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Obsessed

The books I can't stop thinking about:

-"Watching You." A modern-day update on "Rear Window"--! A sensitive discussion about autism! Characters changing--dramatically and sort of plausibly--over time! Short, unnerving chapters! This is an ideal snowy-weekend book.

-"The Wife Between Us." The plot is wildly implausible, start to finish, the villain is cartoonish, and the narrator never has anything even resembling an unconventional thought. Pure trash. I loved it.

-"Good in Bed." I haven't read this yet--but it has called to me for years--because Jennifer Weiner is so revered, and because the title is a small work of art.

-"The Woman in the Window." This seems to be the great rival of "Wife Between Us"--in terms of recent buzzy, trashy novels--and the graphic-design on the cover (abstract lines meant to resemble distressed venetian blinds) already has me excited.

-"Can You Ever Forgive Me." I've read just the first two pages. Clearly, Lee Israel was a writer. The real thing. She begins by showing photos of letters--from Dorothy Parker and from Edna Ferber. It's obvious that these two were larger-than-life characters--we immediately want to spend more time in their company--and it's also obvious that the *reporter" (Israel) is, herself, a sensitive, witty, perhaps eccentric (third) character. Here's Israel on Edna Ferber: "One of the most popular and prolific writers of her time--a scold, a snob, a low-profile dominatrix whose corseted asperity was never far from busting out. If Ferber hadn't gone from small-town reporter to big-time writer, she would doubtless have had a rocky but enduring Boston marriage and ended her days as dean of one of the elite women's colleges, where she would have been talked about plenty."

"Rocky but enduring," "low-profile dominatrix," "corseted asperity." It's evident Israel was born to write. You can sense the pleasure she is getting simply from the act of stringing together words. This book is beckoning to me.

-Also of interest, at present: Don Winslow, Anita Shreve, Tess Gerritsen, Charles Finch, Anne Tyler's recent novel, Denise Mina, Michael Connelly, Laura Sims. Stay tuned.....
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