Booking Through Thursday--Skeletons

Here is this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

In honor of Halloween this weekend:

What reading skeletons do you have in your closet? Books you’d be ashamed to let people know you love? Addiction to the worst kind of (fill in cheesy genre here)? Your old collection of Bobbsey Twin Mysteries lovingly stored behind your “grown-up” books? You get the picture … come on, confess!

Hmmm...skeletons in my reading closet? The first thing that comes to mind are all those Georgette Heyer novels I've read over the years. They're really a guilty pleasure. I have enjoyed her historical novels but her Regency books are the true skeletons in my reading closet.

Other than that, I may read the occasional chick-lit novel, or cheesy bestseller, but other than Georgette Heyer, I don't have anything else that approaches true secret addiction.

How about you, anything you don't readily admit to reading? Any secret book addictions?

Sunday Salon--Halloween season

We are pumpkin-y and leafy around here, and the kids insisted that we decorate for Halloween early. We get so many trick-or-treaters, it's insane. We live one street away from a street where everyone decorates the heck out of their houses at Halloween, and trick-or-treaters come from all over. We only get the spillover from that street, and I have to buy 1200 pieces of candy. Isn't that crazy?

But we actually love it. The kids enjoy giving out candy more than they care about trick-or-treating themselves.

My husband and I are getting ready for our trip to Paris, sans children. I cannot wait! I pulled out my copy of A Moveable Feast, to re-read Hemingway's memories of his time in Paris in the 1920s. Apparently he lived there on 5$ a day...ha! Wouldn't that be nice? I often forget how good a writer Hemingway actually was...this book is reminding me of that.

When I threw it out there that I'm looking for something to read while I'm in Paris, a commenter recommended Mavis Gallant stories. I've been meaning to read Gallant for years. So of course I bought a copy of her Paris Stories (published by one of my favorites, New York Review of Books Classics), so I'll have that to bring along.

And I'm still making my own slow way through Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, though I'm almost finished now. I swing wildly between identifying with the characters and being disgusted with them. I can't wait to hear what my fellow book-groupers think next week.

What are you reading on this lovely fall weekend? And do you have any good recommendations for things to do, eat, read in Paris? I'm loving everyone's advice!

Lazy blogger

I've been such a lazy blogger lately, it's pathetic. But at least I haven't been a lazy reader. I've been working my way through Jonathan Franzen's Freedom: A Novel for my book group, which meets in early November. I'm hooked. It's as I remember from The Corrections: A Novel--the man can write.

I ran across an interview with Emma Donoghue, whose novel Room: A Novel s nominated for the Booker Prize. I generally avoid books in which children are in serious peril, but this book sounds fascinating. It's written from the point of view of a five-year-old, which must have been pretty tough to pull off. It's been getting good reviews, so onto my list it goes.

The real reason I've been distracted from blogging is that I'm planning a trip to Paris. My husband and I are going on a sort of second honeymoon to the city of light, a place I've yearned to explore.

I've been obsessed with figuring out where to eat and what to do and where to walk. Of course, we're going in early November, so there is the distinct possibility of rain and rather colder temperatures than I'm used to here in L.A., so I may not be able to do all the things I'd like to do while I'm there. But I'm going to cram a lot in, I promise!

Of course I'm going to make a pilgrimage to Shakespeare and Co., but I'm not sure about other bookish things. I'm going to try to take a chocolate tour of Paris, though. And there's always the question of how many books to bring, and which ones!

So all you fab folks out there who have been to Paris, please leave me some recommendations! What should I see, do, eat, read?