We picked When You Reach Me for my book club. It was on my list for 2010 and I am really glad I read it. It is a young adult book or even maybe a kid’s book and I rarely read those but I loved this one. It was a simple and easy read with some interesting bits and a few surprises. For those of you who enjoy novels of this type, it’s highly recommended.

I have always been a fan of Anna Quindlen so when I heard about her new book, Every Last One, I knew I wanted to read it. Without giving away any part of the plot, I will just say that this goes from being a relatively happy, interesting novel to an incredibly sad one. While I really really got upset and wasn’t sure I should continue reading the novel once the terrible event occurred, I am still glad I finished it. It gave me a lot of things to think about and I am still pondering some of the questions it opened up for me.

Having said that, it’s a really really sad novel and I am not sure I can recommend it to anyone without that warning.

Let the Great World Spin was our book club choice for my other book club. It came from my list of books to read this year. I’d read that this was a good book and I offered some choices to the group and this is what they chose. It’s a collection of short stories and I don’t usually like short stories. But these stories are linked in a subtle (and sometimes in not so subtle) ways and after I made it through the first story, I absolutely loved this book.

To me, it was a great example of how if you zoomed way way out and looked at us, you’d realize how very linked we all are. Quite amazing and so true.

And it’s beautifully written to boot.

Highly recommended.

My latest audiobook was Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track .

My husband introduced me to Richard Feynman over fifteen years ago and I’ve been a huge fan ever since. I’ve read both Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman and What Do You Care What Other People Think?. I read The Pleasure of Finding Things Out and I read Tuva or Bust! which is about his last trip. I even read QED which was absolutely fantastic. There are still a few more books of his I would love to read and plan to as well.

The thing about this book is that it’s a compilation of many of the letters he sent during his lifetime. They are compiled by his daughter and the audiobook is fantastic. Well read, really really well told. I enjoyed all of it. The great love he had with his first wife, his days in Los Alamos building the bomb, his teaching days, the Nobel prize, talking about his kids and his father and his letters to his mother. I loved all of it. I was moved. It was thought-provoking. And I even laughed out loud. He was obviously an amazing man and it comes through and through in this book.

I cannot recommend it enough. I really loved every single moment of this book and was truly sad to have it end.

I listened to Easier Than You Think in the car. I’d read Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff book a long time ago and remember it being useful. So was this. I wish i weren’t in the car so I could have taken notes. Most of it was common sense of course but still useful to remember and still useful to practice.

And, man, I so agree: Life doesn’t have to be so hard.

There are so many of these I loved. Like taking time for you (taking a vacation) everyday. Or Laughing everyday. Not taking notes. Doing something nice for others.

And here’s a great one. I am too lazy to type so here’s a screen shot. Joseph was someone who always had negative thoughts and worked hard to finally get rid of this habit.

Thoughts are just thoughts.

I have mixed feelings about Jodi Picoult. I’ve loved some of her books (like My Sister’s Keeper) but found others to be too over the top, too dramatic, almost for the sake of drama. And all of them are so sad. So, for the longest time, I had stopped reading them. But then House Rules came out and I decided I wanted to read it.

The good news is that the book was much less dramatic than most of her other ones that I read. The characters were engaging and the plot interesting. The bad news is that it’s also a whodunnit story and I totally guessed the ending very early on. I kept thinking I must be wrong since it was so obvious and kept thinking she was going to throw a curveball but she never did. So, for me, that took away a lot from the story. Even though I read the whole thing in one sitting.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad book and I am still glad I read it but I can’t say it was fantastic either.