Book Review! Vacation Reading

One of the many things we enjoyed doing while on vacation was reading and reading in excess. We spent most of the late morning and afternoon chasing the sun around the lanai and reading. Total bliss. Oh well except for the construction on the neighboring condos... but we'll ignore that for now!

The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle

A simple mystery with a little food / travel to make it interesting. Was by no means a very convincing or greatly done novel, but it wasn't trying to be anything special and was a quick fun read. I thought the first book in his Caper series, the Vintage Caper was much better. Also, he is the same author as A Year in Provence which if you haven't read (or any of his other travel books), it's great.  

Another mystery and a much better one at that:

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro

This story follows an art reproducer who gets tangled up in an forgery of a famous Degas masterpieces stolen in 1990 in the heist of 13  thirteen works of art worth today over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. For any art lover, this was excellent and kept me on my toes! I think I finished it with in a day. 

And my favorite read of vacation:

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

I had originally found this book at Costco a few months ago, but never picked it up. While enjoying Happy Hour at a restaurant near our condo, a couple struck up conversation with us and (among other things) mentioned this book. The book is set in Seattle (although traverses to the South Pole, but I'm getting a head of myself) and is HYSTERICAL for those who know Seattle. The book is written in a series of letters, emails and communications between various characters searching for Bernadette (who disappears and no one knows where!). Quick witted, mysterious and very well written.