I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

I Was Told There'd Be Cake is another in what's rapidly appearing to be my favorite genre: humorous and poignant confessional essays. Like the blurb on the book cover says, she reminds me a bit of David Sedaris and Sara Vowell. A little Augusten Burroughs thrown in too.

Crosley recounts such stories as ShitterGate (when she finds a small turd on her bathroom floor after a dinner party and then how she how she slyly tries to find out whodunit) and the trials and tribulations of being a bridesmaid for a high school friend she hasn't seen in years. In short, she writes about situations unique to her that we could all envision ourselves getting into.

Where I give Crosley great credit is her use of metaphor to comic effect. I found myself laughing out loud at some of her comparisons. Here's the best sentence I've read in a long time: "My Australian dreams had disappeared into the night like a baby in a dingo's jaw." Many other great lines in this book.

Funny. Thought-provoking. Quality. Great for summer reading. Go read it now.

Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis

I finished Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis two days ago. Fatsis (whose most recent book A Few Seconds of Panic I read earlier in the year) spent most of 1999 and some of 2000 immersed in the world of competitive Scrabble and attempted to become an expert himself. We learn the history of the game and many of the strange denizens of the competitive Scrabble world. It's a good read about a rather bizarre subject, but if you like words and like Scrabble, it's worth a look.