Only since I know everyone cares what I've been reading

After Atonement, I read Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. I had heard of the series, but I guess I thought it was another detective series for people who buy books in drug stores. (Um, not that there's anything wrong with that if you do). But I was wrong. (I think. Maybe they are available at Walgreens? I'll research this.)
No. 1, as I'll call it, is the kind of book that starts out simple and kind of gets under your skin. It felt kind of like literary comfort food at first (I haven't read a detective novel in a while), but very different from the Agatha Christie books mentioned several times in the book. It's not really a detective novel (in the normal sense) though; the narrator, Precious Ramotswe solves most of her cases quickly and unthrillingly using her common sense. I think that's what made it such a fun book to read--it's more about a detective than about detecting.

After that I read The Informers (for the third time). I love Bret Easton Ellis. He's probably one of my three favorite writers.
"'You're tan, but you don't look happy.'"

Then I read Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron. It's being marketed as a young adult novel, which makes me think if The Catcher in the Rye were written today, it would be considered a young adult novel. I think I'll write more about this book later--this is my catch up post and this one deserves a more detailed post. If you're looking for something to read, though, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is my top recommendation.


Then I read Watchmen, a graphic novel by Alan Moore. My youngest brother, who's thirteen told me I should read it. At first I found it a little embarrassing to read it in a coffee shop, or something, since it looks like a thick comic book. Graphic novels are definitely cool now, though. And Watchmen was one of Time Magazine's top 100 novels of the 20th century (all novels, not just graphic novels). It reads like one too. It's about a bunch of flawed superheros, or masked adventurers, as they're sometimes called as they're not always super or heroic. If you've never read a graphic novel, it's definitely a good place to start.

After that I read Michael Tolliver Lives: A Novel, by Armistead Maupin. I'm not sure why. I've only read one of the Tales of the City series and I didn't really think it was that great. "Michael Tolliver Lives" was (thankfully) a quick read. Only the narrator was at all developed and I found him smug and unlikable. The other characters were all charicatures, some amusing, some annoying. There was no real plot either. Blah.

Then I read another graphic novel per my brother's recommendation: The Sandman Volume 1: Preludes and Nocturnes, by Neil Gaiman. The artwork alone makes this one worth reading. There are 11 volumes (it was written as a monthy comic) and I'll keep going, I think. I haven't bothered to read anything about the Beowolf movie, but Gaiman was one of the writers, for what that's worth. (I'm worried that may not be worth much, but Sandman is awesome.)

Which brings us up to the present. I'm currently reading Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh.