Information overload.

So far nobody's volunteered to pick the first book. I'll do it if you would like. I still haven't decided; I'll get back to you.

Here are a few books on my current list--most are nonfiction, a few are fiction. Anything stand out to you? Sorry; it's kind of a long list.

• Girls Gone Mild - Shalit (trend of chastity, modesty, mildness in young women)
• The Feminine Mistake - Bennetts
• What Would Barbra Do? - Brockes ("history, art, and politics of musicals")
• The Next Thing on My List - Smolinski (from what I remember, this lady or man dies and had a list of things she/he wanted to do before dying; so, a friend, or someone, picks up the list and tries to finish it)
• Dandelion Wine - Bradbury (RB's first novel, supposed to be really good)
• On Chesil Beach - McEwan (iffy--about a newlywed couple's disastrous honeymoon night)
• 100 Questions from My Child - Chopra
• How Starbucks Saved My Life - Gill (interesting concept; the guy seems like a jerk though)
• Sarah's Key - deRosnay (historical fiction; Paris during the Holocaust)
• Back on the Career Track - Cohen and Rabin (I think this was the more practical volume I had in mind when I read The Feminine Mistake)
• The Escape Artists - Piven (all about "escape artists"--e.g., race car drivers, animal hunters, alligator wrestlers, standup comedians)
• The Maytrees - Annie Dillard (don't remember)
• Tamar - Peet (don't remember)
• Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety - Judith Warner
• Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo (a novel about a prisoner...I think)
• Bowl of Cherries - Millard Kaufman (don't remember)
• An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England - Clark (fiction)
• A Farewell to Arms - Hemingway (I read this in HS and want to read it again)
• The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court - Jeffrey Toobin
• Memo to the President Elect - Madeline Albright
• The Zookeeper's Wife - Ackerman (about the Holocaust, I think)
• Children at Play - Chudacoff (a social history--"parents try to keep children indoors for fear of dangers lurking outside, but children take new kinds of risks playing in cyberspace.")
• The Rope Walk - Carrie Brown (novel; don't remember)
• The Godmother - Carrie Adams (novel; don't remember)
• The Sisterhood: Inside the Lives of Mormon Women - Solomon
• Realityland - Koenig (I have "Bonny" written next to this; I think it's something about Disney I wanted to tell her about)
• Everything He Hasn't Told You Yet - Silver (don't remember)
• From the Hips - Odes and Morris
• My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
• 19 Minutes - Picoult
• Finn - Jon Clinch (got good reviews; a story about Huck Finn's dad)
• The Alexandria Link - Berry (don't remember)
• To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Your Inner Housewife - Caitlan Flanagan (apparently Leslie Bennetts's "nemesis")
• Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture - Jon Savage
• The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing (who just won the Nobel Prize--the oldest lit. prizewinner at 87)
  

In case you didn't see it, Bonny suggested:

also - what might be fun - a women's theme -

american jezebel (anne hutchinson - ancestor)

marie antoinette

well behaved women seldom make history (or any of the laurel thatcher ulrich books - she's so interesting to me)

fem mystique

i am a mother

and i'm sure there are more


just a brain storm

we could also do theme like:

19th century, pioneer, early 20th century (STEINBECK!!!), etc.