Here are my most recent picks and choices:
Since I just learned about an Anthony Bourdain author event in Union Square this coming June, I was like, huh, I should read one of his books. A good friend (who's dating a chef), confessed her love of the feisty/loveable Bourdain and told me she (and her boyfriend) loved Kitchen Confidential (Bloomsbury, 2000). I actually only knew "Tony" from his Travel Channel series, No Reservations, and didn't even realize his writing kicks so much more ass than his show. He's a spectacular writer: the type that writes the way he speaks, but does it like a pro. I squealed when I saw that it was available at our library, picked it up yesterday and haven't put it down. It's a speedy yet savory read that's part autobiography and part how-to guide to cooking, eating, and enjoying a meal at a restaurant, particularly in Manhattan. He touches on all the essentials: why risk is important in eating, why food should be about pleasure, and why we should never abuse garlic with a terrifying contraption known as a garlic press. I'm about 100 pages through and loving it. I can't wait to 
read his other books, like The Nasty Bits (Bloomsbury, 2007).I had been meaning to get my hands on Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor (Little, Brown & Co.) since it came out last February. The author, Brad Gooch, is an English professor at my father's alma mater, William Patterson University in nearby Wayne, NJ. I'm about 40 pages into it, and it looks very serious and involved, and I will love finishing it in several months from now. It's a thick book (at 464 pp), and a slow read (for me), but I want to do it, and I already love the history of Irish-Catholic Georgia and the evidence of its influence on her stories. I've also skipped right to the glossy black and white inserts that reveal photos of dear Flannery, from her school portrait to her posing with crutches on each arm. WILL READ! Promise.
A literary buddy of mine at work suggested Delillo's White Noise (Penguin Classics, 2009), after I told him about my attempt at Mao II (a different recommendation from another literary buddy) that featured amazing prose, but the subject matter was a little too sci-fi for me. I haven't cracked it open yet, but I will. My friend told me it was the best start to reading Delillo. Will do!A short story of Jennifer Egan's was published in last week's New Yorker, which got me nostalgic about a paperback I happened to pick up at The Strand once when I was 15 or 16: Look At Me (Anchor, 2002). Especially for a teenage girl (surveying different sorts of femininity), it was a provocative, epic read about a supermodel who messes up her face. Kind of desperately, I looked up what other books she'd done, and found that our library had a copy of The Keep, which Anchor released back in 2007. I did spend a few days with it (while waiting for other
library orders to arrive), and I almost decided to finish based on one element: her style. The plot, however, was stupid: a guy from New York goes to a castle in Germany to spend time with his long-lost cousin who used to be a loser but is now a millionaire who's fixing up the castle, and there's a magic lady at the castle who has sex with the guy, and that's as far as I got. The thing that got me was the second story that seems to be simultaneous with the front-story: a man, a relative of the main character and his cousin, is in prisoner, taking a creative writing class. Egan jumps from front to back story in a particular way that leads you to believe the prisoner is actually creating this story about his cousins. The prison chapters were most authentic. And I LOVE Egan's dialogue - she's one of the better contemporary dialogue-ers. Unfortunately, this was a case where I was questioning why I care. There wasn't much reason, so I gave it a go, and decided against it halfway through.
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