I just finished reading....

Devotion, by Dani Shapiro.

This was a memoir written by a former orthodox Jewish woman who is now a very liberal reform Jew. I had no idea that keeping kosher means 2 sinks and 2 dishwashers! The book was about her spiritual journey. It was good, a very reflective book, but she never really fills you in on what spiritual conclusions she reached, which is kind of why I read the book. But I did learn quite a bit about Orthodox Jewish customs. I had no idea that Orthodox Jewish women sometimes cover their hair with wigs to fit their modesty requirements, so I definitely learned a little bit about the different customs. I don't think I would recommend it to anyone though, because it was kind of rambling and no ends were ever tied up.

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Also The Angel Maker, by Stefan Brijs.

This was really good. It's all about a brilliant doctor who dabbles in cloning, to disastrous effect. The interesting part of this though is the story of the doctor's childhood and religious convictions woven throughout the narrative. And the ending was very fitting. I loved all of the Biblical tie ins. A very refreshing read, even though the subject matter was on the brutal side of things. I was confused about who they were talking about when they suddenly switched to the doctor's childhood story, but I figured it out eventually.

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And La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith. He's a pretty famous mystery author, according to my librarian sister. This was a super light read, a story about a woman on the English homefront during WWII who starts an orchestra to boost moral. It was kind of a middle-heavy book in that the beginning was very brief, the middle was very thorough and longish, and then everything was wrapped up in less than 15 pages. So kind of odd, and lots of holes were there that left me wondering about what else happened. The ending was very sweet though.

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That catches me up....last night after I finished the Smith book, I started The Invisible Mountain by Carolina De Robertis. Her prose is blowing my mind, listen to this:

"He had always been a force that kept her on the ground. His company formed a sphere, a raw keen humming place, that encompassed them and all their hidden thoughts, so that she had known before he said it that he planned to leave."

"...her pen moved and moved without her hand seeming to push it, forming the spires and spikes and loops of cursive words, sharp t's and j's, y's and g's with knots at their base as though to tie themselves together, tie women back together, and as she wrote the loops grew large, as if more rope were needed to bind what had blown apart inside her, and not only inside her but around her, her before her, in her mother's days, her grandmother's days...."

I am so hooked, the kind of hooked where my to-do list is now being used as a bookmark, where nothing else will get done until I'm finished with this book. Sunday afternoon while Ryan's at work, I think I might spend the whole time reading.

My reading has really picked up since Alli and I cut off our cable! We now have the Internet only, and if we want to watch something it's on Hulu or a DVD. The first week sucked but now I don't even miss it...and I don't lose huge stretches of time to a Bravo marathon!

What are you reading right now?