Peachy Reads

Click here to check for availability at AFPLS I saw the movie before I read the book, which I almost never do, but so be it. The eBook was available from the library, so I downloaded it to my Nook. It was an impulse, but it was also free. This is why I bought the Nook and not the Kindle. This is how libraries work, and hopefully will work in the future. Reading books should not have to cost excessive amounts of money. Anyway, Julie & Julia is the book that the blogging part of the movie is based on, the Amy Adams storyline (an actress, in my humble opinion, who is about as perfect as they come). I really enjoyed the movie (which I rewatched after finishing Julie & Julia ), but I also enjoyed the book, but in a different way. Of course everyone knows how Nora Ephron used Julia Child’s memoir My Life in France to serve as the grist for the Meryl Streep (another perfect actress) half of the movie. Julie & Julia provides the structure for both stories. Even the book has short...

Star Island / Carl Hiaasen Click here for availability at AFPLS Get ready for another wild and crazy romp through south Florida, where the characters are always larger than life, and in spite of the plunging real estate market, developers still stomp on the environment. Cherry Pye (real name Cheryl Bunterman) is a pop diva like a bad-Britney who doesn’t have a lot of talent or brains. As she parties her way to oblivion, her parents employ a body double to keep up appearances. A particularly obsessive paparazzo stalks Cherry Pye, and in the ensuing confusion of who is the starlet and who is the double, there is a lot of keystone cops mayhem. Hiaasen’s characters are caricatures, always over-the-top, but also somehow believable. The narrative line of Star Island , which is big on satire, lurches around a bit and I’m not sure the environmental theme ever really meshes with the bad pop star storyline, but it’s a fun read nonetheless. This was the first full book I read as an eBook on my N...