was just a little too much for me to really enjoy it. I would have really liked to hear from poor henpecked Jon. That man deserves a medal.
"Stealing MySpace" by Julia Angwin is the story of how a bunch of guys built up the most successful social networking site in the world (at least until Facebook came along). It was interesting and reminded me of the books I read when I was a kid about Microsoft and Bill Gates.

Pieces of My Heart

Robert Wagner's "Pieces of My Heart" was quite a bit better than I was expecting. I'm not a huge RJ Wagner fan--in fact, I think the only thing I've seen him in is "Hart to Hart". I seem to recall my sister *loving* that show, although she was really young when it aired. Anyway, Wagner's obvious adoration of first and third wife Natalie Wood and his heartbreak at her tragic death were perfectly written: it came across as sincere and believable without being overdone. There was just enough Hollywood dish to keep it interesting.

Revolutionary Road; Not Quite what I was Planning; Life Sucks

"Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates was *amazing*. I absolutely cannot say enough about how much I enjoyed this book. It's the best thing I've read since Lionel Shriver's "We Need to Talk About Kevin". Just a really beautifully written and utterly believable slice of 1950s suburbia.
"Not Quite What I Was Planning", edited by Smith Magazine, is a collection of six word memoirs. Smith challenged people to write their life story in six words or less--I don't think I could do it! But some of the ones people came up with were fantastic. Funny, sad, poignant...all across the emotional spectrum.
"Life Sucks" by Jessica Abel is a graphic novel that was like a cross between "Clerks" and "Twilight". Dave is forced into convenience store slavery by his vampire master when he falls for a beautiful wanna be vampire goth chick named Rosa. It was a fun story and the illustrations were nicely done as well.

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere; Evidence of Harm; Dewey Decimal System of Love

"Neil Gaiman's Everywhere" by Mike Carey and Glenn Fabry is the graphic novel version of Neil's book, because I'm too lazy to read anything without pictures. No, I just felt like reading a comic book--excuse me, graphic novel. It was actually very well written and the illustrations were very vibrant.
"Evidence of Harm" by David Kirby chronicled the shockingly overwhelming evidence that mercury in vaccines are responsible for the climbing autism rates in this country. Even though the vaccines are supposed to be mercury free now, it's a damn crying shame that government and medical officials ignored the evidence for so long. Even if they didn't believe the vaccines were responsible for autism, they should have at least realized something had to be causing the rising rates of diagnosis, and I don't buy the better diagnosis techniques. If that were the case, then where are all the adults who were never diagnosed properly today? I don't see a lot of obviously autistic adults wandering around.
"Dewey Decimal System of Love" by Josephine Carr was a fun, quick little read recommended to me by Christine, one of the librarians I work with. Ally, a 40 year old spinster librarian suddenly develops a crazy mad crush on the conductor of a local orchestra who turns out to be a thief who specializes in stealing rare musical scores and shipping them back to his native Finland. Some of the things in the book reminded me of the Annoyed Librarian, whose blog I read religiously, like the whole martini thing. I wonder which came first?

Little Bee; Texasville; A Child's Journey Out of Autism

"Little Bee" by Chris Cleave was not nearly as good as all the blogs led me to believe. I'm seriously going to stop taking my fellow librarian's advice when it comes to reading materials. I thought it was boring and uninspired.
So for laughs I reread "Texasville" by Larry McMurtry for the umpteenth time. It never fails to cheer me up.
"A Child's Journey Out of Autism" by Leeann Whiffen was absolutely amazing. It reminded my of Jenny McCarthy's "Mother Warriors" and "Louder Than Words", which were so inspiring. My pet cause is autism, and I would love to see this epidemic come to end, to see all the children affected rescued as successfully as Whiffen's son Clay and Jenny's son Evan. Very inspiring and touching.

Here's the Story; The $trip

"Here's the Story" by Maureen McCormick chronicled her life on the "Brady Bunch" (my all-time favorite TV show as a kid--I used to go around telling people I played Cindy when I was six or so), her drug addiction, her marriage, and the death of her mom. I was really hoping for more Brady dish, like Barry Williams' book "Growing Up Brady", which I read years ago. It was good, just not what I wanted.
"The $trip" by E. Duke Vincent wasn't very good. Fiction set in Las Vegas in 1980, the characters were stereotypical and one dimensional and the plot was thin at best. I found myself struggling to get through it, and it was a very short book. Once again, just because it's set in Vegas doesn't mean it's awesome, unfortunately.

Shadow Kiss

Book three of the Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead was by far the best one yet. Rose and Lissa's school is attacked, and Rose has to battle more Strigoi. The scenes between Rose and Dimitri were great, and even though I saw the ending coming a mile away (which is unusual for me, I'm so clueless) it was still great. Can't wait for book four.