She's Come Undone

Thank you to everyone for their kind comments in response to my last post. I have since been wearing much more fitted clothing in an attempt to avoid anymore confusion and assumptions. But I must say, those looser, flowy tops are way more comfortable so I don't think I'll ever be able to ban them from my closet completely :)

Thought I'd start this post off with a picture of my newly painted family room and bookshelves. What was once faux wood paneling is now an airy linen white. It brightens up the room tremendously and I love how all of the book bindings look against the white shelves. The books get to be the focal point of the room!

The book I finished most recently was She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. I read this when it first came out and loved it and reread it again last week for my book club. Although there were some mixed reactions to it from the other bookclub members, a lot of conversation was generated which was nice - the group tends to have a hard time staying on topic. The main character Dolores Price suffers from numerous self-esteem issues which are the product of various events that take place over the course of her childhood and early adulthood. While other characters misinterpret her abrupt, harsh nature as an abrasive personality, the reader gets to see a side of Dolores that others don't and recognize her lashing out as insecurity, uncertainty, and self-loathing. Truly unputdownable in my opinion - a great summertime read if you haven't already experienced it.

I know this has been mentioned in the blogosphere several times already, but if you're not in the know yet you might want to check out LibriVox. LibriVox provides free access to audio versions of those books in the public domain. A great way to catch up on some of the classics. For instance, I enjoy knitting, but find that it takes away from my much valued reading time. This weekend while lounging on the porch and knitting up a baby sweater for a friend's baby I listened to the first few chapters of Little Men by Louisa May Alcott on my laptop. It was rather enjoyable - the only thing I'd warn you about is sometimes the narrators voices are hit or miss. Some narrators tend to be monotone which usually kills the story for me, but there are some good ones so it's worth the listen.

And to all those Americans reading - have a happy 4th!