I have a confession to make. I just read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I recognize that many people recommended it, and I bought it when it first came out in trade paperback, but somehow I never got around to it until last week. So I just want to say "Wow" and tell anyone else who has it sitting around on his or her shelves to go read it. My only quibble was with the whole Antarctica thing, which didn't seem to accomplish much, plus the whole dog thing squicked me.

I'm not sure how much it helped that I know a lot about the early comic book illustrators and have met some of them. It does make my failure to have read the book before now more appalling.

I now must go forth and make sure all my friends have read it.

It's really great, isn't it? I read it twice. Also, you might like Jonathan Lethem's "Fortress of Solitude" which reminded me of it, in a small way.

I skimmed the Antarctica section. So did many of my friends. Mea culpa.

My only quibble was with the whole Antarctica thing

I skimmed it, too. Ugh.

I still have it in my TBR pile...

Because I know people love Crusie...

I gave Welcome to Temptation to my cousin in a bridal shower bath basket gift, and of course she loved it, and has already read another. Fun!

Less fun: I noticed my grandmother had Faking It in her pile of books on tape, and asked her what she thought. She was HORRIFIED. "I didn't realize the title referred to her orgasms! And all the sex!" OMG, I was dying. It did also occur to me that maybe on paper she wouldn't have hated it so much, because she could have skimmed past the sex -- she said she didn't mind the rest of the story.

I love Crusie, but yeah, not so good for people squeamish about sex in their fiction.

And Bet Me is out in paperback now, right?

Bet Me is out in paperback, as well as a reprint of Charlie All Night, which has been out of print for a while.

I gave my mom a copy of Bet Me and mentioned there was a lot of explicit sex. She told me she was glad I thought she was mature enough to deal with it.

Sometimes you can tell we're related.

I noticed my grandmother had Faking It in her pile of books on tape, and asked her what she thought. She was HORRIFIED. "I didn't realize the title referred to her orgasms! And all the sex!"

Huh. I just listened to Faking It in my car (when I drove up to Columbus, I needed something to listen to, and I have to get books that I've already read, because if it's new to me, I might get so absorbed in it that I'll drive off the road), and there was very little sex. One of the sex scenes was left out totally, and the others were very edited.

(Plus, the title's about faking art, too. But then again, nobody wants to argue with Jesse's grandma.)