Recent Reads

I'm reading more because of my anti-insomnia routine (turn off the TV!), but I rarely borrow library books because I have allergies to pet dander and dust mites, and often library books are loaded with both. 

Here are some good recent reads:

I'm a big TC Boyle fan, but I don't think I would have picked this up if Jerry, Mr. Never-Read-Novels, hadn't read it first--the cover and title are off-putting.  But Jerry bought it because it's about the Channel Islands, where he's done a lot of field work.  It's the National Park Service vs. animal rights, and I found it riveting, both plot and characters.  Jerry says it's also an accurate account of the history of these islands off the coast of S. California.

The cover's so clever that you can't read it:  A Hologram for the King, by Dave Eggers.  An angst-ridden, divorced, and broke middle-aged man goes to Saudi Arabia as part of a team to sell technology to the Kingdom.  It's funny and tragic, I thought.

I found this book compelling, the story of a Bangladeshi woman who marries an American she meets online.  Her adjustment to the U.S. and to marriage isn't easy, but I thought the author did a good job portraying the complexities of marriage (any marriage, not just one between two such obviously dissimilar people).

A refugee and her son emigrate to England after World War II, their bond so tight that it made me squirm a bit, but also completely understandable after what they've been through.  She marries what seems like a solid, hard-working guy, but the marriage is complicated (see above).  The end feels right.

An entertaining thriller about a young mother who's a CIA agent (and whose husband doesn't know) who follows her spouse to Europe after she quits her job, where Intrigue Ensues.  Her kind of dull husband turns out to be more interesting than she thought, and another couple seems not to be who they're trying to say they are. 

Why not?  It's summer.

Another thriller, the story of a kidnapped child, set in England.  Some harrowing pages near the end, but it kept me engaged.