French Hedgehog and American Hodgepodge

Day 42 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project.

Karen is reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, along with Decoding the Human Body Field by Peter H. Fraser and Harry Massey. Ooh, French fiction with philosophy in it + new ideas in health about how body & mind work together. If I were reading these two at the same time, my brain might explode! The Hedgehog book sounds like something I should read next year, when I am 54, to match the 54-year-old residential concierge narrator. And now you know my age. But my college-student son thinks I look about 34, which is sweet. (I've linked you to a paperback of this, but it also includes the description of an audio version.)

Christina was recently reading An American Childhood by Annie Dillard and Bob has no doubt finished by now Barbara Jordan: American Hero, by Mary Beth Rogers. America and change in America are definitely on my mind today, as we watch the unfolding miracle of health care reform. Wooee! Speaking of France, remember when French fries had to be called American fries? And speaking of childhood and American icons, may Holden Caulfield and J. D. Salinger both rest in peace. And speaking of French fries, I want some.

My random, partially exploded, curlicued brain does connect something here--the 12-year-old French girl in Hedgehog, one of the narrators via her journal, is compared to Holden Caulfield in wry innocence. My own local book group is reading Franny & Zooey next, and we can never keep copies of that or Catcher in the Rye on the shelf at Babbitt's. If they come into the store, they go immediately onto the Select New Arrivals shelf by the door and soon walk back out. Those, and books by Ayn Rand. Sigh....

And speaking of Franny, she is a character in The Heroines, the novel by Eileen Favorite in which heroines from other books come to stay at a bed and breakfast run by Anne-Marie and her 13-year-old daughter Penny. See, things do connect in my hodgepodge brain! Sarah is reading The Heroines because she went to hear the author speak recently at her college. Sarah is also reading Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, who has the best middle name ever! And I am definitely linking you to the edition with the sexiest cover, and the one that most resembles Vanity Fair, the magazine, my guilty pleasure.

And that's enough of a hodgepodge for today.