Conversationally speaking

What do you read when you're not reading review titles?

I can just imagine our conversation starting, and you're adorable in that green sweater. Well, I'd stop, gathering my thoughts, I'm rarely reading review books. In fact most of the books I do read are either purchased with my own sheckels — usually on a whim or cover design appear or annoyance that hte library hold list is too long for my scant patience levels — or checked out in scandalously large groups from various Kansas libraries.

If from the library, my books are chosen one of several ways. They are (a) prominently displayed in the New Fiction section, (b) written by an author I'm currently infatuated with or (c) screaming at me from the shelf where an absentee title I wanted should have been. I write lists of what to read based on friends' recommendations, reviews I read, and aggregate reqs from book lovers' communities like LibraryThing or GoodReads.

Bored, you ask, Have you read anything standout lately?

I have! But here we pause because I've inevitably run out of tea. Where we we? I say when I return, fondling a hot mug. Oh yes. I finally read Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow. Maybe I'm the last one, but I loved the modern day werewolf tale and I'm not the werewolfing type.

It's superbly written, very clever. I read it without a clue what it was about — aside from dogs, obviously — and the mystery of what's up with these clearly dangerous people had me flipping pages frantically. I had to go back and reread the beginning once I figured it out. I mean, I'd thought Barlow was running on a bestial analogy. But.

I'm also reading Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence by Rebecca Walker. This was a next-to-the-book-I-wanted checkout example, though it's turning out to be interesting in a different way. Very honest.

I'm about to ask you what you're reading when suddenly I lose sight of the image of you I've conjured. And it's only me, again, talking to myself.