Oh, for accessible I definitely recommend How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. It kind of splits the difference between YA & adult literature, it's set up as a series of short stories/vignettes and is a fascinating look at both sides of the coin—of growing up privileged in the Dominican Republic and having to start over in the U.S.

This rollicking, highly original first novel tells the story (in reverse chronological order) of four sisters and their family, as they become Americanized after fleeing the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. A family of privilege in the police state they leave, the Garcias experience understandable readjustment problems in the United States, particularly old world patriarch Papi. The sisters fare better but grow up conscious, like all immigrants, of living in two worlds. There is no straightforward plot; rather, vignettes (often exquisite short stories in their own right) featuring one or more of the sisters--Carle, Sandi, Yolanda, and Fifi--at various stages of growing up are strung together in a smooth, readable story.

I'm also trying not to get too obscure.

How obscure can it be when there were competing Hollywood versions the same year? Plus the great 60s Vadim version with Jeanne Moreau and, of course, Cruel Intentions. I'd say it's one of the more popular French novels, in France and here.

It's rated pretty highly at Goodreads, the reviews might give you a better idea of level and accessibility: [link]

Oh, Barb, that's a good idea. I love Allende but was worried about the length of her books (I have to balance the longer, harder works like Lolita and Hamlet with quicker reads).

There's also any of the three volumes of Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire, a 3-volume history of the Americas told in short vignettes, snippets of diaries, retellings of myths, songs and flights of pure fantasy; the longest is about 3 pages, most are half a page to a full page, and some are only two or three paragraphs. The first volume, Genesis, is particularly vivid and fast-moving.

Tom Jones?

Some of the metaphysical poets? A large proportion of their work includes conceits of love and passion. "To His Coy Mistress" is the best known, but Donne wrote poems like "The Flea" and "That Time and Absence Proves Rather Helps Than Hurts to Loves." Most of Lovelace is about passion.

In not-so-literary news, I finally finished The Strain. Has anyone read the next book in the trilogy?

Amy, the second book is on my shelf, but I haven't read it yet. I'm trying to figure out if I remember enough of the first book to not have to re-read it first.

Reread the last chapter. Everything you need to know is right there.

I ended up really loving Vasily Fet, the exterminator. He was a really pleasant surprise.

Hey, on that $20 Amazon gift card for $10 from yesterday -- apparently LivingSocial sold well over 1 million of them. Daaaaaaaamn.

If I were buying another Pratchett book for my nook, and I'm not saying I am, what with the thirty or so public domain books I downloaded over the weekend and all, but if I were, should I buy Nation, which I have not read, but is out of the Discworld, or Wee Free Men, which I have read, but my current library doesn't have and I love and also I have the last Tiffany Aching book so I could get the first and start building that collection which I don't have in paper?