Appetites: Why Women Want

--Carolyn Knapp

Powells' Review (excerpt):

The late Caroline Knapp was not Everywoman, but there were enough women — and men — who felt that her writing spoke directly to them to put her first book, the memoir Drinking: A Love Story, on the bestseller list. Her second book, about the relationship between people and dogs, did nearly as well. Her third, Appetites, published now, a year after she died at 42 from complications arising from lung cancer, may seem like the culmination of her writings just because it is the last one we'll have from her. But the scope of the book, its effort to root out all the ways that women's desires get twisted, thwarted, redirected and obliterated, using her own youthful bout with anorexia as a case in point, suggests that Appetites was a keystone work for her.

It's also a heart-rending one, because despite the manifest intelligence and sensitivity of Knapp's writing — this is quite possibly the smartest and deepest anorexia memoir ever written, and it's also more than just a memoir — she only occasionally manages to grasp the source of the agonies she details so well. It's as if she's trying to describe a yard behind a tall fence, a scene she can only catch glimpses of by jumping as high as she can. There's a flash of the other side here, and again there, but often she's just telling us about the fence. Yet you can't help but think that Knapp almost made it over that barrier, and that if she had been given a few more years she would have arrived in full.

http://www.powells.com/review/2003_05_23.html

"Wicked Autumn" by G.M. Malliet. I so love my cozy mysteries and all the more if they're set in the UK.

What could be more dangerous than cozy village life in the English countryside?

Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold’s in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. Now he has found a measure of peace among urban escapees and yoga practitioners, artists and crafters and New Agers. But this new-found serenity is quickly shattered when the highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women’s Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max’s training as a former agent kicks in, and before long he suspects foul play.

Max has ministered to the community long enough to be familiar with the tangled alliances and animosities among the residents, but this tragedy surprises and confounds him. It is impossible to believe anyone in his lovely village capable of the crime, and yet given the victim, he must acknowledge that almost everyone had probably fantasized about killing Wanda Batton-Smythe.

As the investigation unfolds, Max becomes more intricately involved. Memories he’d rather not revisit are stirred, evoking the demons from the past which led him to Nether Monkslip. In WICKED AUTUMN, G.M. Malliet serves up an irresistible English village—deliciously skewered—a flawed but likeable protagonist, and a brilliantly modern version of the traditional drawing room mystery.

One of The Boston Globe's Best Mysteries of 2011
One of Library Journal's Best Mystery Books of 2011

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ITYKxazuGL...ked-autumn.jpg

According to many, I should be ashamed of myself, but...

The Hunger Games Trilogy.

The_JD recommended it, and I could barely put it down! It's getting its second read-over now (just starting Catching Fire again.)

To give myself a break, I'm rereading Battle Royale (yes, same basic premise, but I read Battle Royale many years ago.)

i actually just finished the hunger games trilogy too
my niece and nephew were hyping it up pretty good but i feel rather indifferent about the series

right now i'm mid way through 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created - Charles C. Mann

the author clumsily tries to distance modern feelings toward some of history's more horrible aspects by using weak academic reasoning but i'm really enjoying it
so much to ponder with this book

i'm rereading the hunger games now with a group of friends on another board :) the first two books are still annoying me for certain reasons but...they're growing on me. i want to see the movie now. (okay, lenny kravitz as cinna is kind of amazing.)

still on the beginning of sex & disability. it's good so far.

i've also been rereading ruthless trust by brennan manning on and off :) it's one of my favorite religious/devotional books.

Darkness Visible ~ A memoir of Madness By William Styron (fitting)

So many great restaurants that are no longer in business. Great illustrations of food and landmarks.

http://www.cookbookery.com/images/me...s5/newford.JPG

"Physics of the future". By Michio Kaku

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer

I've not seen the film, I'm not sure if I want to see it at all.

The book is very beautiful: the narrator delightfully odd and loveable, the story is terribly sad.

I'm a big fan of Foer's writing; if you've not read anything of his I would recommend "Everything is Illuminated" highly (the film adaptation is quite good too).

I hope I'm doing this right (respond to message)
 

I can relate so well with asperger syndrome...

Sound of a miracle a child's triumpth over autism
 

Life of Pi
Yann Martel

http://media-cache0.pinterest.com/up...a1X6XmCw_c.jpg

How to build one of these. :)

Just finished The Hunger Games Trilogy and now on to Power Down by Ben Coes for my political Science class.

Reading: Life-Saving Health Secrets JJ Despain and Everyday Mexican A Collection of Essential Recipes... I love Mexican food...

Stones from the River ~ Ursula Hegi