Here's a happy book, and a funny book too, with a happy ever after ending. The only wrinkle- is there anything to discuss at bookclub? Do angst filled novels lend themselves to discussion and dissection better than happy ones? Perhaps the book club conversation could broaden to what makes everyone happy, and then everyone could proceed directly to the wine and food!

The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson bucks the rules of fiction, which usually requires that the protagonist discover his flaw and struggle to overcome it. It's a fun satire on the usual mystery, with plot coincidences that would make a soap opera writer proud!

The most dispassionate of protagonists, Allan is 100, and very tired of the nursing home matron who won't let him drink his vodka. He makes a run for it. Allan doesn't need to change one bit. It's the world and reader who need to change to understand Allan's trust that everything will turn out as it needs to turn out. Allan calmly proceeds through every event of note in the 20th century, unflappable and self sufficient.

So why does this work? Usually I would dislike a book that was empty of any personal growth in the protagonist. It would feel like the mechanical churning of plot. This book breaks the rules of luck and coincidence as well. And yet.

Perhaps it is this flaunting of all the rules that charms with a Rube Goldberg of a plot. Perhaps it is the reader who is changed, by thinking, "You know, perhaps Allan might teach me a thing or two about being open minded and adaptable."

Allan's flaws didn't shape a crisis and epiphany. The people in the world with all their theories and doctrines have the flaw, and if they chose to have an epiphany after reading this book, well that would be just fine with Alan. He would drink to that!

Perhaps you will too.

Oh I've been a lazy blogger, as well as a lazy reader! I'm still searching for those great happy book club choices...

For those that love a crackling plot, look no further than Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. A mystery told alternately by a battling husband and wife, this convoluted plot is full of red herrings and twists. It is almost impossible to put down once you start. Lots of interesting topics to discuss at book club about the relations between the sexes!

For some nonfiction, try Quiet by Susan Cain. It's about the motivations of introverts, and what they bring to the world. Then the book club can check in with their introverted members to get their take on the subject! Another non fiction choice is Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott. In this wise and honest book she interweaves stories and practical advice.

If you love bookstores, you may go crazy over Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloane. This is The Da Vinci Code for book nerds! I enjoyed thinking about the evolution of searching for information, and the changing publishing world. I also loved how just like in a fairy tale, the hero Clay succeeds in his quest not because he is strongest or smartest, but because he is a good friend who can assemble a team for a quest.

The book whose language and characters have stayed in my head the most is Esi Edugyan's Half Blood Blues. I can hear the narrator Sid Griffiths speaking in his slang about his jazz band in World War II Europe. The language can be a little daunting, so I checked out a bookcd. That way the words flowed into my brain, and I didn't get hung up on a meaning of a particular word. Just like listening to Shakespeare, I relaxed, and the meaning flowed in.

These books aren't "funny haha", and in fact Half Blood Blues and Gone Girl are sad. Paired with some good friends, wine and conversation, however, I promise that you will have a happy ending to your reading.

The Lazy Reader just finished a delightful novel called The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty. It is a character piece about the relationship between two women. Cora is a sensitive and conservative wife and mother in 1920's Wichita, Kansas. A fictitious character, she offers to accompany a real person, future screen actress Louise Brooks, to New York for dance training. Cora has a personal motive for offering to play chaperone which she is too private to reveal to Louise. I would recommend this to readers who like character driven historical fiction. There isn't a tightly wound plot, but evocative scenes that convey rare moments of understanding between people, and how two people influence each other. I enjoyed the setting of New York in the 1920s, when social mores were shifting.

The lazy reader is miffed because she was going to recommend Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, but the Book Snob has beaten her to the punch. Please take this as a warning about the hazards of laziness and set strict goals for yourself in 2013.

The lazy reader has been so busy reading she forgot to write some reviews. Here’s a rundown on some fall reads you might enjoy:

If you liked Bossypants by Tina Fey you might want to try Ali in Wonderland by Alexandra Wentworth. She’s great at delivering punch lines about her life as a rich kid in Washington, actress in Los Angeles, and mother back in Washington. I found her more entertaining than Mindy Kaling, whose Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) is also touted as a successor to Bossypants. Mindy was just too young for my middle age patience. I also tried to like another supposed Bossypants readalike, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson, but her childhood was so sad it was depressing.

If you liked Pride and Prejudice, you will enjoy Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James. This is more successful than other Jane Austen sequels I’ve read because P.D. James has perfect dialogue. And it ends in a marriage, naturally.

If you liked the Graceling/Fire/Bitterblue trilogy of young adult fantasies by Kristen Cashore (aren’t we all stealing out of the YA section these days?) you might want to try Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. Seraphina is half human, and half dragon, and this imaginative story presents an intriguing new world and tough heroine. It’s the start of a series.

If you liked How To Be Good by Nick Hornby, you might like the zany world of Christopher Moore. I zoomed through A Dirty Job about Charlie Fletcher, who discovers he is a death merchant responsible for transferring soul vessels. That plot summary gives a good sense of Moore’s interests. Warning- Moore doesn’t let concerns about losing the reader in gleeful idiocy get in the way of a Badump bump pun.

If you liked Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, you might like The Hare With the Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal. He’s an artist who researches the history behind his family’s netsuke collection. These small carved Japanese animals and people were collected by his great uncle. He tells the story of the various owners through the 20^th century, as they move around the world.

If you liked The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson, you might enjoy Object of Beauty by Steve Martin. It’s the story of Lacey, a beautiful, smart and amoral art dealer in New York. If you are curious about modern art and/or interested in the life of an ambitious golden girl, you might enjoy it. I also liked it because I learned about the modern art business on the side. It’s always good to get a little nonfiction learning in on the side during a great story!

If you liked A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, you will enjoy the heft and drama of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. This one didn’t please the lazy reader because it broke the “nothing thicker than a phone book” rule. However, everyone else in book club liked this story about two doctor twins in Ethiopia, so I’ll mention it for those with perseverance.

If you liked Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert you might like Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It’s a nonfiction biography of the author’s life changing hike on the Pacific Coast Trail. However, since Oprah has been promoting the novel, it is unlikely there are many out there who haven’t read this one!

The Lazy Reader claims to ski. She gets up and goes to the slopes, but secretly there is a novel in that backpack hiding under the goggles and mitts. After 10 runs, the lazy reader can be found curled up drinking tea and reading in the ski lounge.

The Hotlist is a list of upcoming bestsellers. You can take a look at it on the top of the Readers' Nooks stand at Riley, right beside the Lazy reader recommendations. Here are some holds to place now before the queue builds!

Alan Bradley has a new Flavia de Luce mystery called Speaking From Among the Bones. (Feb. 2013)

Tracy Chevalier, who wrote The Girl With the Pearl Earring, has written The Last Runaway about the Underground Railroad. (Jan. 2013)

Edward Rutherfurd, who writes big thick novels about the history of families over time in famous cities, has set his sights on Paris. (April 2013)

For non fiction, Anne Lamott has written Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, due in November 2012.

Michael Pollan, who wrote The Omnivore's Dilemma, is back in April 2013 with Cooked: Finding Ourselves in the Kitchen.

I'm also going to try Julia Sweeney's If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother about parenting, because I just finished Ali in Wonderland, and need another funny take on the balancing act of women.

Happy couch time!

The Lazy reader recommends books for bookclubs: not too long, not too sad, and a little humour thrown in!

Popular favourites: The Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, The Help, The Imperfectionists, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Water for Elephants

A little more literary: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Generosity: An Enhancement, State of Wonder

Fun mysteries: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, The Thirteenth Tale

Non fiction to discuss: Bossypants, Dreams of Trespass, The Film Club, The Horse Boy, Julie and Julia, Me Talk Pretty One Day, West with the Night, The Happiness Project

Quirky characters: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, The Family Fang, A Complicated Kindness, The Flying Troutman, Come Thou Tortoise

Fantasy favourites: The Night Circus, Wicked, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Graceling

When you’re on holiday, why read a dry list of dates and events to learn the history of a place? There are glossy paperbacks to fill that need! I was going to London, England, the home of Madame Tussaud’s waxworks. Although I haven’t seen her wax figurines, I was curious about the life story of this London institution. And then I chanced upon Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran. It turns out Madame Tussaud was born Marie Grosholz, and she spent her early years in Paris, modeling wax figures of the royal family. Michelle weaves a story around this volatile time during the French Revolution. Although Marie teaches sculpting to the King’s sister Elisabeth, her step father wisely invites the leading figures of the Revolution to their salon. Thus we meet Robespierre, Danton, Marat, the Marquis de Lafayette and the Duc d’Orleans. Although the story was cliché at times, it was a pleasant way to review French history. And Madame Tussaud, a practical businesswoman in the midst of such turbulent times, is an excellent choice for an historical imagining.

Another pleasant book to read about London is The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart. This is a light romantic comedy set in The Tower of London. Like a frothy lovefest that William Shakespeare or Ingmar Bergman would write, all the many characters find love after misadventures. The main love story is between Balthazar Jones, a beefeater and his wife Hebe who works in Lost and Found for the London Underground subway. Ridiculous and charming, the reviewer that called it a “summer confection” hit the nail on the head. If you’ve ever visited the Tower of London, you will pick up some historical bits as you’re entertained.

I recently read two popular books about teens with special skills. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender is a fantastical tale of Rose who can taste the emotions of people who prepared the food she eats. This isn’t as enchanting as it sounds, because Rose's mother is unhappy, and all the emotions flood over her daughter. Rose is also trying to figure out the mystery around her brother, who also has an unusual talent.

I read this at the same time as Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children which is also about children with magical skills. I preferred the character portrait of a family in Lemon Cake over the more plot driven Unusual Children. ( In fact, I would say a large part of the appeal of Peculiar Children are the accompanying photographs). Underneath the story of fantastical gifts, Lemon Cake is a portrait of a girl being overwhelmed by the world. Watching her learn to cope is a realistic and moving experience.

I should note Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is technically a young adult book. The writing may therefore be of greater appeal to teens. Like many adults, I have been stealing out of the young adult section since they attract such great writers. Suzanne Collins (Hunger Games), Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass) and Libba Bray (Going Bovine) are all amazing fantasy writers worth sneaking into the Teen Zone at Calgary Public Library. Last year my book club read the real world novel Butterfly by Sonya Hartnett, a talented Australian writer for young adults. It was a compelling reminder of the vulnerability of being a teenage girl.

By Kari

Now I have to admit that I’m being influenced by the book snob’s suggestions, although I bristle at the suggestion there is anything wrong with sitting on the couch eating Cheetos. To wit, I’ve just read two literary novels that might leak into his territory a little. But fear not, they are set in warm places, and the second is quite thin!

Brazil and Egypt. I enjoy learning about other places through novels, and in winter it's those warm settings that appeal! State of Wonder by Ann Patchett is the story of Marina, a scientist searching for her missing lab partner Anders in Brazil. First Marina has to find intelligent, single minded Dr. Swenson who lives deep in the Amazon pursuing her research. The first half of the novel is slow as Marina's locked up character is revealed. The reader experiences the same waiting frustration as Marina as she navigates Dr. Swenson's blockades. Then it's up the river into a female version of Heart of Darkness. The plot speeds up as the story explores the clash of western and native culture, whether the end justifies the means, and the pull of motherhood. The novel ends suddenly, with many plot threads still to be worked through. If you like deep exploration of character like in Patchett's Bel Canto, you will enjoy this book.

Anatomy of a Disappearance opens in Alexandria, Egypt. Author Hisham Matar gives us Nuri, a young boy mourning the death of his mother. He falls in love with a beautiful woman named Mona, whom his political dissident father weds. It is an uneasy trio of characters full of hidden motivations. When his father is kidnapped and disappears, Nuri struggles to understand. He slowly unravels the truth, and learns to live with the huge absence of his father. This is also a novel of characters facing terrible challenges.

The book snob wants to fill your head with multisyllabic words and weighty thoughts. I'm just after a little amusement before I fall asleep! Well, I'm not quite that frivolous, but I do enjoy teasing the book snob.

Here are some books I've enjoyed:

Come thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

In a Sunburned County by Bill Bryson

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

How to be Good by Nick Hornby

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I've set up a display of some of my favourites at Riley beside the information desk. I challenged the Book Snob to a customer read off. Come sign one out!