One of the things that I love about book blogging is that we have such a wonderful community. I think of food bloggers and book bloggers as parallel communities and we share much in common with them, including close friendships with our fellow bloggers. Some us even do double duty as food bloggers and book bloggers.

The food blogging community lost one of its members this weekend. Sherry who blogged at What Did You Eat unexpectedly pass away from a heart attack Sunday morning.

A Fridge Full of Food (Glenna) and Kalyn’s Kitchen (Kalyn is a friend and one of my co-editors at BlogHer) are getting the word out about a memorial for Sherry. BlogHer posted an In Memorium which is getting the word out further. And I’m posting to you - my community.

Head on over to Sher’s blog and pick just one of her many delicious recipes to cook this week and post about it on your blog on July 27, linking back to the recipe. Glenna has offered to add those links to the end of her tribute to Sher so Sher’s family and friends can find them. Bloggers who would like their tribute linked with Glenna’s post can send the link to marie9949 (at) sbcglobal (dot) net after the post appears on Sunday.

Community is the best thing about the internet and blogging. Without it we’re all talking into nothingness. Please spread the word on your blogs. To your friends. To your family. To your co-workers. If you or a friend want to participate but don’t have a blog email me at thesassymonkey at gmail dot com and I’ll open up both of my blogs to guest posting.

I’ll be cooking - what about you?

Now that I’ve gotten Cat to join Twitter it’s time to find out who else among you is on there. So - who is on Twitter?

If you are add me - @sassymonkey.

If you think I’m speaking in tongues I’m not. Here is the best “What is Twitter?” explanation that I’ve found.

(I am so not to blame if you get addicted to Twitter…)

As someone of you may know, BlogHer.com’s annual conference was this weekend. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend up I’ve been following it online (funny how when you have 1000 bloggers in one spot it gets blogged). One session that I think might be of interest to some of you is the one on how blogs get made into books.

Semicharmed Wife liveblogged it for your reading pleasure: BlogHer 08 Blog to Book Redux

It’s “Redux” because they’ve covered the topic at a past conference…I think the session went really well. What about you?

Right, so I was doing very well at continuing to update this page everyday and then something happened. I got the worst case of hives ever. I can’t even put on a pair of shoes. It sucks. And I spent the better of the evenings this week on Benadryl (which seems to be doing sweet #&*% all) and have not been reading. But I did make a few trips to Blossom Street thanks to audio books. I listened to both Back on Blossom Street and Twenty Wishes.

This is the thing, I know they aren’t well written but I had always like the knitting connection and several of the characters. But I think that the audio version of the books has cured me of liking anything about these. Sigh. Everyone sounded so darned insipid and annoyed. You could hear the italics that the narration added. I also noticed a lot of repetition of facts in the narration that I didn’t pay so much attention when reading (most likely I skimmed over the repetition when reading them).

So now I’m on the search for a good fiction book with a knitting connection (yes, I’ve already read The Friday Night Knitting Club).

But on the plus side, the two audio books did distract me from how itchy and hideous my toes are. But I really don’t recommend them (or hives).

I found Lauren Kessler’s Clever Girl when I was trolling the stacks at the library. It sounded interesting. And I do like spy stories.

Elizabeth Bentley was the Red Spy Queen as the newspapers called her. She came from an old Connecticut family, was well educated (Vassar), travelled to Europe (apparently she had quite the time in Italy) and then joined the Communist Party, fell in love with a secret agent, became a secret agent and took over two spy rings. But after her secret agent lover dies she finds herself slowly getting pushed out by the Russians. So she turns informer and goes to the FBI.

It sounds very exciting doesn’t it. It wasn’t really. The life of a spy it turns out isn’t that exciting after all. Don’t get me wrong, it was interesting, just not all that exciting. Her life was actually pretty sad.

Overall an interesting book on something I know very little about.

I will start this by saying I know pretty much next to nothing about graphic novels. But when the Cybils tell me that The Professor’s Daughter by Emmanuel Gilbert and Joann Sfar is a good one I’ll believe them. And since I enjoyed it I’ll agree.

The story is a bit quirky but that’s what makes it so enjoyable. A mummy is somehow (they didn’t really go into the specifics) is “alive” and walking around London and is falling in love with the professor’s daugther while he’s acting as her chaperon. Hijinks, including the kidnapping of Queen Victoria, ensue.

It’s fun. It’s short. Did I say it’s fun? Cause it’s fun.

If my egyptology professor hadn’t passed away a few years ago I totally would be sending this one to him. He’d have loved it. And really, that’s one of the best recommendations I can give you.

I need help. And only you, my readers and fellow book bloggers, can help me out.

You see, I went a bit of the grid in the last year. Since I was predominently buying books instead of being able to get them off the library I kind of fell of a wagon in terms of adult fiction. I have ooooodles of YA recommendations. Oodles. YA was pretty easy to keep up with actually due the comparitively low price of YA vs adult fiction.

But I’m feeling unbalanced. Yes, I read your blogs and I have a lovely little tab of book blogger recommendations in my spreadsheet. But somehow that’s just not cutting it for me. I need your best recommendations.

Here’s what’s on my request list right now (excluding my big ole long list of YA).

• Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs (already “read” The Friday Night Knitting Club as an audiobook)
• Earthly Pleasures by Karen Neches (I saw it on someone’s blog…if it was you speak up)
• Fire Study by Maria Snyder (want it now)
• The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson (are you reading her blog? You’re not. You should be.)
• Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch (I like the cover, good a reason as any right?)
• How to be Single by Liz Tucillo (seems to be the hot book of the summer)
• Queen of Babble Gets Hitched by Meg Cabot (read the first two so I have to read this one even though I’m pretty sure I know what’s going to happy and Lizzie can be a bit of a flake which makes me want to kick her in the shins to smarten her up again)
• The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen (also want this now)
• This Charming Man by Marian Keyes (I have a love/hate thing with Keyes…since I didn’t love her last book I figure I’m due to like this one. However I’m #189 on the waiting list so it’ll be awhile)
• The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton (again saw it one someone’s blog - speak up if it was you)

I have Mudbound checked out and I’ve preorder The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (I was preordering all of the President’s Daugther re-released books which I absolutely CANNOT wait for…which no doubt means that’ll be the week that I get a job or something…).

What am I missing? What book have you read in the last year is a total must read for you? HELP!

(I have oodles of non-fiction lying around here so I don’t need recs for that but if you’ve read one that must be shared with the world let me know! Although if it’s food-lit chances are I’ve read it, it’s on my wishlist or it’s on my shelf waiting to be read.)

Look! It’s a girl with half a head! *ahem*

I love Maureen Johnson. She’s funny and silly and just plain likable. And have I mentioned lately how happy I am that I now have a fantastic library system at my disposal where I can get books like hers just about any time? I mean Girl at Sea was just sitting there on the shelf. I didn’t have to request it or anything!

What’s that? I’ve mentioned the library thing a time or two? Pshaw! I have no idea what you are talking about. *whistles*

Right, so Girl at Sea… Clio is a very lucky teenager. At least to the outsider’s view. Not only did she and dad create a fantastic and uber-popular game but she gets the spend her summer vacation in Italy with her father. On a boat! A yacht really. Lucky, lucky girl. Erm maybe. It turns out that she’s not so fond of her darling dad most days. Her parents split a few years ago because her dad = Mr. Impulsive and Undependable.

She’s not thrilled about the Italy trip but doesn’t have much choice because her mother is going away for the summer too and there’s not really any room for her. And when she gets to Italy it turns out that they are on some kind of super secret archaeological mission. It’s so secret that she’s not even allowed to know what they are looking for and she’s not allowed any contact with the outside world. No phones, not email. Oh and her father conveniently forgot to mention that his new girlfriend and her daughter would be joining them. And her family’s old friend Martin. And a grad assistant that works for her dad’s girlfriend…and is young…and cute…

I love Johson’s books. I never actually believe that anything could happen in real life like they do in her novels but when you are reading them you almost believe it. But I think that’s what makes them so much fun.

I’ve decided I haven’t read nearly enough Sarah Dessen books. I read her blog regularly and I’ve read one of two of her books but I think I kind of need to read them all. Somone Like You was just sitting there on the shelf waiting for me to taking it home. So I did.

Halley, yes named for Halley’s Comet, is your typical teen. Her best friend is like a sister to her and her mother annoys the crap out of her. Except that she and her mother used to be best friends too. And her mother has written numerous psychology books about how wonderful their relationship is. Oops! Halley’s best friend Scarlet is going through what we’ll call a bit of a rough patch. Her summer boyfriend was killed in a motorcycle accident. A few months later Scarlett finds out that she’s pregnant. So not only is her boyfriend gone but now she’s carrying his child. Meanwhile Halley starts dating Machon who is the quintessential bad boy. We don’t even know what he’s doing most of the time - we just know it’s bad and Halley needs to get the hell away. It probably goes without saying that Halley’s mother is not crazy about the Machon thing. And that Halley gets into trouble a time or five while she’s dating him.

If any of this sounds familiar you’ve probably seen the Mandy Moore movie How to Deal (if I were a betting woman I’d bet that you saw it on the W network seeing as it seems to play it about once a month). How to Deal is actually a combination of Someone Like You and That Summer. After reading this book and having seen the movie I was curious about what parts they took from That Summer so I had to look up the synopsis of that novel and I can totally see how they combined the two. Not having read That Summer for now I’m going to say that I think they did a great job of combining the two novels for the movie but that could change.

I really like Dessen’s writing. Why haven’t I read more of it? I think I should go add That Summer to my library request list don’t you?

I was browsing the teen section of the library when I found If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where’s My Prince by Melissa Kantor. Cute title so I picked it up. I guess cute pretty much sums it up.

Lucy’s dad got married and made her move from San Fran to Long Island. Not exactly her choice. Even less of her choice was the fact that while she’s there all week he is in SF Monday-Friday and is only “home” on the weekends. She’s stuck there with her step-mother and evil step-sisters. All the steps think that they are princesses and Lucy feels like Cinderella. She’s mostly-fatherless, friendless and princeless. But has she maybe found her prince? The most popular guy in school seems to be paying attention to her. Maybe things are starting to turn around.

Like I said, cute. I really didn’t buy the Connor thing. And I didn’t like the Connor thing. It felt like Lucy didn’t really like him, ever, and she was just floating along on it because he was a) a guy b) cool and c) got her out of the house. I get the plot and why it was, I just didn’t like it. It wasn’t like she really liked him and then started seeing him and then decided she didn’t. It didn’t seem like she thought much about him before he started paying attention to her except to think that he was cute. Meh. I don’t know. Maybe I was just feeling crabby when I read it.