it Should be a Crime

Last night I stayed up until almost 2 in the morning finishing the last of the Stieg Larsson books (you know, the dragon tatoo books.)  I went to brush my teeth before I went to bed (okay that's a lie.  I blew off brushing my teeth, but I did pee) and saw my swollen scrunched up eyes in the mirror and though, What's my dad doing here?

Here's the funny thing:  I usually read chick lit, the good kind, like the kind Oprah used to pick for her book club before she conned the country in to reading the classics.  Stories about marginalized women, who have some life changing experience or climactic event, but then go on to be marginalized in some other way for the rest of their sorry lives.  Some of them, most of them, were seriously depressing.  I started reading this Stieg Larsson series a few months ago, and now I've read all three, and I also read another crime novel by a woman named Karin Slaughter (that can't possibly be her real name) and I am about to say something I never thought I'd say:  I like crime novels.  There.  I said it.  It is a genre I never thought I'd buy into, but once I sink my teeth into a good crime novel I can't put it down, as evidenced by my puffy, tired face this morning.  Luckily, my book club will keep my reputation in tact by making me read higher brow things, like chick lit.

On that note, I would like to say that the best book I read all year was not a crime novel, but Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  I also very much enjoyed Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (a little depressing and odd, but ultimately satisfying and strangely beautiful) and I will throw in The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker, not only because its was a thoroughly entertaining book, but also because the author is a client of mine and she's really super cool.

Yes, its true: I read books.  I also read Oprah magazine, Newsweek (sort of, depending on the week) and I read recipes and TMZ and blogs.  I am a many-layered person, and reading stuff allows me to procrastinate all the other stuff I have to do. 

This is making me want to do some 2010 best and worst of lists like everyone else in the world is doing.  I will take some time to think on this and get back to you.  But right now I have to melt chocolate so I can coat my peanut butter pretzel balls in it and roll them in crushed peanuts.  This is what the holidays do to me.