Comfort Reading

One of the things I do at KAXE is pick out the selections for the KAXE Book of the Month Club (you can be in this by pledging your yearly support at our 1 dollar a day/$365 year level)....I was talking with one of the members the other day and asked her what she was looking for in a book right now. "Something light!" I totally knew what she meant.... she described it as needing a "comfort" book and that she goes thru periods where she also needs her reading that is good for her/"vegetable" reading....

When it comes to my own reading, a lot of times that's exactly what I'm looking for - a very delicate balance between light reading and something engrossing....not a harelquin romance exactly, but something that I will get absorbed in and finish quickly.

The cool thing was that I had the perfect book for our KAXE Bookclub member - because I recently interviewed author Jennie Shortridge for Realgoodwords. I'd really liked her book "Eating Heaven" which was the story of a plus-sized food writer who has takes care of her ailing uncle Benny. In becoming a caregiver she comes to realize she needs to learn to care for herself and find what she wants out of life.

But back to the new novel by Jennie Shortridge that I passed on - "Love and Biology at the End of the Universe". This is the story of Mira Serafino - a biology teacher who works hard to appear to be perfect - at work, with her husband, with her daughter and father....when one element isn't quite what she envisions, she packs her bags and hits the road to find a new life. One reviewer wrote:

"Shortridge has tapped into what may be everybody's fantasy at some point or other: if you weren't saddled with the consequences of the decisions you've made over the years, who would you be now?"

You can hear my conversation with Jennie Shortridge at the Realgoodwords archive
or you can hear it Sunday morning at 9am, streaming live audio at www.kaxe.org.

Let me know if you know what I mean about needing "comfort" books - got any recommendations?