Guest Post: Sh*t My Mom Reads

She's Bybee to you, sometimes Susan. She's Mom to me. Sometimes Susan. She's like, "You know, I was reading decades before you were born!' I'm like, "Whatever." She's still reading. This is what she read this month. No Flashmans, though. She needs to get back to that.


1. Shortcomings - Adrian Tomine. This is a graphic novel, so points for that. Actually, she bought it for me in the Dallas airport. When she gave it to me, I told her that I'd already read it and that I've read just about everything by Tomine. You should've seen her face. And she apologized. And I was like, "Come on, we're not Canadian." She got to enjoy it though, so it worked out OK.


2. Hank Williams - Colin Escott. I don't think I'd read this. Not because it's Hank Williams or because I'm not a big fan of country music. I just don't care for really long biographies.


3. Noah's Compass- Anne Tyler. I think she's been on an Anne Tyler kick for a long time. She gets all "Oooooh Anne Tyler!" and "Get me to a bookstore now!" when Tyler comes out with a new one.


4. The Twits - Roald Dahl. Is she just now getting around to this? My favorite part was when Mr. Twit sent Mrs. Twit up with those balloons and she comes back down and lands on him and says she'll nash him to a nozzle, then reverses the sounds. Mom read this because she said that Faulkner Guy assigned it to his class. Last year, he made them read Fantastic Mr. Fox.


5. Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett. I don't know anything about this book, except Mom said that the body count was absurdly high.


6. A Death in Belmont- Sebastian Junger. I like true crime. The best one is Bully. The one about the Texas cheerleader's mom is good, too.


7. After Dark, My Sweet - Jim Thompson. She's still on her Jim Thompson kick. I want to check out his work. Stephen King said he was great. Her book club is reading The Killer Inside Me. She left a copy in her mailbox for some woman who wants to join the group to pick up. It was there all weekend. I found it and took it out and asked Mom if I could take it home. She said OK.


8. The Giver - Lois Lowry. I told her to read this years ago! It's about time! Great book, one of my favorites. I like how Jonas' world becomes more and more dystopian.


Glad she only read 8. I want to stop writing now.