Reading! It can be done, even with baby.

Happily, even with an eight-month-old skootching around the house, I am able to get more reading done than just Caps for Sale and Goodnight Moon. I just haven't had time to write about it! Here's a quick run-down of some recent books I've enjoyed (and one I didn't).

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
It's been years since I've read a mystery and this was a fun one to use to reacquaint myself with the genre. Lippman is a local author, writing from and often about Baltimore, and it was exciting to see some local scenery in this book. The story isn't a typical murder-mystery whodunnit but rather a circuitous tale of secret identity. Two little girls disappeared decades ago, leaving a tragic, life-destroying wake in their absence. But when a woman appears claiming to be one of the girls, do the inconsistencies in her story line up? I didn't find the end very surprising, but it was a gripping read nonetheless.

Tinkers by Paul Harding
A man is dying and his mind spins back through his own life and then into his father's life. Time itself seems to come undone in this beautiful, essentially plot-less novel.

Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth

This book really deserves its own entry but in case I don't have time for that, I'll say now that the novel is amazing. A slaveship departs England in the 18th century carrying hope and despair in equal measure. What happens to the ship and its crew as they barrel through lives along the African coast and then beyond is an epic and heartbreaking tale.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
I'm not usually a quitter when it comes to books. I tend to push through no matter what. But I HATED this book and finally gave up on page 300 of 500+. Franzen writes a heartless story about characters that are no more than caricatures. They whine and drug their way through their painful, upper middle-class lives, and are incapable of trusting or seeing love.

I'd love to hear what other people are reading! And I'd especially love to have someone argue with me about why The Corrections is worth reading.