Winter Reading

I've been making a point of going to bed a bit earlier to get in some more reading time and have been really pleased with my recent choices -

Ian Bank's The Crow Road - my most recent Indiespensable delivery turned out to be this amazing book by a very highly acclaimed British author that I'm embarassed to say I'd never heard of. Really intriguing and engaging story with one of the best opening lines in the history of literature ("It was the day my grandmother exploded"). Part coming of age story and part murder mystery, it left me wanting more of all of the main characters. I'm already planning to read it again to catch all of the clues and intricacies I missed the first time.

And on completely the other side of the coming of age spectrum, Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty. A fun and easy read chock-full of strong female characters. Setting the book in 19th century England boarding school offered some interesting perspectives about what it meant to be a girl/woman at the turn of the century. There's certainly some cheesiness and the plot's pretty convaluted at times, but the author really captures the unique struggles of female friendships. I randomly picked this one up off of the shelf at Bookpeople cause it was a staff pick and only found out AFTER reading that it's a trilogy. I'm curious enough to at least give the next one a try and I think this could be a nice counter balance to the pining of the Twilight series.

Finally, for something completely different - Freakonomics. This one was John's suggestion and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Economics (math) isn't really my thing, but the use of engaging examples to answer life's random questions really drew me in. I can't really speak to the accuracy of any of the arguments (I think there's been some debunking, and several of the concepts are pretty radical), but I do find myself considering the "why's" of things a bit differently, which I think is a good thing.