Top 20 Titles

... To Keep Your Nightstand Happy

The Gods were smiling on me yesterday. Not only did the newly moved Big, Green Egg not set fire to the house, I was able to find the only bookstore in my hopping, metropolitan burg that had the title I was lusting after in stock. So I am now the happy owner of Where’d You Go, Bernadette (by Maria Semple), as well as a Colonial that has only a lightly seared back deck. Let the good times roll. (Bernadette book available on amazon.com for around $15.)

This book is tremendous. I stayed up late reading about the trials and travails of Bernadette, a quirky wife and mother in Seattle. It’s fictional and very funny. You’ve gotta get it. But let’s say your hopping, metropolitan burg is all out of stock. There are lots of other titles you could peruse while you wait. (This part of the post assumes that, like me, you are a technological dinosaur who really, really likes reading books on actual paper.)

Following is a list of some great reads. I compiled it while racing around the bookstore chasing the Dynamic Duo, so it mostly only goes through authors whose last names start with “J”. The exception is if the book was on one of the end caps or truly stands out in my frazzled brain.

 I’m a big reader. I have to be if there’s any hope of achieving cosmic balance for my trashy magazine & reality t.v. habit. I really like basically any book by Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, David Sedaris (except the last one) and Malcolm Gladwell. Here are some other titles that I liked:

-       A Prayer For Owen Meany, by Irving *

-       Life Of Pi, by Martel *

-       Little Bee, by Cleave *

-       Me Talk Pretty One Day, by Sedaris *

-       Middlesex, by Eugenides

-       Bel Canto, by Patchett *

-       State Of Wonder, by Patchett

-       The Poisonwood Bible, by Kingsolver

-       Cutting For Stone, by Verghese

-       An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood, by Lewis *

-       History Of Love, by Krauss

-       The Piano Teacher, by Lee

-       The Tiger’s Wife, by Obreht

-       The Weird Sisters, by Brown

-       What Is The What, by Eggers *

-       Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, by Safran Foer *

-       One Thousand White Women, by Fergus

-       The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society, by Shaffer

-       The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, by Durrow

-       Still Alice, by Genova

 The asterick * denotes books that would also be good reads for your fella. There are not as many of these. That’s because your guy should be spending his leisure time figuring out best placement for the Big, Green Egg to ensure no neighbor complaints or impromptu house fires.