I added the Mary Magdalene book to my list of books read, as well as My Hollywood and Cutting for Stone.  The list appears to be putting itself in alphabetical order, which I don’t love, but am too lazy to work on that right now.  After I read My Hollywood, I read a review of it which made me like it more.  But there is just something about reading a book about the complicated relationship between women and me, women and children and women and their nannies, that wasn’t really the type of summer read I was looking for.  It was very well done, and the characters were very real, but ugh.

I can’t remember which book it was, (A Fine Balance or The God of Small Things) but something I read caused me to put a hold on all Indian literature, because it’s always more tragedy than I can handle.  I bought Cutting for Stone when I was on an Amazon gift card shopping spree without knowing much about it, but since it’s been on my shelf, I think it’s been recommended to me at least three times.  It takes place mostly in Ethiopia, but the characters are mostly Indian.  India+Africa really takes the tragedy up a notch.  (It goes to 11, as they say.)  It took me maybe a week to read the 665 pages, and one night, I finished working around midnight and thought, I better not try to read just a few pages, I’ll end up staying up until 2am to finish it.  And then I flopped down on the couch and started reading.  Yup, at 1:59 I read the last page.  I had some major problems with the main character at the end, but I have been thinking about the book ever since.   So yes, I recommend it.

Luke is reading the Harry Potter series, and I am trying to keep up.  He finished the first book in less than a week and he’s almost finished with the second.  I have heard from a good friend who does her research (Jena!) that books 1-4 are age appropriate, and 5-7 should maybe be saved for later.  Luckily, Luke received the series from his Grandparents this summer, and the one book that is missing is book 5.  So we may have a natural break while we look for book 5.  Of course, he saw it at the Boulder Bookstore this weekend and almost died because I didn’t buy it.  Somehow I have to leapfrog in front of him, and start reading the books before he gets to them to see what I think.

So, Harry Potter fans, how am I going to get Luke to stop reading and wait a few years for book 5?  Maybe school will start just in time.