After a successful date on Friday (yey! Even though I thought for a moment or 12 that I was getting stood up :P Still, date!), I managed to squeeze in some more reading time (shock and awe):

The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
If you haven't read any of Fforde's Thursday Next series, please pick up a copy.  Any copy of any book.  They're all ( Read more... )

Hope Diamond: The Cultural History of a Legendary and Cursed Gem - Richard Kurin
Yes, it is, essentially, a biography of a diamond.  300 pages of diamond information and history.  Yet, it's a pretty damn cool diamond.  Shifting through 3 phases of its existence, the Hope diamond has morphed from stunning gemstone to cursed finery - the book explores ( Read more... )

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
One of those "What do you mean, you've never read Rebecca?" from your parents' generation.  It's categorized sometimes as a romance, but it's really  more of a mystery/psychothriller.  Written back in the days when people still owned "estates" and had slews of housekeepers and butlers, Rebecca tells the story of a young, ( Read more... )

I knocked down another one last night while running on the treadmill:

A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire - Amy Butler Greenfield
Lovely little book about the discovery of the extreme red dye derived from the cochineal insect that grows on the nopal cactus.  Domesticated by the native Indians of Mexico, cochineal ( Read more... )