#33 (2013/CBR5) "Then Came You" by Lisa Kleypas

The books I'm waiting for at the library have dried up somewhat. I'll probably be inundated in a couple of weeks but for now I'm just waiting. So I decided to read another Lisa Kleypas novel. Then Came You (1993) is something of a prequel to Dreaming of You, which I had just finished. Lily and Alex make some small appearances in Dreaming of You, and I thought it would be fun to read their story.

Lily is one of the few women in London who can do whatever she wants. Left her aunt's fortune, Lily is independent and vivacious. She hunts and gambles (at Derek Craven's gambling club) with the men and flaunts most of the dictates of polite society. Alex is a powerful lord and still grieving the death of his fiance two years ago. He chooses to marry Penelope, Lily's younger sister because she is completely different from his fiance. Penelope is in love with someone else but she is too timid and scared to refuse Alex on her own. Lily comes to her sister's rescue and finds herself in constant conflict with Alex. Alex has to figure out what he wants and Lily has some secrets from her past that add some excitement to the story, but all ends well.

I enjoyed this one even more than the sequel--even though I can't keep the titles straight to save my life. I enjoyed the beginning of the book the most. Lily was very funny and refreshing. Her outrageous confidence and willingness to do anything were very entertaining. The end fell back on more familiar romance territory but it was still well done. Again, if you think about it too much, the whole plot starts to sound somewhat ridiculous, but because Kleypas writes an interesting story and makes the characters so likable, it's not something that bothered me while I was reading.

I'm not sure if I'll make it through all of Kleypas's voluminous selection, but I'll definitely read around to reading a few more.

#32 (2013/CBR5) "Dreaming of You" by Lisa Kleypas

I have been convinced by all the love shown for Lisa Kleypas that she's worth reading. It's also helpful that she has so many books that there's always at least one that's available immediately from the library when I get the urge for some romance.

Dreaming of You (1994) by Lisa Kleypas involves a man and a woman who fall in love and live happily ever after. Sara Fielding is a novelist from the country, come to London to do research on gambling halls for her next book. Although she is very proper and sheltered, she is also adventurous and open-minded. Derek Craven was a boy from the streets who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to become a fabulously wealthy, gambling establishment owner.

When Sara saves Derek when he is attacked in an alley, she begins to use his club for her research and sparks begin to fly. They must overcome obstacles: Derek's jealous ex-lover, Derek's inability to love, and Sara's fiance back home, and it is all very romantic. Derek saves Sara a number of times and can't resist himself. There is also a glimpse of another couple (Lucy and Alex) who are somewhat involved in Derek's life. I'm mainly mentioning this because I found Lucy and Alex interesting enough to pick up their book and read it next.

Some of this plot was predictably ridiculous, but because Kleypas did pretty well with the emotions and kept the story interesting, it didn't bother me while I was reading it. It was a good one.

#31 (2013/CBR5) "Gulp" by Mary Roach

Every once in awhile, I read a book that I have not already seen on the Cannonball blog, and I get excited that I can be the first one to review it. Invariably, though, I pick up the book too late or read the book too slowly, and a couple days before I finish, someone else has already reviewed my book. I thought I had a good chance with Gulp (2013) by Mary Roach because it's so new, but I guess if I really wanted to be first I should have bought the book instead of sitting on the library's wait list.

Perhaps it's fitting that I was introduced to Roach through past Cannonball Reads. I admire Mary Roach. She follows her interests, is able to learn and do amazing things (e.g., fly on the plane that makes you weightless), and then writes some informative stories about her research. She's written books on sex, death, ghosts, and space travel. Her natural inquisitiveness and good-natured humor make her more entertaining and relatable, and she's pretty fearless when it comes to jumping right in with taboo and/or "gross" subject matter. I'll read anything that she writes.

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal is Roach's latest book, and it's all about the digestive system. Now, the digestive system is a little less flashy than sex and death and not of immediate interest to me. This was definitely a book I picked up because of the author and not the subject. It is a testament to her humor and writing that I enjoyed it. Roach could find something interesting and humorous in a lemon sitting on a table, and although I wasn't quite as enthralled as I have been with some of her earlier books, I enjoyed reading it.

I knew to expect a book focused on the digestive system, but Roach still surprised me with the subjects related to digestion that she decided to explore. Her topics ranged from historical stories of research and ideas on digestion to Elvis's death; smuggling drugs and other contraband; being eaten alive; and fecal transplants. I found myself flying through the pages and never bored. I just saw that Roach's "My Planet" articles were recently published in book format, so I'll be reading those next. And I look forward to whatever topic catches Roach's interest for her next book.

#30 (2013/CBR5) "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin

I've been interested in reading The Happiness Project (2009) by Gretchen Rubin for awhile, but it took awhile for me to find it at the library for kindle. I've come across a couple of fascinating psychological tidbits about happiness that defy common sense, and I thought it would be cool to learn more.

Rubin is a happily married, mother of two young girls who lives in New York City--right off the park and next to the library. She decided to spend a year working on various aspects of her personal happiness and writing about it. In preparation, Rubin read a lot of books on the subject and created a plan for herself. She focused on: energy, marriage, her kids, her work, and living in the moment, among others.

I've got some mixed feelings about this book. It was easy to read, but not engrossing. Rubin was insightful and I learned a couple of things, but she didn't go into enough detail about the philosophies and studies surrounding happiness for me to really get a grasp of the subject. It was much more a superficial look at her life and her projects. I did appreciate the theme that you have to work hard at being happy; at being cheerful and having a good attitude; at going after the things that are fulfilling while avoiding those that bring you down. Rubin also inspired me to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. It's something that she tried and it sounded like a fulfilling challenge. Suddenly I'm really excited about all the possibilities--science fiction? drama? romance? fantasy?--I can create anything I want!

One of the things that kept bothering me about The Happiness Project was that it sometimes felt more like a "Rubin improves herself" project than really delving into happiness. Becoming a better wife, a better mother, and more efficient at working were some of her goals. One step was to create a blog, because it was something she'd never done before. And then Rubin used comments from her blog to fill up the later parts of her book. The blog seemed more like extra advertisement for her book than a step towards happiness, and the printed comments felt like filler. In addition, Rubin sometimes came across to me as a little passive aggressively expounding on her wonderful life--mentioning in passing four times how she clerked for Justice O'Connor, how she has more than enough money, how she already found the perfect career, and how success is very important. On the one hand, we have a lot of things in common, but on the other hand there was something in the way that she described her life that was off-putting and alienating. With everything going so well in her life, her main problems were in her own mind. But Rubin stayed pretty close to her comfort zone and didn't do as much work on that front. With my new interest in Buddhist philosophies, I would have liked to see her dive into that a little more, but she just dismissed it without giving it a chance.

So, I came out of this book with some ideas--including NaNoWriMo, but I'd only recommend this one for people looking for a self-help type of book and not a deep look into the nature of happiness.

#29 (2013/CBR5) "Shiver" by Karen Robards

I was puttering along in rush hour traffic the other day after my commute had suddenly (and hopefully only temporarily) increased dramatically, and I figured why not make use of this time by listening to books on CD. In fact, one of Karen Robard's latest books, Shiver (2012) was only available from my library on CD so I figured a little romance wouldn't take too much concentration as I drove. Unfortunately, it didn't really work for me.

Samantha Jones is a 23-year-old woman who drives a tow truck and repossesses cars at night to support herself and her 4-year-old son, Tyler. Tyler's dad is out of the picture. One night, Samantha picks up a BMW that happens to have Danny, shot and beat up in the trunk. [***SPOILERS***] Danny is an FBI agent who is undercover pretending to be Marco, another FBI agent gone bad and going into the witness protection program. Apparently the plan was for Danny to pretend to be Marco and distract the murderous thugs after Marco while Marco spills everything he knows. The U.S. Marshalls guarding Danny don't know that he's really a good guy, and when Danny's first safe house is compromised, he ends up in the trunk of the car. When the bad guys find Samantha near the car, they throw her in the trunk, too.

Really, the more I write about it, the more ridiculous it sounds. And that doesn't even include the twist at the end. There was unnecessary bickering and then immediate, deep love with nothing in between. I also had a problem with some major lack of fact checking that I found annoying. Robards had an interesting view of what it takes to become an EMT and how much they make. Poor Samantha Jones was saving up and taking class after class to become an EMT, which really only requires one class and doesn't pay much. I took it over the summer. Also, FBI agents aren't really allowed to go around indiscriminately killing criminals in cold blood. That's murder. Even if they are bad guys. It's why we have courts and judges and juries. There were still a couple of scenes where I got a little caught up in the tension or wanted Sam to figure out that Marco was not what he seemed. But I didn't feel too much connection with it.

And then there's the whole part about listening to it on CD rather than reading it myself. I'm sure the book wouldn't have been any better if I'd read it myself, but I think I would have enjoyed it a little more. When I can't see how a name is spelled, I never remember it clearly, so I had a fuzzy idea of the various players fighting with and against each other. I also had a hard time concentrating enough to follow all of the action sequences clearly. Instead of reading in large chunks when I could relax and take in the story, I was listening in short bits, often while I was very tired and distracted. It's not really the way I like to take in a story. The reader also made a huge difference. She did a good job, but if I were reading it myself, I could gloss over some of the more painful dialogue, or imagine an inflection that makes me like the characters more. I'm also a much faster reader than someone reading out loud to an audience, so I think it would have taken me less time to get to the point. I felt like I'd just been sitting in my car for hours and nothing was happening. I have one more book on CD--Non-fiction--so I'll see if that one works any better. I may have to resort back to driving with music.

#28 (2013/CBR5) "Attachments" by Rainbow Rowell

Attachments (2011) by Rainbow Rowell is probably a book I never would have found if it weren't for my fellow Cannonball reviewers. And I'm so glad they recommended it. This novel was a fun, sweet story filled with normal, likable people, and I really enjoyed it.

Lincoln is in his late-twenties and is kind of lost. He's still getting over his first love from high school, he lives with his mom, he has no direction, and he is making no effort to change his life. When he gets a job as IT security and starts policing the company's e-mails he discovers Jennifer and Beth, best friends whose gossip-y e-mails are entertaining and fun. Knowing that he's treading on questionably ethical ground, Lincoln continues to read their e-mails as he begins to fall for Beth.

This book is split between narration of Lincoln's life and the written e-mails between Jennifer and Beth. I have to admit, although I did enjoy it, it took me a little while before I found it delightful. Beth and Jennifer's conversations were immediately fun to read, but it took me a little while to warm up to Lincoln. His lack of...anything was frustrating. I wanted to be like his sister and tell him to do something with his life. I'm sure that some of my frustration stemmed from seeing myself in him, though. I can definitely get stuck in a rut when I'm not sure what I want and just waste time. I can also be less than sociable when I feel like it.

In fact, even my last job as an attorney reminded me of Lincoln. I was working on a giant civil fraud case where a group of us peon attorneys had to read the e-mail of an entire company. Now, these were company e-mails that were two to five years old. The people involved were in another state that we knew we would never meet, but the e-mails were still sometimes incredibly personal. Reading these e-mails was both voyeuristically interesting as we tried to deduce who was an asshole, who might be having an affair, who had a dark past, etc., but also somewhat disturbing as we delved into the lives of strangers.

Anyway, Lincoln grew on me as I learned more about him, and I was soon just as interested in his story as I was in Beth and Jennifer's lives. Rainbow Rowell is now one of my to-read authors. I'm looking forward to reading Eleanor & Park.

#27 (2013/CBR5) "Buddhism Plain & Simple" by Steve Hagen

Although I'm kind of fascinated by religion, it's never really worked for me. I'm too practical and honest with myself to pretend I believe the stories--even in a metaphorical way. I can see the community and support that can come from church, but I also see the hypocrisy and judgment that often comes along with it and it turns me off. But I've never looked into Buddhism before. I don't remember what first prodded my interest, but it seemed like a philosophy that would fit better with my personality. So, I picked up Buddhism Plain & Simple (1997) by Steve Hagen after reading some reviews on Amazon. And now I am intrigued and confused.

The introduction sucked me in, stating that a lot of us feel that we are intelligent creatures living in a meaningless world; that we try to gain security through money, power, education etc., but that real security is impossible. However, Hagen states that it's our minds that are causing all this fear and uncertainty, and we can change that through enlightenment. He goes on to say that Buddhism is not about making up stories as explanations, but it's about people finding the Truth for themselves. I appreciated that Buddhism didn't include another creation myth, and I liked the idea of people finding things out for themselves rather than being told how and what to think.

But then I got to the picture on page 28. Hagen was saying that we know Truth when we see it. That it's like this picture (see obscure black and white photo). Just look at it for a bit and once you know, you'll be sure. And it's that feeling you're looking for. Well, I stared at the picture for awhile and all I got was frustrated. Then I went to the back of the book to get the hint--where the author tells you what it is--and I still couldn't see it. I had to go on the internet and find someone who had actually described where the various parts were in the photo. And then I finally saw it. An inauspicious beginning in my study of Buddhism, to be sure.

I was already a little frustrated with Hagen after that picture, and it continued as I read. He seemed very vague, discussing Truth and seeing, but not really explaining how or why or what. Every time I saw that italicized see, I'd lose a little more understanding. Now don't get me wrong, on the whole, there were some fascinating insights and thoughts about not attaching yourself to transient things (which is everything), not labeling yourself or others, and not preoccupying yourself with want. But now that I've read the whole book, I still do not feel like I have a good understanding.

I have a hard time understanding a world without want and without people striving for something more. Isn't that how we've gotten some of the best human accomplishments? Olympic athletes? Master musicians? Where does passion fit into Buddhism? What about poetry? I think of poetry as being all about passion and suffering. I guess it's often true that people who push themselves to the limit (like athletes) are often not happy, using athletic success to fulfill something that's missing in their life. I also didn't really understand Hagen's take on suffering and death. If I have to do too much mental wrangling for me to accept it, it's not going to work for me. I understand the idea that life is always changing and we're going to suffer and be happy whether we try to keep unhappiness at bay or not. In fact, most of our stress and unhappiness comes when we try to manipulate or control our lives to keep the bad things at bay. I guess that makes sense, but you're still going to feel pain when someone you loves dies, or if you're horribly injured in an accident. Accepting it doesn't make it not matter.

Anyway, I'm intrigued enough to do some follow-up reading as well as follow some of Hagen's suggestions. Fortunately, another Cannonballer just read Buddha's Brain, which I'm hoping will be more up my alley.