The Last Five Books I've Read

The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides -- We'd watched the movie (and liked it lots) and were into the extras on the DVD before we realized why the title was so familiar. The book was written by the guy who wrote one of our all-time favorites, Middlesex. So then I read it, but maybe too soon after having seen the movie, which follows the book so closely that it's barely worth doing both. (One of them is worth doing though -- it's good stuff.) Eugenides can turn a phrase like few others, but The Virgin Suicides was his first novel and his talent is more obvious in Middlesex. Still, TVS is written in a first person plural voice, and that's unusual.

The Parent's Tao Te Ching, by Michael Martin -- Okay, this is the best freaking thing I've read about the parental experience by such a wide margin that I'm not even going to talk about it.

Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse -- Been intending to get to this one since college and it wasn't what I expected. Didn't do much for me.

John Adams, by David McCullough -- Oh, this one's good. Adams was one of the most brilliant, honest, and hard-working pains in the ass ever and this is the second best biography I've ever read. Seven-hundred-something pages, but it doesn't feel like it.

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson -- Wow. I'm sure it's not for everyone, but Drew, Ted, TG, Christophersly...wow.