“Frankel is an author to watch …” says Library Journal. And we’ve been enthusiastically watching her (and reading her books!) since her debut two years ago. Today marks the release of her second novel, Goodbye for Now. We asked Laurie, who guest blogged for us when The Atlas of Love came out, to tell us what she’s been reading:
Right now, I’m just finishing Maria Semple’s out-in-a-week novel, Where’d You Go, Bernadette (Aug. 14). It’s awesome — funny and smart with really great characters (which is always my favorite part of books), and really, really weird (which I mean as the absolute highest of compliments). I’m doing a couple readings with her later in the month, and I can’t wait.
I’m also reading Rob Lowe’s memoir, Stories I Only Tell My Friends. (Great title!) This is for work because on August 16 at 7pm at the Rendezvous in Belltown, I’m participating in an event called, “Trainwreck: A Celebration of Bad Celebrity Memoirs.” This should be a great time: lots of local authors, very funny readings, drinking games, book sales, prizes — a perfect Seattle summer evening and for a great cause as all proceeds go to support literacy in our community. Anyway, for this event I’m looking for ridiculous passages in celebrity memoirs. Alas, Rob Lowe isn’t quite ridiculous enough. His memoir’s a little too cool, well written and interesting to lend itself to drinking games. On the other hand, I have a soft spot for the man because his character on Parks and Recreation represents the best casting I have ever seen. I love that show, and I love him on it, so he could write almost anything and I’d give him a pass.
A couple weeks ago, I had the flu. I always think it’s no fair being sick in the summer, especially when we get so little of it. I felt so awful I couldn’t even watch TV, but I couldn’t sleep either because every time I lay down, I started to drown in snot. All I could do was sit propped up on pillows and blow my nose and read for hours and hours on end, so I needed something compelling, not too hard on the brain, and looooooong. I chose Justin Cronin’s The Passage which is just shy of 800 pages. Ordinarily, I don’t read books that long unless they’re Russian, but this was the perfect flu book. The Passage is a vampire book that’s not really a vampire book. It’s well written. It’s compelling as hell. It’s thoroughly, exhaustively, epically imagined. But centrally, it’s about a virus. Which turns you into a vampire. Which is a really scary thing to read while you’re stuck in bed with a virus.
Next up: David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which I’ve read before and adored, in order to be ready for the movie in October. In fact, I might just reread all of David Mitchell since it’s so varied and so lovely. If you don’t like one David Mitchell, try another — each is very different from the one before. Mitchell can write a metaphor like no one else. Just beautiful stuff.
Laurie Frankel will be reading from Goodbye for Now this Friday at 7 p.m. at the Elliott Bay Book Company.
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