April Books

Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
Cooking show host Augusta Simpson is turning 50 (ugh!) and discovers that her network wants to team her up with a young new co-host. So, throw in a few other ingredients – aka hunky assistant – and while in pursuit of higher ratings and foodie delights, she finds more than she bargained for. This book is a definite warm fuzzy – so if you need one of those have at it.

Lincoln as I Knew Him by Harold Holzer
Lincoln was a terrible dresser, rarely combed his hair, constantly read out loud, told a raunchy story with the best (or worst) of them, and let his kids run amuck in the White House. Who knew?
Holzer (who just happens to be an authority on Lincoln) snooped through nineteenth-century letters, diary entries, books, and speeches written by people who were Lincoln’s contemporaries -- which offers a tad bit different version than those history books we read in school. I like this guy Lincoln and the fact he freed the slaves is totally icing on the cake. Besides I’m actually related to him. He may be honest Abe to you but he’s Uncle Abe to me.

Made in the U.S.A. by Billie Letts
What is it with Letts and Wal Mart? Perhaps she thought it was her lucky-charm-book -setting, since her bestseller Where the Heart Is had a big Wal Mart connection. Well, not so fast Billie – Made in the U.S.A. was a trite yawner for me. 15-year-old Lutie McFee and her 11-year-old brother, Fate, take off to find their long-gone Dad by stealing a car and hot footing it to Las Vegas. Of course they become targets for child predators and it looks like they just won’t catch a break. Of course those of you who read Letts knows that things will turn out pretty sweet (aka: unbelievable) in the end.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz has a way with words -- which kept me reading this wacky story about Oscar the 300-lb loser-geek brother of, you guessed it – a perfect sister. Oscar does eventually end up with a girl – but only long enough to know, truly know heartbreak and loneliness.
Winner of the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize, for Fiction – so, besides my endorsement its got that going for it.

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
From Star Wars icon and marrying Paul Simon, to dousing herself in drugs to combat bi-polar disorder, Carrie Fisher has had a charmed and chaotic life. I mean really – were you a bestselling action figure at the age of nineteen?
Wishful Drinking is a memoir of her life as she remembers it – parts have obviously gotten a bit fuzzy, what with the electroshock therapy…
Fisher has a great sense of humor -- no doubt why she’s still alive. My favorite part is when she learns the father of her daughter forgot to tell her he was gay (!), and the time she woke up one morning to find a friend dead beside her in bed.