“The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova is a LARGE book. I have the hardcover copy and let me tell you, this thing is by no means dainty. At a whopping 642 pages, you’re in for the long haul with this one. But what a fast-paced, exciting and intriguing haul it is!

Kostova takes the classic story of Dracula and weaves it into a story about the hunt for the real man, Vlad the Impaler, who supposedly did discover a way to become immortal. With vivid descriptions of the majestic countries of the Eastern Bloc (if you’re ever been, you will be drooling with jealously) and scary dives into crypts and ancient castles, Kostova is sure to please a history or travel buff purely with her settings.

The characters fit the plot perfectly and are very well-written; not a stone is left unturned. So well written in fact, I had no trouble imagining the frail Professor Rossi or the beautiful Helen, who insists on putting on a brave face at all times.

Anyone who has an interest in the supernatural will appreciate this a bit more than Dan Brown’s work. All the characters in this book whole-heartedly believe in the possibility of vampires and I admit, it’s hard not to get drawn in yourself.

If you’re up for some high-energy adventure to tide you over until “Angels and Demons” hits theatres or you just love a well-researched historical fiction or just love traveling, “The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova will not let you down!

I first noticed “Dedication” at the bookstore where I work. I read the back – it sounded cute and light and had a musical aspect to it, so I thought I would enjoy it.

I visited my library and checked it out? What? I don’t need the other people at work knowing about my vice!

Basically, the story involves a girl, Kate, and her highschool sweetheart, Jake Sharpe. The book chronicles their romance, right from their meeting, flashing back to the eighties while keeping up with the present story. The turning point is when Jake becomes a rock-star while Kate goes off to university. Unfortunately he uses their relationship and Kate’s personal life as obvious inspiration for his songs and sends her life on a downward spiral. They eventually come back together after many years, and this is where the story really gets good.

Don’t worry – I won’t spoil anything. But it is just. so. good.

Unlike most chick-lit, Dedication is realistic. It’s not about a white knight riding in on his steed to save the damsel in distress. Besides the whole famous-rock-star thing, the book reads like a story from a friend. Kate’s emotions are real and raw and, sometimes, wrong. I find chick-lit is usually so safe; the protagonist does everything right, everytime. McLaughlin and Krauss take chances with their novel and allow the character to become more believable by doing so.

This book was a quick read, but differed from all the other chick-lit I’ve read in that it actually pulled at my heart a bit. I wasn’t terribly impressed by The Nanny Diaries (also by this pair), but with Dedication they’ve really stepped it up!

If you are looking for something quick, fun and totally chick-y, this is definitely the book.

I love science. Figuring out how things work, studying anatomy, mixing chemicals; I love it all! So naturally, I dabble in the Science Non-Fiction section at my local bookstore. I know what you’re thinking: books about science are written by hundred- year- old men with big, scraggly beards who use big confusing words and even more confusing concepts. But that’s where you’re wrong!

Sure, you can find those kind of books if that’s your thing (for those who love science a little too much…), but there are also some really interesting ones written in totally understandable English. And guess what? They’re interesting and funny!

Mary Roach introduced me to the world of enjoyable science reading with her book about human cadavers, Stiff. I’m sure some of you shuddered at the word “cadaver,” but if you can handle it, this book is FANTASTIC! That lead me to Roach’s second book Spook, which is about the paranormal and a lot less gory. I loved both, so when I heard Mary Roach had a new book coming out this past summer, I was over the moon! And she didn’t let me down.

Written with her usual smart wit, Mary Roach creates a fun and interesting look at the scientific side of sex with her latest book, Bonk.

Topics range from Kinsey’s experiments (so interesting and this book only made me want to research them more) to the biological function of the female orgasm to even sex toys, without ever making you feel awkward or talked down to as a reader. She is able to take both serious and funny topics and turn them into interesting, informative chapters. And her research is meticulous. The woman covers her bases, especially when it comes to the studies she checks out. Heck, she and her husband even partake in the horizontal mambo for one!

Mary Roach has a rare gift: she is able to take scientific topics with the potential to be horribly boring and create fun, enjoyable, yet educational reads. As I said, she is the reason I venture to the science section. Roach is like that one teacher in high school who paid attention to you and showed you that you could survive your most hated subject and even grow to love it. She has truly found her calling as a writer and I cannot wait for her next book.

If it’s one thing we’ve learned here at CC, it’s that all people are fascinating (Yes, even your econ professor). Let’s face it – people love to glimpse into the lives of other people. Disagree? Then please explain why you’re currently looking at your friend’s brother’s girlfriend’s cousin’s photos on Facebook. Or reading about the latest Madonna/Jesus dramz in this week’s tabloids. Yeah we thought so.Fact is we connect to others by learning about them. And everyone has something to share (even if it is a story about that time you stayed in the library for 18 hours straight…)

So to give you yet another reason to procrastinate, we started ‘The Five Questions We Ask Everyone’ (and five just for that one person) because we know whether we’re schmoozing with an A- list celeb or your local bartender, you’ll be equally entertained. 

Let’s be honest here: who hasn’t read at least one Jodi Picoult book? Most of us, in fact, grab ‘em and read ‘em as soon as they hit bookstore shelves. Picoult has a knack for writing that most authors dream about. Her combination of research and talent come together seamlessly in books that are impossible to put down: My Sister’s Keeper, The Pact, Salem Falls… and those are only a few of the 15 books she’s written.

Jodi Picoult is smart (Princeton for undergrad and Harvard for her masters!), she’s talented (Um, have you read her books?!) and we got to talk to her! Read on to get inside our favorite author’s head.

5 Questions We Ask Everyone:

1.    What is your favorite college memory/the most trouble you’ve ever gotten into?

I was the only girl on the men’s crew team.  I had just joined up – and was not feeling particularly beloved by the guys – when the coach of the women’s team asked me to be a coxswain for the day.  It went HORRIBLY and I was in tears when I got out of the crew shell.  The stroke of the women’s boat started screaming at me.  Well, suddenly, the guys swarmed around the girl who was yelling at me.  They told her she better apologize to me, or they’d make life hell for her at the boathouse.  It was the first time I really felt like I totally belonged.

2.    What are the five things you can’t live without

My husband, my three kids (do they count as one?), chocolate, my Blackberry, Ouidad Climate Control for hair.

3.    What’s your motto/advice you live by?

Why do it when you can overdo it?

4.    Your favorite song to belt out in the car/for karaoke?

Right now, “I’m Yours,” by Jason Mraz.

5.    Ten years from now you will be….

Changing the world one mind at a time, just like I’m doing now.

5 Questions Just for Jodi:

1.    Where do you get the inspiration/ideas for your books?

From what-if questions to which I don’t know the answers.

2.   What do you do to get over writer’s block?

I don’t believe in writer’s block – it’s for people who have too much time on their hands.  When I started writing I had a newborn, and then two more kids quickly, and I wrote in any five minute block I had.  There are days you don’t write pure poetry, but you can always go back and edit a bad page…not a blank page.

3.    Which of your books would you like to see made into a movie first and who do you see starring in it?

“My Sister’s Keeper” is coming out June 26 starring Abigail Breslin and Cameron Diaz.

4.    How did you break into writing?

It’s really difficult – I sent out hundreds of letters to agents who rejected me before finding one who thought she could represent me.  She sold my first book in three months.

5    Favorite snacks to munch on when you are busy writing?

I am a sucker for Chex Mix.

Some chick lit is pretty good. When I say “pretty good,” I am thinking of books like The Devil Wears Prada and The Nanny Diaries. (See, I’m not the only one who thinks they have potential — Hollywood even made movies out of them!) Confessions of a Shopaholic and The Ivy Chronicles also stand out. Bitter is the New Black is worth mentioning, as well — even though it’s actually nonfiction, it has all of the story and character elements of chick lit.

Unfortunately, there are just as many chick lit novels that I can’t stand. There is a fine line between lighthearted and superficial, but some chick lit coasts right on past into nauseating. For example, I was absolutely appalled by How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls. While most chick lit novels feature a mild moral conflict — “to tell a lie or not to tell a lie, that is the question” — this one was serious enough that it made the main character seem rather mean-hearted and opportunistic. It’s hard to like a book when you fantasize about beating up the narrator.

Chick lit seems to be one of the most formulaic genres, right up there with romance (which is so formulaic that shoppers read the sex scenes in grocery stores). One common theme in chick lit is that the main character is dazzled by all the glitz and glamour of upper-crust society, usually a new thing for her. Think The Devil Wears Prada’s world of high fashion, and the high-dollar bribes handed out like spare change in The Ivy Chronicles. In some novels, the superficiality eventually becomes evident, and the main character gives it up in favor of a moral choice. (Interestingly, it’s the ones that don’t portray wealth as superficial that I end up disliking the most.)

Most chick lit also deals quite heavily with career. In the very beginning of the book, the main character either leaves her old job or gets a new job, or both. And in the very end of the book, she usually gives up her new life in order (here’s that moral dilemma again) to do the right thing. Furthermore, she is almost always rewarded for doing so — usually with lots of money or a new job.

And, finally, there is the love interest. You didn’t think I was going to forget that, did you? Sometimes the love interest is a new one, and if so there’s often an old love interest that she has to agonize over first before she ultimately ditches him. Regardless, there is always a revelation that she has to have first, which ties into — drum roll, please — the Moral Dilemma.

I’m not sure what it is that determines whether I like a particular chick lit novel. Is it the degree of superficiality in the characters or the plot? The authenticity of the romance? Or, perhaps, its ability to stray from the formula and surprise me?

Maybe it’s just that there are two different categories of chick lit. What categories would those be, you ask? Well, those I love and those I hate, of course.

The book, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years, claims that the author spent four years as a child wandering the European wilderness and being raised by wolves.

Would you believe that? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

The author, who has further admitted that her name is not actually Misha Defonseca but Monique De Wael, said that the book was “not actually reality, but my reality.”

I’m going to refrain from making fun of her because it’s clear that the woman needs professional help, but the point is that there’s no excuse for even disturbed people to make up stories about their lives and then market them as “memoirs.”

A memoir, as we all know thanks to James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces screw-up, is supposed to be nonfiction. True, no one’s going to disagree with the fact that an abandoned kid raised by wolves makes a great story—but the author could have chosen to write it as such, a fiction story, without lying and possibly causing distress to the thousands of people who read her book thinking it was true.

But wait—the plot thickens. The CNN article also mentions that De Wael had a ghostwriter, which means that she didn’t actually even write the book herself. In essence, she was feeding lies to another woman whose job it was to spin those lies into a gut-wrenching memoir. As much as I love books, this whole ordeal kind of makes me lose my faith in publishers. Seriously, who would market a book as nonfiction if they knew it had been filtered through years of disturbed memory and the pen of a ghostwriter? Not me.

The article doesn’t mention what’s going to happen to De Wael as a result of making up the book, if anything, but it sickens me that she’s getting rich off a collection of falsehoods that’s been translated into over a dozen languages and made into a feature film.

Future English teachers, listen up: the difference between fact and fiction clearly isn’t being hammered into heads very well, so take it upon yourselves to teach your students accordingly.

On the bright side, I guess this means I can now start proposing my own “memoir” about a childhood spent on stilts and in lions’ mouths as I made a life for myself in the traveling circus.

Tucker Max is the author of his—fittingly narcissistic—self-titled website, where he has published over 80 very detailed stories about his ridiculous sex soirées. This guy is a true work of art. He published this disclaimer:

“If you are a reasonably intelligent female, it should be obvious that you don’t want to date me. I am shallow, narcissistic, self-absorbed, and insufferably arrogant. I have no desire to commit to anything beyond a cell phone contract. At any given time, I am fucking multiple women, and will not give up that sexual freedom for a partner.”

He writes the most grotesque (but addictively entertaining) stories about banging midgets, trying anal sex and dating (and getting sued by) Miss Vermont. Oh yea, there was also that story about a girl who tattooed “I fucked Tucker Max” on her vajayjay three hours after meeting him.

He is brutally honest about his offensive intentions, and still, girls make insane efforts to hook up with him. What’s the appeal?

I can’t say for sure. But I’d guess it has something to do with his I-don’t-give-a-f@#k attitude, accompanied by his blogosphere celebrity status.

I’ll admit, after a few days of reading TuckerMax—once my initial disgust subsided—I began to find him attractive. He’s an extremely witty writer who gets more famous each day, which has something to do with the attractiveness-factor. But, really, the fact that he nonchalantly gets more ass than any guy I know—and doesn’t even try—is a turn-on.

So, yea, I would totally hook up with Tucker Max. However, the night would not end with a tattoo…

Would you hook up with Tucker Max?

Are you kidding me? Ever hear of something called self-respect?

Absolutely, I want a story written about me!