Two books everyone should read that didn't get as much publicity as they should have; About the Author by John Colapinto and The Rich Part of Life by Josephine Humphries.

Another good, light novel; Hot Plastic by Peter Craig, who also wrote The Martini Shot. (His mother is the actress Sally Fields).

Also: anything by Haven Kimmel. She wrote two autobiographical (non-fiction) stories, A Girl Named Zippy, and She Got Up Off the Couch, and two novels, The Solace of Leaving Early and Something Rising Light and Swift.

Funniest book I ever read in my life: Transatlantic Blues by Wilfrid Sheed.

Second funniest: Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell

Third funniest: Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

First runner up: After Claude by Iris Owens

Honorable mention: anything else by Wilfrid Sheed, The Belles Lettres Papers by Charles Simpson

Another new title in historical fiction; Sex Wars by Marge Piercy, who also wrote Gone To Soldiers and several seminal titles in the early 60s/70s and women's movement (Woman at the Edge of Time, Vida, Dance the Eagle To Sleep).

If you like between-war (20s and 30s)
novels with a British wit, the prototype for these is Nancy Mitford, especially The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate, and The Blessing. Also The Water-Beetle, Highland Fling, and Don't Tell Alfred. She also wrote two regular history books, The Sun King and Frederick The Great. This author's sister is Jessica Mitford who wrote The American Way of Death, among other things. Don't miss any of them!

Poppy Z Brite wrote a book about the restaurant business in NO called Liquor (nothing supernatural in it, no vampires, etc.) She's married to a chef - there was supposed to be another one coming.

Going on a field trip to New Orleans in a couple of weeks, so here are a couple of writers who set stories there (there are a lot, but here are two). Ellen Gilchrist, almost an American Colette, and Patty Friedmann - her latest is Side Effects, but I liked the next-to-last one, Secondhand Smoke, better (I think that neighborhood is flooded out now). The first one is "The Exact Image of Mother"(title alone gets two snaps up). V, v. good.