Tag, you're it!

Alright, my cousin Lyndsay tagged me. Her tag is fabulous. Its one of my greatest loves, books. I'm supposed to list the last ten books that I've read. So this should be pretty easy as long as I can access my long term memory bank.

Anyway...

1. "The Hollow" by Nora Roberts. Its the second book in the series 'Number of Seven' Trilogy. Essentially three ten year old kids unleash this huge evil that comes around and plagues the town every seven years. As adults they realize they're the ones who have to plug it back up. Not her best work, but pretty good.

2. "Remember Me?" by Sophi Kinsella. My favorite of all time chick-lit writer. Anyway, this chick wakes up in a hospital where her last memory is from three years before. EVERYTHING in her life has changed since then. She's rich, is married to a gorgeous man, runs a company, but can't remember any of it. Oh, she's also having an affair. In her quest to find her memories she figures out she is not compatible with her husband, and has turned into a person she doesn't much respect. Of course, this has a happy ending.

3. "Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" By Christopher Moore. This book is probably incredibly blasphemous. But once you get over the guilt about that its incredibly hilarious. The author decided he needed to tell the stories about Christ growing up that weren't in the Bible. The author actually did A LOT of research in the book and quite a bit of it is biblically accurate. Obviously it wouldn't be so hilarious if he hadn't adlibbed some...

4. "Overachievers, The Secret Life of Driven Kids" By Alexandra Robbins. This journalist/reporter/tell-you-like-it-is writer chronicled nine kids from Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland. Walt Whitman is one of the most prestigous public high schools in the nation. Anyway, she followed these kids around for a few years, mostly their JR. and SR. years, and wrote about how they were driven. Either by their parents, or internally and the consequences. Basically the book is about how we are driving our kids today to succeed, at the cost of everything that childhood is supposed to be about. Pretty good insight into whats going on.

5. "Demons are forever" by Julie Kenner. This is a series about a normal soccer mom, who also happens to work for a very secret sect of the Catholic church hunting demons. In this book she unfoils yet another demon plan to take over the city in which she lives. She also happens to encounter her un-dead first husband, and her daughter finds out about it. She became my hero when I read that she does all this with a three year old boy. Its not nearly as dark as it sounds. The next book in the series comes out in a month or so... woo!

6. "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" by Jeff Lyndsay. Everybody I'm sure has seen the previews for the Showtime (now CBS) series Dexter. This is one of the books its based off of. The book is much better. Just in case you dont' know what its about, Dexter is a serial killer who kills bad guys only. Rapists, murderers, child molesters etc. etc.

7. "Hour Game" by David Baldacci. David Baldacci is a local author, and Mark and I have become completely enthralled by his stories. This is the second in the "Michelle and Sean" series. In this one they come across a murder scene in a small town. As they do more investigating they find out that its a copycat "Zodiac" killing. As more killings happen, they turn out like other serial killers. This bad guy is seriously messed up! David spins a pretty good tale. I also enjoy his books set in the District. Gotta love the conspiracy theorists.

8. "Freakanomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. "A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything." Some of the questions he poses, then explores and backs up with data and facts are: Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with thier moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crimes? My favorite part of this book was the chapter on names. They looked at the parents socio-economic status and then what they were naming the kids. One less educated mom couldn't figure out why her daughter's name was being mispronounced. It was spelled Shithead, and pronounced shateed. A very very good book!

9. "The Book of Fate" by Brad Meltzer. A presidential assassination attempt gets quasi-foiled and leaves one man disfigured and another dead. Then the dead guy is spotted not quite so dead... The disfigured guy tries to uncover what happened. He discovers freemason secrets, presidential crosswords and a cipher written by Thomas Jefferson. Very national treasureish. Very good.

10. "Pride and Predjudice" by Jane Austen, and "Bridge to Terebithia" by Katherine Patterson. I know everybody has read the first. Or seen the movie, or something like that. But it is in my top three favorite of all time books. Bridge to Terebithia was a book I read in the fourth grade. It honestly makes me cry every time. I hated the movie. The book was sooo much better.

Alright, since my cousin tagged about 98% percent of the people I know who have blogs I'll tag two people. Pickle, and BOB. Bob, you can post it to facebook or email me, or get a freakin blog! You've been talking about it long enough.