Bibliophilia, Part II

I've said it before: I enjoy a good book. But since having children, my reading time hs been cut tremendously. Once upon a time, I used to devour a book in a day or two. Now it takes a week or two.

So far this year I've read

1. Amy Tan's personal essays, The Opposite of Fate : Memories of a Writing Life, which I thought was poorly organized and fatally flawed for it

2. Haven Kimmel's memoir, A Girl Named Zippy, which was deliciously wry

3. Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, which was fabulous and deserved all those rave reviews

4. Karen Joy Fowler's Sarah Canary, which was mesmorizing

And now I am reading Philip Roth's American Pastoral. I am not very far into it, but I love it for Roth's use of words like ersatz and gaminish.

ersatz
adjective
Being an imitation or a substitute, usually an inferior one; artificial.
[German, replacement, from ersetzen, to replace, from Old High German irsezzan : ir-, out + sezzan, to set.]
"ersatz." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 11 Feb. 2006. http://www.answers.com/topic/ersatz

gaminish
adjective
In the manner of or resembling a gamin, an often homeless boy who roams about the streets; an urchin.
"gamin." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 11 Feb. 2006. http://www.answers.com/topic/gamin