The book I’m dying to read right now, the book that I would drop everything if it just happened to come in the mail today (honestly I’d finish the book I’m reading now cause it’s rully good), is The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht. I first heard about The Tiger’s Wife from @yrstrulyREL. She’s been raving about the book for MONTHS, so you can imagine my disappointment when I was at the NCIBA conference and she was there AND SHE HAD GALLEYS OF THE TIGER’S WIFE and I wasn’t going to be there when she was giving them out. GAH! I shook my fist at the sky to show my frustration. If there was any time I wanted to blow off dumb adult responsibilities, it was then. But I couldn’t. CURSES!

Anyway, I GUESS I can wait until FREAKING MARCH. It’s not like other people aren’t reading it already and attesting to its awesomeness. *sigh* The good part about having to wait is that I’ll be put on maternity leave in late March, and you know what that means? Lots of reading time, baby. Heck yes!

The Tiger’s Wife
by Téa Obreht

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Random House (March 8, 2011)

Description:

The time: the present. The place: a Balkan country ravaged by years of conflict. Natalia, a young doctor, is on a mission of mercy to an orphanage when she receives word of her beloved grandfather’s death far from their home under circumstances shrouded in confusion. Remembering childhood stories her grandfather once told her, Natalia becomes convinced that he spent his last days searching for “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal. As Natalia struggles to understand why her grandfather, a deeply rational man, would go on such a farfetched journey, she stumbles across a clue that leads her to the extraordinary story of the tiger’s wife.

An involving mystery, an emotionally riveting family story, and a wondrous evocation of an unfamiliar world, The Tiger’s Wife is a brilliant novel.

Random House, you slay me with your awesome books.

Every Last Cuckoo by Kate Maloy – I don’t have much to say about this book other than I just didn’t like it. I thought there were a couple of implausible things that happen, and I never really connected with the main character, Sarah. I read this book for my book club, and some of the women who liked it mentioned that perhaps I wasn’t in the right place in life to enjoy it because the main character is *ahem* mature at 75 years old. I still maintain, though, that a GREAT book will surpass age, culture, religion, and gender. Yes, it might speak to you differently if you can relate, but it shouldn’t be any less powerful.

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The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer – Ultimately this book is about marriages and how we never really truly know the person we’re married to. Which, great premise, right? This book would have been right up my alley, if Greer had been a bit more subtle and not tried to beat me over the head with YOU NEVER REALLY KNOW THE PERSON YOU’RE MARRIED TO. *cowers* I get it! I know I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but neither am I the dullest. “We think we know them. We think we love them. But what we love turns out to be a poor translation, a translation we ourselves have made, from a language we barely know.” –pg 3 Love this quote! Except for there’s about 20 more just like it, scattered throughout the book.

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Wishin’ and Hopin’ by Wally Lamb – I make no secret about loving Wally Lamb. Loving him to the point of wanting to fling my panties (and myself) at him. This is a short little Christmas story about Felix Funicello (distant cousin to Annette Funicello) in the fifth grade of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School. Felix’s school year is thrown upside down when he gets a substitute teach from Quebec who isn’t as harsh as the other teachers, and Zhenya Kabakova, a Russian student who arrives in the middle of the year in his class. What I loved about this book is how Wally Lamb get’s Felix’s voice just right. I could hear Lamb in my head narrating the story in a slightly high-pitched, and certainly mischievous, voice. This is the perfect holiday book.