Thank you guys for all the book recommendations in the previous post. I am going to be looking at BookMooch to see if I can find some of those.

Now, I mentioned that on the weekend we went to BookPeople but I forgot to mention that we also went to Barnes & Noble. I love it when we get to spend hours in the bookstore. Anyway, aside from indulging in some magazines and hot chocolate I spent a good bit of time wandering up and down the aisles adding books to my wish list.

Here’s what made it on to my list. As usual tell me if you’ve read any of these:

• The Four Seasons by Laurel Corona. The story of Vivaldi’s Venice.
• In This Way I Was Saved by Brian DeLeeuw. From Publisher’s Weekly: DeLeeuw’s spellbinding debut is told from the point of view of a being who assumes the persona and desires of a boy’s repressed self. Doesn’t that sound fantastic?
• Beneath The Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengiste. A novel which opens on the day of Ethiopia’s revolution in 1974. I read one novel set in Ethiopia last year and enjoyed learning more about a country so different from any I’ve known.
• The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda. How do you know if love is real or just an illusion? Sounds fun.
• The Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser. The story opens on a sunny spring day as a pretty woman, in a crowded wartime city, climbs aboard a streetcar. She is heading home, where another war—a domestic war—is about to erupt.
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. I don’t read much non-fiction but this story sounds just like some crazy fiction tale. Here’s the synopsis and tell me you wouldn’t put this on your list: Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine.
• Body of Work by Christine Montross. Another non-fiction which sounds very intriguing. This is a hauntingly moving memoir of the relationship between a cadaver named Eve and the first-year medical student who cuts her open.

Off to hang out with a good read.

Happy Sunday Salon everyone. What’s the scoop? Given that Valentine’s Day is coming up I was thinking that it’d be fun to read a good love story. Not a Harlequin romance type. Nothing against those (actually I went through a phase long time ago when I read my share of romance novels) but I’m looking for something more like The Time Traveler’s Wife, The History of Love or The End of the Alphabet. That kind of love story.

So anyone have a good one to recommend?

And, because I’ve been thinking of love and friendship, I got out one of my papers for the perfect Valentine’s journal. Unfortunately there’s a little flaw in the journal, nothing you can see on the covers or that would affect the way it’s held together but I hope one of my readers would like it. So I’m having a little drawing for the journal and maybe some other little Valentine goodies. Leave a comment with a love story you recommend and I’ll do a drawing for the journal in the next couple of days.

We didn’t go to Dallas this weekend after all but we’ve spent a wonderful few hours at BookPeople yesterday and today I’m hoping to get in some good time in the Studio cutting paper and listening to some music. Of course I hope to catch up on some blog visiting. Hope you are all having a great weekend!