be happy for this moment.

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page

and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.

Paul Sweeney

I love to read just about anything.

Now that grad school is over it has been wonderful to pick up a great book just for the fun of it and enjoy it from cover to cover. I'm sort of moving past the lighter "chick lit" stuff right now and trying out new authors and genres.

My summer reads so far have been:

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
Easy read with sweet advice. Interesting man with a fascinating life that makes you appreciate the world around you a little more. I'm still quoting some of his words of wisdom.

Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell
Written by the same author as Sex and the City and the basis for the ABC drama. It was good and entertaining, if not predictible, but really it is just Sex and the City with different names.

The Same Sweet Girls by Cassandra King
Very similar to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood about a group of women who have been friends since college. Great summer read, lovely descriptive writing and quirky characters that anyone can relate to.

If I Am Missing or Dead by Janine Latus
A memoir chronicling the cycle of domestic abuse of the author from childhood to now. Deeply distrubing and shocking but so poetically expressed I couldn't put it down. I wrote the author an e-mail to tell her how much I loved the book and she wrote me back! I'll be a fan of hers for life and will be on the lookout for her future books.

Right now I am reading and really enjoying Sweetwater Creek by Anne Rivers Siddons which leads into the realization thatt I'm also on this Southern women book kick now (I did a New York thing before with The Devil Wears Prada and the Shopaholic series).

So if you have any great book recommendations I would love to hear them. I'm always looking for my next read!