I'm gonna sleep with this under my pillow

Lookee! I had a conversation (well, a Twitter conversation) with Mary Roach! I don't have anything else to say about it. Just wanted to make sure that I kept some proof that it happened.

J.D. Salinger

I don't even know what to say about the death of J.D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye is one of my all-time favorite books and has been since I read it in my freshman year of high school. I like what John Hodgman said

I prefer to think JD Salinger has just decided to become extra reclusive

And here are some links to people who are more articulate on the subject than I:

• From the Washington Post: Publisher Roger Lathbury recalls book deal with J.D. Salinger that went south 
• From the Guardian's Books Blog: JD Salinger: A tribute roundup 
• From The New York Times: J. D. Salinger, Literary Recluse, Dies at 91. See also the list of related articles.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
by Alan Bradley
cloth
ISBN 978-0-385-34230-8
Delacorte Press

Rating (on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being best)
Plot: 5
Characters: 5
Writing: 5
Final: 5

Comments: Perfection.

In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950—and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding story—of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school’s tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murder—but protecting her and her sisters from something even worse . . .

Listen to author Alan Bradley talk about the main character, Flavia de Luce:

Stiff by Mary Roach

My pal Amy tried to give me a copy of this book for Christmas. I say "tried" because of course I have it (and have read it). Her first clue should have been the subtitle: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. If that doesn't say "Jana" then I don't know what does.

Anyway, I love this book so much. I just about swoon whenever it's mentioned and have to take a deep breath before I can speak. It's incredibly graphic, gross, and hilarious. Mary Roach asks every oddball question that pops into her head, even if it makes her look like a creep. I heart her.

I told Amy to keep her copy and I would re-read mine along with her. And I almost never re-read books. I can't think of the last time I did that—maybe Do the Windows Open?

Perhaps surprisingly, I haven't ready Roach's other books: Spook and Bonk (And I don't own them. Hint-hint, Amy).

From Publishers Weekly via Amazon:

"Uproariously funny" doesn't seem a likely description for a book on cadavers. However, Roach, a Salon and Reader's Digest columnist, has done the nearly impossible and written a book as informative and respectful as it is irreverent and witty. From her opening lines ("The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back"), it is clear that she's taking a unique approach to issues surrounding death. Roach delves into the many productive uses to which cadavers have been put, from medical experimentation to applications in transportation safety research (in a chapter archly called "Dead Man Driving") to work by forensic scientists quantifying rates of decay under a wide array of bizarre circumstances. There are also chapters on cannibalism, including an aside on dumplings allegedly filled with human remains from a Chinese crematorium, methods of disposal (burial, cremation, composting) and "beating-heart" cadavers used in organ transplants. Roach has a fabulous eye and a wonderful voice as she describes such macabre situations as a plastic surgery seminar with doctors practicing face-lifts on decapitated human heads and her trip to China in search of the cannibalistic dumpling makers. Even Roach's digressions and footnotes are captivating, helping to make the book impossible to put down.