After all the hubub about the Pride and Prejudice film, I decided to pick up the book, even though my prospects of finding a 200-year-old novel interesting were slim. But oh joyous day! Jane Austin is delightful! How could I have missed this while I was in high school? [ed. note: It probably had something to do with the vast quantities of Johanna Lindsey and Jude Deveraux features I was consuming.]

I picked up Sarah Bird’s The Yakota Officer’s Club at my local library several years ago—it had a great cover—but I never even cracked it. What an idiot. Second time around, I didn’t want to set it down for a second. Told by Bernie, a teenage military brat who returns from her first year in college to spend the summer with her family in Japan, it’s got everything a great book needs: plot, wit, quirk (is that a word?) and a mystery. And ya’ll know how I love my slueths.

Anyhow. Bernie wins this dance contest in the 70s, sponsored by an aging second-rate Jewish comedian, and sets out to tour Japan, and hopefully find her family’s long-lost maid, who holds the secret of what’s torn her parents apart. Along the way, she is forced to shake her shit to a multitude of bad renditions of I Dig Rocknroll Music. And it’s really funny, and sweet and nostalgic. Give it a read.

The New York Times just posted its list of 100 Notable Books of the Year. And I haven't. read. a. single. one.