While at the beach, I finished Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife (I know, it took me forever to read, since my lunch breaks are shorter at my new job – 10 minutes at best - and I didn’t take the book home until our weekend vacation). But it was excellent (thank you, Casey, for recommending). If any of you have read my creative nonfiction, you know that I love a “braided” story, and this one was a wonderful example of how distorted chronology can create momentum and keep imagery strong. I definitely thought “I wish I had written this” throughout reading the whole book. Also, for those of you who have visited and/or lived in/loved Chicago, this is a must-read. Even though I’ve only been to the city twice, I found joy in recognizing where certain scenes took place in the book & city.
So, to keep up with my “novel & Internet reading at work, poetry & magazines at home” practice, I started reading Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, which I had picked up from Park Road Books’ “2006 Reader’s Choice” shelf back when I bought Time Traveler’s Wife. Coincidentally, Gruen is also a Chicago author. So far, I’m loving it, and it appears to be a fast read. The story is set in a present-day nursing home and in a flash-back to the Great Depression era, when the narrator had joined a carnival as a veterinarian. I might get this book for my sister, who just completed vet school, for her birthday or Christmas, depending on how it unfolds.
So yeah, it’s good to delve into some nice contemporary fiction. I think it takes the edge off everything else I stick my nose into 
