Kat with a K

Well, you ignored my last recommendations, but I will try again! :)

All time favourite book is, I think, the Poisonwood Bible. Just so well written. Beautiful characterisation. Plus it's long, as requested!

"Watching the English" is fun, since you said you were an Anglophile. It's non fiction but it's easy to read, her style is great.

I loved "then they came to the end", and Joshua Ferris has just brought out a new one called "the unnamed" which is on my list. It's about the workplace though, so you might not want that on holiday. An easy, absorbing read.

I assume you've already read Obama's books?

Just finishing "The Corrections" - mostly a pleasure to read, with lots of interesting, wry insights on American culture, and it's definitely long!! Great writing in places.

Oh, and also recommended, for the journey, if you are this kind of person, "So You Think You Can Spell?: Killer Quizzes for the Incurably Competitive and Overly Confident". Fun! :)

Also, when are you going on holiday? Because I can always try and get you a first draft by then if it's not too soon and you fancy doing some reviewing!!

I'm a big fan of Susan Elizabeth Phillips for fluff.

Wasting *time* with Jodi Picoult? This is a *literary endeavor*! Maybe next time we should liveblog an Ishiguro just to show we have Depth and Culture. ;-) (Somehow I think that would be a lot less effective as a vehicle for snark, though.)

Um, books to read on vacation. I think we've passed recommendations back and forth so many times that you've pretty much already heard all of mine. :) Have fun! What a delightful problem to have.

I can recommend Michael Frayn as well (might not fit all your criteria,lol) as The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber. Also I recently read Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon was a delight to read. Any book by Douglas Kennedy makes for a good holiday read while being engrossing! Good luck. Can't wait to see what you choose!

We don't allow books in Texas, they are banned.

Hester Browne's Little Lady Agency books are cute chick-lit (start with the first one!).

I read And Then We Came To The End while on vacation and thought it was perfect even though it was about work (go figure).

Any of the Nick Twisp books by C.D. Payne would probably be great, too (there's a new edition for the movie w/ Michael Cera on the cover - not sure how I feel about that). I think I'm recommending that the most strongly - it's a hilarious send-up of cultural elitism, and also very much about what it's like to be a kid, and the ways we try to get around kid status.

I don't know if Highway to Hell by John Geddes is in paperback, but it's definitely the most entertaining (and badass) book about the war in Iraq you'll ever read.

I'm with Stupid by Elaine Szewczyk is also in paperback, and I also read it on vacation (it's about a woman who goes on vacation), and I thought it was a perfect vacation read. It's my second-highest contender for you, actually.

And if The Comfort of Our Kind by Tom J. Stoner is in paperback, that one would be great.

All of these are reviewed on my Goodreads/Livejournal! I'm actually getting off of goodreads right now, because I could recommend books to you all night :)

Oh! And, I almost forgot - if you haven't yet read Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman BUY IT NOW. TOP OF LIST.

War books are good for any state or time of year

Ooh! I just thought of some you might not have read that you might like. Diana Norman has this great historical fiction trilogy. (Well, at least the first book is excellent, and the first few pages of the third book are good too, but I haven't been able to get the second one from the library yet.) The first book is called *A Catch of Consequence*, and it meets all your criteria. :)

Josh Lyman, fictional?! What are you talking about?