I just finished Feed, by M.T. Anderson. He wrote Thirsty, which is probably the best teen vampire book around, and this one is a futuristic angst-ridden critique of our current media mainlining. Everyone's basically got the internet and TIVO jacked into their brains at all times. And of course, no good can come of it. I definitely recommend having a look -- it really makes you think.

I recently finished reading this book, by Mark Haddon. Haddon is normally a children's author, but this book was published as an adult title -- and then lots of teenagers have been reading it. It's about an autistic boy who finds a murdered dog in his neighbor's yard and sets out to find the killer.

If you like books that play around with language in some interesting way -- like M.T. Anderson's Feed, or Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, then I think you'd like this, too. I certainly did, although the plot was not hard to figure out, nor particularly supsenseful. It's still a fascinating look at the inside of someone's head.

And why else do we read, really?

The Sunday Brunch questions this week:

It's All About Me

1.  Do you or should you wear glasses or contact lenses? No.

2.  What is your favorite type of footwear? my curiously squishy and hyper-comfortable slippers. Always flats.

3.  What is your worst habit? nothing that harms anyone -- at least not that I can think of. I bite my nails. I fail to put away my laundry and just sit on it or walk across it.

4.  Are you an average, so-so or very good cook? A very good cook of simple things. Most recently, I perfected a quick and easy pumpkin bread.

5.  Do you spend more time watching television, listening to music or surfing the internet? I surf the net the most, but not that much if you only count leisure (I use the net for grocery shopping, work research, movie rental, shopping and various other chores). For leisure, I read. If watching TV, it is usually a DVD, rather than programming. I don't listen to that much music. Even my ipod is full of audio books.

I just finished Jaclyn Moriarty's The Year of Secret Assignments -- the companion novel to Feeling Sorry for Celia. I can't say enough about it. It is so so so so clever and full of hijinks and other excellences. Push through if you get bogged down a bit at the beginning, sorting all the characters out. It's worth it! Go read it now!