Maternity Leave and Overdue Books

I paid a lot of late fees this maternity leave. In fact, I've been back at work a month, and I've paid more late fees since then. And yet, for all of those $5 maximum late fees, I got very little reading actually done. I was willing to pay just to have the books nearby, even if I didn't actually get a chance to pick them up. I *didn't* read the new Gordon Korman (Pop), the new David Levithan/Rachel Cohn, or the new Connie Willis (yet!). I finally read:

Heist Society by Ally Carter 287 pages and loved it, although I thought it was going to be about a boarding school because for the longest time I had only read the first chapter, and it turned out to be about a family of theives. Very Oceans 11, in the way that I adore.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
187 pages
For book group -- no really likeable characters, and I had to hold book group twice because we got 10 inches of snow on the first scheduled date, but I didn't end up minding the chance to discuss the book or research the author multiple times. I wouldn't have pegged it for a book that left me thinking deeply about human relationships and how they related to facism and the Holocaust...but that's literature for you.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
343 pages
Sort of a bizarre story, but delightful. Not the happy ending I would have wished for. The movie follows the book very closely.

The Reivers by William Faulkner 376 pages - a lovely adventurous romp through Yoknapatawpha county and a coming of age story as well.

The Big Read -- why I thought it was a good idea to read THREE books instead of one for book group the month after I had a baby---well.....it turned out to be wonderful to have something (like noir mysteries) to divert my attention from those overwhelming first weeks of new baby nursing.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett 217 pages
Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky 244 pages
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler 139 pages