May 2013 Reads

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May	34	The Boyfriend	Thomas Perry
	35	Norwood	Charles Portis
	36	Loyalty	Ingrid Thoft
	37	A Constellation of Vital Phenomena	Anthony Marra
	38	The Weight of a Human Heart	Ryan O'Neill
	39	The Interestings	Meg Wolitzer
	40	The Grifters	Jim Thompson
	41	Just Kids	Patti Smith

The Boyfriend is the first time I've read Thomas Perry; it won’t be the last. The Boyfriend is a police procedural, the main character, Jack Till is retired LAPD. In case you don’t know, my husband is retired LAPD! Great story, great writing; what more can we ask for? 

Loyalty by Ingrid Thoft is a great debut novel. The main character is a female PI, Fina; she’s the only non-attorney in her family, and she “gets” to do the scutwork for the family law firm. Thoft was a lot of fun to read, I hope she doesn't fall into the trap of other writers in this genre, of writing the same book, over and over. 

The next two books are brilliant, each in its way. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer follows a group of friends from their mid-teens until they are in their fifties, no easy feat. I think Entertainment Weekly says it as well any I could, “The Interestings secures Wolitzer's place among the best novelists of her generation. . . . She's every bit as literary as Franzen or Eugenides. But the very human moments in her work hit you harder than the big ideas. This isn't women's fiction. It's everyone's." 

I overheard an author say that Just Kids by Patti Smith was the best book he'd ever read; so I read it, too. I proudly place Just Kids on my list of all-time favorite books. This memoir covers her early years, and how her life intertwines with the life of Robert Mapplethorpe. In case you don’t know, Patti Smith is one of the first punk-rockers and Mapplethorpe was a world famous photographer. Smith’s writing is brilliant. I hope you’ll love it, too. What are you reading?