Books finished: Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear, Juvenilia by Charlotte Bronte, The Second Tree from the Corner by E.B. White, Monkey Business by Sarah Mylowksi and High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.

Birds was fantastic and a good new murder mystery series. Very Masterpiece Theater, very cozy but with more edge. I liked the characters muchly and got into it a lot. Wow. Good levels of history and character, though the woman described _everyone's_ clothing.

Juvenilia makes me feel bad about my juvenilia as Charlotte and her siblings were way more knowledgeable than me in my teens. I liked the infighting between the siblings particularly Charlotte and Branwell. It made me think of Heavenly Creatures a bit. Their plotlines were so involved and the plots and the characters were manifold as well.

E.B.White was good though his prose varies from piece to piece. Very New Yorker like. Some of them are classics. I adored the one where he responds to things using Thoreau's Walden as his guide. Hard to explain.

Monkey Business was an impulse buy. I'd read her previous novel, Milkrun, and liked it okay, though wasn't as engaged as I could've been. Happily, Monkey Business is much fun and she's gotten better at developing characters. Very consuming. It's about the life of MBA students in grad. school and while there a few leaps of believability, like the housing, it's funny and touching at the same time.

High Fidelity was hard as I can only deal with Rob so much. I liked the record store the most and Barry and Dick and their interactions. I fear that he would rubbish my taste completely. There are some very true moments in it, like when Laura yells at him in the car about his music and when he keeps re-editing his top 5 records. I fear that Hornby has only a few topics and that his ability to write women is a bit problematic. Okay, heaping generalization there.

Am going to make tea and the Clash and I say good night.